now, not the indifference of those to whom religious forms are an unmeaning language, because they have never known the feeling which those forms express; but the indifference of those who are so profoundly impressed with the substance and spirit of christianity, that if a man's heart is in his religion, they care not in what dialect he prays, whether he stands or kneels in devotion, whether he holds a creed or governs his life by the Scriptures alone - they are glad to see any form in which the faith can gain for itself a warmer welcome in any heart. But I do wrong to use the word indifference in connexion with such a feeling as this; it is rather an interest in all forms which breathe the true spirit of those who use them; its watchword is, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice. It makes believers friendly to the whole-hearted of every party, — it allows them to be unkind and unjust to none.

And now let me ask, have you ever reflected, that when our Saviour likened his religion to a living spring, he compared it to the most durable of earthly things? Fleeting and perishable as it seems, there is nothing more enduring. Many a wayfarer goes to the land where Jesus lived, a region made so sacred by his presence, that men have called it the Holy Land. They look for Samaria, the great city of the kings; they find nothing save the well where Jesus talked with the Samaritan woman, and see women coming as in past ages, to draw from it in the heat of the day. They find no vestige of Tyre, the city whose merchants were princes; but the same waves welter round the lonely shores, and the fisherman spreads his nets upon the desolate rock. They seek for Jerusalem as it was; but the daughter of Zion is changed; the crown is fallen from her brow; the holy and beautiful house is gone for ever; while the fountain of Siloam, fast by the oracle of God, flows full and bright as in the day when the priests filled their golden urns from it, singing, "with joy ye shall draw water from the wells of salvation." The traveller asks for the ruins of Capernaum, where our Saviour made his home. Once it was exalted to heaven in its pride;

THE WATER OF LIFE.

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now there is not a stone to show the place of its grave; while the sea of Tiberias, where he called his disciples, and where he reproved the winds and waves and they obeyed him, still spreads out its blue waters, though for ages no dashing oar has broken the slumber of its tide.

He meant that his religion should endure; and, therefore, he would not write it with an iron pen in the rock for ever; he chose rather to have it engraven on the only immortal thing in this world; and that is the heart of man. The heart and impressions made in it will endure for ever. This is the reason that christianity still exists, while cities, kingdoms and empires have passed away. This is the reason that it shall endure unchanged, when rocks and mountains shall melt, and the earth shall be a scorched and blackened ruin. It cannot perish like the works of man and the visible elements of nature. It is an immortal fountain to supply the thirst of the soul for ever.

"THERE are few episodes in modern history on which so much has been written, and which has fur nished such a theme for dispute, as Torquato Tasso's connexion with the Princess Leonore D'Este. The evidences that his passion was returned are most complete; they are Leonore's own letters."

THE lamps are dim, the banquet-room is lonely,
The voice of song hath died in hall and bower;
Italia's soft and starry midnight, only,

Looks on her now, - proud Este's peerless flower.
She sits alone: through the wide casement stealing,
The night-wind lifts her long and drooping hair,
With its light touch the mournful thought revealing,
That clouds her eye, and knits her forehead fair.

She hath been gay to-night, and, proudly veiling
Each troubled feeling with a joyous glance,
Hath met Alphonso's eye with look unquailing,
And led, the merriest, in the mazy dance.
But this hath passed, and love, too wildly cherished,
Again hath risen with subduing power,

And phantom forms of happiness that perished
Come dimly gliding through this lonely hour.

There's wealth around her; costly jewels, gleaming,
Clasp her fair neck, and band her regal brow:
Beauty, that lives but in the poet's dreaming,
Smiles from the marble walls upon her now:
She heeds it not; each restless thought is roving
To a dark cell, where daylight seldom falls,
Where he, the lofty-minded and the loving,
Sees but the spider clothe the mouldy walls.

O, well to him may woman's love be given,
That lonely dreamer of immortal dreams;
For founts, that rise amid the fields of heaven,
Have bathed his spirit with celestial streams;
And he hath walked with radiant ones, whose dwelling
Is in the land where beauty owes its birth;

And the proud tales his lofty lyre is telling
Shall send undying echoes through the earth.

LEONORE D'ESTE.

Thine is a clouded pathway, Genius! never
Upon thy dreary lot life's sunlight shines;
Baptized in wo, and consecrated ever

To lead the worship at ideal shrines!
Ay, bind thy glorious visions on thy spirit;
Let them uplift thee o'er thy mournful fate:
With the proud mission that thou dost inherit
Is ever linked life sad and desolate.

And thou, who through long days of gloom dost languish,
And for thy soul's bright star in darkness pine,
Comes there no voice, upon thine hours of anguish,
To say, though far away, she still is thine?

To say there's one whose heart for thee beats only,
Though crowds are pleading her bright smiles to share;
Who finds Ferrara's princely palace lonely,

Since thy blue eye and song are wanting there?

Sad Leonore so long hast thou been turning,
With love's fond worship, to those soul-lit eyes,
That, to thy gaze, no other suns are burning;

Earth hath no light save what within them lies.
Blest is thy love, though mournful, shedding ever
Into thy depths of soul its sunny ray,

And bringing bright illusions, that shall never
Fade in life's dark realities away!

Then gem thy golden tresses on the morrow,
And smile again in thine ancestral hall :
Earth's children know full many a sterner sorrow
Than on divided love may ever fall!

Your hearts are one; and thence perpetual gladness
Shall fling o'er life its soft and rainbow gleams;
For love hath power, through separation's sadness,
To wrap the spirit in elysian dreams.

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CHARACTER OF REV. JOSEPH EMERSON.

BORN AT HOLLIS. DIED AT WEATHERSFIELD, CONN.

BY CALEB J. TENNEY, D. D.

His has been a life of uncommon usefulness. Omitting all other particulars, I here allude only to the good he did as the teacher and principal of his Seminary. The instruction he imparted to a multitude of our youth, cooperated perfectly in its influence with the high design of the ministry. In the introduction and establishment of female seminaries in New England, he was very much a pioneer. Such celebrity did he secure to his institution for its system, accuracy, thoroughness, and christian character, that far and wide he spread before the public mind the importance of female education. His may properly be called a parent institution. For several of his pupils and many others followed his example in establishing schools of a high order for young ladies. His usefulness in this respect, has surpassed that of any other teacher of females within the last half century.

Besides this, the instruction he actually communicated to many, many hundreds of minds, and the success with which he taught them how to think, how to read, how to learn, and how to feel and act, constitute an untold amount of good. By him a vast number were prepared for elevated stations in domestic life, and many to become the companions of ministers and missionaries to the heathen. Repeatedly was his seminary visited by the gracious influences of the Spirit, under which not a few were sealed to the day of redemption. Thus he has spread extensively a healthful,