And now, gentle reader, as I have given thee thus much--as I have made not the least reservation--as I have given thee permission to be happy, and in thine own way, and that too, without the least regard to my feelings--pray grant me in return, a simple privilege. Permit me sometimes in memory, to think upon the pleasant ramble we may have together--to think of its green and sunny spots, as well as its dark ones--of its pleasant, as well as disagreeable windings--and to enjoy the sweet consciousness of having sought to contribute to thine, a fellow creature’s happiness. ‘GOD’S BENISON BE ON YE.’ REVOLUTIONS--AND THEIR TENDENCIES. “Man is born to die, And so are nations.” To the search of unassisted reason, man is an enigma--his origin, a deep unfathomed mystery--his being, nothing but a sad and strange commingling of discordant elements--his destiny unknown! He comes forth as it were unbidden--mingles for a few short hours in earth’s sorrows and enjoyments,--hurries through the part assigned him in the mighty drama of existence, when the curtain closes and he vanishes forever. We tread over the “green roof of his dark mansion,”--and he lives but in remembrance. The works too of his hands are frail and fleeting. The proudest monument he rears, but scarce outlasts his memory--and the very dwelling which has sheltered him is hastening to destruction. “The ivy clings to the mouldering tower, the brier hangs out from the shattered window, and the wall-flower springs from the disjointed stones. The voices of merriment and of wailing, the steps of the busy and the idle, have ceased in the deserted courts, and the weeds choke the entrances, and the grass waves upon the hearthstones.” And it is so with nations! Earth is little better than a splendid waste of ruins,--a vast unbroken solitude, garnished with the sepulchers of countless myriads, and crowded with the relics of departed grandeur! There is the tyranny of Desolation! There Change is ever busy, wandering amid the wasting forms of beauty, gathering the banquet of Decay! Such to unassisted reason is the history of nations. They spring up into being, linger for a fleeting period,--are cut down and perish--their origin, their progress and their end, alike mysterious and inexplicable! Revelation has indeed assured us of the destiny of man. We know that the same grave which closes over his decaying body shrouds not the undying spirit--that earth is but the threshold to another state of being. Far beyond its earthly scene of trial, Affection follows her departed object, and pillowed on the bosom of immortal hope, casts down the burden of her sorrows. The unfettered soul purified from her pollutions, soars upward,-- “On a wing That moving through eternity will ever Be active and unwearied, and as bright In its unruffled plumage after years Have gathered into ages, and have gone Beyond the eldest memory of time.”