is bow of
promise in the Heavens! by which He decorates the Earth, and tells of
Himself in the ocean, and in the sky, and by which He restoreth the Soul
of man!

And in that state of celestial existence which attends the redeemed Soul
disenthralled from 'the body of this death,' is it to be doubted, that
among the joys that 'the eye hath never seen, nor the heart conceived,'
there exist colours beautiful beyond all earthly wealth of imagination;
beyond the poet's fancy and the painter's dream? There where the pure gold
of which the city is constructed, is transparent as glass, and each gate
is one pearl, and the very foundations of the walls are of jasper, and
chalcedony, sapphire, emerald, ruby, amethyst and topaz; and the glory of
GOD is the light that lightens it!

But it is not to another world that the joys of colour are postponed, nor
even to another climate that we need look for the precious satisfaction
that they impart. We have not the carpets of flowers of rainbow tints,
that spread themselves over whole prairies of Texas and Mexico, but what a
gem upon the bosom of Earth when it is unexpectedly found among us is the
blue campanula! And the small white lily of the valley, sheltered and
concealed in its green leaves like a hidden tear of Joy, and almost as
rare! And the bright and graceful lobelia cardinalis that loves the
neighbourhood of the still waters. And the fringed gentian of a tint so
cerulean that our true poet derives it from the firmament; as his own
spirit, if left to approach its kindred element, might claim affinity with
the overshadowing expanse of celestial life![3]

[3] THIS allusion is to BYRANT'S lines 'To the Fringed
Gentian,' a poem so replete with truth and beauty, that we
cannot resist the inclination to quote it here.

ED. KNICKERBOCKER.

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And coloured with the heaven's own blue.
That openest, when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.