_Sonnet 72._ Since this sonnet has passed through the press, I have been glad to read a description of Donati's comet and to see a telescopic view of it in the Family Christian Almanac for 1860. The comet is named after Donati, the discoverer, who first saw it at Florence, June 2, 1858. It was seen several months in great splendor in our country until about Oct. 20th, when it disappeared. When first observed, it was 200 millions of miles distant from the sun. Its curved train extended 60 degrees or 51 millions of miles. When nearest the earth it was 52 millions of miles distant, moving at the rate of 123 thousand miles an hour. Its greatest distance from the sun is supposed to be 143 thousand millions of miles; and astronomers have calculated its period of revolution at nearly 2,000 years, so that its last previous visit to the earth was before the Christian era. Yet from the extreme point of its journey to the nearest fixed star who can measure the distance? Who will not say, "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty?" It is worthy of remark, that in respect to the inhabitants of the various worlds, with which our skies are filled, the revealed word of God, communicated to man upon the earth, gives us no information. If beyond a doubt the sun, the moon, the stars, and the comets are inhabited by intelligent beings; yet of what rank and in what condition we know nothing. But as we are taught, that there is a world of "fire," prepared "for the devil and his angels," it may be that comets are the destined abodes of the wicked and lost. _Sonnet 73._ It is a false and pernicious charity, of which some men boast, that for no crime would they touch the life of man. But God is smiting every day the life of guilty man by a thousand diseases; and in his revealed word he has commanded, that the murderer shall be put to death in the administration of public law. In this way not only the divine justice but the divine wisdom is manifested by this protecting shield of terror spread over man's life. _Sonnet 77._ The name of John Hooper will ever be held in the highest honor in England. Born in 1495, and educated at Oxford, he was appointed bishop of Gloucester; but was a martyr to the truth under the popish reign of queen Mary in 1555 at the age of 60. With most wonderful fortitude he endured the flames at the stake for three-quarters of an hour. _Sonnet 78._ To an old man the recollection of a youthful brother preacher in the far-back period of fifty or more years, who still preaches the gospel, is replete with interest. It is attended with the memory of men, who at that period were the fathers in the ministry,――as Rogers, Livingston, Mason, and Miller of New York; Dwight of New Haven; and S. Spring, Morse, Eckley, and Griffin of Massachusetts.