THE ORIGIN OF THE ASTER.-LOVE. made my home, the noble forests, the rolling uplands, the fertile valleys, and the rapid streams, form a most delightful combination. This section of Indiana, for fertility, beauty, and health, can hardly be surpassed by any section of country I have ever seen. If you go north or west a few miles you reach the prairie lands, opening a new scene. North of the Wabash, the country puts on a face entirely different from any thing in any other part of the world I have ever 227 thee as these roses and lilies. I cannot tell thee all; but those flowers are not planted in earth, but in the blue ether; they sport not their bright leaves in the sun's bright rays, but in the light of the eyes of God. Nevertheless, I will bring thee the seed of one of our flowers to-morrow; we will plant it in the earth, and who knows what may spring up!" The angel kissed the boy and vanished, and the next morning he returned as he had promised, bear visited. The soil is dry, forming fine roads, anding in his hand a beautiful seed. They planted it in farms easily cultivated. The forests seem like one continued orchard, and the ever-changing variety of prairie, woodland, and lake, might realize one's visions of fairy land. We need in Indiana only the beautiful villages, and the neat farm houses, and the gardens of New England to render the country the most delightful in the world. THE ORIGIN OF THE ASTER.* BY WILLIAM BAXTER. WHEN Our Savior was a child, his Father gave some of his angels the form of children, and sent them down from heaven to play with the infant Jesus and other good children in Jerusalem. It happened one day that little John, who afterward became the beloved disciple, went with one of his heavenly playmates into a beautiful garden. Evening had already closed around them, and the stars came forth, brighter and brighter, in the dark blue heaven, and the angel said to John, "I must now go to sleep." "Where hast thou thy bed, lovely stranger?" said John. "Far away above the stars," answered the angel. "Ah," sighed the child, "I could sleep sweetly, if I were but permitted to go with thee." "There is a couch already prepared for thee above," said the angel, comforting him; "but first, poor child, thou must remain here awhile right wearily." The boy understood not the last words of the angel, and hastily he plucked a few roses and lilies, to give as a sweet memorial to his beloved friend until the next day should bring him back. "Take these flowers," said he to the angel, "and when thou comest again to-morrow, forget me not, but bring me a handful from the bright land above; for surely there you must have larger and more beautiful flowers than we." "We have, indeed," said the angel, "but we cannot bring them down to you. Seest thou the stars which shine in heaven? They are our flowers; but they are so large and bright, that thy small, weak eyes could scarcely look upon them were they as nigh *Translated from the German. the ground, and watered it every morning and evening with fresh water, which the angel always brought in his hands, and then little John told all the good children in Jerusalem, that he had a star-seed planted in his garden, and the children came every day to see if the star had sprung up. And behold, in the autumn, there came forth and bloomed a beautiful variegated flower, of a round form, and the small leaves around the edges were like the rays of a star, and it still retains the heavenly name which the children gave it; for aster, when translated, means a star. And whenever, in the evening, I stand by a bed of asters, and the stars are gleaming over me and them, it seems to me as if they were whispering with each other of their former relationship, and that the stars above, and the flowers below, desired again to meet and embrace in love. LOVE. BY B. G. STOUT. LOVE! 'tis a sweet, delightful sound; Love prompted God to grant that man It laid in heaven the glorious plan- Love drew from thence an only Son, A way for man to God. Love twines around man lost-undone; Its presence tells a hope begun Man saved from endless wrath. And make that peace which ne'er shall close, 228 THE HAPPY MOURNER. THE HAPPY MOURNER. BY REV. G. H. M'LAUGHLIN. - In the vicinity of there lived a large family, who, as neighbors and citizens, were favorably and extensively known. They had a competency of things temporal for their comfort. The means of grace and moral influence were also abundant in that vicinity. There the Gospel of the grace of God had long been preached, and not without its saving effects upon the surrounding community. But as yet this entire family, with, we believe, but one exception, were irreligious. An interesting daughter had recently become the subject of convicting grace, and had joined the Church of God, and seemed to be truly a seeker of salvation. An attempt to serve God in the midst of friends so unfriendly to religion, seemed to her to be a perilous and almost fruitless enterprise. But she ventured to "choose the good part"-to seek Jesus as her only Savior. Being informed of the protracted and serious illness of the mother of this family, we proceeded thither, to minister, if possible, to the spiritual wants of the suffering, and render impressive and profitable this afflictive dispensation of divine Providence. Upon approaching, greatly to our surprise, there was presented to us the scene of death. The aged mother had ceased her earthly sorrow. Upon the previous night, she had closed her eyes for ever upon him who had been the affectionate companion of her youth, and had bid a final adieu to children whom she had fondly cherished and loved. As this pious, penitent daughter stood contemplating mortality in her mother, and immortality beyond the grave, her heart seemed full and her eyes a fountain of tears. In another part of the room there are familiar and friendly mourners. There is a circle of serious matrons and maidens sewing the death shroud. Here, to our left, and near our person, is the grayhaired husband and father. He seems to be absorbed in reflection. His countenance wears a melancholy mien. This seems to be a solemn and yet advantageous time, in which, while standing on the verge of time, and lamenting the loss of a dear friend, to mourn over sin, the cause of death, and to seek a preparation for a sinless and deathless clime. "My aged father," said I, "would a short season of religious service be acceptable?" "I would not object, sir," he replied, "but some of us do not believe in religion or religious service." "It is always important to serve and worship God; but when we are extraordinarily admonished, as at present, by death, of our approaching dissolution, it seems very appropriate to have at least a word of prayer; and you are now near the grave yourself; for you are quite aged." "Yes, I know that I am getting old; but, then, some of us do not believe in prayer." Here we offered some remarks, suited, as near as possible, to the extraordinary scene and circumstances before us, but without any apparent or good effect. How dangerous to grow old in sin, and the neglect of God! Not only is the strength of the natural sensibilities abated, but, much more, that of the moral. The light of God's Spirit will either energize, or enervate, as it is used or abused. As the light of the sun, or the moon-healthy to the eye, and useful to a person in business-becomes injurious to the eye, and useless to one asleep, so is it always with reference to moral light, assisting the active receiver, and weakening the willful sleeper. But, active or inactive, the Sun of righteousness will still continue to shine upon the world; and though we go utterly blind by the abuse of light-"not able to see those things which belong to our peace"-God will still be holy, just, and good, when he shall say, "Now they are hid from thine eyes." In the midst of this desert of natural and spiritual death, what a delightful oasis is a sensitive heart! What Christian would not look with admiration on that weeping daughter! "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." O, how true and comforting are the sweet words of the Savior! "Blessed (or happy) are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted;" "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear." Let me always hear the warnings and welcomes of a friend. Shall I ever cease to hear the mellow notes of merry birds? Shall my ear ever be dull to the voice of affectionate friendship? How could I bear to lose the melody of earthly music! Yet let it all cease— cease for ever, ere I cease to hear the sweeter voice of Jesus!-ere I part with the hope of heavenly melody! Let the abounding beauty of this fair earth ever be shut out-let it all-all for ever vanish, ere I cease to see Him who "is the fairest among ten thousand"-ere I relinquish the hope of heavenly beauty and glory "which eye hath not seen!" SONNET. CARY, now these be songs of purest joy! come, Like those of some lone orphan dreaming of her home! EOLIA. THE CHINA MISSION. THE CHINA MISSION. BY E. M. B. "Thousand ideas fall which none may mark; One may survive our perishable name. THE Board of Managers of the Juvenile Missionary Society, attached to the Methodist Episcopal Church in C, had adjourned. Their usual monthly meeting had been rendered more than commonly interesting, by the presence of Edward Graham, a young minister, and their former president, for he had given them some new information connected with the then recent news from China. The opening of that vast empire for missionary enterprise had deeply moved their hearts, and two of them still lingered in conversation with Edward and his cousin, George Prescott, who had accompanied the former on a visit to his maternal home. After some animated discussion on the subject of missions, George exclaimed, "Yes, I shall go to China! I will be among the first to devote myself to that long-secluded empire. And you, too, Edward, will go-will you not?" "I cannot speak so positively," said Edward, gently smiling at the impetuosity of his cousin; "for, in the first place, our parent missionary society may not see fit to establish a mission in China; and, in the second, if they do, they may not deem it best to send me." "You do not mean to say," returned George, "that we, as a people, will not hail the opening of the gates, and be among the first to rush in for peaceful conquest! "O! doom me, doom me not to bear Such shame, all shame above: And blush for that I love!' Why, in such case, I should be almost ready to renounce the cherished name of Methodist. I thought aggressive movement was a principle of our economy; but, should we even delay, I will not be prevented; for I feel within my heart a fixed determination to live and die for China. I do not mean as a minister; for I have not the evidence that I am called to that sacred office. But, if I were in your place, Edward, I would not hesitate a moment." "I have not hesitated to place myself at the command of the conference and the missionary committee," returned Edward; "and, should they deem me qualified and appoint me for China, to China most willingly will I go. That God has called me to missionary labor, I most fully believe; and I believe, too, that he will direct my steps. "China, however, is not my first love. Palestinethe land of my Redeemer's birth, and sufferings, and death!-Palestine has ever been the cherished country of my missionary aspirations. My heart throbs at 229 the very name of Judea; and it requires all my judgment to keep my feelings in abeyance. But we have no mission there, and I see no movement toward lighting a solitary lamp in benighted, forsaken Jerusalem! China now rises before me first, perhaps, in importance, though, as I have frankly stated, but second in interest. The providence of God seems to intimate this to us as our next field for missionary exertion; and cold, indeed, must be the heart which {fications, however, are necessary; and I know not, does not beat responsive to the call. Peculiar quali dear George, whether I shall be deemed fit for the great enterprise." "The thought that you may not be qualified," said George, after a slight pause, "might well make me hesitate; but, then, as I said before, I do not mean as a minister: I may be prepared for a translator or a printer: "I feel within my laboring breast A power that will not be repress'd!' The impelling influence is toward China, and I will go, though but as a colporteur! Do you not think I may depend upon the blessing of God, if my single motive be to glorify him in the salvation of souls?" "Yes, indeed, George!" responded his cousin, "and far be it from me to check your holy resolution! Your peculiar position leaves you untrammeled in your decision, save by a sound judgment and God's opening providences. You cannot employ your energies in any way, that will have a more extensive bearing upon the destinies of the human family, than by expending them upon the improvement and evangelization of China. And, if you are willing to relinquish, in any degree, the ease, conveniences, and sympathies of home, with the impelling feeling and the single aim you speak of, I doubt not your highest hopes will be fulfilled." "You will find the acquisition of the language very difficult," said William Harris, who was rather indolent by nature, and required a powerful stimulus to rouse him to continued exertion. "Not as difficult as is generally imagined," returned George, "though it will certainly require all possible attention and diligence. It is a singular language, though by no means beyond the compass of ordinary powers to attain. I have been reading pretty attentively the little work called China,' lately issued from our Book Room; and it states that moderate capacities and due diligence will enable a man to converse fluently in the course of two years, and, in double that time, to compose intelligibly in the native dialect. And, then, there is nothing to prevent me from doing much good in the intervening time." "I should think that rather doubtful," said William; "for, though the law is changed which would not permit intercourse with the natives, that fact does not alter the character and habits of the people; and I should think it would require a century, at least, before the Chinese would feel much familiarity 230 THE CHINA MISSION. with the barbarians,' as they politely term us, or any ingress be obtained to the interior of the country." "Why doubt that Protestants will be less successful than Romish priests have been?" inquired George. They have sustained missions in China ever since the beginning of the fourteenth century, sometimes with great, and at other times with less success. For some years past a number of young priests have been annually sent there, who quietly proceed to the headquarters of their mission in the interior. Scarcely a month passes without some new arrivals or departures, and the vacant posts are thus kept constantly supplied with pastors. There are Romish communities in all the provinces, and in all there are public chapels where service is performed by native priests. Their principal establishment for receiving candidates from Europe is at Macao; and a commercial gentleman, connected with China, informed me that the different superiors of the missions there negotiated bills on Europe for two hundred thousand dollars annually." "I believe the statements of George are correct," added Edward, for William seemed rather surprised at the information, "and with the love of Christ for our motive, and the salvation of souls for our end, employing Christian benevolence and Christian intelligence as the means, and depending solely upon God for his blessing, we have every reason to believe that the work will finally be effected." 6 "You will both be gray," interposed Henry Medwin, "before we have a well-established mission, if indeed any, in China. It will not suit the genius of our people-they ask for a too quick return for their investment of capital. They talk of sending two young men to China; and if, in the course of a year, they do not hear of a hundred, or at least a score of Chinese converted, they will be discouraged, and conclude it to be a useless expenditure of men, money, and labor. Look how easily they relinquished the South American mission! I have been reading Kidder's Brazil;' and, it appears to me, there has seldom been a better prospect of permanent usefulness than opened before us there. Yet, when the financial pressure took place among us, instead of calling for greater exertion, the people called for retrenchment, and the Board yielded Brazil. True, there had been no fruit, but no seed had yet been Sown. The seed once scattered would have taken root, and yielded not only an abundant harvest, but, as in the natural productions of that tropical clime, there would have been harvest all the year round. But their devoted missionary was recalled from the work and the soil he loved; and, though he has continued his missionary labors by giving to us his valuable work, how few, in proportion to the many, read the volumes so calculated to inspire a well-founded confidence in the success of effort there. With what difficulty has Oregon been retained! Because we could not tell of hundreds immediately converted, as we formerly could among the thickly populated tribes of the Canadas, what sinking of hands-what giving up of hope! Indians were dwindling away, and the mass thought not of the emigrants who were rushing there in a mighty throng. Yet, our maintenance of that mission will prove the nucleus round which a powerful Church shall gather, in those far regions of the west. No! give up China for yourself, George, and leave it as a legacy for your grandchildren." "You are both right and wrong, Henry," returned Edward, who had regarded his friend with deep interest as he spoke, while George and William had listened with unqualified surprise; "you are both right and wrong. I see that you have fully imbibed the sentiments which, no doubt, were freely expressed around you in your boyhood, and you have not become thoroughly enough acquainted with the people of your adoption to know that, if such things were, they are not now.' "The instance you have quoted of the Rio Janeiro mission is the exception, not the rule, and was forced upon the Board by a stern necessity. Perhaps, in God's providence, it has been overruled for good, by teaching the people the immediate connection between giving and retaining-between money and missions the relationship which must exist between their hopes and their exertions. I insist upon it, that the Methodists are a missionary people-that the mass of our people give as much, if not more, than the mass of any other denomination, and that they have at least as much information on missionary subjects as the general membership of any other Church." "That is a strange assertion, Edward," interrupted Henry. "Look at the various and extended missionary operations in some of the sister Churches!" "Only proving, if you will examine their history," resumed Edward, "that other Churches have more wealthy men among them than we can boast. Their members do not contribute more, if as much, as ours do, considering their circumstances; but, then, some munificent donation or weighty bequest augments their funds, and removes all deficiency. It is just so with our respective literary institutions. There is no college, in any denomination, more warmly cherished than the Wesleyan University is among us. Hundreds of our poor members have contributed their dollar, when they could do no more, anxious to have at least a stone or nail in the building. I do not believe there have been as many individual contributors to any other similar institution; yet, see how it languishes, for want of princely donors like those immortalized in Yale and Harvard. "Their widely-extended and well-digested plan of missionary operations, arises from the combination of talent and knowledge in their Boards. select for the managers their most highly cultivated and best matured minds; and the general members, They THE CHINA MISSION. well assured of the ability employed, leave the direction entirely to them. This mode has not been so fully pursued among us: we have thought sufficiently of the grace, but not as sufficiently of the gifts required. The first ought we to have done, and not left the other undone. A man, by the grace of God, may be as well calculated as Bunyan himself to guide the wandering pilgrim from the City of Destruction even to the very banks of the Celestial River, and yet not have had opportunities to gain the knowledge requisite to form a proper plan for missionary enterprise, or to select persons qualified to prosecute the work. If you take the Presbyterian Church, you can scarce think of a man of eminent talent among them who is not connected with their missionary plans; while among us, it is a fact to be deplored, men of the brightest talent and widest information are contented to do no more than make a missionary address, or write a stirring article, instead of being the originators and combined leaders of our societies." "Well, if I grant what you say," returned Henry, "and I suppose that you, from your more intimate acquaintance with the Methodists, are the best judge, I still think you must leave the Oriental missions for your posterity, and confine your labors to Africa and the Indians." "Not so," replied Edward, "though we will still retain those missions that have already proved successful. You spoke of the far-seeing minds that would not give up Oregon. When you have attained as thorough a knowledge of our history, as you have thorough love for our doctrines, you will find that we have always had among us a fair proportion of talent and judgment. "You told me some time since, that you heard an eminent Presbyterian divine say that John Wesley was the greatest religious lawgiver that had existed since the time of Moses;' and we of the initiated," he continued, smiling, "who know our whole economy, from the class to the General conference, fully agree in the opinion, and believe, too, that his successors are worthy of their founder. Viewing Methodism as we do, we are ready to embrace the openings of that Providence of which we believe it to be the child, and to modify or enlarge our arrangements according to its intimations. "When, about fifty years since, the present general organization of missionary societies was formed, it was thought perfect; and the whole world was soon to be converted through the newly adopted method. Soon a deficiency was discovered; and first female, and then juvenile effort were called upon for co-operation. These proved an added impulse; and { then, if languor or indifference prevailed, anniversaries were relied on-found successful, and the work proceeded. But anniversaries multiplied begin to pall; and, though many may still attend from feeling, more, perhaps, from mere principle; for, in these days 231 of steam-presses, railroads, and magnetic telegraphs, every thing that can interest is known almost as soon as it occurs; and there is so little left for anniversary statements, that often the whole zest of a meeting must depend upon a brilliant or engaging speaker. Again the deficiency has been sought for; and now, we think, the true secret of success has been discovered, and this is, the systematic training of our children. They must be taught to give from principle, not from impulse: we must create in them a zeal founded upon knowledge. We give them the history of their country in the secular schools, teach them a knowledge of her institutions, and their superiority over those of monarchical governments, and they grow up loving the one and prizing the other. In precisely the same manner we now intend to give them an acquaintance with missionary history, institutions, and wants; and we are confident that the blessing of God will rest upon our exertions, and produce the needed love and necessary effort. We have commenced the work-we are teaching our children the principles, which it took the talent and experience of the gifted of the past age to ascertain. A science must first be mastered ere it can be reduced to elements; but that which a Newton discovered and explained, we can teach to the merest tyro in the schools. That which required the piety, and learning, and experience of former days to determine, we intend to make as common as the alphabet in our Sunday schools; remembering, too, that, though every child may learn its A B C, it immortalized a Cadmus to invent them. "We, ourselves, are growing up under this new method, and, long before my beard is gray, as you intimate, nay," with a smiling glance at William, "before some of us can boast of much of that appendage, we will have a well-established and a wellsustained mission in China; and, if I am permitted to work in the ministry there, I expect to rely upon Henry Medwin as a missionary physician and colaborer in the Celestial Empire." "It will, doubtless, be necessary, then," said Henry, with a half smile, though evidently moved at Edward's earnestness, "it will, doubtless, be necessary for me to pursue my medical studies with redoubled industry, in order to fit myself for practicing among so scientific a people!" "Indeed, Henry," returned Edward, seriously, "that which you speak ironically is but sober truth. Dr. Parker, long resident in China, says, "The men who go forth on this enterprise should be masters of their profession, conciliating in their manners, judicious, disinterested, truly pious, and ready to endure hardships, and sacrifice personal comforts, that they may commend the Gospel of our Lord and Savior, and co-operate in its introduction among the millions of China.' And Sir Henry Halford, president of the Royal College of Physicians in England, in an address before that body, observed: With those who |