Original. THE MISSIONARY MARTYR. THE MISSIONARY MARTYR. There is, in western Louisiana, on the bordering parishes of St. Martin's and St. Mary's, an uncominonly wide prairie, with its southern side lying coastwise. Here, although the temperature is never extreme, there usually prevails, during the winter, one or more chilly rain storms, which, in this bleak and bare region, leave the traveler exposed to great hardship and suffering. This place, in the early settlement of the country, was the scene of the catastrophe narrated below. A missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by the name of Nolley, a very devoted and peculiar man, was, while going from one station to another, overtaken by a storm of this kind; and night coming on, his indistinct path became quite obscured, and after probably wandering for awhile, he alighted from his horse, and resigned himself to the event. The next day he was found by the way-side, on his knees, frozen to death-a result, however, which could hardly have occurred but for the extreme attenuation of his body, from his habitual system of fasting and abstinence. With what associations of veneration and love should his brethren of the mission regret this-hard station! THE wintry blast was damp and chill, The prairie wide and drear, When, to obey his Master's will, And his high destiny fulfill, The man of God drew near. He oft this cheerless plain had crossed, Where late the flowers had bloomed around, And nature looked so gay, No sign of verdure now was found, One anxious glance around he cast, O'er the wild waste he oft had trod; Then turning made his mantle fast, And on his pathless journey past— He knew it was the path to God. Smoother and brighter it will grow To him who trustingly shall go. His flock are waiting to be fed, And shall the shepherd pause with fear, And ever in his darkest hour, As prayerful on his way he passed, His heart grows warm with holy zeal; "Till round him night begins to steal. So saints the woes of earth despise, When borne by death above the skies. And now the light fades fast away, And night her sable curtain draws; Lonely and chill, and far astray, No voice to guide, no hand to stay. He makes a sad and solemn pause. Tho' cold and wandering in the storm, With kindling love his heart is warm. He thinks of home, of household friends, Then from his heart the prayer ascends, Nature now wears her darkest frown, Death's icy arms around him steal; From his check'd steed he struggles down, And bowing for his martyr crown, Resigns his spirit as he kneels. The traveler finds a frozen statue there, Tho' no memorial marks the spot, Made sacred by his dying loveTho' time should from her record blot His name, his sufferings and his lot, 109 Original. WOMAN'S SORROWS. BY THE EDITOR. munion with these objects of her fond solicitude and love. This repays all her watchings and all her sufferings in their behalf. She may have sacrificed ease for their sakes; but who can estimate the revenue of bliss which the sacrifice procures her, in the form of intense, gratified affection. Recollection supplies an example. My friend W. buried two lovely children. He had a feeble wife, who, in ordinary circumstances, could scarcely endure with impunity an interruption of one night's repose. When that dread disease, scarlet fever, fell upon one and another of the children, she was roused and nerved to It is a common opinion that the sufferings of the sexes are unequal. And the advantage is claimed to be on the side of man. But wherefore, since woman is the weaker vessel, should she be burdened with more than half the woes which beset mankind? We cannot answer. The question carries us beyond the legitimate field of human inquiry. But the fact being granted, that woman is the victim of more sorrows than fall to the ex-feminine endurance. Night after night, for many long perience of the hardier sex, let us inquire if her disadvantages are not counterbalanced by privileges peculiar to herself. First. Are not her joys equal to her sorrows? Do not her griefs and pleasures bear to each other about the same proportion as those of man? She certainly has, in some instances, a depth and fullness of satisfaction which man never experiences. For proof of this, we need go no farther than the family circle. Some of the severest sufferings of woman are supposed to flow from her domestic relations. A peculiar ordinance of Heaven subjects her to fearful evils in the progress of her home cares and labors. But let these evils be ever so much accounted of, are they not mingled with the highest enjoyments? Do not her domestic delights equal all her sufferings and woes? As a pa rent, she certainly loves with a devotion to which man is a stranger. Her children are dear to her in proportion to the pain and toil which their being and their comfort may have cost her. She loves them with a devotion which has no parallel in the unsanctified experience of the human heart. This fervent affection she is placed in circumstances to gratify to the utmost. Home is to her what it is not so strictly to the partner of her bosom-a place of habitation. She has no call to forsake it. She is encumbered with no avocations or business which force her away from this scene of her enjoyments. Cornelia said, "These are my jewels." The proverb is handed down to successive generations, as though there were something in it to be admired. It may well be admired; but not because the sentiment was peculiar to the Roman matron. She expressed not so much the sentiments of Cornelia as the feelings of the mother. In this instance she was the representative of her sex-the expounder of human nature in the mother's bosom. If she differed from most mothers, it was not in her feelings, but in this, that she guarded her jewels with successful vigilance, and polished them with judicious skill. So far as affection is concerned, there are few mothers in modern times who would not claim their children as their jewels. weeks, she watched by the couch of one and then another of the victims, with a strength and perseverance which seemed almost superhuman. The first that died was borne to its burial, when a second, much younger, and in its helpless baby hood, was smitten on her bosom. "Where best he loved to hide him, Nor sigh'd the parting breath, To charm his cradle-hours, From the smile that beam'd so free, And there it lingered for weeks, fading and withering, and then at last it expired; nor could she, feeble as she was, feel weary while her little one survived. Nay, when its coffin was closed, and she could no more kiss its pale, cold lip, she was not to be hindered by any persuasion, but must follow it to its burial, and see it laid in the resting place where both, side by side, wait the resurrection. "No more thy twilight musing Is o'er the cloud to soar, To tread the ethereal plain, High honor hath it been to thee To swell that glorious train." All this while, wherein lay that feeble mother's strength? First in God; but second in the warm glowings of maternal affection, which can endure more than all human sympathies, except those which grace Sad as is her lot, that mother, should she speak as a philosopher, would testify that her gratification in ministering to her dear children, exceeded the sorrows which their dependance may have cost her, and that, too, without reckoning her transports at the And how gratifying it is to be near our treasures-supplies. to abide by those cherished objects which engross our warm affections! This is the mother's happy lot. Her jewels cluster close around her, day by day, and she has but little else to do but entertain herself by com 1 WOMAN'S SORROWS. 111 thought of their being sanctified and admitted into par- || goods, and the pains of martyrdom for their Lord and adise. It is true, as an inquisitive philosophy will have it, that man is seldom called to these offices of long continued vigilance and exposure. But his exemption is two fold; namely, from gratification as well as from endurance. His is not the mother's toil, nor is her rapture his. The two seem inseparably joined. It seems, then, that if woman's domestic sorrows are greater than those which oppress the hardier sex, she is repaid in her superior domestic enjoyments. Second. But let us proceed to connect this question with other considerations. To meet her exigencies of severe affliction, woman is endowed by an all-wise Creator with a peculiar power of endurance. She seems formed for suffering rather than for action. She bears with meek composure what drives man to despair. How often is this exemplified under severe family afflictions, in which the father and husband is paralyzed, and rendered helpless, while the wife and mother is roused to efforts almost superhuman, to sustain her household, and repair its ruined fortunes. "The Wife," by Irving, presents, in shades almost inimitable, the picture of such a scene. And, whether its author wrote from observation, or from fancy, the sketch is true to life. I knew an instance for myself. An opulent citizen was ruined by underwriting for his friends. When the shock first reached him it robbed him of his senses, and he committed suicide. His effects were sold, and his business was settled up. His widow, with several lovely children struggled on in decent poverty until the issue of their trials found them still blest with the comfortable fortune of twenty thousand dollars. The children were educated. The sons entered professional life-the daughters were eligibly settled, and at this day they move in the very best circles of society, and are unconscious of any loss. If the mother had been like the father they would probably have become blots or cyphers on the page of human life. Third. Let it also be remembered that sorrow has its moral uses. It is a school of pure religion, in which they who will may be trained for eminence among the saints in heaven. "Our light afflictions which are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Afflictions well improved wean us from the world. They are thorns which, by severely wounding us, make us let go the flower, and turn away from the withering attraction which we grasped. Then we can, with less reluctance, seek a higher good. Affliction is the best of earthly soils, wherein to grow those plants of piety which are more annoyed by cloudless skies and withering sunshine, than by the severest storms of sorrow. The favorable influence of adversity upon the heart is witnessed to us in the examples of early Christians, who were persecuted even unto death for their attachment to Jesus Christ. They were buffeted and sawn asunder-they wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins; but they patiently took both the spoiling of their Savior. Such glowing devotion to holiness and its Author, could scarcely be, without that severe school of the graces which is found in a "great fight of afflictions." "For He who marks us in our vain career, Oft smites in mercy what we hold most dear, May ripen better for a world on high." Fourth. Afflictions liken us to our blessed Lord. It should strengthen those who are heavily pressed with trouble, that Jesus was "a man of sorrows." The suffering female may say, "True, my heavenly Father afflicts me; but when he visits me with breach upon breach, till all his waves and billows go over me, have I not an example of severer inflictions in my blessed Savior? It pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief-to expose him to hunger and thirst, and the scorn of men, and the persecutions of the wicked, and the desertion of friends, and the treachery of his household, and the wrath of the rulers, and to derision and revilings amidst the agonies of death; and last of all, under so great a burden of outward woes, the hidings of his Father's face! And shall I refuse to suffer with Jesus, or repine because as Jesus was so am I in this world?" With such thoughts, let the sorrowful female quench the fiery darts of the adversary when he would provoke her to murmur against God and his righteous providence. Lastly. The afflicted will find it comparatively easy to obey the summons of death, and resign a world which, aside from religion, has afforded them but a bitter lot. If affliction has served its great end, and brought them to seek diligently and effectually a heavenly inheritance, with what undivided desires will they wait till their change come; and how willingly and joyfully will they receive the messenger who approaches to effect their enlargement! His visage may be terrible, but they will overlook the grim aspect of the messenger in the joy which his errand will bring to their hearts. It is enough that they are to be conveyed from a vale of tears to the mount of eternal smiles; and as they unfold their pinions, the shadows of grief which had chilled them so long, will dissolve in the far-reaching glories which beam upon them from the face of the Lamb. To attain this deliverance, we must receive afflictions as divine chastisements-as ministers of grace. Then shall be fulfilled in us that saying, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." "But God alone 112 THE PAINTING FROM MEMORY. Original. This form of beauty, these loved lineaments, THE PAINTING FROM MEMORY. That they may there, young, lovely, still exist, THE earth is cold above him-long ago The wintry storm wails through the leafless trees, And time, with their dread ravages have wrought Serenely smiling on through change and blight, E'en now, And the round cheeks, how deep their youthful glow! O, could I make them to the fresh air wave, But no, we may trace out the virgin rose, Thrown careless back from the calm, thoughtful brow-Its everlasting stillness. We can mold The lips of a faint tinge, mutely compressed- Had touched his cheek's young roses, or pale grief And now a rush of glorious images Are brightening up from the dim shadowy past, E'en now they throng, they thrill my glowing breast. The statue of the mortal-God alone THE CHURCH BELL. And to the last abode of clay, If to the clime where pleasures reign, Bless'd bell? Church bell? Original. ON PRIDE. BY CAROLINE M. BURROUGH. PRIDE. 113 social are the same," yet we are obliged to say that we take not so elevated ground. Whilst we assume that unmixed motives belong to the regenerate of heart alone, with such we have not at present to do. Yet we are all social; and one comment we throw in, name We suppose that there are thousands of young persons-yes, in our republican states-who are trained up to a system of pride-who have lived all their lifelong in no other practice of conduct-who do daily and hourly violate the affection, and revolt the long-suffer Or all the sins to which the heart of man is by nature inclined, the most universal and the most engros-ly, the vast amount of influence which popular sense sing is pride. Whilst the age is professing education, has in directing our thoughts and apprehensions. Even general and specific; whilst the mind is instructed and in matters of moment to ourselves alone do we receive assisted, and thousands of books are proffered to its en- the bent of society at large-or worse, through the lightenment and its facility, yet do we see few commen- promptings of vanity falling in with the tendencies of taries upon the progress of the heart. The heart, which nature, and upon a structure so insufficient in itself, is makes more than half our nature, and out of which it wonder that we err, and are betrayed? And where are the "issues of life," is yet left comparatively stinted we commit not overt sin, yet by the negative disregard of admonition and of counsel, and is in measure given in which we hold the vice, there shall accrue to the over to the rebukings of life, to the bitterness of expe- young a proportionate degree of error by this false aprience, to the evils of its own waywardness, for warn-preciation of it. We claim the prescriptive superiority ing or for instruction. At least, the ethical department of age and observation, and, alas! of experience in the might afford some assuagement, some salutary homile-evils arising out of our subject-the practice of pride tic to this tendency of evil, to this outgoing of sin. In in all the matters of life. Our teaching is for the putthe pulpit the discourse is well managed to strike home ting away this most flagrant, pertinacious vice. the conviction of error, and to point its final retribution: faithful are the laborers, happy are they who attend-they are indeed wise unto salvation. To such our feeble voice is extended only in gratulation. But we do apprehend, that amidst the dense population of civilization and of refinement, and of religious oppor-ing and forbearance of their associates, their equals and tunity and importunity, there are yet millions who hear not the counsel, because their ears are sealed-they are engrossed and absorbed in the world. Preaching is to them an abstract-an ordinance which it is the vegue of the time to respect and to notice, and which civility and politeness require of them to attend, without any outward demonstration of impatience or of disregard. By consistency they are conformed to this, as to the other dictates of the multitude who rule them-and so the form is served. But "God is not in all their thoughts"-so distant, indeed, that they can be approached at present only by motives somewhat of concession to their own partial view of life and of being. Of being, indeed, the inner sense of man, they as yet ken little; they have gone out into the world; they are conformed to it, and they consider rather of their relative, than of their entire and real position. Selfish though they be, they see not. But let us once win their ear, and perhaps we keep it; or give to them the clue, and step by step they may retrace the dark labyrinth of their own wanderings, until they shall emerge! into the full light, and discern what is. I have said that we would address the worldling on his own ground, and we will so manage, if possible, as to present the fault in necessary connection with its penalty; and that penalty not final alone, but immediate and direct-the ultimate of its own action. Such illustration were to the corruption of nature a more persuasive argument than the nobler one of practicing virtue for its own sake. The love of our kind—and we mean not the coarse sentiment of popularity, but the sufficient regard of our fellow men, as a sustaining principle of our affections, our exertions, and we may add, our self-love; and though the poet tells us that "true self-love and their inferiors, by its aggressions. And yet many of To tell how the angels fell, is too signal and too high for our example. Would we tell of Babel and its catastrophe? That, say they, was a pride of compact and of audacity, an outbreak or direct rebellion—it suits not us! Tell of warrior hosts drowned in the sea. That was also peculiar there is no propriety of application, say they. And each one, making the whole, says that; else should all of history, both sacred and profane, minister to our argument, which is the manifest visitation of God's displeasure upon this, the sin of pride; an overweening assumption of power that is world-derived. There is folly and fatuity in the very naming. A power which opposes itself to God-how profane. It must be weakness, for it is sin; and strength |