This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few perceive,
If old assertions can't prevail,

Be pleased to hear a modern tale.

When sports went round, and all were gay,
On neighbor Dodson's wedding day,
Death called aside the jocund groom

With him into another room;

And looking grave, "You must," says he,

'Quit your sweet bride, and come with me." "With you! and quit my Susan's side? With you!" the hapless bridegroom cried: "Young as I am, 't is monstrous hard! Besides, in truth, I'm not prepared."

What more he urged, I have not heard;
His reasons could not well be stronger:
So Death the poor delinquent spared,
And left to live a little longer.
Yet, calling up a serious look,

His hourglass trembled while he spoke:
"Neighbor," he said, "farewell! no more
Shall Death disturb your mirthful hour;
And further, to avoid all blame
Of cruelty upon my name,
To give you time for preparation,
And fit you for your future station,
Three several warnings you shall have
Before you're summoned to the grave:
Willing for once I'll quit my prey,
And grant a kind reprieve;
In hopes you'll have no more to say,
But, when I call again this way,

Well pleased the world will leave."

To these conditions both consented,
And parted perfectly contented.

What next the hero of our tale befell,

How long he lived, how wisely, and how well,

It boots not that the Muse should tell;
He plowed, he sowed, he bought, he sold,
Nor once perceived his growing old,

Nor thought of Death as near;

His friends not false, his wife no shrew,
Many his gains, his children few,
He passed his hours in peace.

But, while he viewed his wealth increase,
While thus along life's dusty road,

The beaten track, content he trod,
Old Time, whose haste no mortal spares,
Uncalled, unheeded, unawares,

Brought on his eightieth year.

And now, one night, in musing mood,
As all alone he sate,

The unwelcome messenger of Fate
Once more before him stood.

Half-killed with wonder and surprise, "So soon returned!" old Dodson cries. "So soon d'ye call it?" Death replies: Surely, my friend, you're but in jest; Since I was here before,

66

"Tis six and thirty years at least,

And you are now fourscore."

"So much the worse!" the clown rejoined;

"To spare the aged would be kind:

Besides, you promised me three warnings,

Which I have looked for nights and mornings!"

"I know," cries Death, "that at the best,
I seldom am a welcome guest;

But don't be captious, friend; at least,
I little thought that you'd be able
To stump about your farm and stable;
Your years have run to a great length,
Yet still you seem to have your strength."

"Hold!" says the farmer, "not so fast!
I have been lame, these four years past."
"And no great wonder," Death replies;
"However, you still keep your eyes;

And surely, sir, to see one's friends,
For legs and arms would make amends."
"Perhaps," says Dodson, "so it might,
But latterly I've lost my sight."
"This is a shocking story, faith;

But there's some comfort still," says Death; "Each strives your sadness to amuse;

I warrant you hear all the news." "There's none," cries he, "and if there were, I've grown so deaf, I could not hear."

"Nay, then," the specter stern rejoined,

"These are unpardonable yearnings; If you are lame, and deaf, and blind, You've had your three sufficient warnings, So, come along; no more we'll part." He said, and touched him with his dart: And now old Dodson, turning pale, Yields to his fate-so ends my tale.

XXIII. THE MEMORY OF OUR FATHERS.

Lyman Beecher, 1775-1863, a famous Congregational minister of New England, was born in New Haven, graduated from Yale College in 1797, and studied theology with Dr. Timothy Dwight. His first settlement was at East Hampton, L. I., at a salary of three hundred dollars per year. He was pastor of the church in Litchfield, Ct., from 1810 till 1826, when he removed to Boston, and took charge of the Hanover Street Church. In the religious controversies of the time, Dr. Beecher was one of the most prominent characters. From 1832 to 1842, he was President of Lane Theological Seminary, in the suburbs of Cincinnati. He then returned to Boston, where he spent most of the closing years of his long and active life. His death occurred in Brooklyn, N. Y. As a theologian, preacher, and advocate of education, temperance, and missions, Dr. Beecher occupied a very prominent place for nearly half a century. He left a large family of sons and two daughters, who are well known as among the most eminent preachers and authors in America.

WE are called upon to cherish with high veneration and grateful recollections, the memory of our fathers. Both the ties of nature and the dictates of policy demand this. And surely no nation had ever less occasion to be ashamed of its ancestry, or more occasion for gratulation in that respect; for while most nations trace their origin to barbarians, the foundations of our nation were laid by civilized men, by Christians. Many of them were men of distinguished families, of powerful talents, of great learning and of preeminent wisdom, of decision of character, and of most inflexible integrity. And yet not unfrequently they have been treated as if they had no virtues; while their sins and follies have been sedulously immortalized in satirical anecdote.

The influence of such treatment of our fathers is too manifest. It creates and lets loose upon their institutions, the vandal spirit of innovation and overthrow; for after the memory of our fathers shall have been rendered contemptible, who will appreciate and sustain their institutions? "The memory of our fathers" should be the watchword of liberty throughout the land; for, imperfect as they

were, the world before had not seen their like, nor will it soon, we fear, behold their like again. Such models of moral excellence, such apostles of civil and religious liberty, such shades of the illustrious dead looking down upon their descendants with approbation or reproof, according as they follow or depart from the good way, constitute a censorship inferior only to the eye of God; and to ridicule them is national suicide.

The doctrines of our fathers have been represented as gloomy, superstitious, severe, irrational, and of a licentious tendency. But when other systems shall have produced a piety as devoted, a morality as pure, a patriotism as disinterested, and a state of society as happy, as have prevailed where their doctrines have been most prevalent, it may be in season to seek an answer to this objection.

The persecutions instituted by our fathers have been the occasion of ceaseless obloquy upon their fair fame. And truly, it was a fault of no ordinary magnitude, that sometimes they did persecute. But let him whose ancestors were not ten times more guilty, cast the first stone, and the ashes of our fathers will no more be disturbed. Theirs was the fault of the age, and it will be easy to show that no class of men had, at that time, approximated so nearly to just apprehensions of religious liberty; and that it is to them that the world is now indebted for the more just and definite views which now prevail.

The superstition and bigotry of our fathers are themes on which some of their descendants, themselves far enough from superstition, if not from bigotry, have delighted to dwell. But when we look abroad, and behold the condition of the world, compared with the condition of New England, we may justly exclaim, "Would to God that the ancestors of all the nations had been not only almost, but altogether such bigots as our fathers were."