"BEHOLD, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to find out the account which yet my soul seeketh, but I found not. One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all these have I not found." The experience of the writer of Ecclesiastes seems, also, to have been the experience of Samson, until the time of his visit to Timnath; for immediately on his return he reports to his parents, "I have seen a woman of the daughters of the Philistines, now, therefore, get her for me to wife." As if he had said, the treasure so long sought is at length found; let there be no delay or controversy about the matter, but hasten to secure so rich a prize for your son. Well might he anticipate opposition from his pious parents; for, in addition to their national prejudices against the Canaanites, they had the law of Moses prohibiting marriages with them. Avoiding a direct reply to their natural expostulation, "Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all thy people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?" he puts an end to the discussion by appealing to his father, as being probably the more easily persuaded, "Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well." Still, he seems to have considered the subject maturely; for he paid her another visit, ere his father went down to contract for the espousals. We are not informed how the latter was affected by his acquaintance with her; but Samson's second interview confirmed the favorable impression he had at first received, and, after a suitable interval, the marriage was concluded. The period of betrothal among the Israelites is said to have been about a twelvemonth; so Samson had certainly time to ponder the judiciousness of his choice. The custom of proposing riddles at festivals, for the entertaiment of the guests, prevailed in the east. We have many examples in history. Samson takes advantage of an incident in his journey to and from the dwelling place of his bride, to frame an enigma, which he puts forth to his thirty companions at his wedding feast, on whose solution depended a reward or forfeiture of some value. Finding themselves unable to expound it, they resolved to obtain the knowledge by treachery. Now is the portraiture of Samson's wife more clearly presented to our view. So unprepossessing does it appear to a cursory glance, that we turn away in disgust, unwilling to look upon one who could first craftily win, and then perfidiously betray, the confidence of her husband. But let us contemplate it more steadily and impartially: hasty judgments are often erroneous: perhaps we may discover that she was more to be commiserated than condemned. She is menaced by her own countrymen with the destruction of herself

and kindred, if she does not give them the interpretation of the enigma. That they had both the will and the power to execute their cruel threat, we learn from the sad sequel of her story. Her very affection for her husband would naturally lead her to withhold from him any communication of their denouncements. She might justly fear to exasperate him against those toward whom he already felt hereditary enmity. She probably did not regard the exposition of the riddle, or its concealment, as of much importance; certainly it could bear no proportion to the evils which her refusal to explain it, or her accusation of her countrymen to Samson, might produce. Nor does her strong desire to learn from him the solution of the riddle, merely for her own gratification, appear unnatural. No wife, at least, will deem it so, when she reads the alledged reason of that desire. Her heart or her imagination impelled her to consider the interpretation a test of his affection. "Thou dost but hate me, and lovest me not: thou hast put forth a riddle to the children of my people, and hast not told it me. She wept before him the seven days while their feast lasted." A miserable week must that season of merriment have proved to that anxious and doubting wife, whether we believe her interest in the riddle resulted from a wish to obtain her husband's confidence, or the apprehension of her countrymen's displeasure! The Scriptural account rather countenances the opinion that the Philistines did not threateningly apply to her for its exposition until the seventh day. Perhaps, then, the alarm their menaces awakened, increased the energy of her pleadings, so that on that day her entreaties prevailed. It is said, "She laid sore upon him." I have pictured her almost distracted with her doubts and fears; and when we reflect that Samson had resisted all her tears and supplications for six days, we may reasonably suppose he would not have yielded at the last moment, but to some violent expression of emotion. One might almost, indeed, pardon the betrayal of a secret so reluctantly imparted, and in which so little of the sweet trust of conjugal affection was evinced. And when we consider the circumstances in which this unhappy bride was placed, which seemed so strongly to demand the conduct which she pursued, we more readily excuse her weakness than her husband's resentment and abandonment, reasonable as Dr. Clarke has thought fit to term them. That Samson at last felt some compunction and relenting for leaving her in anger, we may infer from his subsequent course. "It came to pas within a while after, Samson visited his wife with a kid," intended, probably, as a peace-offering. Alas! how eventful had the date of his absence been to her! Forsaken by her husband, her father, imagining all possibility of reconciliation destroyed, had given her in marriage to another. The habit which prevailed among the ancients of disposing of their daughters without

consulting their personal preferences, exculpated Samson's wife from censure in this unnatural union. The wrath of her husband now, as before, works her woe. He executes vengeance upon the Philistines, and they, by way of recrimination, "burn her and her father with fire." This induces us to believe, that after Samson came down to Timnath to claim her, she left her Philistine husband, and returned to the house of her parents. Tragic indeed was the close of an existence which, whatever was the character of its earliest years, left a mournful page in the history of married life. Little reason had the Canaanite maidens to desire a union with the Israelites. However faulty the wife of Samson may have been, every reader of her story must admit that she had more cause than he to lament their marriage.

O, do not hastily condemn

Those whom thou canst not praise; It may be motives govern them Which never meet thy gaze.

A thousand thoughts and feelings sway
Our most familiar friends,
Which to our eyes they ne'er betray-
On which their course depends.
Then never trust a partial view;
It always must deceive;

It may be those we deem untrue
Are those we should believe.

A HISTORICAL SCRAP.

BY QUINTUS.

ST. ALBAN.

ST. ALBAN is regarded as the proto-martyr of Britain. He was born nearly at the close of the third century, at Verulam, close to the site of the present town in Hertfordshire, which bears his name. In his youth he visited Rome, in company with a monk of Carleon, named Amphibalus, and served seven years as a soldier under the Emperor Dioclesian. On his return to Britain, renouncing Paganism, he embraced Christianity, and, it is generally believed, suffered martyrdom in the great persecution under the above Emperor-Bede says A. D. 286; others place it in 296; and Usher in 303. A number of legendary miracles are attributed to this saint, whose history altogether is no more than a legend. The celebrated monastery of St. Alban's was not founded until between four and five hundred years after his death, by Offa, King of Mercia. In repairing the church of St. Alban's in 1257, a tomb was opened, which, according to an inscription found in it, contained some relicts of St. Alban.

Such are the facts of the history of this Catholic saint, as given in the Encyclopedia Americana; but Catholic historians add many wonderful particulars respecting him-too wonderful even for credulity itself to believe.

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THE PRAYER OF HABAKKUK.

BY A TYRO.

Ir is said of Dr. Franklin, that, during his long residence in Paris, being invited to a party of the nobility, where most of the court and courtiers were present, he produced a great sensation by one of his bold movements, and gained great applause for his ingenuity.

According to the custom of that age and country, the nobles, after the usual ceremonies of the evening were over, sat down to a free and promiscuous conversation. Christianity was then the great topic. The Church was always ridiculed, and the Bible was treated with unsparing severity. Growing warmer and warmer in their sarcastic remarks, one great lord commanded, for a moment, universal attention, by his asserting, in a round voice, that the Bible was not only a piece of arrant deception in religion, but totally devoid of all literary merit. Although the entire company of Frenchmen nodded a hearty assent to the sentence, Franklin gave no signs of approval. Being, at that time, the court favorite, his companions could not bear even a tacit reproof from a man of his weight of influence. They all appealed to him for his opinion. Franklin, in one of his peculiar ways, replied, that he was hardly prepared to give them a suitable answer, as his mind had been running on the merits of a new book, of rare excellency, which he had just happened to fall in with, at one of the city bookstores; and, as they had pleased to make allusion to the literary character of the Bible, perhaps it might interest them to compare with that old volume the merits of his new prize. If so, he would read them a short section. All were eager to hear the Doctor read a portion of his rare book. In a very grave and sincere manner, Franklin took an old book from his coat pocket, and, with great propriety of utterance, read to them the following poem:

"God came from Teman,

And the holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens,
And the earth was full of his praise.
And his brightness was as the light;
He had horns coming out of his hands;
And there was the hiding of his power.
Before him went the pestilence;
And burning coals went forth at his feet.
He stood and measured the earth;

He beheld, and drove asunder the nations;
And the everlasting mountains were scattered;
And the perpetual hills did bow;

His ways are everlasting.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;
And the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

Was the Lord displeased against the rivers?
Was thine anger against the rivers?
Was thy wrath against the sea,
That thou didst ride upon thy horses,
And upon thy chariots of salvation?

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Thy bow was made quite naked,

According to the oaths of thy tribes-thy word;

Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers;

The mountains saw thee and trembled;

The overflowing of the water passed by;

The deep uttered his voice,

And lifted up his hands on high.

The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation;

At the light of thine arrows they went,

At the shining of thy glittering spear.

Thou didst march through the land in indignation;
Thou didst thresh the heathen in thine anger.
Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people,
Even for salvation with thine Anointed;

Thou woundedst the head of the house of the wicked,

By making naked the foundation unto the neck.

Thou didst strike through with thy staves the head of his villages;

They came out as a whirlwind to scatter me;
Their joy was to devour the poor secretly.

Thou didst walk through the sea with thy horses,
Through the heap of great waters!

When I heard, my bowels trembled;
My lips quivered at the voice;
Rottenness entered into my bones,
And I trembled in myself,

That I might rest in the day of trouble:
When he cometh up unto the people,
He will cut them in pieces with his troops.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
Neither shall fruit be in the vines;
The labor of the olive shall fail,

And the fields shall yield no meat;

The flock shall be cut off from the fold,
And there shall be no herd in the stalls:
Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength,

And he will make my feet like hinds' feet,
And he will cause me to walk in high places."

The poem had its effect. The admiring listeners pronounced it the sublimest thing they had ever heard or read. "That is poetry," said one. "That is sublimity," said another. "It has not its superior in the world," was the unanimous opinion. They all wished to know the name of the new work, and whether that was a fair specimen of its contents.

"Certainly gentlemen," said the Doctor, smiling at his triumph, "my book is full of such passages. It is no other than your good-for-nothing Bible; and I have read you the prayer of the prophet Habakkuk."

Let every reader learn wisdom from this incident, and learn to appreciate the unequaled sublimities of the Bible.

THE POET COWPER.

BY AN AMATEUR.

WILLIAM COWPER, a poet of great genius, was born in Hertfordshire, England. He was educated in the school at Westminster, and gave early tokens of the brilliancy of his talents. Undertaking, after his graduation, the study of the law, he made no

great proficiency in legal learning, his time being spent almost entirely in literary occupations.

The nervous system of the great poet being naturally deranged, he suffered, at the early age of thirty-two, a violent attack of mania. Some, disposed to throw a reproach upon revealed religion, have ignorantly asserted, that Cowper was rendered insane by his fears of future punishment; but his friend and relative, Mr. Johnson, has vindicated his character, in this respect, beyond the possibility of such an imputation.

This

William Cowper made his first impression upon the public, by a volume published in 1782, comprising several poems of acknowledged merit. In the year 1785 he printed another book, containing the best of all his works, the inimitable Task. immediately raised him to the highest rank of fame. His reputation grew rapidly, until, in less than two years from the date of his latest publication, he was acknowledged, by the best of English critics, as the originator of the Christian school of poets.

The last days of his life were devoted to the translation of Homer; for, in this way, he endeavored to drown the melancholy, which seemed to be settling upon his spirits. He lived to the beginning of the present century, and died universally admired as a poet, and justly esteemed as a man.

THE NUMBER FORTY.

BY A STUDENT.

I HAVE been often struck, Mr. Editor, with the frequent recurrence in the Bible of the number forty. For example, forty days were spent in embalming Israel. Moses, on more than one occasion, fasted forty days and forty nights; Elijah fasted, also, the same period of forty days and forty nights. The Savior fulfilled the same number of days and nights in fasting. The Israelites were doomed to wander forty years in the wilderness. Ezekiel bore the iniquity of Judah forty days. For forty years judgment was denounced against Egypt. The laws of Moses punished certain offenders by the infliction of forty stripes. The period of maternal purification, at the birth of a male child, was forty days. Many instances of this character are scattered through the sacred volume. I have counted almost a score of them, and would like to know whether they have any peculiar significancy. Perhaps some of your able correspondents can render me the desired information. I am myself, however, inclined to consider them as only accidental. The Jews and Catholics are for ever finding mysteries in all these matters; but the sober intellect of a reflecting man, I think, is no more disposed to discover wonders in the language of the Bible, than in any book of ståndard excellence.

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LADIES' REPOSITORY.

APRIL, 1847.

THE CASKET OF JEWELS RETURNED.

My readers know well that I am not given to writing fiction. There is, in truth, no species of composition against which I have spoken so frequently and so freely. My early habits, my taste, my judgment, and my inclinations go against it; and my strong argument in opposition to it is, that truth is not only always more useful, but decidedly more interesting. There have occurred, and there are daily occurring, so many strange events in this strange world, which are as yet unwritten, that there is no need of our resorting, for entertaining and profitable lessons, to the imagination.

It is true, when the minute facts in any anecdote or story have been partially obscured by the lapse of time, it is always allowable for the narrator to fill up the chasms by a sort of combined effort of his memory and invention. This license is given even to the historian, whose details are of vast moment to states and empires; and it is a privilege under which alone things long since passed can be recovered.

With these introductory reflections, rendered necessary by my known hostility to works of mere fancy, I will proceed to sketch the outlines of a little piece of history, which, at different times, I have told as a temperance story; and I am specially induced to write it out myself, because, under circumstances which I need not now explain, it has been, in other days, imperfectly copied from my lips, and with many faults given to the public. Deference to the modesty of the characters referred to, however, nearly all of whom are yet living, forbids any great explicitness as to times and places.

For several weeks the weather had been foul and extremely unpleasant. The rain had been falling, for a number of days, in torrents; and, at the moment when our little narrative opens, it was pouring down like another deluge. The streets of the city, running from the Capitol in all directions, were almost as many rivers-such a rush of water was passing down each one of them to the ocean. The various articles, commonly exhibited at the shop doors, were all taken in, the drays and wagons had sought their respective shelters, and the side-walks were almost clear of people. Had it not been for the occasional dodging of an umbrella, or the rattling of a stray hack with a drenched driver, the city might have been supposed to be almost without inhabitants.

"Ill luck to that poor wight yonder," said my friend, crowding up a little closer under my umbrella; "or, rather," said he, "ill luck must have happened to him, if he is compelled to saw wood in the streets such a day as this is."

"A sad lot certainly," said I, "for it scarcely ever rained harder."

"How strange it is," rejoined my friend, "that there should be such distinctions in the condition of this world's inhabitants! Among the hundred thousand citizens of this great city, that poor fellow seems to hold the lowest and worst position. You and I, though in the street, are well enough protected; the few coachmen who have passed us, though wet and cold, are to-day monopolizing their whole business, and are almost warmed and dried by the reflection that they are VOL. VII.-16

making money; but that poor wood-sawer, though toiling in the rain, gets no more for his work than if the day were pleasant. However," added my philosophic companion in a sort of whisper, for we were now within a few paces of the unhappy fellow, "I see he is a goodfor-nothing drunkard, and may have ruined the happiness of his wife and children, and is now suffering the just penalty of his transgressions."

This last remark did not mend the matter much in my judgment; but an incident, just then occurring, cut short my reply to it.

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What will you give for that, Bill?" said the shopkeeper, for whom the wood was being sawed, as he stepped out upon the pavement, covered closely by his umbrella.

"Nothing, sir," replied the wood-sawer, "I want the money for my work. I work for money, sir."

"Yes, and what is your money good for, the way you spend it?"

"That is my business, Mr. Miller. I agreed to saw this wood, and you agreed to pay me the money for it. So I don't want any of your trinkets."

"Very true, Bill; but then I thought this ring would be just the thing for you to give to some fair lady as a wedding-day present."

The wood-sawer heaved a sigh, but remained silent. "Besides," added the shop-keeper, "by buying this ring, you will do more than one good office. You will turn your money into something more lasting, at least, than a mug of rum; and you may furnish bread to a poor girl and her widowed mother, who are on the poin of starving. Come, buy it, Bill; I can sell it to you for one-fourth its value.”

"Be short, if you please, Mr. Miller: this is no time for long speeches," said the drunkard.

"You are rather ill-natured to-day, Bill," replied the jeweler, "but could you have seen the girl herself, who pawned this ring, and heard her pitiful story, you might be more willing to make the purchase."

There are a great many pitiful stories told now-adays," rejoined the inebriate, bending down again to

his labor.

"Well, Bill, I think Miss Margaret Willis will have no great debt of gratitude to pay you, in that day when the Almighty gathers up his jewels," muttered the seller of gold and silver trinkets, as he turned upon his heel to resume his place behind his shop window. "Miss who?" stammered the drunkard. "Miss-Margaret-Willis," replied Mr. Miller, as he read the name from the engraving round the signet. "Will you let me see the ring, Mr. Miller?" "O, yes, Bill; I thought you couldn't be quite so ungallant toward a lady. But, Bill, bless me! what is the matter with you? What on earth makes you so pale and deathly?"

It is true, the wood-sawer, drunkard as he was, did turn pale, when, with his own eyes, he read the engraving. His saw fell from his left hand; and he almost sunk down on the pavement. Mr. Miller, who was not a hard-hearted man by nature, rendered him such support as he needed for the moment, and even advised him against continuing his work longer in such bad weather. The poor inebriate, finding his strength did not recover as soon as might ordinarily be expected, consented to relinquish his occupation till next morning.

Having followed the jeweler into the shop, he sat a few minutes before the large wood fire in the front

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room, with his head fallen down upon his breast, in deep and apparently painful contemplation. His clothes smoking in the heat, and large drops of perspiration rolling from his face, and his heart evidently racked with some powerful emotion, he presented a picture worthy of an artist's pencil.

"How came you by that ring?" feebly ejaculated the poor drunkard, with a distressed look turned toward Mr. Miller.

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Where did I get it? Why, I suppose, certainly, of its owner. Miss Margaret was here herself not three hours since, and pawned it to me. This is not the first jewel she has sold to me, reserving the right of redeeming them, if, in a reasonable time, she should find herself able. But, then, she never will be able; for the first one she brought more than two years ago, which has been lying in my case here ever since. So I think I shall sell them, and get my money back again." "Well, perhaps that is right, Mr. Miller: you know the terms on which you bought them. But how many have you of that girl's trinkets?"

"See for yourself, Bill. Here they are. Look at them, and I will perhaps tell you the girl's story, when I am not so busy."

The drunkard rose up, and, walking tremblingly to the counter, examined the jewels at his leisure.. His face, habitually blue and bloated, had become suddenly pale on reading the inscription; but now it flashed and burned as if lighted up by internal passions. After looking them all over, and over again, he resumed his seat by the fireside.

That you will sell me all of them, and any others which that girl may bring here," said the wood-sawer. Sell them! Certainly-that is just what I proposed to you; and you, Bill, could not do better than to turn your labor into something more substantial than liquor. True, as you have neither wife nor children to trouble you, you have a right to do as you choose in this free country. But, Bill, I have felt interested for you before now; and yet you may think I have a very rough way of showing my good wishes."

"I will certainly do so, Mr. Miller; and from this hour I want you to abide as faithfully by your promise. And, besides, I want you to get the whole of them; for "and here the poor apostate apparently labored to be a little witty-"I have taken up your notion of giving them to some fair lady, as a wedding-day present."

"Is my watch now in perfect order, Mr. Miller?" said my friend, as he took his gold-lever from the shopkeeper's hands.

"Yes, sir, I warrant her to run a year in perfect order," replied the jeweler.

Upon this, walking out upon the pavement, we bade adieu to the interesting little scene, which had accidentally taken place in our presence.

on him by that fictitious story of the little girl and her widowed mother; and then the unhappy drunkard, goaded by his appetite, will soon pawn them for a trifle to get the means of another season of beastly intoxication. O, what a world is this, where the apparently respectable are as base as the lowest are unfortunate!"

Suppose we call upon that jeweler, on our return," said I to my feeling companion, "and see how he will straighten up his conduct in this matter. You can make an errand with him about your watch. These impositions are certainly getting to be so common in this country, that they deserve a rigid and general examination; and these robbers of the poor ought to be brought to justice. But, in this day, who will take the trouble, if ministers of the Gospel neglect so plain a duty?"

"True enough," rejoined my friend; and thus the engagement was quickly settled. But circumstances afterward rendered its fulfillment needless.

A railroad is a rapid means of traveling. You run from village to village in a moment. The fences seem to be flying in one direction, while you are rushing on in another. You can scarcely read the figures on the milestones; and luckless is that poor mortal, who, by his poverty, is forced to creep along on, the track of a railroad, and compare his groping with the steam-propelled chariot. But miserably unfortunate that little girl, the daughter, perhaps, of some day-laborer, who, while her father toils at home, walks down to the city, to sell, for any thing she can get, her poor mother's earnings. Doubly so, when, like the unhappy little creature yonder, she is weighed down by a large basket, though her slender frame seems scarcely able to lift its own weight from one cross-timber of the railroad to another.

"O," said my big-hearted friend, looking out upon the little girl, as we passed her, "why didn't our conductor pick up that poverty-stricken little beggar?"

"Because," said I, "he imagines, if he should get the reputation of carrying such persons free of cost, half the world would turn beggars, especially when they desire to travel."

"Well," rejoined my companion, "I wish I had a railroad: I would carry the poor for nothing."

"Yes, but you could not expect all the poor would, therefore, come and settle on the line of your railroad," was my metaphysical answer.

"No, but I would carry all that did live on it; and, by that means, I should set a good example to other owners."

I had hardly time to express my respect for the young man's generosity of feeling; for, next moment, the car ceased its motion, and the passengers were all astir, crowding their way along to find a place of egress.