joyful news has been but faintly heard, now at this late day, and before it be for them for ever too late, now let this gracious "Scripture be fulfilled in their ears." The following gentlemen will receive donations for this Society, or the subcriptions of such persons as wish to become members, viz. Henry M'Farlan, 12 Vesey street; Henry Barelay, 7 Broad-street; Thomas N. Stanford, 99 Pearl-street; Don Alonzo Cushman, treasurer, 183 Broadway. The sum of two dollars constitutes an annual member, and thirty dollars a member for life. Ladies become subscribers on paying one dollar per annum. Officers.-The Right Rev. Bishop Hebart, ex officio president; Henry M'Farlan, 1st vice president; David R. Lambert, 2d vice president; Henry Barclay, 3d vice president: Thomas N. Stanford, 4th vice president; J. Smyth Rogers, 5th vice-president; D. A. Cushman, treasurer; Floyd Smith, corresponding secretary; William R. Smith and Robert Thomas, recording secretaries. Managers-John Watts, M. D. Richard Whiley, Cornelius R. Duffie, David Clarks, Robert Hyslop, Samuel W. Moore, M.D. Henry A. Ten Broeck, Charles W. Sandford, John W. Kearney, Morris Robinson, Edward Delafield, M. D. Hubert Van Wagenen, Edward Lyde, Hezekiah Wheeler, John H. Hill, John Atkinson, William Proctor, Gerardus Clark, Samuel Jarvis, Jacob Stont, jun. Peter Lorillard, William Weyman, Marinus Willet, jun. Meekness of Spirit. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever. Deut. xxix. 29. Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. St. Matt. v. 3. HAPPY is that meekness and poverty of spirit, which industriously declines the rugged thorny paths of controversy and captious disputes, and walks in the plain smooth way of duty and practical religion; which studies God's commands, and labours to understand things of a size with its own capacity, without troubling itself about His doings and decrees. Too many instances there are of daring men, who, by presuming to sound the deep things of religion, have cavilled and argued themselves out of all religion. These men mistake their business; for the thing required of a Christian, is not penetration and subtilty of wit, nice distinctions, or sublime notions; but victorious faith, and an honest holy life; sobriety and temperance, and chastity, justice and charity, piety and devotion.-New Week's Preparat. VOL. VI. For the Christian Journal. FATHER SOUTHwell. THE following beautiful and instructive lines were written by Robert Southwell, in the reign of Elizabeth. He was a Catholic, and what was still more criminal in the eyes of the English government, he was a Jesuit. He was born in 1562, of a respectable Catholic family in Norfolk, and sent to the English college at Douay for his education; from whence he went to Rome, and at the early age of sixteen was received into the order of the society of Jesuits. In 1584 he returned a missionary priest into his native country. Labouring diligently in his vocation until the year 1592, he was apprehended at a gentleman's house at Uxenden, in Middlesex, and committed to a dungeon in the tower, so noisome and filthy, that when brought out for examination, his clothes were covered with vermin. After a confinement of three years, at his own and the importunity of his friends, he was brought to trial, and convicted on his own confession, under the indictment of the statute of 27 Eliz. cap. 2, which enacted, "That every Popish priest, born in the dominions of the crown of England, who should come. over thither from beyond sea, (unless driven by stress of weather, and tarrying only a reasonable time,) or should be in England three days without conforming and taking the oaths, should be guilty of high treason." On being asked whether he had any thing more to say why sentence should not be pronounced against him, he replied, "Nothing, but, from my heart I forgive all who have been any way accessory to my death." The judge (Lord chief justice Popham) having pronounced sentence according to the usual form, Father Southwell made him a low bow, returning him thanks as for an especial favour. The next morning he was drawn through the streets on a sledge to Tyburn, where a great concourse of people had assembled to witness his execution. By the unskilfulness of the executioner, it was some time before he was strangled. He was afterwards cut down, bowelled and quartered.-So perished Father Southwell, at the early age of 33 years; and 31 For the Christian Journal. Anniversary Address of a Husband to his Wife, on the 29th year of their marriage. Written at a new settlement in the interior of the State of New-York, to which they had removed from New-Jersey. Once more my muse extend thy wing, Thy untuned harp has still one string What though thou canst not, as of yore, (Like nightingales, who sing and soar,) Will still thy song approve. With grateful hearts let us retrace What raptures glow'd in each fond breast, To teach them virtue as they grew, Kind Providence around us shed Our board with plenty still was spread, Oft did our social circle meet, With grace did While sense and virtue form'd the treat Our Sabbaths then were solemn days With hearts attuned to prayer ând praise, Nor were our pleasures e'er confined, Still shared our food, or pelf. Year after year thus slid away, As downward life we trod; But nothing stable here we find; Our friends-they fade and die! The home which we so long possess❜d, And now o'er many mountains high, But O! how cheerless was the place, When first it met your eyes! Anguish was painted in your face, Your bosom heaved with sighs. Ah! then it seem'd as though each joy But he, who rules the raging seas, The mountains now less rugged seem, And feast on that which ne'er can cloy- When, dress'd in youthful charms, Our part fulfil, till life's last hour, And find that Christ hath sovereign power, (From "Lights and Shades of Scottish Life.") The Elder's Funeral. How beautiful to the eye and to the heart rise up, in a pastoral region, the green silent hills from the dissolving snow-wreaths that yet linger at their feet! A few warm sunny days, and a few breezy and melting nights, have seemed to create the sweet season of Spring out of the Winter's bleakest desolation. We can scarcely believe that such brightness of verdure could have been shrouded in the snow, blending itself, as it now does, so vividly with the deep blue of heaven. With the revival of nature our own souls feel re stored. Happiness becomes milder, meeker, and richer in pensive thought; while sorrow catches a faint tinge of joy, and reposes itself on the quietness of earth's opening oreast. Then is youth rejoicing, manhood sedate, and old age resigned. The child shakes his golden curls in his glee; he of riper life hails the coming year with temperate exultation; and the eye that has been touched with dimness, in the general spirit of delight forgets, or fears not the shadows of the grave. On such a vernal day as this did we, who had visited the Elder on his deathbed, walk together to his house in the Hazel-Glen, to accompany his body to the place of burial. On the night he died it seemed to be the dead of Winter. On the day he was buried it seemed to be the birth of Spring. The old Pastor and I were alone for a while as we pur sued our path up the glen, by the banks of the little burn. It had cleared itself off from the melted snow, and ran so pellucid a race, that every stone and pebble was visible in its yellow channel. The willows, the alders, and the birches, the fairest and the earliest of our native hill trees, seemed almost tinged with a verdant light, as if they were budding; and beneath them, here and there, peeped out, as in the pleasure of new existence, the primrose lonely, or in little families and flocks. The bee had not yet ventured to leave his cell, yet the flowers reminded one of his murmur. A few insects were dancing in the air, and here and there some little moorland bird, touched at the heart with the warm sunny change, was piping his love-sweet song among the braes. It was just such a day as a grave meditative man, like him we were about to inter, would have chosen to walk over his farm in religious contentment with his lot. That was the thought that entered the Pastor'sheart, as we paused to enjoy one brighter gleam of the sun in a little meadow-field of peculiar beauty. "This is the last day of the week”—and on that day often did the Elder walk through this little happy kingdom of his own, with some of his grandchildren beside and around him, and often his Bible in his hand. "It is, you feel, a solitary place all the vale is one seclusion-and often have its quiet bounds been a place of undisturbed meditation and prayer." We now came in sight of the cottage, and beyond it the termination of the glen. There the high hills came sloping gently down; and a little waterfall, in the distance, gave animation to a scene of perfect repose. We were now joined by various small parties coming to the funeral through openings among the hills; all sedate, but none sad, and every greeting was that of kindness and peace. The Elder had died full of years; and there was no need why any out of his own household should weep. A long life of piety had been beautifully closed; and, therefore, we were all going to commit the body to the earth, assured, as far as human beings may be so assured, that the soul was in heaven. As the party increased on our approach to the house, there was even cheerfulness among us. We spoke of the early and bright promise of spring of the sorrows and the joys of other families of marriages and births of the new schoolmaster-of to-morrow's Sabbath. There was no topic of which, on any common occasion, it might have been fitting to speak, that did not now perhaps occupy for a few moments, some one or other of the group, till we found ourselves ascend-he end his prayer without some allusion ing the green sward before the cottage, and stood below the bare branches of the sycamores. Then we were all silent, and, after a short pause, reverently entered into the house of death. tremulous and broken, not in grief but age, that no sooner had he begun to pray, than every heart and every breath at once were hushed. All stood motionless, nor could one eye abstain from that placid and patriarchal countenance, with its closed eyes, and long silvery hair. There was nothing sad in his words, but they were all humble and solemn, and at times even joyful in the kindling spirit of piety and faith. He spoke of the dead man's goodness as imperfect in the eyes of his Great Judge, but such, as we were taught, might lead, through intercession, to the kingdom of heaven. Might the blessing of God, he prayed, which had so long rested on the head now coffined, not forsake that of him who was now to be the father of this house. There was more-more joy, we were told, in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Fervently, too, and tenderly, did the old man pray for her, in her silent chamber, who had lost so kind a parent, and for all the little children round her knees. Nor did At the door the son received us with a calm, humble, and untroubled face; and in his manner towards the old Minister, there was something that could not be misunderstood, expressing penitence, gratitude, and resignation. We all sat down in the large kitchen; and the son decently received each person at the door, and showed him to his place. There were some old grey heads -more becoming grey-and many bright in manhood and youth. But the same solemn hush was over them all; and they sat all bound together in one uniting and assimilating spirit of devotion and faith. Wine and bread was to be sent round-but the son looked to the old Minister, who rose, lifted up his withered hand, and began a blessing and a prayer. There was so much composure and stillness in the old man's attitude, and something so affecting in his voice, to his own grey hairs, and to the approaching day on which many then present would attend his burial. Just as he ceased to speak, one solitary stifled sob was heard, and all eyes turned kindly round to a little boy who was standing by the side of the Elder's son. Restored once more to his own father's love, his heart had been insensibly filled with peace since the old man's death. The returning tenderness of the living came in place of that of the dead, and the child yearned towards his father now with a stronger affection, relieved at last from all his fear. He had been suffered to sit an hour each day beside the bed on which his grandfather lay shrouded, and he had got reconciled to the cold, but silent and happy looks of death. His mother and his Bible told him to obey God without repining in all things; and the child did so with perfect simpli city. One sob had found its way at the close of that pathetic prayer; but the tears that bathed his glistening cheeks were far different from those that, on the day and night of his grand father's decease, had burst from the agony of a breaking heart. The old Minister laid his hand silently upon his golden head-there was a momentary murmur of kindness and pity over the room-the child was pacified-and again all was repose and peace. A sober voice said that all was ready, and the son and the Minister led the way reverently out into the open air. The bier stood before the door, and was lifted slowly up with its sable pall. Silently each mourner took his place. The sun was shining pleasantly, and a gentle breeze passing through the sycamore, shook down the glittering raindrops upon the funeral velvet. The small procession, with an instinctive spirit, began to move along; and, as I cast up my eyes to take a farewell look of that beautiful dwelling, now finally left by him who so long had blessed it, I saw, at the half open lattice of the little bed-room window above, the pale weeping face of that stainless matron, who was taking her last passionate farewell of the mortal remains of her father, now slowly receding from her to the quiet field of graves. We proceeded along the edges of the hills, and along the meadow-fields, crossed the old wooden-bridge over the burn, now widening in its course to the plain, and in an hour of pensive silence, or pleasant talk, we found ourselves entering, in a closer body, the little gateway of the church-yard. To the tolling of the bell we moved across the green mounds, and arranged ourselves, according to the plan and order which our feelings suggested, around the bier and its natural supporters. There was no delay. In a few minutes the Elder was laid among the mould of his forefathers, in their long-ago chosen spot of rest. One by one the people dropt away, and none were left by the new made grave but the son and his little boy, the Pastor and myself. As yet nothing was said, and in that pause I looked around me, over the sweet burial ground. Each tombstone and grave over which I had often walked in boyhood, arose in my memory, as I looked steadfastly upon their long-forgotten inscriptions; and many had since then been 1 erected. The whole character of the place was still simple and unostentatious, but from the abodes of the dead, I could see that there had been an improvement in the condition of the lixing. There was a taste visible in their decorations, not without much of native feeling, and occasionally something even of native grace. If there was any other inscription than the name and age of the poor inhabitants below, it was in general some short text of Scripture; for it is most pleasant and soothing to the pious mind, when bereaved of friends, to commemorate them on earth by some touching expression taken from that book, which reveals to them a life in heaven. There is a sort of gradation, a scale of forgetfulness, in a country churchyard, where the processes of nature are suffered to go on over the green place of burial, that is extremely affecting in the contemplation. The soul goes from the grave just covered up, to that which seems scarcely joined together, on and on to those folded and bound by the undisturbed verdure of many many unremembered years. It then glides at last into nooks and corners where the ground seems perfectly calm and waveless, utter oblivion having smoothed the earth over the long-mouldered bones. Tombstones on which the inscriptions are hidden in green obliteration, or that are mouldering, or falling to a side, are close to others which last week were brushed by the chisel :-constant renovation, and constant decay-vain attempts to adhere to memory-and oblivion now baffled and now triumphant, smiling among all the memorials of human affection, as they keep continually crumbling away into the world of un distinguishable dust and ashes. The church-yard, to the inhabitants of a rural parish, is the place to which, as they grow older, all their thoughts and feelings turn. The young take a look of it every Sabbath Day, not always perhaps a careless look, but carry away from it, unconsciously, many salutary impressions. What is more pleasant than the meeting of a rural congregation in the church-yard before the Minister appears? What is there to shudder at in lying down, sooner or |