"clamorous Labour knocks with its hundred hands at the golden gate of the morning," obtaining each day, through succeeding centuries, fresh benefactions for the world! Labour clears the forest, and drains the morass, and makes "the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose." Labour drives the plough and scatters the seed, and reaps the harvest, and grinds the corn, and converts it into bread, the staff of life. Labour, tending the pastures and sweeping the waters, as well as cultivating the soil, provides with daily sustenance the nine hundred millions of the family of man. Labour gathers the gossamer web of the caterpillar, the cotton from the field, and the fleece from the flock, and weaves into raiment soft and warm and beautiful-the purple robe of the prince, and the grey gown of the peasant, being alike its handiwork. Labour moulds the brick, and spilts the slate, and quarries the stone, and shapes the column, and rears, not only the humble cottage, but the gorgeous palace, and the tapering spire, and the stately dome. Labour, diving deep into the solid earth, brings up its long-hidden stores of coal, to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in millions of habitations to defy the winter's cold. Labour explores the rich veins of deeply buried rocks, extracting the gold and silver, the copper and tin. Labour smelts the iron, and moulds it into a thousand shapes for use and ornament, from the massive pillar to the tiniest needle-from the ponderous anchor to the wire gauze, from the mighty fly-wheel of the steam engine to the polished purse-ring or the glittering bead. Labour hews down the gnarled oak, and shapes the

timber, and builds the ship, and guides it over the deep, plunging through the billows, and wrestling with the tempest, to bear to our shores the produce of every clime. Labour, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountains with its dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and while linking together with its iron, but loving grasp all nations of the earth, verifying, in a literal sense, the ancient prophecy, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; " labour draws forth its delicate iron thread, and stretching it from city to city, from province to province, through mountains, and beneath the sea, realizes more than fancy ever fabled, while it constructs a chariot on which speech may outstrip the wind, compete with the lightning,—for the Telegraph flies as rapidly as thought itself.

Labour, a mighty magician, walks forth into a region uninhabited and waste; he looks earnestly at the scene, so quiet in its desolation; then waving his wonder-working wand, those dreary valleys smile with golden harvests; those barren mountains' slopes are clothed with foliage; the furnace blazes; the anvil rings; the busy wheel whirls round; the town appears; the mart of commerce, the hall of science, the temple of religion, rear high their lofty fronts; a forest of masts gay with varied pennons, rises from the harbour; representatives of far off regions make it their resort; Science enlists the elements of earth and heaven in its service; Art, awaking, clothes its strength with beauty;

Civilization smiles; Liberty is glad; Humanity rejoices: Piety exults for the voice of industry and gladness is heard on every side.

Working men! walk worthy of your vocation! You have a noble escutcheon; disgrace it not! There is nothing really mean and low but sin! Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile yourselves by contamination with intemperance, licentiousness or any form of evil. Labour allied with virtue, may look up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly dignities, prostituted to vice, will leave their owner without a corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. You will most successfully prove the honour of toil by illustrating in your own persons, its alliance with a sober, righteous, and godly life. Be ye sure of this, that the man of toil, who works in a spirit of obedient, loving homage to God, does no less than Cherubim and Seraphim in their loftiest flight and holiest song!

Yes, in the search after true dignity, you may point me to the sceptred prince, ruling over mighty empires; to the lord of broad acres teeming with fertility, or the owners of coffers bursting with gold; you may tell me of them, or of learning, of the historian or the philosopher, the poet or the artist; and while prompt to render such men all the honour which in varying degrees may be their due, I would emphatically declare that neither power nor nobility, nor wealth, nor learning, nor genius, nor benevolence, nor all combined, have a monopoly of dignity. I would take you to the dingy office, where day by day the pen plies its weary task, or to the

shop, where from early morning till half the world have sunk to sleep, the necessities and luxuries of life are distributed, with scarce an interval for food, and none for thought. I would descend farther-I would take you to the ploughman plodding along his furrows; to the mechanic throwing the swift shuttle, or tending the busy wheels; to the miner groping his darksome way in the deep caverns of earth; to the man of the trowel, the hammer, or the forge and if, while he diligently prosecutes his humble toil, he looks up with a brave heart and loving eye to heaven-if in what he does he recognizes his God, and expects his wages from on high—if, while thus labouring on earth, he anticipates the rest of heaven, and can say, as did a poor man once, who, when pitied on account of his humble lot, said, taking off his hat, "Sir, I am the son of a King, I am a child of God, and when I die, angels will carry me from this Union Workhouse direct to the Court of Heaven; "-Oh! when I have shown you such a spectacle, I will ask—" Is there not dignity in labour?"

Work! and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow-
Work! thou shalt ride over care's coming billow-
Lie not down wearied, 'neath woe's weeping willow-
But work with a stout heart and resolute will!
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly-
Work for some hope-be it ever so lowly-
Work! for all labour is noble and holy!

REV. NEWMAN HALL.

THE PASTOR AND VILLAGE SCHOOL

MASTER.

NEAR yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;

Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, or wished to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power

By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour :
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd ;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,

Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe;