When they asked the cause, she smiled, and said, They were her sisters, and would come and watch Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke Of her deceiver, father, mother, home, Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God; but still In lonely places walked, and ever gazed Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them; Till wasted to the shadow of her youth, With woe too wide to see beyond--she died; Not unatoned for by imputed blood, Nor by the Spirit that mysterious works, Unsanctified. Aloud her father cursed That day his guilty pride which would not own A daughter whom the God of heaven and earth Was not ashamed to call His own; and he Who ruined her read from her holy look, That pierced him with perdition manifold, His sentence, burning with vindictive fire." The flattering talker possesses a power which turned angels into devils, and men into demons--which beguiled pristine innocence and introduced the curse--which has made half the world crazy with self-esteem and self-admiration. A power which has dethroned princes, involved kingdoms, degraded the noble, humbled the great, impoverished the rich, enslaved the free, polluted the pure, robbed the wise man of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, the good man of his goodness. It is emphatically the power of the Destroyer, working havoc, devastation, woe, and death wherever it has sway, spreading disappointment, weeping, lamentation, and broken hearts through the habitations of the children of men. "He is," as an old writer quaintly observes, "the moth of liberal men's coats, the ear-wig of the mighty, the bane of courts, a friend and slave to the trencher, and good for nothing but to be a factor for the devil." * * * * * Mr. Sharp was a young student of amiable spirit, and promising abilities. Soon after he left college he took charge of an important church in the large village of C----, in the county of M----. He had not been long among his people before he won the good-will of all; and his popularity soon extended beyond the pale of his own church. Meantime, he did not appear to think of himself more than he ought. He was unassuming in his spirit, and devoted to his work, apparently non-affected by the general favour with which he was received.