The haunts, the scenes which memory must revere ; The bright bless'd hours of boyhood's buoyant glee; All, all of love that's lovely and sincere ;

The few, few friends that still were friends to me— These all, my native Land! are yet a part of thee.

I love thy very dust; in it are laid

The household friends that led me on life's way; I loved their ashes, and have often paid A tearful tribute to the senseless clay. 'Tis superstition! Call it so-it may; But well I wot, it shrinks not from a name; 'Tis Nature's secret homage to DECAY,

It glows o'er prince aud peasant's grave the same: Nor would I wish the soul that cannot feel the flame,

Farewell, dear Isle! full many a harp has rung
This doleful note, this melancholy knell ;
The boldest minstrel that has ever sung,

In grief pour'd forth his plaintive "Fare-thee-well!"
But bards, in melody, like wizard's spell,
The mere dull sounds of sorrow may express;
But ah! adieus and farewells cannot tell
The deep, dark dismal horror of distress—
The bosom-blighting pang-the parting bitterness!

Farewell! I use— -I must use fashion's forms;
The feeling lives to breathe itself in sighs;
It will survive all coming calms and storms,
Till every other cherish'd feeling dies.
Let weal or wo await my next emprise,
Or gloomy grief, or mirth and revelry—

'Neath Winter's scowl, or Summer's sunny skiesWhile memory seeks the past, my thoughts must be, Like injured, restless ghosts, still wandering over thee! THOMAS MACQUEEN. BARKIP, 8th March 1842.

THE RELIGION OF CHILDHOOD.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child."-PAUL.

It has been said that we ought never to recollect the time when the mind was without the idea of God. If this were not to be admitted, yet it refers to a principle of the utmost consequence to every religious mind; namely, that religious feelings and ideas should be among the earliest furniture of our minds, that they should find a place among the first elements of thought. To impart, in a proper manner, the first ideas on religion, must be felt by all who have to do with children as a task of peculiar difficulty and delicacy. This must be the frequent experience of the parent and the Sunday school teacher. The great and awful ideas of God, duty, conscience, the future life-must as it were be taken to pieces, broken down, and presented to the budding intellect of the child. As every one who has made trial must have experienced, it demands no ordinary degree of discretion, skill, tenderness, and variety and readiness of illustration to bring them down, and offer them in that manageable shape to the opening faculties.

We do not know that we can more effectually impress our meaning, and at the same time give some general idea of how this might be gone about, than by presenting the reader with the following fragment from the experience of Mrs M. a very intelligent friend of ours, in her attempt to introduce her little daughter, just four years of age, to the great ideas which constitute religion.

"Mamma," said little Mary to her mother, " you promised to tell me something about flowers. I do so love flowers; they are so pretty, I wish we had ever so many more; will you tell Thomas the gardener to make some more for us? Can you make flowers, Mamma?"

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My dear, I shall be glad to tell you much about flowers when you are a little older; and when you can read, you will learn a great deal more for yourself. But Mary, I must tell you at present that neither I nor

Thomas the gardener can make the flowers you so much admire. There is only one Being who can do that; and that is one that you have never seen, yet he is not far from us at this moment."

"O do tell me his name, him to make some for me. ma?"

Mamma, that I may ask Where does he live, Mam

"His name is God, and he is every where ; he hears all you say, and knows all you do, and he can do every thing, and he made all the flowers and every thing that you see, and much more that you do not know yet." "Mamma, I do not know what you mean by making every thing."

"Tell me what you see, Mary?"

"I see the sun, Mamma."

"Well, my child, do you know who caused the sun to shine?"

"I never thought any body did that; I thought it always shone, at least it has always done so as long as I can remember."

"Very true, my child, but the sun did not make itself; and when you are older you will better see the meaning of what I am now telling you. GOD made the sun. He also causes night. The earth on which we dwell is a large round ball like an orange; no man could have made that; yet for as large as it is, God made it, and every part of it is finished off as if it were as small as a flower; and when it turns round, and one side of it is away from the sun, we say it is night; and then we go to sleep, and rest on our beds till the light appears again in the east, when we say it is morning."

"That is beautiful, Mamma. But who made the hills, and who made the stones that our house is built with, and who made the sky that is so blue and beautiful over our heads?"

"Who, my child, but God could do this? There is no hand of man that is so strong as to heave up the mountains, or spread out the heavens; and since man cannot. do it, it must be done by a Being greater than man."

"That is very wonderful, Mamma, but did see God?"

you ever

in

"No, Mary, I never did except with my mind. Do you remember your Papa? Yes, you do with your mind; and yet you have never seen your own mind nor mine. You have a mind Mary ;-something with you that makes you remember, and be glad, and love me-and yet you never saw it, though you have Now God is a mind, "God is spirit," as Jesus Christ has told us, and as our own minds make us believe.” "Who is Jesus Christ, Mamma?"

"He was a good, and kind, and holy man, whom God sent to tell us what is right and good, and to shew us the way to be good. And he has told us that God will be very kind to us if we are good, and that he will take us to where we shall be very happy, and shall see all good people, and have company with them, and be with Jesus himself, and learn more about God, and see more of the wonderful things he has done.”

"How very kind it was of God to send Jesus, and of Jesus to come and tell us about all these things. Tell me more about Jesus, Mamma."

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Gladly, my child. And if you knew all about him, you would love him very much for what he has done for you, and for all the men and women that are upon the earth. He was very fond of little children, be took them in his arms and spoke tenderly to them, saying, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and of such is the kingdom of heaven." He was always trying to do good, and he told others to do the same, and shewed the way. And he said that we should all live as brothers and sisters, and be kind to each other, just as God is like a kind father to us. All this, however, and much more about Jesus, and God, and being good, you will learn when you can read the Bible for yourself."

"I think I love Jesus very much for what he did. Tell me more about him."

"I do not wish to fatigue you, Mary; only I must tell you farther that bad men killed him; yet God made him to live again, and took him to himself, to teach us that all who do well shall live again, even though they die. For God that makes us live now can make us live again, if he pleases, and he has told

us that he will. But if we wish to be happy when we five again we must be good now.”

"Mamma, am I good? Shall I go to Jesus and to God?"

"My dear Mary, I have no reason to complain of you, though I hope you will still continue to improve as you grow older. God can see faults in you that 1 cannot, and I daresay you yourself can."

“I fear, Mamma, I am not so kind to sister as you are to me; and I remember two days ago I was cross, because you refused me something which you said it was not proper for me to have. What must I do then, Mamma, to be always good, and never cross, and be what Jesus would have me to be?"

"You must, my dear, always try to be as good as you can, and the more you try the more God will help you, and you will feel happy in your own mind; but when you do wrong to me or any one else (if ever you should do so again), you must be sorry for it, confess it to God, and try not to do it any more; then God has promised that he will forgive you, as you know I did the other day."

"I am glad you told me this, Mamma, else I fear I should never be with Jesus. However, I will always try to be good."

"Do, my dear, and you will learn, that, to be good is to be happy, you will alway feel pleasant in your own mind when you do right, and God and Jesus will love you. Remember that God sees you always, and that you cannot deceive him, nor do any thing without his knowledge. Jesus also will love you, if you try to be good. And though both you and I, and perhaps every body sometimes do wrong; yet if we do not remain in it, God is so very kind to us that he will forgive the past, and help us to do better for the future."

"I shall always try to please God, and Jesus, and you, Mamma."

"I hope so, my dear; and now let us walk in the garden, and see the flowers."

A. M.