"PEACE-BE STILL."1

When on his mission from his home in heaven,
In the frail bark the Saviour deigned to sleep;
The tempest rose-with headlong fury driven,

The wave-tossed vessel whirled along the deep: Wild shrieked the storm amid the parting shrouds, And the vex'd billows dashed the darkening clouds.

Ah! then, how futile human skill and power-
"Save us! we perish in the o'erwhelming wave,"
They cried, and found, in that tremendous hour,
"An eye to pity, and a hand to save."
He spoke, and lo! obedient to his will,
The raging waters and the winds were still.

And thou, poor trembler on life's stormy sea!
Where dark the waves of sin and sorrow roll,
To Him for refuge from the tempest flee-

To Him, confiding, trust the sinking soul:
For oh! He came to calm the tempest toss'd,
To seek the wandering and to save the lost.
For thee, and such as thee, impelled by love,
He left the mansions of the blest on high;
Mid sin, and pain, and grief, and fear, to move-
With lingering anguish and with shame, to die.
The debt to justice, boundless mercy paid,
For hopeless guilt complete atonement made.

Oh! in return for such surpassing grace,

Poor, blind, and naked, what canst thou impart ? Canst thou no offering on His altar place?

Yes, lowly mourner! give him all thy heart:
That simple offering he will not disown-
That living incense may approach his throne.

He asks not herds, and flocks, and seas of oil-
No vain oblations please the all-knowing Mind;
But the poor, weary, sin-sick, spent with toil,
Who humbly seek it shall deliverance find:
Like her, the sufferer, who in secret stole
To touch his garment, and at once was whole.

Oh, for a voice of thunder! which might wake
The slumbering sinner, ere he sink in death;
Oh, for a tempest, into dust to shake

His sand-built dwelling, while he yet has breath!

'Lines occasioned by reading Matt. viii. 24-26.

A viewless hand, to picture on the wall
His fearful sentence, ere the curtain fall.

Child of the dust! from torpid ruin rise-
Be earth's delusions from thy bosom hurled ;
And strive to measure with enlightened eyes

The dread importance of the eternal world.
The shades of night are gathering round thee fast-
Arise to labor ere thy day be past!

In darkness tottering on the slippery verge
Of frail existence, soon to be no more;
Death's rude, tempestuous, ever-nearing surge
Shall quickly dash thee from the sinking shore.
But ah! the secrets of the following day

What tongue shall utter, or what eye survey!

Oh! think in time, then, what the meek inherit-What the peace-maker's, what the mourner's part; The allotted portion of the poor in spirit

The promised vision of the pure in heart. For yet in Gilead there is balm to spare, And prompt to succor a Physician there.

A MORNING HYMN.

Arise, my soul! with rapture rise,
And, filled with love and fear, adore

The awful Sov'reign of the skies,

Whose mercy lends me one day more.

And may this day, indulgent Power!
Nor idly pass, nor fruitless be;
But may each swiftly flying hour
Advance my soul more nigh to Thee.

But can it be that Power divine,

Whose throne is light's unbounded blaze,
While countless worlds and angels join
To swell the glorious song of praise,

Will deign to lend a favoring ear

When I, poor abject mortal, pray?
Yes, boundless Goodness! he will hear,
Nor cast the meanest wretch away.

Then let me serve thee all my days,
And may my zeal with years increase;
For pleasant, Lord! are all thy ways,

And all thy paths are paths of peace.

JAMES MADISON, 1751-1836.

JAMES MADISON, the fourth President of the United States, was born in Orange County, Virginia, on the 5th of March (0. S.), 1751. After the usual preparatory studies, he entered Princeton College in 1767, and graduated in 1771. While at college, he studied so intensely as to impair his health, which it took some years to recover after his return home, during which he devoted a portion of his time to reading law and to miscellaneous literature. In 1776, he was elected a member of the General Assembly of his native State. The next year, he was appointed by the Assembly a member of the Council of State, which place he held till 1779, when he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, of which he continued a member till 1784. In 1787, he was elected a member of Congress, and in the same year a delegate to the Convention at Philadelphia, which formed the present Constitution of the United States. Of the debates of this remarkable body, he is the only one that preserved the records, which were published after his death, and are among the most valuable materials of our country's history. In the interval between the close of the Convention and the meeting of the State Conventions to sanction the Federal Constitution, Mr. Madison, in conjunction with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, wrote a series of articles in the public prints, in favor of the Constitution, which were afterwards collected in a volume, entitled "The Federalist," and which, for half a century, was a textbook in our best colleges. On the adoption of the Constitution, he was elected a representative to Congress, and continued a member till 1797, the end of Washington's administration.

On the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the presidency in 1801, Mr. Madison was appointed Secretary of State, which office he held during the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's administration; and in 1809, he succeeded his friend and coadjutor as President of the United States.

Many of the views advocated by Mr. Madison in the Convention for framing the Constitution will ever be an honor to his character. He thought the clause allowing the "importation of such persons as any State might think proper," till 1808, "dishonorable to the American character." And again: "Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."

Of the eighty-five numbers of this work, Hamilton wrote Nos. 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21 to 36 inclusive, 59, 60, 61, and 65 to 85 inclusive, thus writing the st and last number; Madison wrote Nos. 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, 37 to 58 inclusive, and 62 and 63; and Jay, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 64.

After having filled the office for two terms, he retired to his seat, Montpelier, where he passed his remaining years, chiefly as a private citizen, declining political office, except that he acted as visitor and rector of the University of Virginia, and as a member of the State Convention to amend the Constitution of Virginia. He died on the 28th of June, 1836, distinguished for his talents and acquirements, for the important offices which he filled, and for his virtues in private life.

OUR COUNTRY'S RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE WORLD.

Let it be remembered, that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature. By the blessing of the Author of these rights on the means exerted for their defence, they have prevailed over all opposition. *** No instance has heretofore occurred, nor can any instanc@be expected hereafter to occur, in which the unadulterated forms of republican government can pretend to so fair an opportunity of justifying themselves by their fruits. In this view, the citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation, and fulfil the ends of government, be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of Liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed; and an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights of mankind. If, on the other side, our governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them; and their patrons and friends exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation.

AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION.

I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they

may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scenes into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed. in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity. for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the revolution, for which a precedent could not be discovered; had no government been established, of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might, at this moment, have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided counsels; must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel