ght before God, how vain appears all human
learning! how little the wisdom of ages! how less than nothing the
splendor and grandeur of riches! Soon--very soon, that ignorant and
poverty-stricken old negro, who, like Lazarus, has been lying at the
door of the rich, great world, humbly thankful for the crumbs she has
received, will be endowed with knowledge and wisdom; she will read and
have solved mysteries which the greatest sages of antiquity, and the
profoundest philosophers of modern times have shrunk from, overwhelmed
with the vastness of their conception. She will have looked on the
face of Him who suffered for her, and be, through his divine mercy, and
the merits of his bitter passion, admitted into eternal rest. Oh
faith, mistress of learning! Oh humility, without which the learned
shall not enter heaven! Possess our hearts--reign in our souls for
ever. But go now; tell her I will see her in the morning, unless she
is beyond my reach."

It was a clear, soft evening. The sky, as the sun declined, was filled
as with the brightness of flashing wings, while the golden light broke
in ripples around the isles of cloud that hung over the deep. The
flute-like whistle of the blue-bird, and the odor of violets, and young
budding leaves, were in the air together--music, light, and fragrance,
like harmonies from the spirit-land, blending softly together. The
earth was clothed in its new garment, for spring had risen from the
grave, and its resurrection was glorious. Over the ways of the city,
and in the suburban lanes; in the glens and dells of the forest, and
the distant slopes of the blue hills; over the mounds of the silent
dead, where the germs of infinite life are planted,--where, like
pearls, lying beneath the earth-billows, they will sleep in their
sealed shells until, from the eastern gates of heaven, springs the
eternal dawn, which shall gather them in, clothed with new light, to be
set amongst the crown-jewels of God,--the sweet clover, the tender
grass, and wild flowers were springing together. In flowed all this
sweetness down to the depths of May's soul, as she walked along, and
led her feelings sweetly up to that clime of which the fairest and
purest of earth-born things are only the gray shadows; and rejoicing in
nature and high hope, she came in sight of Mabel's cottage. She saw
the child who lived with her, and called her grandmother, playing about
the door, and beckoning to her, inquired "how sh