us. We know of no manifestation of Divine goodness which could edify us more. Such a death, so truly Christian, ought to reconcile us to death itself. In remembering the affectionate disposition of our friend, and his benevolent solicitude for us while he lived, which increased as his strength declined, we saw as with the vision of the Apostle, that though the outer man was perishing, the inner man was renewed day by day. No one who contemplated the alliance between the new and the old could have enjoyed a more glorious vision."

In this notice, little reference is made to M. Manuel's religious opinions; yet we gather that they were Calvinistic. Victor Cousin, in speaking of an interview that he had with him, alludes to his pure and benevolent spirit, adding that "his theology was not refined, (raffinée,) but like Calvin's, with which his beautiful soul (belle âme) involuntarily mingled tints of toleration and mysticism." It is a divine lesson brought home to the heart, when we see the same traits of Christian character exemplified in men of diferent religious opinions. We feel that they are not of Paul or Apollos, but have grown in the likeness of God the Father.

H. F. L.

SONNET.

THE genial sun, who rests his golden head
Amidst the crimson clouds at eventide,

Whose cheering beams, throughout the day, have spread
O'er earth's fair bosom blessings multiplied,

Sinks but to rise-again to be our guide.

So those great men whose deeds have graced their age
Live on, though disencumbered of their clay,
And lend us still their light: so, o'er the page
Of this land's history, bright as is the day,
Shall CHANNING shine, with unremitting ray;
And though his dying voice falls on the ear
With sadness, as he bade his friends 'good night,'
His "words that burn" will ever bless our sight,
And millions, through the world, his name revere.

J. S.

A DREAM.

LOOKING over some old papers a few days since, I came across an article written by myself in the year 18-, a year, perhaps the most eventful in my life. Without stopping to recount all the incidents of that period, I will barely mention, that it was the year of my failure in business, induced partly by misfortune, but mainly by a neglect of prudence and frugality in the management of my business and domestic economy. The night preceding my failure was a night of inward storm; clouds and darkness brooded over my whole mental being; hope, I had none; faith, I had none. In such a state I retired to rest, and "dreamed a dream." This phantom of the night made so deep an impression, I could not refrain putting it on paper. Upon seeing it after a lapse of so many years, it struck me that it might be a useful fragment in the Miscellany. It would make me glad to be the means of reaching some readers, nay, a single reader, who (like myself in other days,) may be wearing out life in hewing cisterns that can hold no water. Of course you are at liberty to preface the "dream" with any remarks showing, if necessary, more distinctly the moral involved in it.* It has one advantage over most dreams, that it is not all fiction. The gist of it is true, the dressing merely is my own.

After a day of feverish excitement, induced by many fruitless efforts to hire or borrow money, to meet engagements at Bank, I returned to my home wrapped in gloom, and suffering a disquietude that no language can describe. Throwing myself from very physical exhaustion on the bed, I hoped that nature, "tired nature," would triumph over my mental perturbation,—that sleep, sweet angel of mercy, would cut off all remembrance of the past, and by her invisible ministry renew for me sufficient strength to face my creditors on the following day. A vision soon held me in golden chains. I believed myself on an island of diamonds, in some faroff region. The ground was sparkling under my feet. My brain whirled in ecstasy. No gleam of sunshine to the vexed mariner who for days has been without "an observation" was half so wel

* The moral, as our friend intimates, is too plain to be mistaken.-ED.

come, as was this El Dorado to me. Fancy spent itself in endless contrivances for gathering and appropriating these peerless gems. A change came over my dream. The island so beaming with gladness, I soon found to be a profound solitude. Not a tree could I perceive, nor flower, nor spot of verdure, nor bird, nor living thing. No morning with its freshness, nor evening with its quiet healthful repose, visited the spot. A perpetual vertical sun poured down its scorching rays, unmitigated by any fanning breeze, while the shore was ungirt by a single rock, behind which I might find a moment's shelter. I found myself hemmed in, without food or drink,-every instant of time adding torture to torture, until the consciousness of utter destitution made me groan aloud, and I awoke.

Another slumber followed with illusions still more remarkable. I imagined that I held in my hand a richly bound volume secured by clasps of massive gold. At these I tugged not a little, before they yielded to my impatient curiosity. The first page of this book discovered to me that I was the possessor of immense treasure. It was filled with bank bills, of one of our wealthiest institutions, of the largest denomination. I hastily and joyfully turned over its rich "promises to pay." I became flushed, nay, intoxicated with joy almost to madness, at this unexpected wealth and deliverance from pecuniary embarrassment. I ceased not counting till I had reached the centre of this unrivalled book, when my attention was rivetted to a page so unlike the others, that my blood curdled and my knees smote together. On it was engraved the sea in a storm. So living was the picture, I felt myself at once exposed on its tossing and foaming waves, without a beacon light to guide or helping hand to rescue me from its frightful depths. I hurried with fearful forebodings to another page. There TIME, with his bold uncompromising look, holding the polished scythe and spent glass, stared me in the face. Suddenly the golden leaves on which mine eyes had gloated separated from the binding, and heeding not my clutch, curled as if touched by fire and then vanished from me in smoke

The golden bowl was broken at the fountain, the silver cord was loosed, an impenetrable depth of blackness opened beneath my feet, one feeling of utter despair possessed me, and then the spell was broken.

C.

LESSONS OF THE NATIVITY.

A CHRISTMAS SERMON, BY REV. NATHANIEL HALL.

LUKE ii. 16, 20. And they came with haste, and found * * * the babe lying in a manger, *** and returned glorifying and praising God.

It seems to be an established mode of the Divine proceedings, that great results shall flow forth from seemingly insignificant beginnings. It is recognized in the natural world. The majestic oak, that spreads wide and high its giant branches, whose top receives the first salutation of the rising sun and his last resplendent valediction, that has given lodgment to successive generations of the summer birds, and has battled triumphantly with the storms of centuries, it was not always thus; it sprang not forth in a night to its glorious stature and its all-resisting strength; the space in which it slumbered once might be covered by an infant's palm; its polished cradle was childhood's play-thing. The kingly day, that rules the earth from his golden throne, that unlooses its every band of darkness, that scatters afar each gloomy shade,—it was once, as it lay cradled in the distant east, but a glimmering ray, but a rosy flush. And so it is in the moral world. And that greatest of all effects which mankind has ever witnessed,-compared with which those that the world's Alexanders and Napoleons have wrought are insignificant; which in its noiseless progress has upheaved the deep-laid systems of ancient superstition, has overturned altar and idol, thrones and empires, and given intellectual and moral freedom to prostrate millions; and which is yet but in the early stages of its destined progress, which is accumulating with every age new energy and force, and will not be stayed until it bring back upon the earth its primeval innocence and its more than primeval glory, until all oppression and misrule, all error and sinfulness shall be unknown, and the world be filled with the angelpresence of truth and righteousness and love, this stupendous, this glorious effect-would you trace it to its beginnings, would you know its visible cause?-go back among the ages to an ob

scure village of an obscure province of the then Roman Empire, and in a manger of the stable of that village-inn will you find it. Lo, the moral Regenerator of a world! the being who by his teachings, and the deeds which shall authenticate them as divine, by the influence of that spiritual truth he is to publish and incarnate, is the author and finisher of the effects described! In that little form is the spark enkindling, which shall send a soul-reviving radiance to unnumbered millions of every generation of the race of man. Such was the beginning of Christianity; or rather, of those effects which the world has witnessed in its name.

And in this harmony of Christianity with nature, may we not discern a mark of its Divine origin? In its inconsiderable beginnings, its gradual advancement, its simplicity of operation, do we not recognize the signature of the same Almighty Hand from which the visible world proceeded?

There is a lesson, also, not unimportant, presented us in the circumstances we have been considering. Who, without the light of experience, would have seen in the insignificant acorn, the majestic oak; in the morning twilight, the all-illumining day? Who that saw that helpless babe in his manger-cradle, would have foreseen the world's regeneration proceeding thence? The lesson is, not to despise what may seem to us trifling and unimportant. The germ of mightiest results, in the moral world as in the natural, may lie enfolded in the smallest compass. Neither the fruit thereof, nor the flower, may we be enabled to discern. Events predict not, to the outward sense, the greatness of their effects. They cast no shadow by which their real magnitude may be measured. But, however trifling they may appear to the careless mind, and however trifling they may indeed be in themselves considered, in their bearings and results they may assume to us, hereafter, a most imposing aspect. Therefore should we not pass them by with a careless indifference, nor suffer the duty that may be connected with them to borrow aught to our minds of their seeming insignificance, lest by a neglect of such duty we hinder the accomplishment of their blessed designs. What more apparently insignificant than is the human being in its earliest life. Feebleness finds there its chosen emblem. But, "take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones;" for beyond all human or