all the vicissitudes to which its natives are subject. Tell me, therefore, I pray you, what is the lot of man; and explain to me more fully than I yet understand, all that I see and hear around me." 6. "Truly, sir," replied the astonished noble, "although I am altogether unacquainted with the manners and customs, products and privileges of your country, yet methinks, I can not but congratulate you on your arrival in our world; especially since it has been your good fortune to alight on a part of it, affording such various sources of enjoyment, as this our opulent and luxuriant city. And be assured it will be my pride and pleasure to introduce you to all that is most worthy the attention of such a distinguished foreigner." 7. Our adventurer, accordingly, was presently tinitiated into those arts of luxury and pleasure, which were there well understood. He was introduced by his obliging friend to their public games and festivals; to their theatrical diversions and convivial assemblies; and, in a short time, he began to feel some relish for amusements, the meaning of which, at first, he could scarcely comprehend. The next lesson which it became desirable to impart to him, was the necessity of acquiring wealth, as the only means of obtaining pleasure. This fact was no sooner understood by the stranger, than he gratefully accepted the offer of his friendly host, to place him in a situation in which he might tamass riches. To this object he began to apply himself with diligence; and soon became, in some measure, reconciled to the manners and customs of our planet, strangely as they differed from those of his own. LXXVI. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER · CONCLUDED. 1. He had been but a few weeks diligently engaged in his new plans for the acquisition of wealth, when, walking in the cool of the day with his friend, in the outskirts of the city, his attention was arrested by the appearance of a spacious enclosure near which they passed. He inquired the use to which it was appropriated. " It is," replied the nobleman, แ a place of public interment." "I do not understand you," said the stranger. "It is the place," repeated his friend, "where we bury our dead." "Excuse me, sir," replied his companion, with some embarrassment, "I must trouble you to explain yourself yet further." terms. 2. The nobleman repeated the information in still plainer "I am still at a loss to comprehend you perfectly," said the stranger, turning deadly pale. "This must relate to something of which I was not only totally ignorant in my own world, but of which I have, as yet, had no intimation in yours. I pray you, therefore, to satisfy my curiosity; for if I have any clue to your meaning, this surely, is a matter of more mighty concernment, than any to which you have hitherto directed me." 3. "My good friend," replied the nobleman, "you must indeed be a novice among us, if you have yet to learn that we must all, sooner or later, submit to take our place in these dismal abodes. Nor will I deny, that it is one of the least desirable of the circumstances which appertain to our condition; for which reason it is a matter rarely referred to in polished society; and this accounts for your being hitherto uninformed on the subject. But, truly, sir, if the inhabitants of the place from whence you came are not liable to any similar misfortune, I advise you to betake yourself back again with all speed; for be assured there is no escape here, nor could I guarantee your safety even for a single hour." 4. "Alas!" replied the adventurer, "I must submit to the conditions of my enterprise, of which, till now, I little understood the import. But explain to me, I beseech you, something more of the nature and consequence of this wondrous change, and tell me at what period it commonly happens to man." While he thus spoke, his voice faltered, and his whole frame shook violently; his countenance was as pale as death. By this time his companion, finding the discourse becoming more serious than was agreeable, declared he must refer him to the priests for further information, this subject being very much out of his province. "How!" exclaimed the stranger," then I could not have understood you. Do the priests only die? Are you not to die also?” His questions, hastily conducted his friend, evading these importunate companion to one of their magnificent temples, where he gladly consigned him to the instructions of the priesthood. 5. The emotion, which the stranger had betrayed when he received the first idea of death, was yet slight in comparison with that which he experienced as soon as he gathered, from the discourses of the priests, some notions of immortality, and of the alternative of happiness or misery in a future state. But this agony of mind was exchanged for transport, when he learned that, by the performance of certain conditions before death, the state of happiness might be secured. His eagerness to learn the nature of these terms, excited the surprise and even the contempt of his sacred teachers. They advised him to remain satisfied, for the present, with the instructions he had received, and defer the remainder of the discussion till tomorrow. "How!" ex claimed the novice, "say ye not that death may come at any hour? May it not come this hour? And what if it should come, before I have performed these conditions? O! withhold not the excellent knowledge from me, a single moment!" 6. The priests, suppressing a smile at his simplicity, proceeded to explain their theology to their attentive auditor. But who can describe the tecstasy of his happiness, when he was given to understand the required conditions were, generally, of easy and pleasant performance, and the occasional difficulties, which might attend them, would entirely cease with the short term of his earthly existence. "If, then, I understand you rightly," said he to his instructors, "this event which you call death, and which seems in itself strangely terrible, is most desirable and +blissful. What a favor is this which is granted to me, in being sent to inhabit a planet in which I can die!" 7. The priests again exchanged smiles with each other; but their ridicule was wholly lost on the enraptured stranger. When the first transports of his emotion had subsided, he began to reflect with more uneasiness on the time he had already lost since his arrival. "Alas! what have I been doing?" exclaimed he. "This gold which I have been collecting, tell me, reverend priests, will it avail me anything when the thirty or forty years are expired, which you say I may possibly sojourn in your planet?" "Nay," replied the priests, "but verily you will find it of excellent use so long as you remain in it." "A very little of it will suffice me," replied he; "for consider how soon this period will be past. What avails it what my condition may be for so short a season? I will betake myself from this hour, to the grand concerns of which you have so charitably informed me." 8. Accordingly, from that period, continues the legend, the stranger devoted himself to the performance of those conditions on which, he was told, his future welfare depended; but, in so doing, he had an opposition to encounter wholly unexpected, and for which he was at a loss even to account. By thus devoting his chief attention to his chief interests, he excited the surprise, the contempt, and even the enmity of most of the inhabitants of the city; and they rarely mentioned him but with a term of reproach, which has been variously rendered in all the modern languages. 9. Nothing could equal the stranger's surprise at this circumstance; as well as that of his fellow-citizens' appearing, generally, so extremely indifferent as they did, to their own. interests. That they should have so little prudence and forethought, as to provide only for their necessities and pleasures, for that short part of their existence in which they were to remain on this planet, he could but consider as the effect of disordered intellect; so that he even returned their incivilities to himself with affectionate expostulation, accompanied by lively emotions of compassion and amazement. 10. If ever he was tempted for a moment to violate any of the conditions of his future happiness, he bewailed his own madness with *agonizing emotions; and to all the invitations he received from others to do anything inconsistent with his real interests, he had but one answer-"Oh," he would say, "I am to die: I am to die." LXXVII. — A PSALM OF LIFE. 1. TELL me not in mournful numbers, 2. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; 3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 4. Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. 5. In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 6. Trust not future, howe'er pleasant, Heart within, and God o'er head. 7. Lives of great men all remind us, 8. Footprints, that perhaps another, Let us, then, be up and doing, |