SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY.

BY MRS. Bs.

The path of sorrow and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrows are unknown;
No traveller ever reached that blest abode,
Who found not thorns and briers in his road.

Cowper.

HEN riches take them wings and fly-
When hopes grow bright to fade and die---
How precious then those treasures laid
Where hopes will never, never fade!
To the bright realms beyond the tomb,
Where moth and rust can never come,
We raise our souls from earth, and see
"The uses of adversity."

When sickness makes the vigorous weak-
Dims the bright eye and pales the cheek-
Ah! then we feel how frail we are-
God's aid we seek-to him repair-

And sweet we find, on bended knee, "The uses of adversity."

When death takes from us one we lovedOne that 'mid home's dear circle movedO, then our thoughts with anguish riven, From sorrow's depths ascend to heavenAnd the sweet link that binds us there, Circling our hearts, sweet peace will bear; We look to heaven through tears, and see "The uses of adversity."

A VISION OF COMMON SENSE.

BY HAZEN J. BURTON.

"Who can paint

Like nature? Can imagination boast
Amid its gay creation, hues like these?

Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears

In every bud that blooms? If fancy then
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task,
Ah! what shall language do ?- "

OWN here upon the green hillside, in the cooling shades of this centennial oak, alone, will I cast myself. I will spurn

from my thoughts, and, for a time at least, forget the contemptible farce which by courtesy is called life. Yonder vainly glorified city, anchored fast to the everlasting hills by its iron roads, open by the highways of ocean to all the world! Consider its architectural magnificence;

its wealth in money and merchandise; its vaunted history; its inflated hopes! Consider its toiling multitudes; its starving poverty; its blackest sin! What is its virtual condition? The enveloping dust and smoke, suspending that sable cloud between it and the overarching sky, is but a faint type of the moral murkiness that enshrouds its spirit and divides it from the righteousness of the everlasting heavens. From hence go on and add city to city and land to land, and you but multiply nefarious deeds and broad-cast iniquity. Look deep into the organizations of social life, turn out its vanities and corruptions, and behold them well! How terrific the thought, that the fanciful flowery imaginings, the benevolent heartfelt desires, the deep thoughts of wisdom, and the holiest hopes of heaven, may be all wasting away from the possession of the soul in this seething process of artificial life. But away, begone, base demon visages that thus lay wait for my inmost life! Alone, amid nature's brightest scenes, I will indulge in dreams with which one could eschew the world and live a hermit's life.

* *

A manly form of middle age in simple garb reclines by my side. No preying disease has ever gnawed at his heart. No affrights, anxieties, or fevers have ever bleached his dark brown locks. No withering cares have laid their furrows upon his noble brow. No privations or toil have bowed his full developed figure. Here is man's full ideal, in beauty and majesty almost divine. He will speak! It must be the voice of wisdom that breathes from these lips. Hush! let us hearken to this man :

Brother, I know thy thoughts, and thy yearning desires. I sympathize with that spirit which is dissatisfied with the evils in the world, which cry to high heaven for vengeance.

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Society as now organized teems with evils. They are found in business, in the Church, by the fireside at home, in the streets, and abroad in the world. It is but a short-sighted philosophy that recognises such evils as principles in the natural construction of society. There is no design in their admission, they have by right no place, and must be driven hence."