affairs were suspended; and so zealously did our fathers maintain the letter as well as the spirit of the law, that, according to a vulgar tradition in Connecticut, no beer was brewed in the latter part of the week, lest it should presume to work ou Sunday.

It must be confessed that the tendency of the age is to laxity; and so rapidly is the wholesome strictness of primitive times abating, that, should some antiquary, fifty years hence, in exploring his garret-rubbish, chance to cast his eye on our humble pages, he may be surprised to learn that even now the Sabbath is observed, in the interior of New England, with an almost Judaical severity.

On Saturday afternoon an uncommon bustle is apparent. The great class of procrastinators are hurrying to and fro to complete the lagging business of the week. The good mothers, like Burns's matron, are plying their needles, making "auld claes look amaist as weel's the new;" while the domestics, or help, (we prefer the national descriptive term,) are wielding, with might and main, their brooms and mops, to make all tidy for the Sabbath.

As the day declines, the hum of labor dies away, and, after the sun is set, perfect stillness reigns in every well-ordered household, and not a footfall is heard in the village street. It cannot be denied that even the most scriptural, missing the excitement of their ordinary occupations, anticipate their usual bedtime. The obvious inference from this fact is skilfully avoided by certain ingenious reasoners, who allege that the constitution was originally so organized as to require an extra quantity of sleep on every seventh night. We recommend it to the curious to inquire how this peculiarity was adjusted when the first day of the week was changed from Saturday to Sunday.

The Sabbath morning is as peaceful as the first hallowed day. Not a human sound is heard without the dwellings, and, but for the lowing of the herds, the crowing of the cocks, and the gossiping of the birds, animal life would seem to be extinct, till, at the bidding of the church-going bell, the old and young issue from their habitations, and, with solemn demeanor, bend their measured steps to the meeting-house; the families of the minister, the squire, the doctor, the merchant, the modest gentry of the village, and the mechanic and laborer, all arrayed in their best, all meeting on even ground, and all with that consciousness of independence and equality which breaks down the pride of the rich, and rescues the poor from servility, envy, and discontent. If a morning salutation is reciprocated, it is in a suppressed voice; and if, perchance, nature, in some reckless urchin, burst forth in laughter, "My dear, you forget it's Sunday," is the ever-ready reproof.

Though every face wears a solemn aspect, yet we once chanced to see even a deacon's muscles relax by the wit of a neighbor, and heard him allege, in a half-deprecating, half-laughing voice, "The squire is so droll, that a body must laugh, though it be Sabbathday."

The farmer's ample wagon, and the little one-horse vehicle, bring in all who reside at an inconvenient walking distance, that is to say, in our riding community, half a mile from the church. It is a pleasing sight, to those who love to note the happy peculiarities of their own land, to see the farmers' daughters, blooming, intelligent, well bred, pouring out of these homely coaches, with their nice white gowns, prunel shoes, Leghorn hats, fans and parasols, and the spruce young men, with their plaited ruffles, blue coats, and yellow buttons. The whole community meet as one religious family, to offer their devotions at the common altar. If there is an outlaw from the society,—a luckless wight, whose vagrant taste has never been subdued,―he may be seen stealing along the margin of some little brook, far away from the condemning observation and troublesome admonitions of his fellows.

Towards the close of the day, (or, to borrow a phrase descriptive of his feelings who first used it,) "when the Sabbath begins to abate," the children cluster about the windows. Their eyes wander from their catechism to the western sky, and, though it seems to them as if the sun would never disappear, his broad disk does slowly sink behind the mountain; and, while his last ray still lingers on the eastern summits, merry voices break forth, and the ground resounds with bounding footsteps. The village belle arrays herself for her twilight walk; the boys gather on "the green;" the lads and girls throng to the "singing-school;" while some coy maiden lingers at home, awaiting her expected suitor; and all enter upon the pleasures of the evening with as keen a relish as if the day had been a preparatory penance.

UNCLE PHIL AND HIS INVALID DAUGHTER.

It was a lovely morning in June when Uncle Phil set forth for New York with his invalid daughter. Ineffable happiness shone hrough his honest face, and there was a slight flush of hope and expectation on Charlotte's usually pale and tranquil countenance, as she half rebuked Susan's last sanguine expression.

"You will come home as well as I am: I know you will, Lottie !"

"Not well,-oh, no, Susy, but better, I expect,—I mean, I hope."

"Better, then, if you are, that is to say, a great deal better,— I shall be satisfied: sha'n't you, Harry?"

"I shall be satisfied that it was best for her to go, if she is any better."

"I trust we shall all be satisfied with God's will, whatever it may be," said Charlotte, turning her eye, full of gratitude, upon Harry. Harry arranged her cushions as nobody else could to support her weak back: Susan disposed her cloak so that Charlotte could draw it around her if the air proved too fresh; and then, taking her willow-basket in her hand, the last words were spoken, and they set forth. Uncle Phil was in the happiest of his happy humors. He commended the wagon,-"it was just like sitting at home in a rocking-chair: it is kind o' lucky that you are lame, Lottie, or maybe Mrs. Sibley would not have offered to loan us her wagon. I was dreadful 'fraid we should have to go down the North River. I tell you, Lottie, when I crossed over it once, I was a'most scared to death,-the water went swash, swash, -there was nothing but a plank between me and etarnity; and I thought in my heart I should have gone down, and nobody would ever have heard of me again. I wonder folks can be so foolish as to go on water when they can travel on solid land; but I suppose some do!"

"It is pleasanter," said Charlotte, "to travel at this season, where you can see the beautiful fruits of the earth, as we do now, on all sides of us." Uncle Phil replied, and talked on without disturbing his daughter's quiet and meditation. They travelled slowly, but he was never impatient, and she never wearied, for she was an observer and lover of nature. The earth was clothed with its richest green, was all green, but of infinitely varied tinti. The young corn was shooting forth; the winter-wheat already waved over many a fertile hill-side; the gardens were newly made, and clean, and full of promise; flowers, in this month of their abundance, perfumed the woods, and decked the gardens and court-yards; and where nothing else grew, there were lilacs and peonies in plenty. The young lambs were frolicking in the fields, the chickens peeping about the barn-yards, and birdsthousands of them-singing at their work.

Our travellers were descending a mountain where their view extended over an immense tract of country, for the most part richly cultivated.

"I declare!" exclaimed Uncle Phil, "how much land there is in the world, and I don't own a foot on't, only our little half-acre lot: it don't seem hardly right." Uncle Phil was no agrarian, and he immediately added, "But, after all, I guess I am better off without it, it would be a dreadful care."

"Contentment with godliness is great gain," said Charlotte. "You've hit the nail on the head, Lottie: I don't know who should be contented if I a'n't: I always have enough, and every

body is friendly to me, and you and Susan are worth a mint of money to me. For all what I said about the land, I really think

I have got my full share."

"We can all have our share in the beauties of God's earth without owning, as you say, a foot of it," rejoined Charlotte. "We must feel it is our Father's. I am sure the richest man in the world cannot take more pleasure in looking at a beautiful prospect than I do, or in breathing this sweet, sweet air. It seems to me, father, as if every thing I look upon was ready to burst forth in a hymn of praise; and there is enough in my heart to make verses of, if I only knew how."

"That's the mystery, Lottie, how they do it: I can make one line, but I can never get a fellow to it."

Well, father, as Susy would say, it's a comfort to have the feeling, though you can't express it."

Charlotte was right. It is a great comfort and happiness to have the feeling; and happy would it be if those who live in the country were more sensible to the beauties of nature: if they could see something in the glorious forest besides "good wood and timber lots," something in the green valley besides a warm soil," something in a waterfall besides a "mill-privilege." There is a susceptibility in every human heart to the ever-present and abounding beauties of nature; and whose fault is it that this taste is not awakened and directed? If the poet and the painter cannot bring down their arts to the level of the poor, are there none to be God's interpreters to them,-to teach them to read the great book of nature?

The laboring classes ought not to lose the pleasures that in the country are before them from dawn to twilight, pleasures that might counterbalance, and often do, the profits of the merchant, pent in his city counting-house, and all the honors the lawyer earns between the court-rooms and his office. We only wish that more was made of the privilege of country life; that the farmer's wife would steal some moments from her cares to point out to her children the beauties of nature, whether amid the hills and valleys of our inland country, or on the sublime shores of the ocean. Over the city, too, hangs the vault of heaven," thick inlaid" with the witnesses of God's power and goodness his altars are everywhere.

The rich man who "lives at home at ease," and goes irritated and fretting through the country because he misses at the taverns the luxuries of his own house,-who finds the tea bad and coffee worse, the food ill cooked and table ill served, no mattresses, no silver forks, who is obliged to endure the vulgarity of a common parlor, and, in spite of the inward chafing, give a civil ans'ver to

whatever questions may be put to him,-canuot conceive of the luxuries our travellers enjoyed at the simplest inn.

Uncle Phil found out the little histories of all the wayfarers he met, and frankly told his own. Charlotte's pale, sweet face attracted general sympathy. Country people have time for little by-the-way kindnesses; and the landlady, and her daughters, and her domestics, inquired into Charlotte's malady, suggested re medies, and described similar cases.

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY.

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY, LL.D., the son of a Boston merchant, was born in that city on the 2d of May, 1796. He was fitted for college at Exeter Academy, graduated at Harvard in 1815, studied theology, and in 1818 was ordained over the Brattle Street Church, Boston, where he continued till 1831, when he was appointed Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard University. From January, 1836, to October, 1842, he was the editor of the "North American Review." From 1839 to 1842, he delivered courses of lectures before the Lowell Institute, on the Evidences of Christianity, which were afterwards published in two volumes, octavo. He has also published four volumes of Lectures on the Hebrew Scriptures, and a volume of Sermons, entitled Duties of Private Life.

Many of the literary, historical, and political discourses which he has from time to time delivered, before the city authorities of Boston on the 4th of July, the Massachusetts Historical Society, &c. &c., have been published. To Sparks's American Biography" he has contributed one life,—that of his ancestor, William Palfrey.

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In later years Mr. Palfrey has been much in public life, both in the Legislature of his own State and in the Congress of the United States, in which positions be gave ample evidence of his earnest and hearty sympathies for freedom. In 1846, he published in the "Boston Whig" a series of Papers on the Slave Power, which were collected in a pamphlet, and widely circulated.'

For a number of years Dr. Palfrey has been laboriously engaged upon A History of New England, of which the first volume appeared early in December, 1858, and of which it is praise enough to say that it comes up fully to the high expectations that were entertained of it. Evincing a noble and hearty appreciation of the early settlers of New England, guided by cool, impartial reason, and exhibiting throughout extensive research and a careful collation of facts, he has given us a work which will doubtless supersede all others upon the same subject, and be the established or classical history of that portion of our country.

"Vigorously and acutely written, embodying a great mass of facts and reasonings, some of which will be new to many readers, and all of which deserve the careful consideration of every friend of his country or of humanity."-Christian Examiner, March, 1847.