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of her own black servants, and greatly elated with her ambitious prospects, she made all preparations with great alacrity. The place was sold for ready money, at a much lower figure than it cost, and possession was to be given in two weeks. The gentleman went down to New York one morning to get the money changed to southern notes, and—probably having a short memory-forgot to come back again. It was the last the widow ever saw of him. Search proved unavailing. The only definite information she ever received was, that he was a professional swindler, who had played the same matrimonial game in many different places. And so she went forth into the world alone, to struggle with poverty, her trials still unsanctified and her wretched, querulous disposition making her a most unwelcome guest in the home of the humble relatives she had scorned in her days of prosperity.

"Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work."

OUR PET CANARY.

BY MRS. H. C. GARDNER.

In a recess by the window,
Where the sunbeams softly play,
Hangs our pretty pet canary,

Singing all the live-long day.
And the turf grows green before him,
And the distant orchards fair,
Opening wide their scented blossoms,
With their perfume fill the air.
Wild birds, flitting by the casement,
Join him in his carols sweet,
Chanting all their woodland music
In the rose-bush at his feet.
With the earliest rosy day-beams
He awakes us with his song;
Buoyant hope and heart-felt gladness
To his gentlest notes belong.

When we strike the sweet chords lightest,

Singing with them soft and low, Then his gay notes thrill the loudest, Then his choicest numbers flow.

E'en the tea-bell's fairy tinkle

Straight inspires his tuneful notes,
And his blithe, ambitious warble
All about the cottage floats.

We have learned, and still are learning,
From our song bird's cheerful lay,
How to span care's evening shadows
With the prism hues of the day,
Brightening with our joyous numbers
What is sorrowful and drear,
Praising God with cheerful anthems
While he bids us tarry here.

NOT HERE.

BY LIZZIE GOULD.

Nor here! not here! earth hath no power to give
The bliss for which our burdened spirits sigh;
For, were it thus, how soon our faith would lose
Its grasp to purer rest beyond the sky!
Hope that is seen no longer nerves the soul

To earnest wrestlings with an angel guest-
Each lofty purpose of the heart is born
In struggling for a good yet unpossessed.
The way to heaven through many a conflict lies-
So has the pilgrim Zionward ever found-
Some lurking foe will ever haunt our path,
While here below we tread enchanted ground.
Just as the eagle stirreth up its nest,

And fluttereth o'er its young-then stoops to bear Them heavenward on its wings, till they shall learn To breast with fearless sweep the upper airSo God, in mercy, mingles grief and pain With every tempting cup of earthly joy, Lest we should cease contending for the crownAll eager to embrace some trifling toy! When from the wearying scenes of life we turn, And lift imploringly our hands to heaven, A pitying arm supports our weakness thenStrength to go onward cheerfully is given. Thrice blest are they who patiently endure, Nor quiver at misfortune's withering breath, Relying on the promise Jesus gave, "Lo I am with you alway unto death."

THE FORGET-ME-NOT.

BY NELLIE S. EASTMAN.

WHEN creation's work was finished,
All the flowers of Eden came,
That they might receive from Adam
For each one befitting name.
When the pleasant task was finished,

And each flower its home had sought,
Adam musing sat, and thinking

Of the charms their beauty wrought.

Then uprose a blue-eyed flow'ret;
Meekly bowing low its head,
"Lord, by what name didst thou call me?
I remember not," it said.

Adam smiling, looked upon it:

"Hast thou then so soon forgot? Be thou mindful; now I give thee For a name, Forget-Me-Not." Penitently it departed

To a gleeful dancing brook,
And beneath a drooping willow
Nestled in a grassy nook.

Now, whene'er we stoop to pluck it,
Blooming in this lovely spot,
'Mid the gushing of the waters
Whispers low, "Forget-Me-Not."

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A CHAPTER ON DEATH.

BY THRACE TALMON.

subject appertains so universally to the interest of readers as death, and yet few delight in its consideration. Even those who are called Christians specifically, too often are less pleased in the contemplation of this event, than in many another which belongs to life.

One reason of this is, that such do not think enough of death, or rightly when they do think of it. They regard it as a dread, an awful something, which changes our countenance and sends us away to be seen on earth no more forever which introduces us to a distant world where we receive admission to await the final judgment at the last day.

In reality death is but the transition era from one state of existence to another, and that other, as we hold, is not determined by a change in the heart effected years previously without being evidenced by a corresponding life; nor simply by what is called a death-bed repentance. Death brings no real change to our real life-we do not mean our apparent, exterior life as it appears to the world-but that inner, heart-expedence known only to God. As the tree falleth, there it lies. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. A dangerous, evil doctrine is it that one may be converted, and afterward, sin as he will, he is sure of the final awards of the elect. The fruits of this belief are seen constantly to be a reproach to religion and a curse to the world. My reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

into heaven, many heavens or spheres of bliss, and many degrees of receptivity of that bliss.

Not all Christians die as do those most eminent for lives of irreproachable purity, and abounding in good works. Hence, we have ever before us the highest object for a good life-even that we may die a glorious death and receive an abundant entrance into heaven." We never behold Christians who have lived with but a tithe of their hearts in the service of Christ, die like a Baxter, a Wesley, or a Payson. There are no mistakes in the revelations of death. Although the wicked are said to have no bands' in their death, they had no bands in their life. They lived in a state of religious darkness, and only awoke to the great truths of life and immortality, in the light which radiates from the throne of God, bringing to their clear recognition, their own hearts and their willful blindness against the light which lighteth every man that cometh into | the world.

A man whose life has been devoted to his own selfish aggrandizement at the expense of his neighbors' good, albeit his professions may be the loudest in the Church, and he may do many wonderful works to be seen of men, he will not die the glorious death of the righteous or reap their infinitely-glorious awards. He will be unjust still. So they whose lives bring forth good fruits of love, charity, long-suffering, etc., however humble and unnoticed they may be on earth, will be admitted to the society of those high and holy angels in heaven, with them to continue their blessed ministrations in the service of Christ. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"

So long as we are in the world, evil spirits surround the soul to tempt it away from God and the right. Subtilely they aim to draw off the thoughts and consequently the life from good, by attacking weak points, salient angles, and undeIt is only the wicked who need fear death. fended ground of the heart. We are ever perThose whose central purpose of life is to glorify fectly free to withstand them, free to seek the God, who love and trust in him, should contem- strength of God to perfect our weakness, and free plate this event as the brightest, most delightful, to persevere even to the end. God has vouchmost glorious of all events, of which it is possi- safed the holy ministry of his angels to also asble for the finite mind to conceive. No subject sist and comfort us. "Their angels do always should have for them equal attraction. Instead behold the face of my Father." "In all their of shrouding ourselves in the blackness of woe, affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his when we lose a beloved and pious friend, whose presence saved them." With the sovereignty of life gave good evidence of a saving faith in God, God, in which every one who contemplates his as much as in us is the power, we should rejoice character and attributes must fully believe, we with the joy of angels when a saint is welcomed have nothing to do, except to rejoice and trust, into the kingdom of heaven. The Scriptures more than a child with the right of the parent to give repeated assurance that there is mercy for order and appoint its daily routine of life. Those the wicked who call upon God, even in the latest who believe in an overruling and special Provihour. But there are many kinds of entrancedence, are ever persons of greatest action. Those

VOL. XX.-46

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Christians are most faithful who have the firmest faith in God, that he overrules all things according to the counsel of his own will.

To inquire into the exact connection between God's sovereignty and man's freedom is impious. This is one of the "mysteries" of godliness to be unfolded to us in eternity. Did we understand it, we should be as gods. We can never solve this problem more than that contained in the union of mind and matter and their dissolution at death. It is enough for us to know that we live in a world of sin, and must pass out of it through the gate of death--that there is a way provided for our acceptance in heaven; and that we are accountable for our choice or rejection of this way.

Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We must believe on him, or all our righteousnesses are vain; our lives, however fair, are a failure, and our deaths but the sequel to such lives. If we have been in the habit of loving him and communing with him, we believe that he will appear for us in the hour of death and go with us through its deepest waters. We make no new acquaintances, form no new friendships in our last hours. If, in our lives, we have been strangers to the Savior and his holy angels, we can not expect to depend on their love and care at a moment's warning. If we choose the society of evil thoughts which are prompted by evil spirits through our lives, we must have them with us in our deaths to carry us to their own place.

Hence, we are in death as in life-"the ruling passion strong in death"-only in some instances the vail of mortality has partially fallen away in this world, revealing to the spiritual vision a glimpse of the things which must shortly come to pass, whether of glory or misery.

same glorious and dazzling perfections, which now only serve to kindle my affections into a flame, and to melt down my soul into the same blessed image, would burn and scorch me, like a consuming fire, if I were an impenitent sinner."

Witness the last hour of another eminent man-far more eminent in the world than the preceding the German Goethe. He avows himself, that in his seventh year his confidence in God as a moral governor was shaken if not destroyed, owing to the great earthquake at Lisbon. From this he proceeded into a confirmed infidel, or perhaps atheist. By a closed window in a city of his native land he sat, while death was ending a career brilliant with worldly honors and attainments. He had no guide but philosophy and his own will. Apparently he saw nothing beyond the dark valley before him. "Open the shutters and let in more light," were his last words.

Among the latest thoughts of Byron were those of his injured wife and child. "O my poor dear child!" he exclaimed to his confidential servant. "My dear Ada! My God! could I but have seen her! Give her my blessing, and my dear sister Augusta and her children; and you will go to Lady Byron and say-tell her every thing-you are friends with her." Such thoughts had probably troubled him before.

For some years previous to his death Campbell had become indifferent to posthumous fame. In 1838 he said to some friends, "When I think of the existence which shall commence when the stone is laid over my head, how can literary fame appear to me, to any one, but as nothing? I believe when I am gone, justice will be done to me in this way—that I was a pure writer. It is an inexpressible comfort, at my time of life, to be able to look back and feel that I have not written one line against religion or virtue."

The last declaration of Schiller was, "that many things were growing plain and clear to his understanding."

This was eminently true of Dr. Payson at the close of his life. "While speaking of the rapturous views he had of the heavenly world," says his biographer, "he was asked if it did not seem almost like the clear light of vision rather than of faith." "O!" he replied, "I don't know-it When Louis XV was near his last hour he is too much for the poor eyes of my soul to bear! saw nothing beyond the influence of his own dethey are almost blinded with excessive bright-parture. His last words were, "After me the ness. All I want is to be a mirror, to reflect deluge," prophetically alluding to the coming some of those rays to those around me. My soul, deluge of blood. instead of growing weaker and more languishing as my body does, seems to be endued with an angel's energies, and to be ready to break from the body, and join those around the throne."

Again he said, "Hitherto I have viewed God as a fixed star, bright indeed, but often intercepted by clouds; but now he is coming nearer and nearer, and spreads into a sun, so vast and glorious that the sight is too dazzling for flesh and blood to sustain. I see clearly that all these

A little before the death of Matthew Henry he said to a friend, "A life spent in the service of God and communion with him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that any one can live in this world."

"My friend, the artery ceases to beat," said Haller, the great physiologist, to his physician, while feeling his own pulse, and died. At the moment of his death Roscommon repeated two lines of his own version of "Dies Irae." Ad

dison's dying words to his son-in-law were perfectly in character-"Behold with what tranquillity a Christian can die." The dying words of Cardinal Beaufort, who was accused of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester, were, "And must I, then, die? Will not all my riches save me? I could purchase a kingdom if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing death!" "Head of the army," were the last words of the greatest of all military chiefs, Napoleon I.

Archimedes was so intent on the demonstration of a geometrical problem, during the sacking of Syracuse, that he was deliberately draw ing his lines in his closet, when a soldier rushed into his apartment and held a sword to his throat. "Hold, friend," said Archimedes, "for one moment, and my demonstration will be finished." The soldier, struck with his intrepidity, resolved to present him to the proconsul. But the great man selecting a small box of mathematical and astronomical instruments, which the soldier presumed contained gold, could not escape the temptation of his captor to kill him on the spot. Brave men are likewise brave in their deaths. When the Marquis of Montrose was sentenced by his judges to have his limbs nailed to the gates of four cities, he said that he was sorry he had not limbs sufficient to be nailed to all the gates of the cities in Europe, as monuments of his loyalty, and on his way to execution he rendered this thought into beautiful verse. The Mexican hero exclaimed on his dying-bed of live coals, "I now repose on a bed of flowers." When Lucan had his veins opened by order of Nero, he expired reciting a passage from one of his own books in which he had described a dying soldier. Socrates also died with equal bravery after drinking the bowl of hemlock.

Men, curious concerning favorite points, have also betrayed the ruling passion in their last hours. The great critic Malherbe when dying reprimanded his nurse for using a solecism in her language; and exclaimed to his confessor, who was endeavoring to direct him to the glories of heaven, "Hold your tongue-your wretched style only makes me out of conceit with them." Pere Bonhours, who paid the most careful attention to the minutiae of words, called out to his friends when dying, "Je vas, ou je vais mourir; l'un ou l'autre se dit!" Every one who has read the closing scene in the life of John Randolph, remembers his correction of his physician, who read to him, at his request, on the evening before his death. The doctor pronounced "omnipotence" with a full sound on the penultimate, and "impetus" with the e long. Mr. Randolph immediately presented the errors, and argued them clear. De Lagny, who had a great taste

for mathematics, when he lost the recognition of his friends in dying, was asked, by way of experiment, the square of 12. He quickly answered, "144."

Treasured in the heart of every one is the death-bed scene of one or more of the beloved! gone from earth. It may be the mother, our dearest friend we ever knew, or the strong, noblehearted father, the young and beautiful sister, the student brother, or the little boy-the sweet, laughing pet who brought sunshine into the house and carried it out under the lid of his little narrow bed. At twilight, "ere the evening lamps are lighted," we look at the sweet, sad picture of the last scene in memory, once again and again, till the sighs well up from our hearts and we exclaim, "Dear ones! why could they not have been spared!"

But when we listen to the good angels who whisper holy consolations to our hearts, we hear that they have only gone a little while before us, and are so infinitely better conditioned than ourselves, we can not wish them back again in this world of sin and change.

Between the leaves of our life's book let us press these memories, as flowers, once sweet and beautiful, but now faded and passed to the semblance only of what they were; and when weary with the new scenes of new pages of existence, we will cast backward long and tender looks, mindful of what they once were to us and the world around them, what they are now, and of what we, too, must become. "He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down." This solemn and beautiful dirge for all the living we do not appropriate to ourselves. We live—build, make, buy, and plan as though we had a lease of mortal existence for centuries, unmindful how soon will be filled the allotted measure of our days. When we are disappointed in any expectation, too apt are we to lay it to heart, as though the cross were to be borne forever-and when we are elated with prosperity, we are not less prone to carry ourselves as though we were to rejoice always in our portion of earthly good.

"This night thy soul shall be required of thee," is not only true of him to whom the words were addressed, but of many another in the midst of years and tendril-plants clinging tenaciously to life. There is no method in the time of death. We may insure our lives; we may avail ourselves of every possibility to insure health and longevity, and find all our calculations vain.

The great end of life should be preparation for death, that whether it come to us to-day, to-morrow, or some other day, we may be willing to go to that "undiscovered country" where our blessed Savior is, and many beloved friends with whom

we once took sweet counsel. It should be a joyful thing for us to contemplate death, and then at last a glorious thing to die-to throw off this poor mortality and become an angel. An angel of heaven! What words can picture the fullness of that joy!

simply mental improvement, a more attentive hearer is seldom found. One could hardly look at him, so dignified in deportment and so comely in person, or contemplate him in his ardent pursuit of knowledge, without thinking of the young man in the Gospel whom Jesus "loved." But Wilber was now approaching a crisis in his moral history. After he had been about a year and a

PASSAGES IN THE EARLY LIFE OF PRESI- half in the Cazenovia Seminary, that place was

YOUR

DENT WILBER.

BY REV. Z. PADDOCK, D. d.

OUR portrait, Mr. Editor, of the late President WILBER, and especially as it is accompanied by a very suitable memoir, can hardly fail to give much satisfaction to the numerous patrons of the Repository. The likeness, I can not doubt, is a good one. For though it is full twenty years since I last saw him, I at once recognize in it an exact outline of my old friend. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin, the forehead are all his; and, making allowance for the inevitable changes of time, the general expression must be admitted to be remarkably correct; while the artistic execution is every way creditable to your engraver.

favored with one of the most glorious revivals that has ever fallen under my observation. Not less than 300 souls were converted to God in the course of eight weeks. The Seminary itself was, however, the focal point of gracious influences. All of the students, male and female, save perhaps two or three young men, who, unable to stand before the sweeping tide, packed their trunks and fled, were inducted into the evangelical kingdom. For days together recitations were, wholly or in part, suspended, so that undivided attention might be given to the one thing needful. The permanent results were most salutary. No less than fourteen of the young men, then and there made' new creatures in Christ, have since become ministers of the Gospel, and sev eral of them presidents of literary institutions.

Young Wilber was among the first subjects of this work of grace; and having himself found the blessing of divine forgiveness, he became one of the most active and successful laborers, es

But enough about the picture. Perhaps, however, a little addendum to your notice of President Wilber may not be either unacceptable or unprofitable to your readers. I happen to have been personally acquainted with his early relig-pecially so far as the school was concerned. One | ious history, and am inclined to think that a brief allusion to some passages in it may do good. I first became acquainted with him in the summer of 1827, at Rochester, New York. Being stationed in that place as the successor of the Rev. John Dempster, I found young Wilber a member of the congregation. He may have been, at an earlier day, an agriculturist; but at the time referred to he was a journeyman cordwainer, in the twenty-second year of his age. Though a stranger to experimental religion, he was a remarkably-steady attendant at the house of worship, and in other respects a young man of unexceptionable moral habits. Determined to obtain a good education, he laid every thing under contribution to that object. He toiled hard, and hoarded every penny he honorably could. His plan was understood, and special facilities were afforded him for carrying it into execution.

At the end of two years I was removed from Rochester to Cazenovia; and about the same time Wilber found himself in possession of sufficient means to justify him in coming to that place as a student in the Oneida Conference Seminary. Here, therefore, I again met his intelligent face in the house of God. Though his object was

case with which he was specially connected deserves particular notice. At the time of the revival a young man by the name of John Wadsworth Tyler, in consequence of the illness of Principal Smith-since President of Wesleyan University was acting Principal. With him Wilber was very familiar. Tyler was not only a young man of fine scholarship, but of unblamable moral habits. So far as the mere form is concerned, he was indeed even religious; taking his regular turn in conducting chapel and table service, and the like. As he himself expressed it, he was always "ready to give his influence in favor of religion." At the commencement of the revival he professed much gratification in seeing it, and hoped it would be general. As it progressed, however, it was easy to see that he was not a little disturbed, and especially when he saw it was coming nearer and nearer to him. The elder students were rapidly "falling into line" as disciples of the Savior, and at once began to evince a deep solicitude for the salvation of the young Principal. This evidently annoyed him. At a moment of great interest in one of our most powerful meetings, I saw his friend Wilber go to him, and, throwing his arm around his neck, entreat him to come forward to the al

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