preserved the purity of Joseph. "Whither can I flee from thy spirit? and whither can I go from thy presence?" constituted the safeguard of David" I withheld thee from sinning against me," admonished Abimelech, and expounds the mystery of protection amidst a thousand snares, and of deliverance from ten thousand crimes. To be approved of God, is to be moral.

Finally, religion is life and spirit, which flowing out from God who hath life in himself, returns to him again as into its own original, carrying the souls of good men up with it. The spirit of religion is always ascending upwards and spreading itself through the whole essence of the soul, loosens it from a self-confinement and narrowness, and so renders it more capacious of divine enjoyment. God envies not his creatures any good, but being infinitely bountiful is pleased to impart himself to them in this life, so far as they are capable of his communications: they stay not for all their happiness till they come to heaven. Religion always carries its rewards along with it, and when it acts most vigorously upon the mind and spirit of man, it then most of all fills it with an inward sense of divine sweetness. To conclude, to walk with God, is in scripture made the character of a good man, and it is the highest perfection and privilege of created nature to converse with the Divinity. Whereas on the contrary, wicked men converse with nothing but their lusts and the vanities of this fading life, which here flatter them for a while with unhallowed delights, and a mere shadow of contentment; and when these are gone, they find substance and shadow to be lost eternally. But true goodness brings in a constant revenue of solid and substantial satisfaction to the spirit of a good man, delighting always to sit by those eternal springs that feed and maintain it: the spirit of a good man, is always drinking in fountain-goodness, and fills itself more and more, till it is filled with all the fulness of God.

A. B.

LENA.

A TALE.

"But love shall live, and live for ever,

And chance and change shall reach it never;
Can hearts in which true love is plighted,
By want or woe be disunited?

Ah no! like buds on one stem born,

They share between them, e'en the thorn,
Which round them dwells, but parts them not,
A lorn, yet undivided lot."

"AND is it indeed, true, dearest Lena, that I have returned from my long pilgrimage just in time to claim the distinguished honor of attending you to the altar; a privilege which in the first dawn of womanhood you so blushingly promised me?" asked the amiable Lady Agnes Montravers, as for the twentieth time, she clasped her white arms around the neck of her fair companion, while with an affectionate smile she kissed her pure and blooming cheek. "Nay, my darling friend," she continued, in a tone of mingled playfulness and reproach, "is it kind thus to shrink from the enquiries of a wanderer, who long absent from the land of her birth, the home of her sweetest hopes, thirsts, like the drooping flower, for the dew of confidence, the gentle bond of all friendship?"

The fair face of Miss St. Julian

"Carnationed like a sleeping infant's cheek,"

as reclining her head on the shoulder of her friend, she softly said, "Oh! deem me not regardless of your unchanging attachment, dear, dear Agnes, if in the emotions your unexpected arrival has occasioned, I have forgotten myself and everything, save the pleasure of once more contemplating those loved features, and listening to that voice, whose silver tones never breathed of aught but harmony and affection to the ear of Lena. When after mourning you as dead in real loneliness of spirit, for so many weary months, can you, oh! can you wonder that the joyful surprise has been almost too much for me to bear!" and to the sorrow of Lady Agnes, the gentle girl burst into an agony of tears, but which, however, like those which gem the cheek of childhood, quickly subsided, and she became sufficiently composed to speak of the past, the future and herself.

"Yes!" she said, while a tear still reposed on the long dark eyelashes which swept her cheek, "a few, a very few weeks will seal my destiny for life; my weal or woe. I have loved,

my Agnes, through sunshine and storm; for when the heavy cloud of misfortune burst in bolts of suffering,' over the devoted head of Conrade, I felt that even my deep love, could glow with a stronger, holier radiance. Oh! it was sweet to

soothe the wild throbbing of his soul to peace, and lead him in spirit to that blissful haven, where alone the weary may find consolation. When the world, the heartless, sinful world, looked coldly on his broken fortunes, (broken alas! by the follies of a misguided parent,) and haughtily repelled the very being to whom it had before bowed in servile humility, oh! my friend, all the woman kindled in my breast, and it was my proudest aim to fly the presence of the sycophants who hovered round me, to cheer the solitude of him I loved so much better than all their boasted splendour. Pride might sneer; envy might condemn; malice might smile; but in spite of all these, woman's love survived the storm, becoming only the more pure from the ordeal it suffered, as by fire gold is freed from all grosser particles, which else might lessen its value; and now, that the sun of happiness has burst forth with renewed reful. gence, dissipating by its genial warmth, the chilling mist which has so long obscured our felicity; shall I not rather rejoice that an opportunity has been given me of proving that Conrade was as dear to my heart, when overwhelmed with poverty and affliction, as the Earl of Waldegrave in all the radiance of his revived fortunes?" and the eyes of the beautiful girl shone with a dazzling lustre, almost superhuman, as she raised her head and gazed on Lady Agnes, who affected by the energetic enthusiasm of her friend, was dissolved in tears.

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'Exalted, amiable girl!" she exclaimed, after a few moments pause. 'May your guerdon be proportioned to your merits; I ask no greater blessing for my Lena. The sweet promise of your childhood, has indeed been amply realized: the purity of the bud is beautifully attested by the loveliness of the expanded blossom, and oh! my gentle Lena, may the canker-worm never steal into the bosom of the flower, to rob it for a moment of its brightness; but may every hour of its transitory existence be an emblem of the holy calm, which even now, creeps so stealthily over the earth. See how beautifully the pale wanderer of the night, climbs above those dark blue eastern hills, throwing a sheet of silver sheen over each shadowy thing, while the rosetinted rays of the departed sun, still play in the golden west. Listen, dearest, to the song of yon nightingale, breathing its love to the rose, whose fragrant bosom is scarcely ruffled by the evening breeze as it flutters by. Oh! with what ecstacy do, I

once more taste the blessings of my father-land;' how powerfully does my every feeling harmonize with all that has been said or sung in praise of it; and how warmly does the tide of gratitude rush to my lips, in spontaneous thanksgiving to that Omnipotent Being, who alone had power to preserve me amid the many and varied dangers, it has been my fate to encounter."

"She leaves her old familiar place, the hearts that were her own;
The love to which she trusts herself is yet a thing unknown:
Though at one name her cheek turns red, though sweet it be to hear,
Yet for that name she must resign so much that has been dear.
She passeth from her father's house, unto another's care;

And who may say what troubled hours, what sorrows wait her there." Bright and beautiful was the dawn which ushered into life the bridal morning of Lena St. Julian; the dew-drops hung glittering on the jessamine which shaded her casement, pure as the pearly tears that trembled in her dark blue eyes; the sun shone radiantly from on high, gay and genial as the smile which at moments played over her lips; while the forest minstrels warbled forth their sweetest melody, an echo of the gladness which expanded the heart of that fair girl!

Words were faint to describe the intensity of happiness which thrilled the soul of the Earl of Waldegrave, as he hailed the arrival of the rapturous hour which would unite him, (beyond the power of mortal to sever) to the gentle, affectionate being who had clung to him all-changelessly, alike in the time of sorrow and happiness.

She was the cynosure to which his ardent spirit turned with all that utter concentration of affection, which might be expected from a noble, enthusiastic nature, having no other to love, for Conrade Waldegrave was the last of his princely line, save one distant relative in a far-off land, and he had too fatally experienced the falsehood and heartlessness of the "world," to associate himself intimately with its votaries; need it then excite astonishment if he did bow, almost in idolatry, at the shrine of so much loveliness and purity, as that which distinguished the guileless Lena St. Julian. The world could not produce a brighter being, than her who knelt that morning, at the altar of the ivy-covered church; even now, imagination gives back in all its early freshness, the seraphic beauty of that mild countenance, as the pure spirit wafted its incense to Heaven; what pencil could paint, what pen describe its subdued emotions, its holy calmness, and then the momentary blush of bright carnation which passed over the lofty brow, as the last blessing proclaimed her the bride of Waldegrave.

Bright, gorgeously bright were the pageants which graced that bridal day-a day long remembered in the annals of Castle St. Julian; not more for the magnificent hospitality extended to all comers, than that it sealed the destiny of the fairest flower that adorned those peaceful vales; the rich gem enshrined in the hearts of all! Many a laughing eye became dim, many a light step less buoyant, as fancy called forth the fast approaching moment which must inevitably separate her from them, to waft her to the distant home of her Lord; but when the placid smile of those sweet lips beamed kindness on each murmurer; when the plaintive tones of that low, soft voice uttered consolation and the promise of a speedy return; then, did even the most selfish forego their regrets, in delight at the future of happiness which was apparently dawning on the gentle bride. The tear of affection and sensibility, nevertheless, stole from its secret fount, as Lena reflected a few short days would remove her from the peaceful home of her childhood, and send her forth to become a denizen of that "great world" of which as yet, she knew so little, and her heart throbbed wildly, and her spirit inly shrank, as remembrance imaged the tales she had been told of its coldness, its sin, its perfidy; in one instance she had proved the truth of those assertions.

"Why, why am I compelled to leave these quiet shades, endeared by so many sweet associations, to mingle with the heartless world; perhaps ere long to become a participator in its corruption," she softly sighed, but at that precise moment her glance rested on the animated features of one, who, to her, could transform a desert into paradise, and her regrets sank to eternal repose in the pure tabernacle of her guileless bosom. Entrancing visions of future years of happiness with that adored being, floated across her mind in a stream of delicious anticipations that for a time absorbed every other feeling like Pygmalion she was enchanted with the bright offspring of her own creative fancy; alas! little did she deem how soon she might need a spark of Promethean fire, to reanimate those very hopes on which she dwelt so fondly.

The gloomy twilight which heralded in a stormy November evening, threw its darkening shadows over the princely halls of Waldegrave, and huge masses of thick clouds gathered portentously over its ancient turrets, as if menacing destruction to all below, the wind howled dismally, in fitful gusts, through the