Let not the excuse that you do not feel well, too easily prevail with you. It may be a mere temptation to keep you away. You may feel just as badly if you remain away as if you go. Instead of nursing the indisposition by a brooding spirit, master it by turning your attention to the high concerns of the spirit. If it is mere morbid feeling, as it often is, the best place to lose it is on the way to the sanctuary. Be assured, too, that religious duty is good for the body as well as the soul. The best place to rest a weary body, and to forget light afflictions, is to force the dull body and the brooding spirit into the service of religion, and to seek refreshment for both in the green pastures and beside the still waters of grace. Be mindful, too, of the fact that your example, whether good or bad, will influence others. Your regular attendance will silently draw others after you, and your absence will do much toward keeping others away. "O LAMM GOTTES UNSCHULDIG." A CHORAL. Verse I by Decius, 1524, on the basis of the ancient Latin original. Verses and III added later. TRANSLATED BY THE EDITOR. Lamb of God, harmless, holy, On the cross sacrificed for me: Quiet, and meek, and lowly, Though sinful men did deride Thee; On us have mercy, Lord Jesus. Lamb of God, in dust lying! In tears and blood bathing sadly. To Thee for refuge flying, We meet all pains, and death gladly; Bring us sweet peace, O Lord Jesus. Lamb of God, harmless, holy, Winning for us our Salvation; UNE TRAITE. BY AELIE WILSON. I left home, like a thief, in the night, to steal time to steal distance. The moon was broad and full and the air the balmiest of a mid-summer night. No need to tell where I got on the cars, yet I cannot but tell how vivid is the remembrance of that night's scenery. The intense silence of the night the noise and fury of the cars--the grand panorama of the mountains sleeping in that full moonlight, that made height higher, and depth deeper and all mysterious, the hideous unearthly shriek of the locomotive, that seemed to wake the spirits of the dark valleys and make them to howl in unison as their familiar passed. Slowly crossing those high bridges the cars would be distinctly moon-o-graphed on the side of the mountain. Whirling along the side of the mountain, darting through the in'ards of another, and gliding from one peak to anotherone would not help feeling impressed with the harmony of the scene. Darkness, or the quiet of moonlight, gives an awed-feeling, they put us in that sympathetic state that we can appreciate something terribly energetic. What God has made in beauty and purity, may work with resistless energy, quietly; but what man has made or marred, seems to be all done with a strain and an effort. Those forces of nature which he has made to work out his ends with power and with might, seem unwilling spirits always struggling and screaming for release, like the fabled spirit closed in the tree. The hideous screams of the locomotive always seemed to me peculiarly consistant. Distance and time must be annihilated, the mountain, the river, the forest must be past-more than mortal energy must do it; the earth must be disembowelled the spirits of fire air and water-spirits which we dread most as to us most destructive-must be pressed into service-what more alike than the earthquake and the locomotive! When we got to Quakake junction, the moon had gone-it was very dark when we left the Reading train and got into another and each went off their several ways, "madly rushing on" through the darkness of the mountains. When I wakened up, it was in the early light of the morning, and we were descending the Lehigh. For wild startling scenery this ride can nowhere be surpassed. Why do we leave our native state, and gad off with the heedless herd, whose raptures are set to tune! Of this again. Five o'clock brought us to Mauch chunk. Here we had an hour before the next train started. Mauch Chunk is the name given to this distinguished portion of the coal formation of our State, and is derived from the Indian name of the mountain, meaning Bear Mountain. The history of the accidental discovery of the stone-coal, the accidental discovery of how to use it, the efforts to get it to market, connected as it is with the navigation of the Lehigh, is very curious and interesting, but for the present I will leave it. The village is situated in a deep romantic ravine, the mountains rising eight hundred to a thousand feet, above it. The sides of the mountain had to be broken down to make place for streets and buildings. Six o'clock took us away, and we had a long and exhausting ride across New Jersey, - one o'clock brought us to the La Farge House. Intending to go by the Fall River line, we however made an hour's mistake and had to take the Stonington line. A little after six o'clock in the evening we left New York, out through Hell-gate into the sound, steaming away in a noble boat, the Vanderbilt. The coast line went low down and darkness came. At three o'clock all were awakened to take the cars. What a jolly woe-begone looking set we were! With some delay, which seemed interminable to our restless souls and craving bodies, we started. How the cars seemed to creep. Looking out into the raw half-light, watching the low sand banks creeping along, we were startled by the announcement of some place, "Cars stop five mintes for refreshment." Coffee was delicious, and it was with some comfort we passed on up through Rhode Island, past Providence-what a rich looking place it is it is said that it has more wealth in proportion to the number of inhabitants than any other city in the Union. About seven o'clock we were in Boston. As we were approaching it, I could not help thinking how it had been the dream of my youth to visit this place. Associated as it is with so many scenes with so many men, near and remotely which thrill our hearts to think of "How the prattling tongue of garrulous old age delighted to tell the oft told tale." To this coast the May Flower came-on this rock bound shore the stern old puritan landed, here they burned the witches, and bored the Quakers, tongues with red hot irons-here was the "hot bed" of treason. Here the first blood was shed-here was the first battle. Here the "hill tops, where legends haunt-here Washington first drew his sword as commander-in-chief of the American army. What a throng of cherished memories of our Country's struggle, and our Country's glory came gathering around me, and it seemed rather like a dream than an assurance" that I was there. Some one has given a condensed description of Boston, which is witty and true. "It looked as if some one had taken a cart load of odds and ends of streets and dumped them down the side of a hill." The streets are narrow and very crooked. When you start out to take a stroll, you can hardly be safe in assuring yourself at what place you will come out, whether at Boston Common or at Bunker Hill Monument. Diedrich Knickerbocker gives an account of the laying out of New York city in his veracious history. "The sage council, not being able to determine upon a plan for the building of their city-the cows, in a laudable fit of patriotism, took it under their particular charge, and as they went to and from pasture established paths through the bushes, on each side of which the good folks built their houses; which is one cause of the rambling and picturesque turns and labyrinths, which distinguish certain streets of New York at this day." I cannot help recurring here to the foundation of Philadelphia. "In everything that related to his Holy Experiment, Penn thought on a grand scale. Not content to build humbly, and allow house to be added to house, and street to street, as the exigencies of the day might require, he had formed the whole scheme of his city--its name, its form, its streets, its docks and open spaces-fair and perfect in his mind, before a single stone was laid or, a pine tree had been fielled to make room for it. "According to the original design, Philadelphia was to have covered with its houses, squares and gardens, about twelve square miles. Two noble streets, one of them facing an unrivalled row of red pines, were to front the rivers; a great public thoroughfare alone separating the houses from their banks. These streets were to be connected by the High street, a magnificent avenue, perfectly straight and an hundred feet in width, to be adorned with lines of trees and gardens surrounding the dwelling houses. At a right angle with the High street, Broad street, of equal width, was to cut the city in two, from north to south. It was thus divided into four sections. It the exact centre a large public square of ten acres was reserved; and in the middle of each quarter a similar square of eight acres was set apart for the comfort and recreation of posterity. Eight streets, fifty feet wide were built parallel to Broad street, and twenty of the same width parallel to the rivers. He encouraged the building of detached houses, with rustic porches and trailing plants about them; his desire being to see Philadelphia 'a greene country towne.'" The narrow, winding streets, the varied colors of the houses, and bazaar-like signs, make Boston very picturesque. And it has well earned the name of "the City of Notions." It seemed, however, shocking to one's notions of propriety-to one at least used to Philadelphia -to one accustomed to associating the wicked and the vile with narrow ways and crooked places, to wander through these labyrinthian streets, to find that they were the places so celebrated-State street, Washington, Cornhill, &c. It kept up one's astonishment, too, meeting with such palaces as the American Hotel amid their entanglements. However, we ment to the Revere House. You can't see out from here. The streets go straggling off, to wander away in their perversities, and a half square's distance "shuts the view" with a motely crowd of houses. The Revere House is kept by Paran Steevens, and he is called the Prince of hotel keepers. He is said to be manager of this hotel, of the Tremont, and the one at Nahant. It was told us that he was to be the manager of the Continental at Philadelphia. If that is managed as the Revere House, it will have a host for its company. It is admirable in all its appointments, and struck us as strong in contrast with the management of a prominent hotel in Philadelphia, where we found dead mice in our rooms, had to fight with the red ants at the table, and submitted to many inconveniences of the like kind The Revere was full when we got there. It was the week of the trade sales of New England manufactures, and there were many merchants from various parts of the country. We could not get a room immediately and our baggage was ordered to a bath room, a row of neat rooms in the lower part of the building. A hot bath, relieved by a cold one, refreshed and made us men anew. We had, per chance, brought with us some old quarters from Pennsylvania, current in our region, where they had been salted down for many years, but we were asked here what kind of pieces they were, as they were apparently unknown. Every thing was perfectly appointed, as we have said, about the hotel. To mention one instance of the minute attention to convenient particularities, we asked at the office to have some washing done. We were handed a slip of paper on which was printed a list of all the possible articles of wearing appearel, as collars, shirts, &c., opposite to which we were directed to mark the number of articles in the bundle we were to make up and leave in our room, with blanks for our name, number of room, and time at which we wished to have them returned. We made up the bundle, marked the number of articles, and designated eight o'clock the next morning as the hour we wished to have them, and left them lie in the room. The next morning at eight we found the bundle returned, and in them the slip, so that we would see that they were all there. The washing was charged in our bill at the office, and we paid it when we paid our bill. Everything was after this manner. It was as comfortable and convenient as a home. No where have we traveled, we may remark in general, where there is so much attention, and where there is such a minute provision for all the possible wants and wishes of a traveler, of a man, as throughout New England, especially in Boston. They appear to regard living as one of the exact sciences. The people of Boston seem to have a pride and pleasure in preserving the monuments of its early history. Places, buildings, trees are preserved and kept with a pious regard. The houses their fathers built, places of "glorious memory," where were the first breathings of their early aspirations, the evidences of their early struggles, all are marked and kept "sacred to the memory." There is the old Brattle Street Church with the cannon ball in its side. It was masoned into the place where it struck. There is the oldest house in Boston; in its blue plastered gable the figures 1680, as if marked when the mortar was fresh. There is the old South Street Church, whose pews the British soldiers broke up for fire wood, and made a cavalry riding school of its interior. Court and State streets meet in this sinuous way, being one and the same street, separated by the old State House standing in the middle of the street. North street is a narrow way, with pavement varying from one to two feet wide, and is the Five Points of Boston-the home of sailors and all that are degraded and vile. We made our way through it on Sunday afternoon. We have no wish to see again on a bright summer Sunday such marks of ruined humanity. But Boston has left with us many reminiscences of elevated humanity, and on these we wish to dwell more at length again. SACRILEGE. BY THE EDITOR. There lived somewhere no difference where, perhaps in the neighborhood of our present reader-two men as neighbors. Both were professors of religion and belonged to the same church. The one's name was STRICTLY, a rather intelligent man, who was at the time a Deacon; |