SONNET.

GIVE me the broad, green fields, the open skies,
The unsullied breath of heaven;- I will not seek
For wealth or power, well knowing that a meek
And quiet soul makes its own Paradise.
The clouds shall be my gorgeous draperies,
Nature my chamber, wherein God doth speak,
Clearly from shadowy vale or mountain peak,
Into my soul, in secret harmonies.

The world is truly his, whom Life has taught
To deem hours better spent in earnest thought,
Than watching the vain shadows Time may throw.
Truth, whose shrined image sage and bard have sought,
He, who denies himself, alone can know;

While we forget ourselves, doth God within us grow.

THE SERAPH VISITANT.

BY CAROLINE GILMAN.

ONE pleasant August afternoon, the clerk of a church in one of our cities, requested his nephew Hubert to procure a scarf, accidentally left by a young lady in a pew in the broad aisle. Hubert had always felt a reverence for churches, and when a boy, trotting after his uncle on some occasional mission before or after service, instinctively doffed his cap and trod on tiptoe.

On the present occasion, as he inserted the large key in the lock of the porch door, he dwelt on the description of the scarf, "white gauze, with a border of roses;" but he had scarcely entered the building, before his old feelings of veneration revived, and he looked upward as for a blessing. As he glanced through the aisle, the glowing rays of the setting sun went about touching pillar and cornice, and giving, like christianity itself, a glory to things perishable.

After a short search, he found the pew specified. The scarf had caught against the button of the door, and hung there the pure, fresh-looking scarf, with its border of roses. As he took it in his hand, he began to think of the throat it had encircled- one of those aristocratic, swan-like throats, that seem made for white gauze. He went upward from the throat, and remembered the heedful eyes that were often, from Sabbath to Sabbath, upturned in devotion. He handled the scarf

reverently, and its folds felt almost human. He entered the pew, and opening a hymn-book, saw the name of Evelyth CIt was a musical name, and he uttered it aloud in the deep stillness. Being romantic, he began to grow rapturous, when his eyes were arrested by a love-couplet, that seemed extracted from Moore, while initials and scrawls, that showed those dewy eyes were not always upward, defaced the blank leaves of the hymn-book.

He closed the volume, and felt disappointed - a sentiment like that which penetrates us when we call a friend to see a shooting star, and it has gone.

Turning musingly towards the porch, Hubert was startled by a gentle fluttering of wings, and there floated by a creature, flashing bright and seraph-like. He heeded not the youth, but hurried to his own embassy. First, the airy creature paused at the pew, from whence Hubert had reclaimed the scarf, and took the hymn-book of Evelyth in his hands. A shade passed over his heavenly brow, as he opened it, there was a pause, he sighed, breathed lightly on the sullied leaf, and as he held it up, Hubert saw it unsoiled, stainless.

Threading from pew to pew, Hubert watched the transitions of his glorious face, as he pursued his task, frowningly erasing the vulgar scrawl, or worldly calculation. But beautiful was the smile, (Hubert knew he would smile,) when one hymn-book, marked only by religious impulse, was opened to his view. He touched his forehead to the pure page, and left his blessing upon it.

But what has angered him? Hubert saw him bend over the miserable caricatures and profane witticisms of

one, who, heedless himself of religious services, loved to spread the contamination of his irreverent mind around him. Beautiful, and holy, and just was his seraphic anger, as his spiritual breath cleansed even that deep stain of mental impurity.

Swiftly the angel pursued his task, flitting over the wide building until his floating robe was lost in twilight, and Hubert heard his musical wings sounding over the books of the choir.

Go, ye, whose churches are not blessed by the angel, and erase of yourselves the debasing marks of irreverence and impiety in places dedicated to the Almighty.

WHERE IS PEACE!

BY PARK BENJAMIN.

Он, where is peace? I asked my heart,—it echoed Only the mournful question, -"where is peace?' Is there a spot among these earthly regions,

Where yearnings of the soul and troubles cease?

I went to History and conned its pages,

And most of these were deeply dyed in blood; I found but scenes succeeding scenes of contest, And strife and passion, since the avenging flood.

I sent Reflection over the world's wide waters,
And vainly sought an olive leaf to find,
Whose tender green should tell of grief subsiding,
And some high place of safety for the mind.

There is no peace, — it is the prize which sages
Cannot attain, with all their studious lore,
They waste the lamp of life till death approaches,
And are at last no wiser than before.

There is no peace,— 't is not in wealth or splendour, Success, dominion, revelry, or pride;

Nor in thy laurels, gratified ambition!

Nor yet with happy love doth peace reside.