Who can expound beauty? or explain the character of na

tions?

Who will furnish a cause for the epidemic force of fashion? Is there a moral magnetism living in the light of example? Is practice electricity ?-Yet all these are but names.

Doth normal Art imprison, in its works, spirit translated into substance,

So that the statue, the picture, or the poem, are crystals of the mind?

And doth Philosophy with sublimating skill shred away the

matter,

Till rarified intelligence exudeth even out of stocks and stones?

O MYSTERIES, ye all are one, the mind of an inexplicable Architect

Dwelleth alike in each, quickening and moving in them all.

Fields, and forests, and cities of men, their woes and wealth and works,

And customs, and contrivances of life, with all we see and

know,

For a little way, a little while, ye hang dependent on each

other,

But all are held in one right hand, and by His will ye are. Here is answer unto mystery, an unintelligible God,

This is the end and the beginning, it is reason that He be not understood.

Therefore it were probable and just, even to a man's weak thinking,

To have one for God who always may be learnt, yet never fully known,

That He, from whom all mysteries spring, in whom they all

converge,

Throned in his sublimity beyond the grovellings of lower intellect,

Should claim to be truer than man's truest, the boasted cer

tainty of numbers,

Should baffle his arithmetic, confound his demonstrations, and paralyse the might of his necessity,

Standing supreme as the mystery of mysteries, everywhere, yet impersonate,

Essential one in three, essential three in one!

OF GIFTS.

1 HAD a seeming friend:-I gave him gifts and he was gone; I had an open enemy:-I gave him gifts and won him : Common friendship standeth on equalities and cannot bear a debt;

But the very heart of hate melteth at a good man's love:
Go to, then, thou that sayest, I will give and rivet the links:
For pride shall kick at obligation, and push the giver from
him.

The covetous spirit may rejoice, revelling in thy largess,
But chilling selfishness will matter,-I must give again:
The vain heart may be glad, in this new proof of man's
esteem,

But the same idolatry of self abhorreth thoughts of thanking.

NEVERTHELESS, give; for it shall be a discriminative test, Separating honesty from falsehood, weeding insincerity from friendship.

Give, it is like God; thou weariest the bad with benefits: Give, it is like God; thou gladdenest the good by gratitude. Give to thy near of kin, for Providence hath stationed thee his helper:

Yet see that he claim not as his right, thy freewill offering

of duty.

Give to the young, they love it; neither hath the poison of

suspicion

Spoilt the flavor of their thanks, to look for latent motives. Give to merit, largely give; his conscious heart will bless

thee:

It is not flattery, but love,-the sympathy of men his breth

ren.

Give, for encouragement in good; the weak desponding mind
Hath many foes, and much to do, and leaneth on its friends.
Yet heed thou wisely these; give seldom to thy better;
For such obtrusive boon shall savor of presumption;
Or, if his courteous bearing greet thy proffered kindness,
Shall not thine independent honesty be vexed at the sem-
blance of a bribe?

Moreover, heed thou this; give to thine equal charily,
The occasion fair and fitting, the gift well chosen and de-
sired:

Hath he been prosperous and blest? a flower may show thy gladness;

Is he in need? with liberal love tender him the well-filled

purse;

Disease shall welcome friendly care in grapes and precious

unguents;

And where a darling child hath died, give praise, and hope, and sympathy:

Yet once more, heed thou this; give to the poor discreetly,
Nor suffer idle sloth to lean upon thy charitable arm:
To diligence give, as to an equal, on just and fit occasion;
Or he bartereth his hard-earned self-reliance for the casual
lottery of gifts.

The timely loan hath added nerve, where easy liberality would palsy ;

Work and wages make a light heart: but the mendicant asked with a heavy spirit.

A man's own self-respect is worth unto him more than

money,

And evil is the charity that humbleth, and maketh man less

happy.

THERE are who sow liberalities, to reap the like again:
But men accept his boon, scorning the shallow usurer:
I have known many such a fisherman lose his golden baits
And oftentimes the tame decoy escapeth with the flock.
Yea, there are who give unto the poor, to gain large interest
of God:-

Fool,-to think His wea.th is money, and not mind:

And haply after thine alms, thy calculated givings,

The hurricane shall blast thy crops, and sink the homeward ship;

Then shall thy worldly soul murmur that the balances were

false,

Thy trader's-mind shall think of God,-He stood not to his bargain.

GIVE, saith the preacher, be large in liberality, yield to the holy impulse,

Tarry not for cold consideration, but cheerfully and freely

scatter.

So, for complacency of conscience, in a gush of counterfeited

charity,

He that hath not wherewith to be just, selfishly presumeth to be generous.

The debtor, and the rich by wrong, are known among the band of the benevolent;

And men extol the noble hearts, who rob that they may give. Receivers are but little prone to challenge rights of giving, Nor stop to test, for conscience-sake, the righteousness of

mammon:

And the zealot in a cause is a receiver, at the hand which bettereth his cause;

And thus an unsuspected bribe shall blind the good man's judgment:

It is easy to excuse greatness, and the rich are readily forgiven:

What, if his gains were evil, sanctified by using them

aright?

O shallow flatterer, self-interest is thy thought,

Hopeless of partaking in the like, thou too wouldest scorn the giver.

MONEY hath its value; and the scatterer thereof his thanks; Few men, drinking at a rivulet, stop to consider its source. The hand that closeth on an alm, be it for necessities or zeal,

Hath small scruple whence it came: Vespasian rejoiceth in his tribute;

Therefore have colleges and hospitals risen upon orphans' wrongs,

Chapels and cathedrals have thriven on the welcome wages of iniquity,

And fraud, in evil compensation, hath salved his guilty conscience,

Not by restoring to the cheated, but by ostentatious giving to the grateful.

So, those who reap rejoice; and reaping, bless the sower: No one is eager to discover, where discovery tendeth unto loss:

Yet, if knowledge of a theft make gainers thereby guilty, Can he be altogether innocent who never asked the honesty of gain?

Therefore, O preacher, zealous for charity, temper thy warm appeal,

Warning the debtor and unjustly rich, they may not dare to

give:

To do good is a privilege and guerdon, how shouldest thou rejoice?

If ill-got gifts of presumptuous fraud be offered on the altar? The question is not of degrees; unhallowed alms are evil: Discourage and reject alike the obolus, or talent of iniquity.