“How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of those that bring glad tidings,” is the language of elder Scripture, and how often has the heart of man responded to the truth of the declaration, as the eye has caught the earnest smile and noted the lightness of feet that distinguish the bearer of pleasing intelligence. The great poet of nature hath, in the spirit of the above comment, remarked that the bearer of unwelcome news has “but a losing office.” And thousands of those who have been messengers of good to the great, the wealth-possessing and honor-conferring among men, have found themselves ennobled and sometimes enriched, for the simple narrative of an event in which they had no share, and of which they knew little more than the report which they had received from others and delivered where it was greatly desired. We know that the text of Scripture which we have placed at the beginning of these remarks has allusion to tidings of greater joy, of more gladness, than all the bulletins of battles and statements of victories which the hastened dispatch bearer has ever conveyed to the awaiting monarch—more lovely and more desired than messages of love and tokens of reciprocation which the herald of man’s affection and woman’s deep, late-told love ever conveyed. The triumph of the conqueror of armies must be short and partial—the love of the most devoted perishes, at least with the object, if it is not quenched by its own fitful sallies. But the glad tidings which hasten and beautify the feet of those who come over the mountain of our offences is of life-long endurance, and enters into the eternity for which it prepares. There is a picture in this number of the Magazine to which we are alluding, and to which we mean to refer when we talk of messengers of glad tidings. We know that the common reader will look at the title, and, if he recollects the narrative, he will be startled at the idea of “glad tidings,” when sorrow and tears were on the face of the messenger, bodings of terrible afflictions were in his mind, and their nearness was being foretold. Are these glad tidings? Do such messages make beautiful the bearer? Can we rejoice at the overwhelming evil that is to befall the “City of Peace,” and sweep away the temple of the Most High, and give to famine, to violence, to dishonor and to death the sons and the daughters of the people of God? But if these evils were the consequences of crimes, if the destroyer were but an instrument in the hand of omnipotent love to waste the destroyed, and to be himself the object of a similar wrath, that the “peace” which the great messenger was to bring on earth might have an abiding place, in consequence of the terrible things which he only foretold—surely the feet of such an one are beautiful. He _brings_ salvation, while he only _foretells_ destruction; he makes the wrath of man, which he prophecies, the instrument to produce that love and peace of which he is the real author.