rit? Where is he?" "He is above the stars; he sends down the rain, the hail, and the snow; and he passes by in the wild tornado." Bad children, like the son of Ottoma, go down into the earth, to a dark place, where dwell the wicked spirits. My child, your mind is fatigued as well as your body. You must go to rest. Tomorrow you shall see Quibo.”

He took me in his arms and bore me to my couch; he wiped away the tears from my cheeks with the back of his hand, adding, "Rest in peace: the good being will send down his angels to watch over your slumbers." I slept; and sweet was my repose. What can soothe and calm the mind like the protection of a great and benevolent being? The child may repose confidence in the arm of its father: but, to whom shall the father look up for support? He is conscious of his own weakness, and feels his dependence on every thing that surrounds him. He cannot subject nature to his empire, nor drive the planets from their orbits. Must he submit to the operation of causes and effects? Must he die and be forgotten forever? Or is there any truth in the consolatory invitation: "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavyladen, and I will give you rest." Christians! Your religion sounds sweetly in the ears of a weak and erring creature, like man. It speaks to the heart, affords a refuge to the miserable, and provides a remedy for every evil: but I cannot divest myself of my original opinions. How indelible are the impressions we receive in childhood! Fifty summers have browned my visage, and fifty winters have furrowed my cheek; yet still the maxims of Oconi-mico are deeply engraven on the tablets of my mind. The sun of science has striven in vain to dissipate the darkness of my superstition; still I see my god in the black cloud, and listen to "the voice of his excellency" in the thunder; still he reigns in the tempest, and passes by in the tornado.

Navigators inform me that there is no heaven for Indians in the southern seas; yet my fancy can people still a thousand islands with the brave spirits of my forefathers. Still I see their shadowy forms chase the fleeting deer over visionary hills, and I sigh for their company and their joys. [To be continued.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

What is truth? This inquiry has been made by thousands in all ages of the world, yet still remains unanswered. We have neither discovered what it is, nor where it may be found. Some of the antients went down to look for this jewel in the bowels of the earth. They said that truth was at the bottom of a well, probably to signify that it was acquired by immense labor and with great difficulty. These philosophers have thought proper to bring up truth from the shades; but a much more numerous class has deduced its origin from above.. Was it the angel Gabriel that brought down the leaves of the koran for the illustrious Mohammed? These. were said to contain the very quintessence of truth, and teach every thing that was necessary to be known. by the children of men.

How many gods, and how many goddesses, at different times, have left the starry pavement of the celestial regions and come down for our instruction and entertainment? Among the Greeks and among the Romans, how many sages caught inspiration! how many sibyls uttered the oracles of the divinity! Yet, notwithstanding all the benevolent exertions of gods and demigods, heroes and sages, we still remained enveloped in thick darkness until the "dayspring from on high" shed its effulgence on the earth-and even yet we grope through a darkness that may be felt; we wander cheerlessly through the "valley of the shadow of death" where no one can afford us assistance.

What is truth? and where can it be found? The chemist expects to find it in his crucible; the mathematician sees it in a triangle, a circle, or a parallelogram; and the metaphysician discovers it in the eternal fitness of things.

Great was the search, some hundred years ago, for the philosopher's stone, for the alkahest, and for the elixir of life; but some sceptics assert that there is no philosopher's stone, no alkahest, no elixir of life.

Some have drawn a comparison between these alchemists and the investigators of truth: they assert there. is no truth in a well: they aver that it is not to be found

in the crucible of the chemist; and they pronounce, without hesitation, that there is no such thing as a circle, a.triangle, or a parallelogram in nature. They say that when we follow truth we pursue a phantom of the imagination, and are led away by an ignis fatuus-which will entice us forward to swamps of difficulty, to a region of doubts and a land of shadows. They tell us that the theory of the metaphysician is equally erroneous; that there is no eternal fitness of things; that there is nothing but discordance and opposition in rebus naturæ.

When tired with this sceptical philosophy, we may listen to the precepts of another not less gloomy. Truth, they say, may exist, but is unworthy of so much labor and fatigue. There may be such a thing as the philosopher's stone-as a universal dissolvent-as the elixir of immortality; but the discovery would be productive of the most serious consequences in the great economy of nature. Let us amuse ourselves, say they, with the pleas-ing delusions of life, and not lose our time in searching after realities. Nature has hung out a thousand painted deceptions to hide from our eyes the real nature of things. Is not this a sufficient intimation that that which is concealed is disagreeable? Is there any such thing as colors inberent in bodies? yet without this pleasing illusion, what a world of deformity should we have! Nature is the very grave of abomination. Well: tear down the wall of the whited sepulchre, and within you will find-" rottenness and dead men's bones." O! ye creatures of the moment, let us dance after the rainbow of hope, and revel in the light and airy fields of imagination. Let us skim lightly over the surface of nature: the flowers grow on the surface; and honey may be extracted from flowers. Let us be content with the trimmings, the colorings, the hangings that immediately meet the eye: they are de-signed to conceal the gloomy walls of our apartment.

Let us look back upon our past lives and examine our own minds that we may see if there be not more happiness in error than in reality. Which have been our happiest moments? those, in which we have searched suceessfully into the nature of things? those, in which the light of truth has beamed upon our heads, and enabled

us to discover, with precision, the surrounding objects? I am afraid that the result of our investigation will be, that our days of bliss were days of ignorance: and we shall be led to conclude, with the preacher, that in "much knowledge there is much grief." Should we not rather endeavor to multiply these happy delusions than to clear them away? If light discover nothing but "sights of wo," had we not better remain in darkness? My sick brother is asleep; he dreams of light, life and joy. I see a smile on his countenance. Shall I awake him to a life of misery, sorrow and pain? Or shall I not rather remove every intruding noise, darken the windows, and leave him to repose?

Children are happy: and were men content to remain children through life, they might be happy also. But when they become infatuated with the desire of knowledge, and, with a daring hand, attempt to remove the veil with which nature has thought proper to cover the ark which contains her secrets, their happiness is blighted. Foolish men! to break the glasses through which their mothers and nurses were content to receive the rays of knowledge Foolish men! to soar with waxen wings above the atmosphere of prejudice which surrounds the dwellings of their fathers! Render not, O ye sons of men, the common occurrences of life insipid, by your folly, which you are pleased to dignify with the name of wisdom.

Be as other men. Seize the rattle of folly; dance to the piping of a giddy multitude; write treatises concerning eternity in the sand; build pyramids of snow to immortalize your names; erect dams with grayhaired children in the mountain torrent; and sport with your brother insects in the sunbeams of the evening.—But should truth present her flambeau to your eyes-the illusion is gone-the "painted clouds that beautify our days" are vanished; and-great God! what a waste"dark dismal wild-appears! What a chaos of forms. without reality! What myriads of shadows, without substance, fleet through a universe of nonentities!

Fiction is lovely; O ye sons of men, rejoice in her smiles but fly from the chambers of Truth; she is a gorgon, a hydra, a fury!-

What shall we say, when we hear the various opinions of men on these subjects? What shall we do, but mourn over the folly, the imbecility, the insanity of man!

Desire of distinction.

The desire of distinction is so strong in the human mind, that men lay hold of any thing however insignificant that may render them conspicuous. Is a man, by some accident, a few inches taller than another; you may immediately perceive that he values himself on his towering figure. Is he well set, and possessed of brawny limbs; you will find him anxiously contending for preeminence by measuring round the breast or taking the circumference of the thigh, with his athletic competitors.

I cannot remember of having observed any of these candidates for fame who were desirous of the distinction arising from the prominence of their bellies; yet nothing is more common than to hear a man boast of having swallowed so many oysters, eaten so many eggs, devoured so many pounds of beef steaks, &c. What honor do these idiots expect to derive from the strength of their stomachs or the capacity of their paunches?

Why, they hope to have it said in some tavern or beerhouse that "John Gormand is the damnedest fellow to eat that ever lived. He demolished, the other day, at the sign of the Mousetrap, a whole round of beef, eat ten dozen of oysters, ten dozen of eggs, five pound of cheese, drank a gallon of beer, and then refused to pay 25 cents for his dinner, because there was not a sufficiency of provisions."

I knew two graziers to lay a very considerable bet on who could eat the most lobster.--Both eat till they could not walk and then left the matter undetermined. The gentlemen were wealthy: they did not gormandize for the money that was betted, but for the sake of an immortal name. Such men appear determined to deprive "Robin a Bobbin the Bigbellied Hen" of his long established superiority: of whose exploits, in this way, it is recorded in heroic verse that he would eat more than threescore men;" that