ell that all do not retain
their position--they would be less monitory, less worthy our thought.
Nature, in her use of foliage, acts upon the plan which the sybil of
old adopted--she writes her lessons upon the leaves--and yet so
arranges the truths they should convey, that they become more and more
apparent, more and more valuable, as the hand of destructive time
diminishes their number.

Elsewhere we have given reflections upon those events by which
kingdoms and empires have been shaken in the year now coming to a
close. Let us come nearer the heart, and speak of some of those
changes by which human affections and individual attachments have been
disturbed. Not, however, to quote the instance exactly--that would be
to drag up into life the hidden sorrow, and expose to observation the
grief which is sanctified for the recesses of the heart, whither in
moments of leisure the wounded retire and sit and brood in profitable
reflection over the affliction which Providence has allowed. We dare
not drag up to day and its exposure each grief that lies buried deep
in the grave of the mourner's heart. How truly beautiful, however, is
the reflection that the stone of the sepulchre may be rolled away,
and that in appropriate seasons the afflicted one makes a retreat from
the business and the pleasures of life, and "goeth unto the grave to
weep there." Sanctified--as beautiful--be the sorrow that hath not its
exponent in the public assembly, that hath no signal by which its
existence is to be denoted--no condition of countenance by which its
extent is to be measured. Perhaps the _sufferer_ had not yet obtained
permission to call the object hers--and thus is deprived of the
privilege of admitted mourning--how deep is _that_ grief--it has known
only the hope of life which takes with it all of the sunlight that
_makes_ the rainbow; without one drop of the storm from which that bow
is reflected. Perhaps the young WIFE sits solitary in the chamber
which affection has blessed, and pines amid the thousand emblems of
the taste or customs of the dead--perhaps her grief is her
inspiration, and she gives to story or to song the promptings of her
sorrow, which the world supposes is the gift of joyous inspiration.

Perhaps the _mother_ is pausing in the midst of renewed anguish for
the departure of her gifted, her only child, and sits enumerating all
his perfections, the greatest of which, and that which sanctified all
other virtues, and hid