of the freedom and happiness of our common country. If we cannot compare with our sister States in the empire of matter, we may venture to compare with them in the empire of mind, and challenge them to produce a principle, in their settlement or progress, more vital than this to the perpetuation of

BY SAMUEL W. PECKHAM.

"Pibi semper sine nubibus aether
Integer, et large diffuso lumine ridat."-Lucretius.

"A PENNY for your thoughts," fair child
A penny! aye, I'd part

With countless treasures, could I read

The secrets of that heart ;

Could I but feel the careless joy
That fills thy laughing eyes,
And know the gay imaginings
That o'er thy fancy rise.

I've pondered o'er the classic tomes
Of Roman and of Greek,

Intent through an illusion dark,

Some hidden truth to seek ;

And as its light with thrilling power
Flashed from the beaming line,
A rapture which the scholar's life
Alone imparts, was mine.

But oh, 't were bliss beyond compare,
To read on infant thought

The pure impress of God's own truth,
Ere sin its blight has wrought;
To see its power to fill the soul
With unalloyed delight,

And throw o'er fancy's magic screen
Forms of the pure and bright.

Smile on, smile on, though vain the wish,
May'st thou for aye, as now,
Unsullied keep the stamp of truth
Upon thine open brow,

Still may the joyous laugh speak out

Unclouded from thine eyes,

Till Heaven reclaims its errant guest,
And takes thee to the skies.

THE CHURCHES OF NEW.ENGLAND.

BY THE REV. EZRA STILES, D. D.

*

LET the great errand into America never be forgotten. Let our children be made well acquainted, among other parts of sacred history, with the history of the Hebrew nation; in which they will see examples of public reward and public chastisement of providence in a very striking light. From the ancient example let our churches be warned, very carefully to avoid the two capital errors which proved the ruin of the Hebrew republic, and which will never fail eventually to subvert the best constituted empire-I mean corruption in religion and the publie virtue; and disunions.

I have observed that our churches, in a distinguished sense from almost all the protestant world are founded on the Bible. Our worthy and venerable ancestors, (be their memories dear to posterity) did not, like other protestant patrons, form a system of what they thought and judged to be the true sense of revelation, and establish this for the truth; no-it was enough for them that the Bible was the inspired rule, and this they made the only rule.

*Note 2.-See Appendix.

And hence, if on examination we should find any of the received doctrines or usages among the churches, dissonant to the sacred oracles,-if we only judge so, if this on deliberation be our opinion, we may freely enjoy and profess our judgment and oppose such doctrines or customs by alleging from the scriptures only; without appealing to human tests of divine truth, or encountering the civil and ecclesiastical hostilities with which they have been too generally enforced.

The present bounds of New England, the greater part of which is yet a wilderness, permit an increase of seven millions. If Providence should complete the reduction of Canada and an honorable peace annex it to the British crown, we may extend our settlements into new provinces, or to the western part of those provinces which by the charters cross the continent to the Pacific ocean. With pleasure we anticipate the rapid settlement of new towns and provinces around us, and filling them up with millions of inhabitants. We transport ourselves to the distance of a hundred years forward, look over the wide spread wilderness, see it blossom like the rose, and behold it planted with churches and temples consecrated to the pure worship of the most High-when our present plain edifices shall

be succeeded with a nobler species of building not indeed with temples whose colonades are decked with the gilt busts of angels winged; but temples adorned with all the decent ornaments of the most sublime and august architecture-when divinely resplendent truth shall triumph, and our brethren of the congregational communion may form a body of seven millions! A glorious and respectable body: this, for Truth and Liberty. Well might our fathers die with pleasure, and sacrifice their lives with joy to lay the foundation of such a name, of such a peculiar people whose numbers so soon increase like the sand of the sea, or the stars of heaven, and what is more, whose God is the LORD. 1760.

"MAN WAS” NOT “MADE TO MOURN."

BY THOMAS C. HARTSHORN.

TUNE to joy the sprightly measure,

Utter not a note of woe,

Give a loose to mirth and pleasure,

Bid the generous feeling flow.

Lo the bounties of creation

To whatever side we turn,

Still convey this intimation,

Man was never made to mourn.