earth, but it makes a body feel uncomfortable all over; because there is a season for all things,' and there should be a season for all things to die: instead of which, however, all things die at all seasons. There is something that isn't exactly right about it— doesn't begin to 'tally' with the order and regularity maintained in the general course of Nature. It appears as unnatural as it would to see the sun turn about and go to bed again soon after rising to find roses wreathed in the white hair of old Mr. Decembericicles hanging at the nose of August-a bear with a switch-tail -or a frog with feathers on it. My hearers there is no doubt that if the kitten mentioned in my text had not died when it did, it would have lived longer, and become stronger. This may be considered a matter of certainty; but whether the rats would have had occasion to mourn had it lived to be a cat, is a question. I have known many a cat, which, by being humored, petted, and fed, would feel too proud to even look at a rat-much less to take notice of a mouse. So it is with children. How often have I heard the remark: If that child had only lived, he would have made one of the smartest men in the country. Now, my friends, the mere rough make of the child by the hand and wisdom of Omnipotence might be considered as perfect a specimen of humanity as ever graced the earth; and yet his fond, doating parents might have completely spoiled the beautiful fabric in putting on the finishing touches. Yes, he might get 'finished off' by an abundance of parental pains, unexpectedly, and not in a very agreeable sense. Hereditary wealth often prematurely finishes' young men; and beauty, boarding-schools, and polite accomplishments are the requisites for 'finishing off' a young lady to her sorrow. Alas! how many buds of mortality promise to blossom roses, the sweetest that ever bloomed in the garden of virtue, and yet open nothing but thistles-such as beskirt the bypaths of vice and shame! There is no use in predicting what anything will come to in this changing and uncertain sphere. Changes are every day taking place as remarkable and astonishing as the transfiguration of a tadpole into a frog; and the better way for us is to take things as they come-judge of things as they are, without depending upon what they may be—and never put too big a budget of hope upon the back of any favorite object. But, as my text suggests, let us draw the curtain over all that die young, whether they be kittens or whether they be children. It is not for us to know why they are called so early away; but we can rest assured that it is all for the best, and trust that they go to a better land than this-where it costs nothing for shirts and shoe-leather-and happiness is enjoyed unaccompanied by a long bill of costs. So mote it be! ON LOVEITS MISCHIEFS AND ITS EVANESCENCE. 'TEXT.-Love is witty, Love is pretty, Love is charming while it's new But it soon grows old, And waxes cold, And fades away like the morning dew. MY HEARERS-There is no mistake about Love's being pretty, coaxing and fascinating; but, for all this, it is awfully dangerous stuff to meddle with. No one ought ever to approach it, unless he is provided with a box of matrimonial pills: for it exhales such delicious poison that a body isn't aware of danger till the disease has reached its climax; and then the only way to eradicate it will be to take a warm bath at the altar of Hymen, and for ever after keep sipping of the iced water of matrimony-or else take an injection of pistol powder at once, and be certain of a cure. Oh! my heart sinks clear into my trousers' pocket when I think of all the mischief that Love has stirred up in this amoracious world! Go ask those shattered wrecks of humanity who are now swarming in our lunatic asylums whet it was that fired the city of their senses-drove Reason from her throne, and spread anarchy over the vast empire of the mind—and they might answer truly: Love, the tyrant Love! Behold the miserable sot, suffering a self-martyrdom, with the limpid fire of damnation starting through his carbuncle nose! Ask him why he, in the prime of life, is about to throw himself upon the funeral pyre of his hopes, and appear fuddled at the bar of Judgment? and he will say it is all for Love! Go read upon the stones of yonder church-yard how many of Love's victims have been consigned to the dark chambers of death, and have taken the worms of the clod as their bosom companions! Behold! lovers are weeping upon the very turf beneath which lovers are sleeping. I grieve for the sleepers, and O! my friends, I tremble for the weepers! They are made of soft materialkisses, tears, saw-dust and soft soap-and heaven only knows how soon they, too, may dissolve and amalgamate with their original clay. My friends! methinks I can see, through the spectacles of ima gination, a forlorn specimen of decayed feminine wandering over the sea-shore cliffs at midnight. She cuts a pretty figure, I don't think, with her long hair streaming in the wind, tattered frock, catowl eyes, and nothing but bare-foot on her feet. Now she sings a wild ditty to the moon, and anon calls franticly on one who cannot hear-and I doubt whether he would if he could. Poor thing! Kate is crazed! She let her tender passion run away with her senses, shoes and stockings, shimmy and all,-and now see what she is! Girls, do you hear that? Beware-beware! But to return. Love, like the boy's candy, is too good to last long. Soon after marriage it is apt to grow cold, and fade away from the fullblown blossom of the heart, as fades the morning dew from the damask corolla of the rose; but before the affections are bound in the nuptial wreath, there is no danger of Love's dying a natural death. On the contrary, he becomes more obstinate in his attacks, and will hang on like an eel to a dead 'possum. I advise you, my young congregation, to beware of pianoforte music and moonlight evenings, if you have a touch of the tender lurking about your vitals; for they are sure to call that little rascal Cupid forth in quest of prey; and when he comes, your breasts are made pincushions of in less than no time. He shoots his arrows with unerring aim as he flies, and mocks at the agonies of his wounded victims. He is the mischief-making child of Venus, that artful daughter of Jove, who used to sport her golden chariot, drawn by sparrows, over the fleecy clouds of heaven-whose railroad track down to Olympus consisted of the rainbow. She was the mother of all flirts, and created more trouble in the courts of Love than ever Lucifer kicked up in the temple of righteousness. But she is dead now, and her son Cupid reigneth in her stead. My dear young friends-you must contrive to love moderately if you wish to have it last long, and not grow cold with the wane of the honey-moon-just as Mrs. Dow and I did when she was pretty Miss Betsy Wheeler. We didn't squander all our affections amid the foolish extravagances of courtship, but let off little at a time, Like cattle that masticate their food a second time, so we, till the day that death brought in a bill of divorce in her favor, could sit beneath the bowers of connubial happiness, and chew the cud of our first love over and over again. Why don't you do likewise, and thus insure many days of comfort and happiness, rather than dry up the fountain of future attachment by indulging for a short time in scorching extacy. Moderation should always be your guide in the affairs of love no matter whether that love be sexual, fraternal, alcoholical or spiritual. By drinking too deep from the cup of either, you become intoxicated, and are soon compelled to swallow the bitter dregs of wo and despair. It is a melancholy truth that I have even known persons to become so inebriated with the love of religion, that their reason has left them in disgust, and sought an asylum in the desert region of nowhere; but the love of morality, virtue and honesty is subject to no such excesses, and the stronger your affection for them is, the wiser and happier you must beI don't care who says to the contrary; but in your love for the sexes, plum pudding and spurious holiness, be careful-be moderate! and you may make it hold out till you are borne to that land where love never fades away nor even waxeth old. So mote it be ! and they consequently lasted the longer. ON TAKING THE WORLD EASILY TEXT.-The thing is this-in every station We're born for pleasure and for trouble, Good Hope a true cape you'll never double; But take the good and evil cheerly, And sum up creditor and debtor-- MY HEARERS-No mortal was ever born to partake of the sweets of pleasure alone. From the cup of life we are all compelled to drink an admixture of joy, bliss, misery, and pain; and the more mouths we make in swallowing the dose, the more bitter does it seem to the taste. No one ever ought to dash, in a suicidal manner, the goblet of existence to the ground because it contains a few drops of the essence of evil; for what can be more sickening than a continual surfeit of sweets! If you were to sip wholly and constantly of the saccharine juices of the world, you would sigh for something sour, for the sake of variety; for variety, as some philosopher has truly remarked, is the spice of life--and, without that spice, every meal of man's enjoyment were as flat and insipid as a bowl of soup composed of dish water and potato skins. A little morning melancholy after a solid supper of mirth operates as a moral medicine upon the mind, inasmuch as it causes serious meditation to purge the inner man of at least a portion of that corruption which settles on the stomach after an excess of folly. An all-wise Providence has so ordered it that no mortal shall reap a harvest of pleasure without gathering the tares of pain; and as for endeavoring to make up a bundle of one without collecting a handful of the other, you might as soon think of bottling up a few pints of daylight for evening use. My friends-the thing is, as my text observes, in every station we are born for pleasure and for trouble-not expressly for either, but for a little of both. He that is hatched amid the desert sands of poverty is no more a candidate for care and sorrow than the babe which is born in a blooming paradise of opulence, fondled in the lap of fortune, and nursed at the breast of abundance. The pathways of both to the tomb are equally bestrewn with flowers and beset with thorns. The angel of evil will oftentimes spread his dark pinions over the head of the good patrician while the golden halo of joy encircles the heart of the poor patrician. Then again the son of independence may be seen dancing for joy upon the grave of buried care, and singing the songs of gladness, as merry as a cricket in the chimney corner, while the half-starved child of penury sits crying for a crust where the mosquitoes of misery are as thick as fog, and have bills long enough to bite through a modern belle's bustle. I think, my friends, that he who dwells in a lowly vale of contentment receives a greater portion of pure and unalloyed pleasure than the aspiring dupe of ambition and wealth, whose home is fixed upon the high hill of honor: for, in the valley of humility grow the beautiful posies of peace, which give out their perfumes to the gentle breeze, while the rough winds are heard to howl mournfully around the mountain tower of fame. My dear friends-the better way to get along smoothly and without stubbing toes, is, to enjoy the pleasures of the world, like rational beings, and not like brutes-and bear up beneath its ills, |