crown, flushed with the rosy shadow, and their own blushing happiness. Pictures such as these engrave themselves even on the most childish mind, and are recalled in after years, as if it was the remembrance of some happy dream. The quaint antique beauty of the room, the fair slender girls, rose laden, the profusion of flowers, their perfume, with summer sounds and air coming in at the windows, and a sort of golden hue of sunshine over all, awoke in my heart a sudden burst of pleasure. With such feelings is born simultaneously the desire to share this pure delight with others. I wondered if my sisters, older than I, had ever experienced this perception of beauty, opening also a fund of awakening consciousness that the world contained vast treasures of them, and the goodness of God to give us such pleasures, with the perception to enjoy them. My mind revelled in a sort of fantasy, and soared up to the kingdom in which our mother dwelt, asking of my reason if she abode in lovelier scenes, or richer beauty, or was heaven only so much fairer than earth, in that we should there meet to part no more. Did she look down from unfading summer, and behold her children experiencing a moment of immortal happiness, to prepare them for partaking of it evermore with her? For the sensation of youth, health, and happiness, with the keen perception of good things, gives an elasticity and radiance to the heart, that takes it straight up to the throne of that Being "who has Truth for his Body, and Light for his Shadow." We taste what we may be, and in tasting refine our nature. How felicitous is that natural piety which experiences no sensation without an uplifting of the soul either in gratitude or praise, a piety that comforts because it is ever there, gaining strength from copious, overflowings, a piety that is spontaneous, impulsive, prompted by the very richness of its spring! Blessed with the gift of godliness, nothing passes unheeded. There is a carefulness in such characters not to displease, as there is the strong desire to please. In nothing do they dwell alone, but live in a state of brotherhood with all. Their ideas of life and its duties are not bound by a circle, but they rather consider the dominions of love and usefulness to be infinite as the sea, and their duties countless as the sand on the shore. Capable of every affection, they cannot understand the natures that are only interested in what centres in themselves. "Greatness," my father taught us, "is natural to the soul of man. His upright stature should be token of the uplifting of his thoughts." "Make your religion, my children," he would say, "the Pole-star to guide you over hills of difficulty, and to beckon you up the dark valleys of doubt and superstition. Let it not be in your hands a stern and unrelenting finger-mark, turning that which is sweet into bitterness, what is nourishing, to poison. Remember the star of the Apocalypse, which, falling ominously on brooks, rivers, and fountains, changed their refreshing waters into wormwood. Let Religion fill your hearts and minds with a perceptible presence, overflowing with light and love at a joyous and happy time, but concentrating its powers into drops of divine essence, in sorrow and charity." Taught thus, the new feeling of the perception of beauty, just awakened in a childish mind, brought forth a glow of enchantment that was never to be wholly erased. On the contrary, an eager desire to feed and regale it became predominant. Henceforth all things formed themselves into pictures before my mind, invested with all the beauty that a vivid imagination may lend to reality without sacrificing truth. Truth, indeed, was requisite, "as apples of gold in pictures of silver;" for |