TIME A DESTROYER.—I saw a temple, reared by the hands of man, standing with its high pinnacle in the distant plain. The streams beat about it; the God of nature hurled his thunderbolts against it; yet it stood firm as adamant. Revelry was in the halls; the gay, the young, the beautiful were there. I returned, and lo! the temple was no more. Its high walls lay scattered in ruin; moss and grass grew rankly there; and, at the midnight hour, the owl’s long cry added to the solitude. The young, the gay, who had reveled there, had passed away. I saw a child rejoicing in his youth, the idol of his mother, and the pride of his father. I returned and the child had become old. Trembling with the weight of years, he stood the last of his generation, a stranger amidst all the desolation around him. I saw an old oak standing in all its pride upon the mountain; the birds were caroling in its boughs. I returned and saw the oak was leafless and sapless; the winds were playing at their pastime through the branches. “Who is the destroyer?” said I to my guardian angel. “It is Time,” said he. When the morning stars sang together for joy over the new-made world, he commenced his course, and when he has destroyed all that is beautiful on the earth, plucked the sun from his sphere, veiled the moon in blood; yea, when he shall have rolled the heavens and the earth away as a scroll, then shall an angel from the throne of God come forth, and, with one foot upon the land, lift up his hand toward heaven, and swear by heaven’s eternal, “time was, but time shall be no more.” [End of Required Reading for December.] RETURNING. By MARY HARRISON. “The spirit shall return to the God who gave it.” White clouds upon heaven’s bosom rest, Begotten of the sunshine’s love, Now nestled like a fondled dove Upon a woman’s loving breast. Heaven feeds her baby clouds, they grow, Then leave her for their manhood’s life; And wail and scramble in the strife Through which all earth-born children go. They sink and wander in the gloom Of winding subterranean ways, And learn the loss of heavenlier days, By groping through their chosen tomb. At length, lights gleam along the distant way, With eager thoughts of childhood, blest, And hopes of entering into rest, They leap to airy, sunny day. Now rivers slave them to the fields To fill the cattle-troughs with drink, And dress the rose-boughs on their brink, And feed the grass the meadow yields. For friends and good, they look behind, Then curse the past, and pray to be Unborn again within the sea, For birth has been to them unkind. All scenes have gone! no good has come! From bank to bank the waters heave With tides which only mock and grieve, Despairs of long-lost, hopeless home.