oyous are the
groups clustered around each loving teacher! If the toil be great, how
much greater the reward! how delightful is it to see the young mind
expand, and the warm affections glow, beneath the hallowing influence of
religion! And how pleasant and how good is it to find the hearts of
adults and of children, of rich and poor, knit together by a common
feeling of interest in the common cause!

Some such thoughts arose in the minds of our party at The Grange, and
were fostered by the lovely calm of nature, which is so observable on
Sunday in the country, where the very animals seem to know that they are
included within the merciful commandment of rest. Mr. Wyndham was
religiously observant of the day, but exceedingly disliked the gloom by
which many worthy people think it a duty to lessen their own happiness,
and to throw a chill and constraint upon that of others on this joyful
festival. He thought that the weekly commemoration of the Saviour's
resurrection should fill us with bright hopes and an enlivening piety;
and that an air of cheerfulness should be thrown around it, which might
say to all who had not yet entered within the gates of Zion, "Come ye,
and taste that the Lord is gracious." People are doubtless much
affected, in these minor shades of difference, by their natural
temperaments. Mr. Wyndham's frame of mind was so kindly and hopeful, and
so open to all that is pleasant and animating, that his religion partook
of the genial influence. On Sunday, his face beamed with a more radiant
smile than on other days, and he appeared to realize that it was indeed
the foretaste of eternal joy.

In the morning, both old and young repaired with one consent to the
little country church, in which they filled up quite a number of pews.
Being the last Sunday in the year, the venerable clergyman, whose
earnest manner and silver hairs made his message doubly impressive to
the hearts of his hearers, exhorted all, of every age, to bring back to
their minds the fleeting days of that division of time which was so soon
to pass away, and to be numbered with those laid up against the
Judgment. When that year had begun, what resolutions of improvement had
been formed, what vows of greater fidelity had been made? And how had
they been kept? All had, during the seasons past, received new proofs of
the kindness and long-suffering of the Father above; but had the
goodness of the Lord led them to repentance? or had it fallen upon ha