frolicking over the sea, dimpling its surface with smiles, and creating gladness and joy in the hearts of all who feel it; before it reaches the shore it dies away as mysteriously as it it sprang into being. Whence it comes, or why it blows, has puzzled many a philosopher; but its existence is still as great a mystery as when Dr. Martin Lister, with more poetry than philosophy, attributed it to the daily exhalement of the ocean flower, lenticula marina, which grows in vast quantities in the tropic seas. It is indeed like the breath of an ocean Flora; but this theory has never found favor with the learned. If angels ever visit our planet, the region of the tradewinds must be their favorite resort. There is no green isle there to receive them, but they may float over the bluest sea and in the softest air that our globe is blessed with. How cheering it must have been to Columbus and his crew when they first struck this vein of aërian loveliness! but then they were frightened lest they should never be able to return to their homes, while such a breeze continually blew in an adverse direction.

The Sisters' Grave.

A Reminiscence of Roath Church-yard, South Wales.

66

BY THE AUTHOR OF PEN AND INK SKETCHES.

Ir was a tranquil summer eve,

When by a village church I stood, With two fair children, thoughtful-eyed, solitude:

In the green

The leaves scarce flutter'd overhead;

The brook which idly wander'd by,
Upon its surface, clear and calm,
Mirror'd a cloudless sky;

And earth, in all its glories dress'd,
Was tranquil as an angel's breast.

The solemn stillness of the place
Was only broken by the chime
From the old turret-bell, which swung
At that unwonted time:

It summon'd to a new-made grave,
Which claim'd its unresisting prey;
Around us stern memorials frown'd,
Themselves in slow decay;

Life's tale was writ our feet beneath,

In but two chapters,―BIRTH and DEATH!

They come, a silent, mournful band,
To lay within its narrow bed

The wreck of beauty, youth, and hope,-
The lost-the early dead!

When the pale primrose sprang to light,
When violets deck'd the hedge-row's gloom,
She pluck'd them, and their blossoms laid
Upon a sister's tomb ;

And oft within the gray church-shade,
The maiden's pensive footstep stray'd.

A few brief weeks, and she hath pass'd
The gates which life and death divide;
The sisters in the grave's dark home,
Lie sleeping side by side.
Unconscious each of sisterhood,

Their bodies" rest in hope" together,
Till angel-tongues, when earth dissolve,
Shall whisper-"Come up hither!
Come to the realms of life, of light!
Awake! arise! be infinite!"

And should we weep for those who die

In youth, ere life's bright sun declines,— Ere time hath dimm'd the radiant eye,

Or sorrow plough'd its lines?

Serenely sleeping on the breast

Of earth, they wait the judgment-day, And we, who con their epitaphs,

Are not so calm as they!

Ours is the strife-the doubt-the painWhich they may never know again.

The last look in the coffin-lid

Which hides the sleeping dust, is given,
As stars shine faintly, one by one,
On the dim face of heaven!
The grave is closed, and o'er it laid
The cold and gray sepulchral stone;
The mourners quit the place of graves,
And she is left alone,

With but chill dews to weep above
The grave of youth and buried love.

As from the spot I turn'd away,

The children gave no outward sign Of sorrow, but each little hand

Clasp'd with a firmer pressure mine :

'Twas the simplicity of Fear!

They knew but little of the tomb,
Yet o'er their infant hearts it cast
A vague, mysterious gloom,
As mists obscure the sun's first ray,
And darken e'en the dawn of day.
Boston, August, 1845.

Moheagan Missions.

BY MISS F. M. CAULKINS.

John Elliot, so often and so justly styled the Indian apostle, may be considered the earliest Protestant missionary of modern times. As far as we know, he is the first to whom the conversion of the heathen was the prominent object of prayer and labor, who devoted himself to it from choice, prepared himself for it by arduous toil, and pursued it through life with unremitted perseverance. Though Thomas Mayhew was in the field of actual labor before him, yet Elliot's self-consecration to the work, and preparatory study of the language, was anterior to any similar known design, either of Mayhew or others. He was engaged in acquiring the necessary information respecting the tribes, and in learning their language, in 1641; how much earlier his heart had been fixed, and his mind intent upon the great project, cannot be told. Mayhew commenced preaching to the natives