ers, whose delicacy would shrink from observation, but whose tenderness would be soothed by secret visits to the grave, and by holding converse there with their departed joys? Why all this unnatural restraint upon our sympathies and sorrows, which confines the visit to the grave to the only time in which it must be utterly useless; when the heart is bleeding with fresh anguish, and is too weak to feel, and too desolate to desire consolation?

STORY.

LESSON CLXII.

DEATH AND SLEEP: A PARABLE.

LINKED together like brothers, the angel of sleep and the angel of death walked through the earth. It was evening. They laid themselves down upon a hill not far from the abodes of men. A melancholy stillness reigned all around, and the evening bell in the distant hamlet had ceased to toll. In quietness and silence, as their manner is, the two beneficent genii of mankind sat in confiding embrace, and night was already drawing near. Then the angel of sleep arose from his mossy couch, and with gentle hand scattered the imperceptible seeds of slumber. The evening wind bore them away to the habitation of the weary peasant. And now, sweet sleep came over the occupants of the rural cottages, from the gray head, who goes on his staff, down to the infant in the cradle. Sickness forgot its pains, mourning its grief, penury its cares. The eyes of all were closed. After finishing his labor, the benevolent angel of sleep lay down again beside his brother.

“When the morning blushes in the east,” he exclaimed with gladsome innocence, " men praise me as their friend and benefactor! O, what joy, to do good, unseen and in secret! How happy are we, the invisible ministers of the good spirit! How delightful our peaceful, quiet office!" Thus spake the friendly angel of sleep.

The angel of death looked upon him in silent sorrowfulness, and a tear, such as immortals weep, stood in his large, dark eye. “Alas!” said he, “that I cannot, like you, congratulate myself on the joyful gratitude of men! The whole earth calls me its

enemy, and the spoiler of its joys!" "O, my brother," replied the angel of sleep, "will not the good, in the resurrection, also recognize in thee a friend and benefactor, and gratefully bless thee? Are we not brethren, and ministers of one father?" Thus he spake, while the eye of the angel of death brightened up, and the fraternal genii embraced each other' still more tenderly. F. A. KRUMMACHER.

LESSON CLXIII.

THE FIRST WANDERER.

CREATION'S HEIR! the first, the last,
That knew the world his own;
Yet stood he, 'mid his kingdom vast,
A fugitive, o'erthrown!

Faded and frail his glorious form,

And changed his soul within,
While Fear and Sorrow, Strife and Storm,
Told the dark secret-Sin!

Unaided and alone on earth,

He bade the heavens give ear;
But every star that sang his birth,
Kept silence in its sphere:
He saw round Eden's distant steep,
Angelic legions stray;

Alas! he knew them sent to keep
His guilty foot away.

Then, reckless, turned he to his own,
The world before him spread;
But Nature's was an altered tone,

And breathed rebuke and dread:
Fierce thunder-peal, and rocking gale,
Answered the storm-swept sea,
While crashing forests joined the wail;
And all said, "Cursed for thee."

This, spoke the lion's prowling roar,
And this, the victim's cry;
This, written in defenseless gore,
Forever met his eye:

And not alone each sterner power

Proclaimed just Heaven's decree,
The faded leaf, the dying flower,

Alike said " Cursed for thee."

Though mortal, doomed to many a length
Of life's now narrow span,

Sons rose around in pride and strength;
They, too, proclaimed the ban.

'T was heard, amid their hostile spears,
Seen, in the murderer's doom,
Breathed, from the widow's silent tears,
Felt, in the infant's tomb.

Ask not the wanderer's after-fate,
His being, birth, or name;
Enough that all have shared his state,
That man is still the same.

Still brier and thorn his life o'ergrow,
Still strives his soul within;

While Care, and Pain, and Sorrow show

The same dark secret-Sin. Miss M. J. JEWSBURY,

LESSON CLXIV.

PROPHETIC DESCRIPTION OF CHRIST.

BEHOLD, my servant shall deal prudently,

He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
As many were astonished at thee,

(His visage was so marred more than any man,
And his form more than the sons of men,)

So shall he sprinkle many nations;

The kings shall shut their mouths at him :
For that which hath not been told them shall they see:
And that which they had not heard shall they consider.

Who hath believed our report?

And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant,

And as a root out of dry ground:

He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, There is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men;

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief:
And we hid, as it were, our faces from him;
He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely, he hath borne our griefs,
And carried our sorrows:

Yet we did esteem him stricken,

Smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities:

The chastisement of our peace was upon him,
And with his stripes we are healed.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray;

We have turned, every one to his own way;
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

Yet he opened not his mouth:

He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb,
So he opened not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who shall declare his generation?

For he was cut off out of the land of the living:
For the transgression of my people was he stricken.
And he made his grave with the wicked,
And with the rich in his death;

Though he had done no violence,
Neither was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it hath pleased the Lord to bruise him,
He hath put him to grief.

When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,
He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied;
By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many;
For he shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great,
And he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
Because he hath poured out his soul unto death:
And he was numbered with the transgressors;
And he bare the sin of many,

And made intercession for the transgressors.

ISAIAH.

LESSON CLXV..

TRIUMPH OF THE GOSPEL.

ARISE! shine! for thy light is come,

And the Glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold! the darkness shall cover the earth,
And gross darkness the people:

But the Lord shall arise upon thee,

And his glory shall be seen upon thee.
And the Gentiles shall come to thy light,
And kings to the brightness of thy rising.

Lift up thine eyes round about, and see!

All they gather themselves together, they come to thee:
Thy sons shall come from far,

And thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.

Then thou shalt see, and flow together,

And thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged;

Because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, The forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.

Who are these that fly as a cloud?
And as the doves to their windows?
Surely, the isles shall wait for me,
And the ships of Tarshish first,
To bring thy sons from far,
Their silver and their gold with them,

Unto the name of the Lord thy God,

And to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls,

And their kings shall minister unto thee:

For in my wrath I smote thee,

But in my favor have I had mercy on thee.
Therefore thy gates shall be open continually;
They shall not be shut, day nor night;

That men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles,

And that their kings may be brought.

For the nation and kingdom,

That will not serve thee, shall perish;

Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

Thou shalt know, that I, the Lord, am thy Savior;

And thy Redeemer the Mighty One of Jacob.
For brass, I will bring gold,