Rhodes, who were too hard for the Persian Archers. And Dion Cassius writes that when Mark Anthony fought with the Parthians, the Roman Sling over-shot the Parthian Bow; which we know was famous above all others."Reading.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.

Judges xi.

The history to which the following poem relates, is very remarkable, and a great deal has been written on the question, whether Jephtha devoted his daughter to death, or only to a kind of monastic state of celibacy. It is not the province of our little work to enter upon curious controversies, which have employed many learned pens; but we rather take those points which appear on the face of the story, and may be turned to edifying and practical uses. We think the example well calculated to shew the impropriety of making vows rashly, and without knowing to what extent we may bind ourselves. If we make a vow to God, we ought to keep it; but we should consider well before we do make it, and understand how far it may involve us. Jephtha vowed he would offer the first thing that should come to meet him, on his return home. And this, to his dismay and sorrow, happened to be his own dear and beloved daughter. Our talented correspondent has, with her usual felicity, touched the affecting incidents of this very extraordinary transaction.

Wail, hapless chief! did ever sire
So greet a daughter's eye?
Or mingle with her song of joy,
Such shriek of agony ?

Wail, hapless chief! her glad advance,

Her duteous triumph paid,

Devote to early, hopeless death,
Thy dear, thy only maid.

Oh had she never come before,
To greet thy homeward way,
Or welcom'd, with her smile of light,
The triumphs of the day.

Oh had the breezes never borne,
The burden of her song,
Or wantoned mid her locks, as she
Danc'd with light step along.

And never had her glancing eyel
Looked upward through a tear,
While soft her eager accents spoke,
"My father! welcome here."

Now, now alone his bitter wail,
His hurried faltering breath,
His garments rent proclaim aloud,
"Oh, I have vowed thy death."

One moment, when her doom was spoke, In mute amaze she stood,

The next-" Thy vow is to the Lord, "My father, make it good."

"This, this alone, thy hapless child

"Claims at a father's hand,

For two short months to wander where, 'Judea's mountains stand.

66

Ah, who can tell what visions broke,
Upon her waken'd eyes!

How sweet the voice from heaven that spoke, "Devoted maid arise:

"Rise from the vanity and tears
"That mark'd thy transient way,
"Rise by a short, though awful death,
"To heaven's eternal day."

That father saw his child again—
Those months of wandering past,
And press'd a kiss upon her cheek,
The deepest and the last.

Oh she was changed-the summer bloom
Upon that cheek had fled,
And the fair ringlets round her brow
Their sunny gloss had shed.

And gone was the elastic step,
The voice of gladness gone,
The glance of joy, that, fair and free,
Once in her blue eyes shone.

Yet she was fair, and in that hour,
Unwonted faith was given,

To hide the darkness of the vale,
To give a glimpse of heaven.

And deep her sigh, and sweet her smile,
As that dark vale she trod;

The sigh was for her father's grief,

The smile was to her God.

PRIMOGENITA.

THOMAS GIBBONS.

To the Editor of the Penny Sunday Reader. HONORED AND REV. SIR-I am very much pleased with the PENNY SUNDAY READER which I think is calculated alike to please and inform the understanding. May I beg a small space to relate the goodness of God to me and my forefathers, and return my unfeigned thanks to God for giving me a being from religious parents, and for all the blessings we have from year to year, and day to day, received, and that without any merit of ours. My grandfather was born at the town of Frome, Somerset, in 1703, and married and brought up seven children in the fear of the Lord. My father who was the youngest, having been trained up in the way he was to go, did not depart from it when he was old, but brought up his children to know at an early age the things pertaining to their peace, and which has been to me of unspeakable happiness through life. My parents were not rich, but it gives me great comfort to know that they were religious, and lived in good repute with all who knew them, and died in the faith, believing and trusting in God through Jesus Christ. At the age of ten, I lost my mother, who was a pious woman, and who had done everything for us which natural tenderness or religious concern could. I was born at Frome, in 1783. I was the fifth child of ten children; and, though my father had nothing to support so large a family but his business, yet his children were not neglected; for, at his leisure hours, he taught us to read and write, which has been a source of

happiness and cheerfulness to me through life. At the age of fourteen my father apprenticed me to a carpenter, and, at the expiratlon of my apprenticeship, I left Frome, and travelled from place to place, and town to town, in thirty counties; and, for the space of twenty-eight years, I made haste to rise early and late take rest, and have ate the bread of carefulness, and the Lord has blessed my honest labours, so that I have a competency for me and my wife's support; and I now live in my own cottage, in the parish of Walcot, Bath, Somerset. Such has been the goodness of God to me, that he has enabled me to attain such a peaceful serenity of mind as the world, and its pursuits, can never give; and all this comfort and satisfaction is derived from religion, for our religion, among its various excellencies, is distinguished above all other religions.

"For if we trace the globe around,
And search from Britain to Japan,
There can be no religion found,

So just to God, so safe to man."

My father died, as he lived, in peace with all men, in the eighty-third year of his age, at Frome, the town in which he was born. God released him from the trouble of this world, without a sigh, and, through the mercy of God, is now where there is no sin, nor death, nor pain, but where the souls of them that sleep in the Lord Jesus, enjoy perpetual rest and felicity. My father and mother were both dissenters, but I am attached to the Church of England, from a firm and settled conviction of the scriptural purity of her doctrine, and of the primitive and apostolic form of her government. May God of his infinite goodness and mercy, give me a portion of his Holy Spirit,