numbered, nor estimated. They are countless as the leaves of the forest, constant as time, and vast as they are constant and countless. He is the author of our lives, and the preserver of our lives, and consequently the original source of all our comforts, enjoyments and blessings, from the first moment of life to its last.

Why should we be grateful to the man who confers a benefit upon us, and not to the Being who gave him the power and the disposition to confer it? Why should we acknowledge those favors, the greatest of which must be limited by the ability which bestows them, and not those which would be attempted in vain by the mightiest human agency? What mortal hand could have spread out for us the magnificent canopy of heaven, or kindled the ever glowing furnace of the sun, or hung in the day-forsaken skies the lamp of the mild moon? What human power can bring one cloud upon a thirsty land, or bid one rain-drop to descend, or cause one blade of grass to grow? And who but the Almighty God could have wrapped the vast world in that transparent element, which sustains and binds together all breathing and living things?

These blessings are so constant and common, that we are not apt to appreciate them; and yet it is their very constancy and diffusion which places them above all value. The most tender and persevering kindness of a fellow being must at times be remitted, and the inevitable hour will come, when it must all cease; but if the supporting hand of God were for one moment withdrawn from us, in that moment we should be no more.

To die is the destiny of all; and all comparison ends between the mercies of God, and the good offices of man, when we extend our regards beyond our present habitation, to that succeeding state, of which man possesses no knowledge, and over which he has no control. When we lie upon our last bed, and all medicines have been given up as useless, and our eyes are closing on all outward things, what is our trust and consolation? Is it not on the mercy and truth of our Creator? And when our last grasp is relaxed, and we drop away from the world, where is it that we fall? Is it not into his arms?

The highest and worthiest object of our gratitude, therefore, above all rivalry or comparison, is God, the author of every good and perfect gift; the Being who breathed into us the breath of life, and who supports us while we live; who

endowed us with our intellectual faculties, our moral powers, sympathies, and affections, and who has assured us by a direct revelation, that death will only open another and a wider scene for their exercise, and never-ending improvement.

If our gratitude to God were proportioned to the claims on it, it would be constant as the dispensation of his mercies and boundless as the displays of his love. But such perfection cannot be expected from humanity. We should keep perfection in view, however, and strive to do our utmost, assured that we can never be too grateful to our Heavenly Father, and that the degrees of our gratitude will serve as the measure of our moral excellence, of the proper perfor mance of our duty, and of our final acceptance.

Our gratitude to the Deity is to be manifested by mental and verbal acknowledgement, and by the obedience of our lives to the divine law.

We would not surely think ourselves justified in giving no intimation, either to ourselves or to others, of incalculable and ever increasing obligations. We would not live for years on the domains of God, indebted for our daily sustenance to his bounty, and not send one poor thought to acknowledge our fealty at his throne. If we were to dismiss the form of giving thanks, it is to be feared that the feeling of gratitude itself would soon follow of its own accord. By prescribing to ourselves a frequent confession of dependence and obligation, a thankful disposition is cherished, and kept alive, if not actually created. "The breath of praise fans the flame of gratitude.'

A son

But the best proof which we can give that we are sensible of our obligations to the Almighty, is our obedience to his commandments, and the performance of our duty. This is the great test of the sincerity of our gratitude, without which all forms and professions are but empty pretence. proves himself grateful to his father for the care, support, protection, and instruction which he has received from him, by observing his injunctions, by consulting his wishes, and by making such an improvement of his opportunities as to become an honor, and not a disgrace to the kind hand which furnished them. Our Heavenly Father requires a similar return. He has given us capacities, and he demands their exertion; faculties, and he looks for their cultivation; opportunities, and he calls for their improvement; privileges and means, and he expects that they will be imparted. What is

the value of feeling, if it be not brought forth into action? Where is the truth of our gratitude, if it be not manifested in our benevolence, and our virtue? Why do we thank God for his mercies to us, if we show no mercy to our brethren? And how can we dare, with a downcast face, and a humble voice, to confess that the Almighty Giver has poured out upon us comforts and blessings innumerable, and then go away, and act as if we had forgotten that in the whole world there was a single demand on our sympathy, our charity, or our labors?

Nothing can be more true, than that praise belongs to the Creator, and that thanksgiving is due to him from the creatures whom he has endowed with thought, affections, and language. But it is equally as true, that one drop of oil to the wounds of human suffering, one mite to the treasury of human happiness, is infinitely more expressive of our gratitude, and infinitely more acceptable in the sight of heaven, than all the barren, though perhaps loud and solemn acknowledgements, which mind can frame, or tongue can utter.

DISTINGUISHED GOODNESS OF GOD TO MAN.
THY wisdom, power, and goodness, Lord,
In all thy works appear;

But most thy praise should man record,

Man, thy distinguished care.

From thee the breath of life he drew;

That breath thy power maintains;
Thy tender mercy, ever new,

His brittle frame sustains.

Thy providence, his constant guard,
When threatening ills impend,
Or will th' impending dangers ward,
Or timely succors lend.

Yet nobler favors claim his praise,

Of reason's light possest;

By revelation's brighter rays
Still more divinely blest.

All bounteous Lord, thy grace impart;
O teach me to improve

Thy gifts with ever grateful heart,
And crown them with thy love.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD,

In the solitude of the woods.

It is not only in the sacred fane

That homage should be paid to the Most High;
There is a temple, one not made with hands-
The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city chime,
At intervals heard through the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
When not a floweret bends its little stalk,
Save where the bee alights upon the bloom;-
T'here, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,
The man of God will pass the Sabbath noon;
Silence his praise; his disembodied thoughts,
Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend
Beyond the empyrean-

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne,
The Sabbath-service of the shepherd-boy,
In some lone glen, where every sound is lull'd
To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill,
Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry,
Stretch'd on the sward, he reads of Jesse's son;
Or shed a tear o'er him to Egypt sold,

And wonders why he weeps; the volume closed,
With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings
The sacred lays, his weekly lesson, conn'd
With meikle care beneath the lowly roof,

Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth
Pines unrewarded by a thankless state!
Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen,
The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps,
Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands
Returning homeward from the house of prayer.

THE RAINBOW.

TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

Still seem as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dream'd of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When science from creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,

What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.

Methinks thy jubilee to keep,

The first made anthem rang,
On earth deliver'd from the deep,
And the first poet sang.

Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam;
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme.