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Long ago I was weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places

Where I met but the human

and sin

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: "In the world each Ideal,

That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave.

And still did I pine for the Perfect,

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And still found the False with the True; I sought mid the Human for Heaven,

But caught a mere glimpse of its blue; And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human;
And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men;
Till I knelt long ago at an altar

And heard a voice call me;

since then

I walk down the Valley of Silence,
That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
'Tis my trysting-place with the Divine;
And I fell at the feet of the Holy,

And above me a voice said "Be mine!" And there arose from the depths of my spirit An echo-"My heart shall be thine."

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?
I weep and I dream- and I pray.
But my tears are as sweet as the dewdrops
That fall on the roses in May;

And my prayer, like a perfume from censers,
Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim Valley
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the dove of the Deluge,
A message of peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows

That never shall break on the beach;
And I have heard songs in the silence,
That never shall float into speech;
And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley.
Ah me! how my spirit they stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces,

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Their footsteps can scarcely be heard:
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word!

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,

And God and his angels are there;
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,

And one, the bright mountain of Prayer.

COMPOSITION.

Write sentences containing the following: "Where angels have flown;""craved what the world cannot give;" "glimpse of its blue;" "knelt long ago at an altar;" "too pure for the touch of a word.” Give last stanza in your own words.

dim
hovers

ideal

mazes

perfume

harrowed

IN

LITERARY MORALITY.

N literature it is of extreme importance to draw a line of distinction between the moral and the immoral. As in nature there are flowers and fruits fair to the eye, but rotten at the core, so in the garden of humanity are there to be found, under an accomplished exterior, a bad heart and a vicious character; so, also, in the domain of literature, there often lurk behind the garb of an elegant diction ideas and sentiments the most contaminating. The great and infallible criterion whereby to distinguish, is the divine and immutable law of morality, such as is the rule of man's action, and as he will be judged by the Decalogue. A literary production should never attempt this law by directly teaching doctrines, insinuating a spirit, or acting upon and drawing out feelings to which it is opposed. The very instinct of literary art looks to this criterion; for in the departments requiring most artistic skill-viz., poetry and fiction- the basis of nearly all efforts, and of all the most excellent and successful ones, is also the basis of the moral code. A thread of love is woven into their groundwork. But that thread is frequently so tattered and soiled with human passion that its divine origin is no longer recognizable. Yet love is the golden chain that binds humanity in a bond of brotherhood, that keeps society together, that connects earth with heaven. It is the law not only of man, but of God. It is the principle of his triune personality. Without it, nature would drop back to its original nothingness, and its Creator would cease to be; for God is love.

Writers of poetry and fiction seem to forget this elevated character of love, and give the sacred name to blind passion. They spin a thread of fate from the

fiction of their brain, and weave it about their characters, and call it destiny or elective affinity, as though every individual were not responsible and the master of his own choosing; and thus they sow broadcast the seeds of free-loveism, again abusing the sacred name. They deck up monsters of vice in all the fascinations of youth, beauty, engaging manners, and splendid fortune; they

"Make madness beautiful, and cast

O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue of words,"

and represent such creations wading through crime to the enjoyment of earthly happiness, and call on the reader to sympathize with them in adventures and sufferings brought upon them by their own vicious ways. The reader does so; and from sympathy he passes to liking, and from liking is soon involved in like deeds. Say he does not fall so low: still the reading of such works blunts his finer feelings, prepares him to consider, unmoved, perhaps even complacently, crimes, the bare mention of which should have been a horror to him, and thus suppresses the growth of his better nature. It especially destroys genuine sentiment.

Our modern literature is much too lackadaisical. Life is reduced to a sentiment; thought is a sentiment; love is a sentiment; religion is a sentiment; and often God is regarded as an object of pious sentiment. This is sentimentalism. The offspring of exaggerated and unnatural feelings, it fosters them in the reader of délicate sensibility, to the ruin of all human impulses. He becomes unreal. His heart grows hardened. It may seem paradoxical, but nevertheless it is true, that sentimentalism hardens the heart. It is but a passing thing; it evaporates, and seems to leave after it a sedimentary deposit which shrouds the better feelings.

See that young lady, transported to ecstasy over some meaningless expression, and paying the tribute of a tear to some high-wrought, fanciful, and improbable incident, picturing affliction and misery where they never could have existed. She is distracted by the untimely intrusion of some poor, infirm, suffering, needy one, a true object of pity and charity. He asks an alms. In that half scowling, perturbed look with which she gives the scanty mite or the curt refusal, we perceive no indications of a heart softened on beholding a brother in actual distress; the unholy tears she had previously shed seem to have extinguished in her the last spark of real sentiment, and encased her heart in selfishness. This is a scene of daily occurrence. Man is but too prone to be unreal, and to deceive himself in his highest interests; the grand aim of literature ought to be not to hide these interests from his view, and sink him still deeper in delusion, but to place them before him, and inspire him with practical and ennobling sentiments regarding them. The reader has a duty to perform here. He should be select in his reading. He should neither patronize nor encourage a bad book. Supply is always in proportion to demand. Let the bad book drop. Cease lauding it as a matchless literary production. Show it up in its true light. Show it to be false in sentiment, false in fact, false in principle, and it will soon pass into oblivion. And here is suggested a question as delicate as it is important. What works may or may not be safely read in literature? We lay down these general rules:

Every literary production that promotes, encourages, strengthens truth and virtue, may be read with profit to soul and intellect.

Every literary production not opposed in its spirit and bearing to truth and virtue, and implying the

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