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great deal; they can depress the truly noble, and cover them with neglect and obloquy; they can raise the little, the sordid, the base, to high distinetion, and keep them there; they can confer and take away wealth, reputation, power; they can favor or retard the advancement of those who must advance without them, or in spite of them; but they cannot make the great heart, the unconquerable will, the creative imagination, the comprehensive understanding. These divine endowments cannot be wholly concealed or suppressed; and at some time or other, in some place or other, and in some way or other, will proclaim their own majesty, and command the world's reverence. Their possessor may have been the child of misfortune and penury, from the cradle to the grave; nay, he may have perished prematurely like Otway and Chatterton, in the desperation of physical want; but if the gift of God was in him, depend upon it, there was also a record of its power, which cannot be lost, before it was taken with him to another life. The hapless son of genius, to whom fortune denied his daily bread, may make such rich provision for posterity, in his undying works, that remote generations shall call him a benefactor, and consecrate his fame. But labor and circumstances did not make this man.

Such is our fate nevertheless.

Some one will say, it is a hard fate to which we are born; the vast majority, to mediocrity and even less. "Hath not the potter power over the clay, to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor ?" The decree of mere power may not justify to our minds, the way of our Maker; but if we look farther, we shall discern in this, as in all the other appointments of Providence, the purpose and the fulfilment of the greatest good. The endless variety of the natural world is not more necessary to the pleasure of the individual beings who inhabit it, than the diversity of their powers, conditions and employments is, to the greatest happiness of their greatest number. And after all, there is one great common ground of equality. The moral constitution of man, which gives him the perception of right and wrong, and makes him the just subject of a future retribution, redresses the balance of power, which might otherwise be disturbed by the preponderance of great abilities and thus the humblest man, who enjoys an inferior portion of his maker's best gifts, may raise himself to the higher degrees of moral excellence. The duties of justice, benevolence, and piety, are common to all, because all have the power to perform them; and the worth of the per

formance is not measured by ability, but by the proportion between ability and its result. The sway of mere genius, without reference to its benevolent exercise, is beginning to decline, as Christianity advances; and a life of beneficence is becoming a passport to fame. Wilberforce was blest with no genius; but he heard the cry of the oppressed, and devoted his life and fortune to the abolition of the curse of slavery. His name will be mentioned with honor, to say nothing of future recompenses, when the names of multitudes of greater men who gratified a selfish ambition, at the expense of tears and blood to their fellow creatures, are cited with contempt, or covered with oblivion. The spirit of that great philanthropist is borne up to heaven upon the prayers of the human race. He was their friend. Let those who despair of distinction from the force of their abilities, adopt a course like his: they may be assured that there is a leaf in the Life-Book even of human memory and gratitude, for all those who dedicate their time, their talents and their substance, to increase the knowledge, the virtue and the happiness of mankind.

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TIME.

BY THOMAS C. HARTSHORN.

TIME, though our friend, is often deemed a foe,
Against him many strive with idle zeal :
The lover and the sluggard think him slow,
And wish a rapid motion to his wheel:
While debtors, who have notes or drafts to pay,
Would gladly have him linger on his way.

The gay coquette, regardless how he flies,
Enjoys her conquests while her charms avail,

Nor knows the truth that Flattery denies,
Until her mirror tells the serious tale;
Then borrows she each artificial aid
To hide the ravages that Time hath made.

In vain she strives! proud monuments decay; Shall frailer beauty such a wreck outlive? Alas! it is the creature of a day,

And passes with the cloud that shines at eve, When the bright sun in setting throws a fringe Of rays on it—an evanescent tinge !

Nor this alone; the fairest works of art

May fall unwept, but Genius weeps to see The gentlest lines that ever touched the heart, Fade like the colors on old tapestry.

Hath he not plundered Chaucer of his bays,
By making obsolete his finest lays?

And Shakspeare too, whom Nature took to nurse
Amid her mountain scenery, wild, sublime,
(Why did she not exempt him from the curse?)
Hath felt the woeful ravages of Time

So much, that some think all his commentators,
Compared to Time, are harmless depredators.

The words in which they breathed their glowing souls,
When the fine frenzy kindled up their ken,
Obscure in meaning, like the leafy scrolls
Which zephyr wafted from the Sybil's den,
Have lost the bold conceptions they conveyed,
And given critics quite a musty trade.

Even they who led the van, and kindled war

Along the breathing lines of clashing spears, Have missed the fame which they contended for, Obscured and buried in the lapse of years; Mentioned perhaps in some black-letter book Covered with cobwebs in its dusty nook.

Behold what mighty changes Time can make.
The fields that madmen fattened with their gore,
Are green and peaceful as a summer lake,

The victors and the vanquished known no more, Save when the sturdy ploughman, with his share, Turns up their bones and wonders whose they were,

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