the family to the law of rociprocity, in the increased sense of personal interest in the welfare of the whole. Where a man's self is multiplied in his home, he is bound to the community by so many more pledges.

In the family, too, we find the source of national security. Doubtless the best safeguard were justice between nations. But never is a state more just than the public opinion compels it to be; and protection from this source will be perfect, only in that day "when the fruit of righteousnesss shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance." Against injustice, the only appeal is to comparative strength; and a nation's strength is in the harmony and patriotism of her sons. But, where were harmony and patriotism in a state, did not the family furnish both means and motive for them? Taking the world over, men would not peril life for treasure, nor defend for long the inheritance of their fathers, had they no wish to hand it on to children. It is for fireside and for home, that they join most readily the steel-clad ranks, and move with sternest determination, to the harvests of death. Well did the hero of Jena learn this lesson in his last campaigns. Why else should those proud columns, that had chased the soldiers of the Great Frederic from the defiles of Jena, have been forced back, so steadily, from the Elbe, even to the Rhine-bank, by battalions of Prusssian militia? The king's troops fought at Jena for the throne and state;-the German nation met the brunt at Lutzen and at Leipsic, and every cottage in the land was staked upon the issue.

But the object of civil society is not only existence, but also, prosperous existence: not only the protection, but still further, the welfare of its members; not only to guarantee individual rights, but to fit individual character for the best enjoyment of those rights. And here, the family is its most efficient, its indispensable arm. Without

it, one half of the community would be sunk at once to wretchedness. The family tie is woman's strong-hold in society. Driven from that, she is an outcast and a slave. If, as has been beautifully said, "a woman's sceptre is submission," then is the marriage vow her throne. For, it is only when reverenced for her purity, that her weakness becomes power. The great mission of the family as the school wherein men are formed for life, is too apparent to be dwelt upon. And besides, children thus come to active life, with both encouragement and incentive to "be strong and show themselves men." The bright ex

ample of their fathers is before them, and the good name they have inherited procures them warm welcome in the busy scenes. Another point is almost too obvious to be mentioned; the tranquilizing, harmonizing influence of the domestic circle upon outward intercourse. The fireside is a nation's heart. There from a thousand veins, the fevered, fretted blood returns; and thence it gushes pure and strong, to give new power to active life.

A glance at the glowing pictures of the reformers of our day, and we have done. They tell us of a good time coming;- a time of universal brotherhood;- of benovolence large as Earth. There, no heart shall be confined within the limits of a family circle; charity shall no longer "begin at home." What the Millennium is to be, we do not know; but we are pretty sure that it will not be a thousand years of licentiousness. And we are quite sure, that so it would be, if every man were lawfully married to every woman. Why should the affection that makes glad our homes, be deemed incompatible with the purest, broadest benevolence? It was when giving the highest expression of love, that the Redeemer of our race, turned his dying eye upon his best disciple, with the exclamation: "Behold thy mother." It was in the purity of Eden, ere man had fallen, that the marriage tie was formed; and will it be less necessary, or interfere more with the perfect love of the second Eden? It is, indeed, a glowing prospect; life's ocean undisturbed by tempest; never o'ercast with cloud! How brightly it will mirror back the image of its Maker! But, still a thousand fountains,- old family fountains, shall make melody along its shores; the channels wherein life has flowed for ages shall remain ; it is the stream;— the stream, that's altered ;- 'tis that shall flow as never before,- majestic, pure, untroubled.

I DREAMED.

I

I had a dream of sunny hours
That glided fast away;

I had a dream of starry flowers
Unwet by tears of falling showers,
Untouched by dark decay;

I fondly dreampt of sunset skies

That slept unchanged amid their gorgeous dies.

II

I further dreamed,- a little boat

Went sailing down a stream

With stray bright leaves and flowers afloat,
And many a sunbeam's dusty mote

And painted pebble's gleam.

I dreampt the bark's bright goal was won,

And still the drifting flowers, the stream flowed on.

III

I dreamed still that I sad awoke

Upon a desert shore

The cold gray morning round me broke,

An unseen sighing came-it spoke"Thus is it ever more,

Thus is it with thy hopes and fears;

Flowers fade, skies darken, and the goal is- tears."

W. M. B.

TO THE ALLEGHANIANS.

Sing us those songs once more, once more,
Each chord of our hearts to thrill;

In the leafy vale- by the sounding shore,
Where the wild flowers bloom, or the waters roar,
Shall their memory haunt us still.

The sounds that we love in the strains ye weav
From the thrill of the hunter's horn,

To the wail that the passing moments leave,
To the gentle fall of the summer's eve,
Or the gush of the spring-tide morn.

Sing us those songs once more, once more,
With the tones of the past they thrill,

The forms of the lost from their graves restore,
And bear us our native hill-sides o'er,

With a youthful gladness still.

To their varying notes our souls ye bind,

By a sweet but viewless chain,

And our thoughts are out with the mountain wind,
Leaving the realms of the earth behind,

Oh, sing us those songs again.

SCHEME OF THE MORAL WORLD.

That was a bright and glorious morn, when the Almighty broke the darkness that rested upon the face of the deep, and said, "be there light and light there was," and from the womb of chaos this earth came forth in all the grandeur and beauty of its infant state, and took its place among that vast retinue of worlds that roll in solemn silence around the throne of the Eternal. It is to this first morn that we are wont to refer the date of the commencement of that scheme of Providence in the Moral world, which has been progressing for six thousand years.

How far back in the vast solitude and solemn silence of an eternity past, this scheme in its antecedents reaches, or how far distant into the unknown future it looks, no mind but his "who saw the end from the benginning" can understand. That there is such a scheme, vast, incomprehensible, harmonious in all its relations and involving in itself those general laws, that regulate the conduct of him, who was the last and noblest work of creation, is plainly inferred from all analogy and distinctly taught by the pen of inspiration. A scheme not merely of general law, but one in which a few antecedents are given, from which are to follow,- under the guidance of general laws,- a long train of sequents, multiplying in number and swelling in vastness and importance as the stream of time rolls on, till they result in the general and final effect. A scheme, whose developement and

progress constitutes a long and complicated chain of events, of which each act and volition of man forms a part, and from which

"Whatever link you strike,

Tenth or thousanth, breaks the chain alike."

The insignificance of the act, the obscurity, frailty and helplessness of the being by whom it was committed, furnishes no ground for its exception. From little acts and circumstances, in themselves considered, trivial, insignificant and obscure, have sprung all the great events of history and each discovery in science.

Words and thoughts are also necessary agents in this plan of Providence. Words, as they fall from the lips, arousing and swaying the passions of others, guiding and controling their actions; words as they meet the eye on the printed page, the parchment thick with the dust of ages, or the marble dug from beneath the deep mould of centuries, again living and making thousands and millions think. Words, though they be the daughters of time, their offspring, actions and deeds,— are the sons of immortality.

Thoughts are the elements of which character is made; from them it receives its fair proportions and beauty, they give it all its deformity. They enter into its very essence, pervade all its parts and become inseperable. It is character that constitutes the Moral World. In this, there is the same great diversity and variety, the same great inequalities as in the Natural. Mountains towering with their summits to the heavens and planted on wide and strong foundations; some of dark and malignant aspect, with grim and threatening crags and fires rolling from above around them; others clothed in benignity and mercy, with cooling fountains, waving fruits and fragrant groves, inviting to peace and serene repose. The humble, but sunny vales, the thick tangled jungles, the dark morasses, broken gorges and wild and frightful caverns, with here and there waters calm and placid as the unruffled lakes of summer, while a large portion is unstable, raging and rolling like the billows of the ocean.

Since the creation of man the moral world has been in a state of transition and change. Causes have always been at work, which at various intervals have resulted in wild up-heavings and violent convulsions; when these have ceased and the elements have become calm, a new scene has opened, a purer and more elevated state of society. And thus shall these elements continue to ferment and the