Such conversation as this took place every day. Simon, and Ruth, and Rebecca, went often to hear the Teacher; for they wanted to know if he was indeed and in truth the Son of God. And, before long, the more they heard, the more they wanted to hear. He preached differently from their priests. "He preached as one having authority, and not as the Scribes," and they said to themselves ::-"Never man spake like this man." They soon became believers. The children all loved Jesus, because he was kind to them. He took them up in his arms and blessed them. They knew that he loved them. And when he saw them engaged in their innocent recreations, and heard their pleasant voices, he did not check them and shroud their faces with gloom, but he commended their simplicity; and when preaching to men and women who were full of deception, who thought that religion consisted in long faces and outward observances, he pointed them to the beauty of childhood, and told them that must be their model if they would enter into the kingdom of Heaven.

Let me relate an incident to show how the children of that day acted.

The child of a Publican, a Roman Tax-gatherer, was walking in one of the streets of Capernaum, on his way home with a basket of fish. He was anxious to get home, for it was growing late. But as he went along, a little boy ran against him, threw him down and scattered all his fishes on the ground. The careless boy, instead of stopping to see if the lad was hurt, and instead of offering to pick up the fishes he had spilt, said to him:-"If you were not the son of a Publican, I should be sorry, but now I am glad; you must now get along how you can, you young taxgatherer." The little Publican, whose arm was hurt in the fall, had his feelings much more hurt by such unkindness. But he wiped the tears from his eyes and commenced to fill his basket.

Just then a little lad came along and assisted him, and when the fishes were all in the basket, he helped him carry them home. The unfortunate boy was so happy at this unexpected kindness that he forgot that his arm was hurt. When he got home, he

told his father the whole story, and he thanked the little Christian for helping his son.

"And why," said he, "did you so gladly help my little boy? You know most every Jew despises a Publican, and will do nothing for him."

“Because," said the good boy, "because when the Saviour was in my father's house, he called me to his side and put his hand on my head, and when he had blessed me, he said if I would be his disciple and the child of God, I must do unto others as I would have others do unto me.-Now if I should be knocked down, I should be grateful to any one who would lend me a helping hand, and that's why I helped your son."

"And what is your name?"

66

My name is John, the son of Simon the Christian."

Under such influences, Simon, Ruth, and all their family, became good Christians, and after Jesus died, always celebrated the anniversary of his birth with grateful hearts.

THE TIMES, THE MANNERS, AND THE MEN.

BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

The times demand new measures and new men;
The world advances, and in time outgrows
The laws that in our fathers' days were best;
And doubtless, after us, some purer scheme
Will be shaped out by wiser men than we,
Made wiser by the steady growth of truth.
We cannot bring Utopia at once;
But better almost be at work in sin,
Than in a brute inaction drowse and sleep.
No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him; there is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil!
The busy world shoves angrily aside
The man who stands with arms akimbo set,

Until occasion tells him what to do ;

And he who waits to have his task marked out,
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds.
Reason and Government, like two broad seas,
Yearn for each other, with outstretched arms,
Across this narrow isthmus of the throne,
And roll their white surf higher every day.
The field lies wide before us where to reap

The easy harvest of a deathless name,

Though with no better sickles than our swords.

My soul is not a palace of the past,

Where out-worn creeds like Rome's gray Senate quake,
Hearing afar the Vandal's trumpet hoarse,
That shakes old systems with a thunder-fit.
The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, for change;
Then let it come. I have no dread of what
Is called for by the instinct of mankind.
Nor think I that God's world will fall apart
Because we tear a parchment more or less.
Truth is eternal, but her effluence,
With endless change is fitted to the hour;
Her mirror is turned forward, to reflect
The promise of the future, not the past.
I do not fear to follow out the truth,
Albeit along the precipice's edge.

Let us speak plain; there is more force in names
Than most men dream of! and a lie may keep
Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk
Behind the shield of some fair seeming name;
Let us call tyrants, TYRANTS, and maintain
That only freedom comes by grace of God,
And all that comes not by his grace must fall;
For men in earnest have no time to waste
In patching fig-leaves for the naked truth.

NEW ORLEANS.

(This and the succeeding sketch were written in 1842 for the Nantucket Inquirer, edited at that time by my gifted friend Hiram B. Dennis. They contain several passages which do not chime with my present thoughts; but thinking that as a whole they might serve to give "variety," if not "spice," to my rather sombre volume, and break up its wearisome mono-tone, I have thought it expedient to give them a place.)

MR. EDITOR :-New Orleans is a place. It reminds you of no other in the wide world. Such a heterogeneous mass of men and women, of bricks and mortar, of sunshine, moonshine, and shade, you never saw. Talk of New York with its splendid nothings; its mixed up population; its curious amalgamations of black, white, grizzle, and grey; its Wall streets and wall flowers; its Broadways leading to destruction, and its narrow ways leading everywhere :-talk of Philadelphia with its grave people, and grave-yards; its brotherly love and sisterly lovers; its regular angles and irregular anglers; its neat people and neat cattle; its uniform streets and multi-form manners:-talk of Boston, the Emporium of letters and writers; its Tri-mont and Tremont; its Washington street and Washington Societies:-talk even of Nantucket, with its bar and bar-gains; its sires and Siasconset; its camels and candles; its pretty girls-but stop, they may not be rivalled:-talk of all these villages, of their charms and charmers!-Good sir, who talks of them, save in dreams, has never seen New Orleans! Here truly is life; and if variety be the spice of life, New Orleans is all-spice.

Here we have the glittering French; the haughty Spanish; the shrewd Yankee; the proud Creole; the musical Italian; the simple Swiss; the sturdy German; the solid Dutchman; the Buck and Buck-eye; Hoosiers and Back-woods-men ;-all jumbled together, so that they out-babel Babel, and (with the assistance of the Jews) present a piece of Mosaic-all set, by the way, in black-which would astonish you.

Come with me down to the "Levee." How quickly you ask:

"how, are you not frightened to have that impetuous and dirtylooking river, running by you, with the full consciousness that it may, in a moment, break down that barrier of mud and pork, and make your whole people a 'floating population'?" No, friends, that river is our best friend. We repose on her bosom in perfect security. Her banks will not break. There is no tide in her affairs which we fear. We are her favorite daughter. Her baptism gave us life. And, in these hardest of times, her waters will be our salvation.

Amazed with the sight, you will ask:-"whence and whither that myriad of boats, puffing and snorting as if impatient to break from the shores?" Faith, it would take long to answer you: they come from every stream of navigable water above us, and around us, for thousands of miles, and never come empty-handed, nor empty-headed.

See the cords of produce piled up around you. Hear the old planks groan and fret beneath the weight of wealth heaped upon. them; hark to the merry chorus of a thousand voices, of every tone and tenor, which from "orient day's uprise" to the setting of the sun, peal forth their song of industry: see and hear all this, and tell me, did you ever know what business life was, before? But let us leave this noisy place.

Come with me, and look at yon lofty palace, with its noble columns which seem as if they were proud of their burden. Look at that lofty dome, so beautiful that to gaze upon it

"The morning hastes to ope its lids."

Mark its harmonious proportions! See how its spacious windows are festooned

"With damask rich, and snowy white,

To mellow mid-day's dazzling light."

And now pass with me through its massive doors;-and after you have examined its splendid apartments, tell me where have you seen the equal of the ST. CHARLES HOTEL in architectural beauty, and elegant arrangement?