Much more might be said on this subject; but, to the wise, a word is sufficient.  And it would ill become one who is endeavouring to recommend conciseness, to disfigure that very endeavour by diffuseness.

WORDS FOR MUSIC.

BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.

I.

    I knew a sweet girl, with a bonny blue eye,
          Who was born in the shade
          The witch-hazel-tree made,
          Where the brook sang a song
          All the summer-day long,
    And the moments, like birdlings went by,—­
          Like the birdlings the moments flew by.

II.

    I knew a fair maid, soul enchanting in grace,
          Who replied to my vow,
          Neath the hazel-tree bough: 
          “Like the brook to the sea,
          Oh, I yearn, love, for thee.” 
    And she hid in my bosom her face—­
          In my bosom her beautiful face.

III.

    I have a dear wife, who is ever my guide;
        Wooed and won in the shade
        The witch-hazel tree made,
        Where the brook sings its song
        All the summer day long,
    And the moments in harmony glide,
        Like our lives they in harmony glide.

“THE CHRISTIAN GREATNESS.”

(PASSAGES FROM A MANUSCRIPT SERMON.)

BY THE REV.  ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D.

THE OFFERING OF CONTRITION.

That deepest lowliness of all—­the prostration before God, the prostration in penitence—­is the highest honor that humanity can achieve.  It is the first great cardinal requisition in the Gospel; and it is not meant to degrade, but to exalt us.  Self-condemnation is the loftiest testimony that can be given to virtue.  It is a testimony paid at the expense of all our pride.  It is no ordinary offering.  A man may sacrifice his life to what he calls honor, or conceives to be patriotism, who never paid the homage of an honest tear for his own faults.  That was a beautiful idea of the poet, who made the boon that was to restore a wandering shade to the bliss of humanity—­a boon sought through all the realm of nature and existence—­to consist, not in wealth or splendor, not in regal mercy or canonized glory, but in a tear of penitence.  Temple and altar, charity and pity, and martyrdom, sunk before that.

I have seen the magnificence of all ceremonial in worship; and this was the thought that struck me then.  Permit me to describe the scene, and to express the thought that rose in my mind, as I gazed upon it.  It was in the great cathedral church of the world; and it brings a kind of religious impression over my mind to recall its awfulness and majesty.  Above, far above me, rose a dome, gilded and covered with mosaic pictures, and vast as the pantheon of old Rome;