TO A BEREAVED FATHER.

I CANNOT, I dare not say, weep not. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, and surely, he allows you to weep; surely, there is a "needs be" that you feel a heaviness under such a trial. But O, let hope and joy mitigate your heaviness. I know not how this, or a former trial, shall work for your good, but it is enough that God knows. He that said, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God," excepts not from this promise the sorest trial. You devoted your son to God; you cannot doubt that he accepted the surrender. If he has been hid in the chamber of the grave from the evil of sin, and from the evil of suffering, let not your eye be evil, when God is good. What you chiefly wished for him, and prayed on his behalf, was spiritual and heavenly blessings. If the greatest thing you wished for is accomplished, at the season and in the manner Infinite Wisdom saw best, refuse not to be comforted; you know not what work and joy have been waiting for him in that world, where God's "servants shall serve him." Should you sorrow immoderately when you have such

ground of hope that he, and his other parent, are rejoicing in what you lament? I know that nature will feel; and I believe suppressing its emotions in such cases is not profitable, either to soul or body; but, I trust, though you mourn, God will keep you from murmuring, and that you shall have to glory in your tribulation andinfirmity, while the power of Christ is manifested thereby.

ERSKINE.

THE DEATH LULLABY.

SLEEP, baby, sleep!
Once more upon my breast
Thine aching head shall rest,
In quiet sleep.

Sleep, baby, sleep!

Sweetly thine eye is closing,
Calmly thou 'rt now reposing,
In slumber deep.

Sleep, angel baby, sleep!

Not in thy cradle bed

Shall rest thy little head,
But with the quiet dead,

In dreamless sleep.

THE ALPINE SHEEP.

AFTER our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death
Like a long twilight haunting lay,

And friends came round with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,
This story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love : –

"They, in the valley's sheltering care,

Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare, The shepherd strives to make them climb,

"To airy shelves of pastures green,

That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean,

And down through mist the sunbeams slide.

"But naught can tempt the timid things That steep and rugged path to try, Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, And seared below the pastures lie,

"Till in his arms their lambs he takes,

Along the dizzy verge to go,

Then, heedless of the lifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rocks and snow.

"And in those pastures lifted fair,

More dewy soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender care, And sheep and lambs together feed.”

This parable, by nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south-wind free
O'er frozen brooks that float unsheathed
From icy thraldom to the sea.

A blissful vision through the night
Would all my happy senses sway,
Of the good shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the stony way.

Holding our little lamb asleep;
And, like the burden of the sea,
Sounded that voice along the deep,
Saying, "Arise, and follow me.”

MRS. MARIA LOWELL.

THE DEATH OF A DAUGHTER.

THE Sweetest voice is hushed,
The loveliest smile is gone;
The foot of Death has crushed

My child-my dearest one.
Was there no other place to tread,
That he must trample on thy head?

That foot is on my heart,

With all its fatal weight
It mangles every part,

And lays me desolate ;

The pain of more than death is mine,
The lighter pang, dear child, was thine.

How drear the household hearth!
How dark is every room!
There is no light on earth,

To dissipate the gloom.

Before we prized them, joys are fled, —
Tears for the living- not the dead.

Away beyond the tomb,

Sweet spirit, thou art flown,
Where loveliness can bloom,

And blighting is unknown;

My faith would trace thine upward way,
And catch of heaven some cheering ray.