THE HEART.

ADDRESSED TO MISS

"A lady asks the Minstrel's rhyme."
The Minstrel hears-for his the prime
When words are sweet as sweet bells' chime,
If Beauty calls;

And Love keeps sentry for the time,

In Faery halls.

And Love peeps o'er the Minstrel's shoulderLove makes the Minstrel's spirit bolder

And Love sighs that he is not older

Else he, apart,

Would weave a wreath of flowers, and fold her
Into his heart.

And Love is in his hey-day dress,
And Love has many a soft caress;
And laughing cheek, and glossy tress,
And dimpled hand,

Glance in the Minstrel's eye, and bless
His dreaming land.

And softly swells, and sweet accords
The melody that earth affords-

Glee, life, the melody of birds,

And things that come

Into the heart, like childhood's words,
Nestling at home.

Then should the Minstrel mark the tone-
The look, the tongue would half disown-

The heart, when its disguise is thrown

THE SISTER'S FAITH.

'Our affections are

Heaven's influences, that by the good they do,

Betray their origin.

'So I have seen

A frail flower that the storm has trampled on-
Lovely in ruins; for though broken quite

With its affliction, 'twas a flow'ret still,
And ask'd from me affection.'

THE allotments of providence are as various as are our several necessities. To one is granted wealth, to another talents, to a third family; every man, however humble, finds himself the possessor of some separate good the which has not been equally vouchsafed to all, and in that particular good whatsoever it be is treasured his individual sum of human happiness. It is a beautiful thing that this is so, for hence a greater degree of comfort among men, as each is pleased with his own; and to a thinking man it is fraught with deep and powerful truths, that tell greatly both upon the understanding and the heart. In it is seen the kind plan of an ever present, ever watchful Deity, studious for our comforts; and the mind is at once fired with a nobler energy, and the heart is quickened with newer faith to works of obedience, and taught to look with renewed confidence and an unclouded eye through sorrows here, and rest on that star of hope beyond the grave.

Among the blessings of providence, there is none which exceeds the rich love of a sister. He who has been blessed with such, whether he knows it or not, has ever had near him a fountain of sweet thoughts and gentle sympathies, that could have made the darkest day cheerful. Especially has he been blessed, if circumstances have contrived to break him from all other ties of consanguinity, and in joys and sorrows he has witnessed the development of those beautiful principles which enter so largely into the composition of her character, for the development of those principles must have been attended by such love and considerateness on her part, as only served to make them more beautiful, and bring them nearer the attributes of angels.

A sister's love is disinterested, and therefore invaluable. No one has ever doubted but that the female heart generally is richer in feelings than a man's; that among our sweetest consolations when earthly ties are sundered, and 'thick coming fancies' crowd in upon the brain till it is black with sadness, are placed those alleviations which her tenderness and her solicitude can offer. But yet the love

of another than a sister, from the very grounds of such preference and its means of perpetuity, cannot be other than a selfish and mixed passion. It is far more the result of circumstances; these have power to modify it, and they are eternally changing. With a sister there is nothing of this; with her it is the involuntary promptings of nature, and to call such a selfish or mixed passion, is to call truth falsehood. There is no chilling calculation, no selfish wish for a reciprocate sympathy, and a latent purpose within to be ruled by this in the degree of her own affection. She never thinks to ask if there is a chance of the better feelings of her heart's running to waste; nor can she lean to the side of an overweening prudence, and coolly measure out her love in just proportion to the worth of him to whom she gives it. No! she can do none of these ;-on the contrary, the most eminent instances of her warmest devotion are found, where the recipients of it were the least worthy. Cases innumerous might be cited, in which, against difficulties to daunt other than her, her love has seemed to grow purer and more enduring, even as a green and luxuriant vine seems to take newer beauty, as it clambers about a scathed oak or melancholy ruin.

A sister's love is pure, and therefore invaluable. No truth is more obvious than this, that those who have been favored with the sweet sympathies and affections of a sister, and educated in that unrestrained intercourse so favorable to the development of domestic virtue, possess a softness of character and purity of feeling, to which other men are strangers. I know it has been objected to this, that such a character is effeminate, and altogether unfitted for the sphere to which men are called. Now were the charge of effeminacy admitted, we have yet to learn that true fortitude is not equally the property of gentle as well as rugged natures, and that the manifestation of it in one person more than another, is not traceable altogether to other and opposite causes. But we do not admit it; the characteristic above referred to is not effeminate; it is too sacred not to be a treasure, and it is too beautiful to be an error. It is a spirit like His who stood upon the waves, passing over and stilling the angry waters of human passion; a breath of spring sent upon the world calling the moss and ivy to their high dwellings, and scattering the flowers upon the slopes and in the vallies; a beam of sunshine thrown down from a summer sky, casting into shade the roughness of the landscape, and softening all into beauty. A character matured under the circumstances referred to, need lose nothing of its firmness by the process. On the contrary, the native energies of the mind may expand with greater freedom (for many of those things which usually retard it are removed) and it can ruffle its wings with a wider sweep, and stoop for the quarry with a nobler vision. As for the charge, that our capacities for misery are increased in an increased ratio by that refinement of feeling which is induced by feminine intercourse, we hardly think it worth the refutation.