gotten something." Mrs Smith then drew from the basket a small roll of paper, tied with a delicate blue ribbon, and on it was written, 'For all the children.' Then was curiosity more intensely awakened; and I must confess that I was not without some little share of it myself. However, we were not kept long in suspense: Mr Smith took the roll, and, carefully untying it, read the following title, The parents' new year's present to their beloved children;' and then he read what I now give exactly as it was writ

ten:

"Dear Children :-Some of you for a greater, and some for a lesser number of years, have been in the habit on the morning of the first day of the year, of wishing your parents' a happy new year;' and it has not only been the sincere desire, but the most earnest and heartfelt prayer of your dear mother and myself, that you all may experience many, very many happy returns of this same season of joy and congratulation. But how much is implied in the wish of a happy new year, how much more than any of you have ever yet thought of. You have wished your parents a happy year. What is it, my children, that will make the year happy to them? They are already happy in the love of your tender and affectionate hearts; and they have reason to be thankful to God, that you are not

only affectionate, but that you have proved yourselves, on the whole, obedient children; not that there has never been any evidence of waywardness, or that you have never given cause of uneasiness; but that your parents have been enabled, by the blessing of God, in some degree to counteract such evil tendencies as they have perceived. But now we have anxieties of a very different and peculiar character. Some of you are so much grown, that you are more or less removed beyond the continual superintendence of our eyes. What then will make us happy for the year to come? It is that every one of you should resolve this day to give your hearts to God, according to this, His tender request- Son, give unto me thy heart.' Your parents have often talked with you, from you, Eliza, down to your little brother William, and presented the claims of religion, with all earnestness and affection, and they have never ceased to pray with you, and for you, that you might 'remember your creator in the days of your youth.' What can make them happy, if you should grow up careless of your greatest and best of friends and benefactors, even of HIM who died on the cross that you might be be saved? Your father and mother do not wish to pour the gloom of evil anticipations over the happy character of the present day; but they wish it im

pressed upon your minds, that both they and you must die; and that there can be no rational probability of happiness, either here or hereafter, which is not founded on religion, embraced with the heart, and carried out into the life.

"Dear children, the only way that you yourselves can expect a happy year, is to yield your hearts to God; and then you will find his own words true, that the 'ways' of religion are 'ways of pleasantness,' and that 'all her paths are peace.' The only way in which your kind and affectionate wishes of a happy new year to your parents can be realized, is, that you seek to make them happy, by securing your own best happiness. If you are happy in the love of God, they must be happy, for they have no wish for you, but that you may become the 'children of the Lord.' And now, my dear children, let us sing our new year's hymn;-and then, when we have commended ourselves to the Lord, let us begin to enjoy rightly our happiest new year.”

I hope my readers will not accuse me of weakness, if I say, that I wept outright, but they were tears of delight. I saw the eyes of the lovely children bathed in tears, but they were not such tears as are shed for pain which may not be alleviated. Mr Smith read an appropriate hymn, which was sung, if not with the

skilful execution of the practised choir, at least with the feelings of awakened religious sensibility. When it was over, he asked me as a friend, to lead the devotions of the domestic circle;-and I had reason to thank God, for as HAPPY A NEW YEAR, as had ever fallen to my lot to enjoy.

WHAT IS THY HOPE?

WHAT is thy hope? Oh! if to the earth,
Like the grovelling vine, it clings,
Nor shoots one aspiring tendril forth,
In search after higher things:

In vain is it nurtur'd with ceaseless toil,
Confined to the cold world's ungenial soil;
Each prop that supports it must perish, and all
Its buds of fair promise unopen'd fall—

Alas! for the hopes that are nourish'd here,
'Midst the storms of earth's changeful atmosphere.

Then what is thy hope? To what pitch of pride
Would thy restless ambition tower?
Wouldst thou over fallen empires stride,

To the summit of human power?

Couldst thou conquer realms, make thy will their law, And hold the subject world in awe;