Speak then, thou voice of God within, Answer me, through life's restless din, And the voice answered-Be thou still! Clouds, winds, and stars, their part fulfil; PROSPECT IN LIFE. VALPY. FOR the proper regulation of life, it is necessary that you should form a proper estimate of it; and of that Providence by which all human events are directed. This life is a state of trial, intended, in the designs of Eternal Wisdom, to train you up to another and better world, and to determine your station in it. In this life you will be exposed to difficulties, vexation, sorrow, and distress. Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. In the season of youth, when life smiles in the imagination as stored with pleasure and decked with prosperity, we expect an unruffled calm, and a perpetual sunshine. The experience of a few years throws a gloomy damp over the flattering prospect: the cloud of anxiety arises; the storm of misfortune blows keen and T gloomy; and we are at last convinced that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit." Turn from one situation to another; shift from one place to another: you will find care and misery attending your steps. You feel the evils of poverty; you wish to possess riches: if you succeed, you will be followed by the same anxieties; the cause only will be changed. Riches will increase your cares, new sorrows will arise from the employment of your property. You wish to emerge from obscurity: if you become great, you will become the prey of corrosive jealousy and opposition. You are miserable because you have no children: if you become a parent, you will be tormented by solicitude for your children-by their misconduct, by their death. You dislike your profession: change it; you will find unexpected thorns in the new path, which seemed to you strewed with roses. For all anxieties, for all evils, for all distress, there is only one remedy, resignation to the will of God. In the midst of the deepest sorrow, there are consolations of soothing efficacy. "Thy will be done."—"It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good."-"I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled."-"O let thy merciful kindness be my comfort!" The time will come when you will acknowledge, with tears of gratitude, that the blow that beats you to the ground--that the disaster which rends your heart with anguish were intended by the Wise Disposer of events, for purposes of mercy and love. Thus, instead of presumptuously raising the voice of complaint against Providence because all things do not happen according to our wishes, we shall, on the contemplation of that wisdom and mercy which governs the world, "Praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men." RETROSPECTIONS. ANON. "What is it, in youth, that sheds a dewy light round the evening star? that makes the daisy look so bright? that perfumes the hyacinth? that embalms the first kiss of love? It is the delight of novelty, and the seeing no end to the bliss that we fondly believe is still in store for us. The heart revels in the luxury of its own thoughts, and is unable to bear the weight of love and hope which presses on it."-Hazlitt. YE happy, sun-bright halcyon days, In which my planet rose, A morning star of hope, and chased, Yet objects in your light appeared, Which I can ne'er forget. Oft do I see your shadowy forms, In Memory's airy halls; And Fancy's talisman each shade Almost to life recalls: But like some lovely dream that flies Forget?-ah no! the sun that rose The flowery meads were wet, The wind that mourned the fading light, And yet 'tis not to your bright clouds Upon your noontide wings; Nor Zephyr's airy harp that sighed So sweetly when ye set; -'Tis one, who shared those sweets with me, That makes me not forget. Beyond the portals of the past, The morning long has fled, As in the fairy haunts of thought, Hope's first faint dawn, that then arose, And though 'twas on a stormy day No sunny bank, no crystal stream, Was witness; but the thunder-cloud Still joys came with that awful sign, But when Spring's latest flowers inhale The moments passed away: One happy walk-when Morn all things In orient gold arrayed, And the gay sons of Summer's day Then how, when on the western hills Cytheria's watch-fire glowed, We climbed our own sweet mount, and viewed The gossamer that rode Lightly along the evening's breeze; Or watched the sun that set, |