bliss. Does not this view lend a delightful confirmation to our hypothesis? But the argument derives yet additional strength from the consideration that this faculty, this power of silent, yet vivid expression, seems somewhat proportioned to moral excellence, or increases as the spiritual predominates over the material part of our natures—that in most men it is at best but dimly visible-that in those of the finer grade of intellect, whose feelings have been cultivated, whose purity has never been sullied by corroding care and ignoble pursuits, nor their sensibility blunted by too rude collision with the world, it becomes more apparent; while in the sex of finer mould, who are elevated above these degrading influences-whose feelings are more pure-whose sentiments are more refined-and whose spirits are more etherial, it manifests itself with a softened splendor, to which that of angels, may well be supposed, only another step in the scale of a magnificent progression. It is to the superiority which woman has in this expressive language; to her command of this direct avenue to the finer feelings, that we must attribute her influence in refining and softening the asperities of our nature. And it is owing to the possession of this element of moral elevation,

that while the finest and strongest reasoning of

She

philosophy has, in this respect, acccomplished so little, that woman has accomplished so much. possesses not the strength which has been exhibited by some masculine minds, nor perhaps even the brilliancy which has emanated from others; but the influence which they respectively exert on society appears in strange disproportion to the apparent The one is as the sun, which sheds his strong beams upon the waters, and the waves proudly reflect his dazzling brilliancy; the other, as the moon, whose milder light melts into the ocean; glows through all its depths; heaves its mighty bosom, and elevates it above its common level.

causes.

The refined subtleties of an Aristotle, or the glowing sublimities of a Plato, though presented to us with all the fascinations of a high-toned morality, and clothed in the imposing grandeur of a lofty and commanding eloquence, are dim and powerless to that effusion of soul, that seraphic fervor, which with a glance unlocks the avenues to our tenderness, which chides our errors with a tear, or winning us to virtue with the omnipotence of a charm, irradiates its path with the beaming eye, and cheers it with the approving smile of loveliness. And hence, too, it is, that the degree in which this influence is felt,

and its source appreciated, is justly considered as the test of civilization and refinement.

Is there not in this mild, gentle, silent, persuasive, yet dissolving and resistless influence, a charm which bears witness to its celestial character? Do we not recognize in it a similarity to that of heaven, and if we have ascribed it to its proper cause, does not this similarity at once stamp our speculation, if not with the seal of a moral certainty, at least with the impress of a cheering probability ?

THE LIVING.DEAD.

BY WILLIAM J. HOPPIN.

"Yet one doubt

Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die:

Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man
Which God inspired, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod: then in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows,
But I shall die a living death?"

[PARADISE LOST, B. X.

I DREAMED that Death had froze

This young and glowing frame:

But He, whose grasp the pulse could chill,

Had failed the hidden sense to still,

Or loose the prisoned flame :

Had fled away

From his half-slain prey

And left the conscious Soul bound to the mouldering clay.

*

I heard a requiem sung

A prayer to Heaven said

A sigh breathed forth-perchance a tear
Moistened the pall above my bier—

But soon they left the dead:

And soon forgot,

For there came not

One friendly footstep back to cheer the lonely spot.

The years, which once seemed fleet,

How slowly they passed by!

The winter's storm did hoarsely rave

Long, long, ere round my gloomy grave

The summer breeze did sigh:

But the doleful knell

Would often tell

That another shade had fled in death's dark land to dwell.

Oh, thrice, thrice happy soul !
Like mine it was not doomed

To pass ten thousand years away—
Undying Spirit chained to clay,

Immortal Thought entombed!

Can Hell bestow

A fiercer woe

Than this, through countless years to die and still to know?

Now centuries had past;

The funeral knell was o'er,

The sons forgot where their fathers lay
For I heard the plough-share grate its way
Where the grave-stone stood before;

And the reapers tread

Above my head,

And sing their merry songs among the silent dead.

And there a forest sprang

From the ground where we reclined.

The lofty boughs spread high in Heaven-
For I heard them groan by the tempest driven,-

The roots our dust entwined:

But a fire at last

O'er the forest passed

And each firm root decayed beneath the withering blast.

And there, deep, still, alone,

In a barren waste I lay,

Hushed was the song of the cheerful bird,

And nought of human sound I heard,

All, all, had passed away

And the years stole by

So silently,

I thought that Nature slept in mortal lethargy.

*