ference and supernatural agency of the Most High. If, in condescension to our mortal infirmity, God has graciously vouchsafed to us symbolic signs of this supernatural birth, as a pledge to assure us of his covenant mercy, yet well we know that there is no inherent efficacy in the means, and that it is his power working in the dead signs that can alone render them effective. But is anything too hard for the Lord? The prayer of faith, the baptismal water(poor and inadequate in themselves)-let none dare despise them; let none dare incredulously laugh at their apparent inanition. If, judging by the eye of sense concerning the medium of the new birth, we be in danger ourselves of being "staggered" at the promise, then let us look off from the medium to the power working in it, "fully persuaded that what God has promised he is also able to perform," and he has promised to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him; and that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit."

LYDIA.

THE SEVEN SISTERS.

THE first was like that pale, gold flower,
Which speaks of things that change not ever;
For still in storm or sunny hour,

Could nought her changeless friendship sever. And still, as varying years swept by,

'Mid pleasure's smiles, or sorrow's stings, Her spirit's hope was still on high, Her soul on everlasting things.

The second sister shone through all,

Like that small, simple flower, Which smiles alike in palace-hall

Or lowly cottage bower.

With heart's-ease, too, 'mid tempest woes,
When rushed the fearful blast,
Though keenly felt, her spirit rose
To meet it as it passed.

The third,-oh, not the lily bright,
Could with her beauty vie!
In her, reflected, shone the light
Of all she loved on high.
How often 'tis the fairest flower

That soonest meets decay,

She was the queen of that blest bower,
And she has passed away.

There is a flower, like love 'mid grief,
That when the shower descends,
And bids it weep from every leaf,
Its fragrance more ascends.
Upon the sister eglantine,

The floods, the storm hath driven,
Oh, may the bitter blast exhale
Her heart's best hopes to heaven.

The next was like the misletoe,
Which climbs the loftiest tree;
She rose above each care and woe,
By mental energy.

The Druid's plant, derived from earth

No life, from earth was veiled,

Her thoughts from heaven received their birth, To heaven alone revealed.

The next a young wild rose-bud seemed,

Her spirits danced with mirth,

And years, like breezes, as they passed,

Drew mental fragrance forth.

No thorns hang round the true wild rose,
And life to her has been

Without a care to mar repose,

Or banish hope's young dream.

The last of angel form and mind,—
To her so much was given,

We feared our flower was ne'er designed
For any clime but heaven.

The snowdrop, infant-like and fair,
Bows 'neath the tempest's wing,
She drooped before earth's chilly air,
And died in earliest spring.

And they are five, who once were seven,

Two have left earth less dear,

Thought loves to seek your native heaven,
Lily and snowdrop fair

For still ye live, though not in time,
Still wait the hour when soon,

One broken wreath again shall twine
But in immortal bloom.

ALICE DESMOND.

A MAN that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye:
Or, if he pleaseth, though it pass,

And all the heaven espy.

All may of thee partake;

Nothing can be so mean,

Which, with this tincture," For thy sake,"
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that, and th' action, fine.

ᎻᎬᎡᏴᎬᎡᎢ.

ERCHOMENA, OR THINGS TO COME.

LETTER THE THIRD.

(To a Friend.)

September 21, 1840.

MY DEAR George,

IN the first letter I addressed to you, I stated briefly the fact, that scripture repeatedly affirms that the dead in Christ shall rise first, and that in the twentieth chapter of the Revelation of St. John, it is affirmed that the rest of the dead shall not rise until after the expiration of a thousand years. I shall now proceed more minutely to show, that in every passage in the New Testament, without one exception, where the resurrection is named or alluded to, the distinction between the two resurrections is most plainly and most pointedly marked; and the distinction has been very carefully preserved by our able translators with one only exception, which I shall allude to shortly. (See note, p. 355.)

You will find that the inspired writers in the New Testament, when speaking of the abstract doctrine of the rising again of bodies which have slumbered in the grave and seen corruption, a doctrine unknown to the heathen philosophers, (the Egyptians perhaps. alone excepted) use the expression "Resurrection of OCTOBER, 1840.

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