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lopolis." The city of Megalopolis is now a great solitude! The last great sweep of its materials was on the building of Ctesiphon, by the Arsacidæ, or Parthian kings; and then, of the few desolate natives, who had remained amongst the ruins of their homes, most followed their razed foundations, to augment the population of another new city. Though a remembrance of the once proud Babylon clung to her naked bosom; yet the words of Scripture must be fulfilled. "Thou that madest the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof."—" For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon, the name and remnant, and son and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts." (Isaiah xiv. 17. 22, 23.)

I have mentioned, continues Sir R. K. Porter, that a remnant was left there; but the plague blasted them in their wretchedness; and then, indeed, all became a silent mass of ruin. The weather, from the time of my first arrival, had been particularly fine, with only one or two interruptions of heavy but brief showers; which, when they fell, only deepened the awful character of the scene; pouring their torrents down the furrowed cheeks of the ruined piles of Babylon, and sweeping like a black curtain over the Euphrates, (which is so remarkable in the above sketch,) between its eastern and western shores.

INTERESTING AND USEFUL EXTRACTS.

SPRING.

The season of ethereal mildness-when the wide, deep heavens purify themselves and shake out the contractions and wrinkles of winter! It has come to us as in times past unchanged! God has not forgotten to be gracious and faithful. And the earth obedient to the heavenly signs above, arrays her late cold bosom with green-and has placed that green only as a dark background to her more beauteous embroidery of flowers which ere long shall intermingle with and surmount the parent tint, and white and red and orange and green and violet shall be found in the fragrant coverings of the

meadows and the hills. The birds know the season of love and of song. They are out in the earliest blush of the morning. Their songs now sound with, and shape, all nature's melody to an anthem of harmony, varied and measured with more than mortal skill. It is the manytongued song of creation which I hear rising up to the great Creator. Receive this bursting volume of praise, Oh thou magnificent Creator and Preserver, from the green earth thou hast borne safely through the tossing winter clouds, like a strong ship brought from the stormy cape into the spicy Indian ocean!

Man, whose capacious heart and searching intellect can take in and comprehend this universal song of homage and rejoicing, should not be a frozen statue amidst the adoring works of God. Let every heart be warm and overflowing with praise.-For no living creature in the air, in the fields, in the forest or the floods, has half the cause of thanksgiving that human beings have. All nature seems to smile for man, and pours out into his hand the fulness of her vernal offerings. The fields are green and lovely to his eye-the grass blooms afresh over the graves of his ancestors-the summer harvests, the fruits of autumn are before him—the blessings of friendship are around him—and still, after this earthly scene hath shifted, another scene incomparably more grand and beautiful spreads out and stretches interminably before him. It is the Spring of a blessed immortality.

The time hastens that religion shall fill the earth with a heavenly influence more bland and balmy than that of Spring. War, like the storms of winter, shall be no more. The tales of hoary wrong and error shall be rehearsed at the fireside as things that have been-not as those now in existence. Death shall come calmly then, and have no sting. The sweet earth shall then invite Jesus to his second coming-and the Saviour shall hear the voice.

THE POWER OF MEMORY.

Seneca says he could in his youth repeat a thousand names in the same order as they were read to him.Themistocles made himself master of the Persian lan

guage in a year's time. Mithridates understood as many languages as he commanded nations, that is, no less than twenty-two. Cyrus retained the name of every soldier in his army. Tully says of Julius Cæsar, in his oration for Ligarius, that he never forgot any thing but an injury. A girl at a Sabbath evening school in the north, repeated the 119th Psalm in prose without a mistake. A blind man who lived in the town of Sterling could repeat the whole Bible, which he acquired by hearing children reading at school. He used to say, that if he heard any thing read twice he never forgot it. But, though he could repeat the Bible, he seemed very ignorant of its great truths, and not aware of their value. Mr. Wesley remarks, "Thomas Walsh was so thoroughly acquainted with the Bible, if he was questioned concerning any Hebrew word in the Old, or any Greek word in the New Testament, he would tell, after a little pause, not only how often one or the other occurred in the Bible, but also what it meant in every place."

ALL FOR THE BEST.

As all the rivers upon the face of the globe, however circuitous they may be in their progress, and however opposite in their course, yet meet at last in the ocean, and there contribute to increase the mass of waters: so all the seemingly discordant events in the life of a good man are made to preserve, upon the whole, an unerring tendency to his good, and to concur and conspire for promoting it at the last.”

GENERAL ASPECT OF PALESTINE.

The hills still stand round about Jerusalem as they stood in the days of David and Solomon.-The dew falls on Hermon, the cedars grow on Libanus and Kishon, that ancient river, draws its stream from Tabor as in the times of old. The sea of Galilee still presents the same natural accompaniments, the fig-tree springs up by the way side, the sycamore spreads its branches, and the vines and olives still climb the sides of the mountains. The desolation which covered the cities of the Plain, is not less striking at the present hour than when Moses with an inspired pen, recorded the judgment of God;

the swellings of Jordan are not less regular in their rise than when the Hebrews first approached its banks; and he who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho still incurs the greatest hazard of falling among thieves. There is in fact, in the scenery and manners of Palestine, a perpetuity that accords well with the everlasting imports of its historical records, and which enables us to identify with the utmost readiness the local imagery of every great transaction.

MAGNANIMITY.

Cæsar has had the testimony of ages to his bravery, and yet he refused a challenge from Anthony. He very calmly answered the bearer of the message "If Anthony is weary of his life, tell him there are other ways to death, besides the point of my sword." How well would it be, if there were more instances of the like independence of mind.

DEATH.

It is doubtless hard to die; but it is agreeable to hope we shall not live here for ever, and that a better life will put an end to the troubles of this. If we were offered immortality on earth, who is there would accept so melancholy a gift? What resource, what hope, what consolation would then be left us against the rigour of fortune, and the injustice of man?

THOUGHTS.

How one powerful passion, indulged without restraint, may lay waste the finest qualities of the soul, and changing from the most generous, to the most selfish of human affections, cease to deserve any other tributė, than christian compassion for its afflictive excess.

GUILT.

Guilt is generally afraid of light; it considers darkness as a natural shelter, and makes night the confidant of those actions, which cannot be trusted to the tell-tale day

The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.

POETRY.

THE DWELLING OF MY CHOICE.

BY S. F. SMITH.

Where gorgeous clouds usher the morning's first ray,
And brightness and beauty repose all the day;

Their gladness the birds in sweet warbled notes tell,
And skip in the greenness that smiles where they dwell;
Where gales in the evening, like Arabies breathe,
And peace spreads its mantle around and beneath;
Where all things the traces of loveliness wear,
My dwelling for life,-let it ever be there.

Where flows the still river away to the sea;
Where bands of swift insects hum, happy and free,
Or far, where the ocean, with deafening roar,
Swells under and round me, behind and before,
Where, dashing and foaming, it never has peace,
And tossing of billows and waves never cease-
Where grandeur and might all their wonders prepare-
Let the scene be sublime-then, my dwelling be there.

Where melody pours its harmonious swell,
And spreads o'er the soul its mysterious spell;
The chanting of thousands at vespers or morn-
The plaint of the mourner-the hunter's shrill horn-
The voice of the flute-or the village church bell-
O! be it but music-and there I will dwell.

Where storms never rustle and winds never blow-
Beyond where the stars in their brilliancy glow-
Where millions of suns in their majesty burn,

And blaze on the eyes from each point where they turn;
Where seraphs and angels and sainted ones be,—
The loved ones on earth I shall never more see-
Where bliss flows in richness that man cannot tell-
And God shines in glory-O there let me dwell!

LINES

Written on seeing a young female friend, for the first time, approach the Communion Table.

Go forth, thou lovely one, and take

Thy seat with those who now are met

The bread of holy love to break,

And mingle joy with fond regret;
And they are met the cup to drink,

That Jesus blessed for such as thee,

And of his last request to think,
"Do this in memory of me."

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