SONGS IN THE NIGHT,

OR

THE TRIUMPHS OF GENIUS OVER BLINDNESS.

CARE, with its microscopic eye, magnifies our petty troubles, and a complaining murmur becomes the ordinary tone of voice. As years draw on, routine robs existence of its primal freshness; and commonplace, accepted as a destiny, lays on us

"A weight heavy as frost and deep almost as life."

I am not familiar with the expression of the human face divine; but from what little I have been able to catch of it, I should say its prevailing tone when in repose, is one of dissatisfaction and discontent. An ear that has become practised and delicate through neces→ sity in interpreting the moods of mind by the inflections of the voice, detects on every hand in these most subtle exponents of character, the presence of weariness and languor. The world freights us with its burdens, and we

bear them, for the most part, at best with a dogged indifference. The spirit hath lost its romance: the glory and the dream have disappeared from our universe; utilitarianism scouts the ideal as a vagary, and we plod through the cold, unpoetic earth, saddened and heavy laden, ofttimes longing for the rest of the last silence.

I know not a more benign office than the ministry of cheerfulness, nor one more needed.

Will you suffer me then to read you a lesson this evening a lesson of content-strength and hope drawn from the story of those whose lot has been far more drear and dismal than your own? Such have been, who have not found the world a workhouse for vagrants and culprits; nor a hospital tenanted by pestilence and helpless misery; nor yet a Potter's Field for the burial of paupers; nor an amphitheatre for gladiatorial exhibitions; nor a tavern for drunken revelry, followed hard by deadly despair; nor a Corso in carnival, where giddy folly and masquerading mirth are bought by a long Lent of vigil, fast, and tearless selftorture.

Such have been, who have found the world a system of nice adjustments and beneficent