26

Original. LIBERIA.

at Bassa Cove.-ED.

DURING the last year two companies of emigrants have been located in Liberia, at the interior settlements, and have lost none from the effects of the climate. Experience concurs with many other obvious reasons to show that the climate of Liberia is absolutely a very healthy one, and safe for the natives of this country. The reports which have represented that coast as one of the most unfriendly and dangerous to the health of northern residents were founded on observations confined to the very limited part of the country in which alone they could have originated, namely, to the mouths of rivers and the immediate vicinity of the seacoast. In the colony, within two or three miles of the ocean, all the rivers and their branches are bordered by mangrove swamps, which occupy about one-half of that part of the country; and the noxious exhalations from these swamps are almost the only cause adverse to health in Liberia. The utmost extremes of heat and cold which were observed by the writer during a residence of four years in the colony, were 70° and 87°, so that there are at least 100° of temperature in this climate which are never felt in that. Emigrants to Liberia, having been once acclimated, there is very little change afterwards to be encountered; and this accounts for the fact that among those who have resided a few months, even in the swampy district, near the coast, as little medical advice is called for as in the most healthy parts of the state of New York. The town of Edina, at the mouth of the St. John's river, was settled nine years ago by thirty-three men, shortly after their arrival in Africa. It is so closely invested by swamps that all the dry land is already appropriated to town lots. The company built a stockade for the defense of the place, and endured all the hardships and privations incident to the founding of a new settlement, and none of them have died by any cause referable to the climate. One was killed in battle, another died of consumption, and thirty-one were alive and in health on my return from the colony last winter. Among the acclimated population there is no season of general sickness, and nothing farther is observable than a rather greater frequency of bilious attacks at the change from the dry to the rainy season. It is, however, important that those who are to reside in unhealthy situations on the coast should select the best season for their arrival, which is about the first of July. Fogs are very rarely seen in Liberia, and the atmosphere is as clear as in the United States. The winds and rains are much more regular, and in the wet season, as the rain generally accompanies the land breeze, which blows only at night, the weather is not more inconvenient to laborers than it often is for entire months in this climate. Excellent water is everywhere abundant, and, in short, all the general causes affecting the health of the people, are in the highest degree favorable. A

of the country only ten miles inland, than can any where be found here within the same limits. Although vegetation is astonishingly luxuriant and forms an object of novel interest to strangers from the temperate zone, yet the soil is generally a dry absorbent and gravelly loam, and resembles that of New England more than the alluvion of the Mississippi valley. Some of the most fatal diseases of the East and West Indies, such as liver and bowel complaints, are almost unknown in the colony, and fruit may be used, to a great extent, by the acclimated, with impunity. A healthier people than the natives probably does not exist. Although the slave trade and the constant wars occasioned by it destroyed millions of the people, and generally those of the most valuable class, and rendered life and property extremely insecure, yet the country has an immense population. In the territory of Grand Bassa, which is forty or fifty miles square, their number is supposed to be 120,000, or nearly as great as that of the Indians east of the Mississippi at the settlement of the United States. W. JOHNSON.

Original.

THE POET'S DEATH.*

1

""Tis not vain-they do not err Who say that when the poet dies Mute nature mourns her worshiper, And celebrates his obsequies."

UPON a stranger's couch

His feeble form reclined, And dimly shone that eye Where genius sat enshrined. Upon his lofty brow

The clammy death-drop hung, And by his side his harp

Lay shattered and unstrung. The world's unfeeling scorn

Had rested on his head; His wreath of young renown Lay withering and dead.

"Twas eve: he bowed in awe

At nature's altar-stone,
To catch the sun's last ray-
It faded: he was gone,

Now rest, thou child of song!
All nature mourns for thee;
And man alone could scorn
A spark of Deity.

*The author of these lines was very young, and he himself met the very end which he here describes.-ED.

"O, for a closer walk with God,"

it touched, as it ever does, the right chord in my bosom, and awakened all that is good within me. I felt that I had wandered far from him, and that he was drawing me back by every fibre of my heart, and I yielded myself up to the sweet influences of the Spirit. The services now commenced. The first lesson for the morning was somewhere in Isaiah. It spoke of Christ giving sight to the blind, unstopping the deaf ear, and making the lame to walk, and must have been peculiarly acceptable to the class of sufferers, of which I have been speaking. We now had another of Cowper's touching hymns

"God moves in a mysterious way,"

after which the sermon commenced. But scarcely had the text been given out, before a messenger was seen hurrying into the church, and after exchanging a few words with one of the brethren, they both went out together an indication, I thought, of suffering at home, sudden sickness, perhaps, of some of his family. And although I had no personal knowledge of him or his, my sympathies were awakened for them, while there came up vividly before me former scenes of home suffering, and I felt fervently thankful that this summons was not for me. My feelings had been so wrought upon by all that I had seen and heard since I came into the church, that, although the sermon was but an ordinary one, rather doctrinal than practical, I had listened with a right spirit, and proved a profitable one to me, and I returned to my home refreshed in spirit, and strengthened in every good purpose of my soul; and although I still viewed my purchase in the same worldly light of a bad bargain, it had completely lost its power to disquiet me. When I entered the walls of the sanctuary, I had cast, as it were, my burden from me, and thus got rid of an oppressive load that no human hand could have removed from me. Let none absent themselves from the church, because they do not feel like going. It is the certain indication that they ought to be there. It is only safe to stay at home when our spirits are right, and some unavoidable hindrance is in the way of our going. How highly should we prize the privilege, if it were of rare occurrence! And shall we slight the goodness of God for the abundance of his mercies in permitting us to draw near to him more frequently? Let us, then, not neglect the assembling ourselves together on his holy day, if we would expect his blessing. CORNELIA AUGUSTA.

140

WE should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.

IF Time could ope his closed book,

And we could there the future read, Ah! who would dare within to look,

And learn the lot for him decreed?

The torch of hope no more would cheer
His darkened pathway with its light;
On all that now makes life most dear
Would seem to hang a sad'ning blight.
The distant ills we knew were ours,

Would all our present thoughts employ,
And tears would fall like April showers,
Amid the sunshine of our joy.

But He who reads the wayward heart,
And sees the way we'll surely take,
Shows each successive day a part,

Lest our o'erburdened hearts should break.

And if he loose the dearest ties

That bind us to an earthly love,
"Tis that the soul may "swifter rise"
To richer, purer joys above.

Ah! who would then the curtain raise,
That all life's ills so kindly shrouds?
He, 'midst affliction's darkest days,
Still paints the rainbow on the clouds.
CORNELIA AUGUSTA.

044110

Original.

DEATH OF A SISTER THEY tell me that my sister dear,

Is sleeping with the dead; That in the grave so dark and drear They've made her narrow bed. And is it so and shall it be

That I no more can hear That tuneful voice, nor ever see

That face so loved and dear?

Are those bright eyes for ever closed,
That once so sparkling shone?
And from that cheek, where health reposed,
Are life and beauty flown?
Those lips, so often pressed to mine,

Are they, too, pale and cold;
That hand, so ready and so kind,
Is it o'erspread with mold?

"Tis so, alas! and, far away,

The tidings reach my ear;

I could not watch her slow decay,
Nor know her end was near-

I could not stand, with friends, around

Her sick and dying bed,

Nor could I hear the farewell sound As hence her spirit fled.

Yet "all is well;" for God above,

Our Father and our Friend,

O'ER the fair face of earth where'er we roam,
In burning climes, or to the frozen zone,
In every state and place displayed we see
The matchless, boundless love of Deity.
In the rude desert, shaped by nature's hand
To no one end-a sea of floating sand-
A pathless, weary waste, where the glazed eye
Gazes alone on dull monotony-

Where, if the slightest breeze at evening stir,
Death and its terrors wait the traveler;
There the cool spring from its pure fountain wells,
And with its living draught his bounty tells-
With its fresh verdure planted there to bless
The wanderers o'er a sea of weariness.
To the high mountain, or rude ocean rock,
Offsprings alike of the dread earthquake's shock,
High reared in air, with their bold banners furled,
To watch the sent'nels over a slumbering world,
The storm-wind comes, and battles with them there,
And moans its dirges in the upper air.
Then, spent its strength, a zephyr soft, it plays
Around their lofty heights, speaking love's praise;
Thence, winding to the vales that sleep below,
Warm in the blush of beauty and its glow,
Nestles with fondling care among the flowers
That deck the waving mead or shady bowers-
Roams o'er the plain, or seeks the gentle streams
Where Naiads slumber in the land of dreams-
On their pure forehead plants the maiden kiss,
At once a taste and type of earthly bliss.
E'er reveling gay nature's charms among,
Love is its tale, its burden, and its song,
A part of that bright entity above,
Whose work, whose word, and very self is love.

The gem that slumbers in the ocean cave,
The flower that floats upon the heaving wave,
The streamlet that goes murmuring along,
With its enchantment and its joyful song,
In their united voice and gladness bear
A truthful witness of His fostering care;
While the dark woodland and the shady grove

Are vocal everywhere with notes of love,
Soft mingling with the balmy evening breeze
That dallies fondly with the whispering trees,
Till in one beauteous choir of love and glee
They raise a boundless swell of melody.
His love is on the ocean-on the shore-
In the calm sea, or its majestic roar-
Guides the bold bark upon its pathless way,
And whispers to the wrecked a brighter day-
Bears the freed spirit up thro' ocean's foam
To its last, best abode-its blissful home.
The stars, in their expanse of azure blue,
The heavenly theme and holy, do renew,
Unite their fires in one eternal light,

And watch the fairy guardians of the night.
Nature, with all her works, in every clime,
From the first morning to the end of time,
Hath, and for ever will her voices raise,

To sing of heaven, a Godhead's love and praise.
And man, with his proud mind, his feeling heart,
And noble soul, itself of heaven a part,
Taught far above the star-gemmed sky to soar,
To feel his goodness, mercy, and adore-
Earth, with its beauties and its loveliness,
That live to soothe the lonely and to bless-

29

The mount, the vale, the winding stream, and flower
That blooms ephemeral in earthly bower-

All things that are below, and all above,
Are but the marks of universal love.

MAN.

BEHOLD! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold!
See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay;
See her bright robes the butterfly unfold,
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May!
What youthful bride can equal her array?
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray,
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly,
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

Behold the merry minstrels of the morn,
The swarming songsters of the careless grove,
Ten thousand throats! that, from the flowering thorn
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love,
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove:
They neither plough, nor sow; nor, fit for flail,
E'er to the barn the nodden sheaves they drove;
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale,
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale.

Outcast of nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter-drooping sweat, of sweltry pain, Of cares that eat away the heart with gall, And of the vices, an inhuman train, That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: For when hard-hearted Interest first began To poison earth, Astræa left the plain! Guile, violence, and murder seiz'd on man, And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.

Original.

THE REPOSITORY.

BY MRS. WILSON.

ONE year has fled with noiseless wing
'Mid checker'd scenes of joy and grief,
Since thy first votive offering

Was wreath'd in beauty on the leaf-
The first pure leaf thy "Gatherings" press'd,
Thy fadeless "Gatherings of the West "
And in that year thy tasteful hand

Has gather'd stores of varied hue-
Rejecting lays, however bland,

However lovely to the view,
Which, in the realms of fiction wove,
Told of ideal, earthly love.

But thou hast gather'd by the light—
Th' unerring light religion lends,
"Full many a gem" of radiance bright,

While taste and science sweetly blend
With living truth, and stand confess'd
The peerless "Gatherings of the West!"
And thou hast gathered from the stream
That flow'd from Inspiration's fount,
A draught that sparkles in the beam

Which shone o'er Moses on the Mount, And dash'd thy ev'ry page with dew Distill'd from drops of heavenly hue! Thou'st garner'd, too, in holy lay,

The tale that broke on Judea's night,
And led the captive soul away

Entranc'd to Calvary's distant height,
To view with Fancy's moistened eye
Th' incarnate Lord of glory die;
And many a theme of holy lore

Is twin'd thy "Gatherings" among,
And gifted minds have conn'd them o'er,
And deck'd them with the robe of song,
Gennesaret's howling storm re-woke,
Or watch'd with Rizpah on the rock.
Thou, too, hast gather'd from the wave
Of dark oblivion's turbid stream,
The memory of her* who gave

Her youth and all youth's joyous dreams, Nay, life itself, on Rio's shore, To plant the cross her Savior bore: O, it is fitting that her name

Among thy "Gatherings" fadeless shine; That, hallow'd by undying fame,

She slumber 'neath a tropic clime; While every Christian heart should be Her grave, and not "the dark blue sea!" Thou'st garner'd here the gifts of men, Who've largely quaff'd Pieria's spring; And woman's pure and gifted pen

Has yielded many a "Gathering," While youth, as votive offerings, brought

The lamented Mrs. Kidder.

Their first sweet images of thought.
And 'mong thy "Gatherings" brightly shine
Full many a charm to break the spell
Which, darkly cast o'er woman's mind,
Had taught her in the vale to dwell,
Nor seek to climb th' adventurous height
Which Science gilds with radiance bright.
Her glorious destiny she's taught,

By many a noble "Gathering;"
In words of breathing, burning thought,
She's led t' unfurl her spirit's wing-
With minds of sterner mold to soar
Through realms of light unknown before.

Thou'st garner'd in one little year

All these, and many other themes, And mingled them with tasteful care,

To shed on us their blended beamsT'improve the heart-the mind t' expandAnd point us to yon heavenly land. Go on, then, with the blest employ

Of garnering up thy gems of worth!
Angels behold thy work with joy;

For 'twill improve and gladden earth,
And be to some the guiding star
That points to realms of bliss afar-
Go on, and when death's darken'd plume
Around thy closing scene shall wave,
Among thy works that light the gloom,

And live in beauty 'yond the grave—
The works that stand that solemn test,
Shall be thy "Gatherings of the West!"

THE INDIAN GIRL.
SHE sits beside the lonely rill
With flowers her raven locks to twine,
The lucid stream is calm and still,
And bright the silvery pebbles shine;
But gazing in that tranquil tide

No objects but the streaming curl,
The laughing eye, the brow of pride,

Are seen by that lone Indian girl.
The woods are round her dark and wild,
The tall oaks fling their branches high,
Towards where the distant clouds are piled,
Like mountains scattered o'er the sky.
The vine hath clasped the bending bough,
Its silken tendrils closely cul;
Still gazing on that mirrored brow,

Remains the bright eyed Indian girl.
Gaze on, thou gentle, guileless one,

Fit mirror is that lovely stream To show a form so fair and young,

True as a prophet's pictured dream. Though pleasure flutters round thee now, She'll soon her silken pinions furl, Beneath a weight of care will bow The young and thoughtless Indian girl. LOIS B. ADAMS.