REFLECTIONS ON THE NEW YEAR.

DEAR READER, we really wish you, and not you only, but the entire world of intelligences, a Happy New Year. But how feeble are wishes, however good they may be! They cannot make even one soul happy, much less the world. And yet the difficulty is not that it is impossible for all to be happy; all might be happy if they would, i. e. if they would obey the laws on which their happiness depends, viz. the law of God, the obedience of which, only, is consistent with the philosophy of the human mind. We will make clear this position, we think, in a few words. Everything in nature is governed by fixed laws-every living creature has its element; the bird the air, the fish the sea, &c. To illustrate this, take the dove that travels so easy in the air, so happy and gay; place the happy creature one foot below the surface of the water, how soon its joy is gone, it struggles but for a moment, and dies! Take, also, the nimble trout that swims and floats so easy, and is at peace; place it one foot above the water, how changed the scene-it struggles for breath, but how soon it dies! And why all this change? Why, they were out of their element. So man, made in the image of God, holy, free from sin, God and holiness was his element so long as he obeyed the law of his Maker. The smiling and lovely face of his God was upon him-his happiness was perfect. But the moment man sinned and disobeyed the law of God and the law of his nature, that moment his joy departed, unhappiness and death came. And why this mighty change? Like the bird in the water, and the fish in the air, he was out of his element; therefore he could not be happy; and he never can, till he is changed, or the laws of his existence. Now, dear reader, to be happy, what will you do? I will tell you, in the language of God's word, come to Jesus Christ, who has died to make an atonement for sinners and for you What can you do to be happy this year? Go to Christ, bow before his throne of grace, repent, be humbled, believe with ALL THY SOUL, hang on his promises, give up to him at once, have faith in his blood, and his Spirit will come over you; your sins will depart and you brought back to the element of your original state, viz. holiness. Depart not again from his precepts, and you will be happy, not this year only, but it will be without end. Why not, then, take the sure way to peace? Why wish to be happy and not take the sure way to accomplish it? No longer expect happiness in the various vanities of this world. Oh, listen then to the voice of thy Redeemer, and be happy this year and for ever!

CULTIVATION OF TASTE.

It is unnecessary to enter into any disquisition as to what constitutes taste, but, assuming that all understand Mr. Webster, when he defines it, "Judgment: nice perception; the faculty of discerning beauty, order, congruity, symmetry, or whatever const..utes excellence," &c., we propose to suggest a few thoughts upon its cultivation. At the outset we meet the following objections: "It is a waste of time, and promotes luxury," says economy; "Cui bono?" says utility.

If it were the highest end of life simply to amass gold, or to be a slave to constant labor, such cultivation might be considered a loss of time. And if it were desirable that society should make no advance from the savage state, it might properly be considered a promoter of luxury. But no one will say that his Maker has brought him into being merely to breathe, eat, drink, grow sick, take physic, and die. For what end has man been endowed with noble faculties? For what end has the eye been fitted up with such exquisite mechanism, unless it be that it should delight in seeing; or the ear, save that it may delight in hearing? Coarser instruments than these might assist us sufficiently to "buy and sell, and get gain." But is it true that good taste is an expensive attribute? May it not promote real utility-real happiness? We think that it may. It will nerve the peasant to make his cottage the abode of comfort; while sloth is folding the hands for a little more sleep, he will prevent the steps of the morning, that he may train the woodbine or honeysuckle over his low porch, and surround his home with numberless little conveniences, and sources of pleasure, of which his idle neighbor is ignorant. It will also restrain the extravagances of affluence, and lead to the fountains of permanent happiness.

Taste has, frequently, for its object works of art. Nature, many suppose, may be studied with some propriety, but art they reject as entirely superficial. But what is the fact? In the highest sense, art is the child of nature, and is most admired when it preserves the likeness of its parent. Tradition tells us that the harp was first suggested by the vibration of a dead turtle's sinews, which Apollo found on the banks of the Nile, and the flute, by the piping of the wind in hollow reeds among the marshes of the same river. Are the pagodas of Burmah any thing more than an improvement on the rude tent of the Tartar? Is not the proudest ship hat rides the sea only a perfection of

the canoe of the savage? Are not Gothic churches only an advance on "the forests of God's first temples"-the drop-roof, an imitation of hanging boughs-the stained windows, an attempt to counterfeit a sunset sky, sending its light through the interstices of waving foliage? In painting, it is always the aim of the artist to copy nature; and, other things being the same, his success is in exact proportion to his skill in imitation. Why does he love to represent the unaffected positions of children, rather than the stiff attitude and awkward grimace of men? It is unnecessary to answer. The same principles apply to music, poetry, and all the arts. If these things be so, does not the man who objects to the study of art, virtually oppose the study of nature?

Of all the benefits arising from the cultivation of correct taste, we cannot now attempt an enumeration. It fits us to estimate better the world in which we live. That the universe was designed by its Creator to afford happiness to man, cannot be denied. Its adaptation to his physical and intellectual organization, strikes the observer at first survey. God might have made the earth a monstrous plain of one color, without flower or bird. Instead of hanging over us by day, a tent of many tinted clouds, and by night, a curtain of azure, he might have made the sky of a gloomy, unchangeable hue, with little beneath it to promote the well-being of his rational creation. But how far otherwise is the fact! How prodigal is nature in her gifts! How all things contribute to render us happy!

"More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of."

But he who does not cultivate a discernment of these things, walks blindfolded over the earth. This beautiful adaptation, running through all nature, brings such an one few thrills of pleasure. In his estimation, Niagara furnishes excellent water privileges; and his perception is about as accurate as that of the blind man who thought that the color of scarlet must be something like the sound of a trumpet!

The cultivation of taste is but a cultivation of the entire man. Who can doubt that poetry has a tendency to polish the roughest nature, and impart new and pure aspirations? Will not he who has just conceptions of the true and the beautiful, shrink from whatever is low and degrading, sooner than he who has no such conceptions? And who will affirm that music has no influence in making men better? Taste rocked the cradle of music and poetry, and led them on to their present maturity.

To comprehend fully the influence of true taste (and we here use it in its enlarged acceptation) we need only for a moment to

suppose the world destitute of it. How cold and desolate! The forest grows and decays untouched from age to age. The gold glitters in the sand, and the more useful metals lie buried in the dust of the earth. The pearl remains on the floor of the ocean. The granite and marble are hid in the bowels of the mountain, and man creeps about in the skins of animals. In this state of things, introduce taste, and lo! the transformation. The forest bows to the woodman's axe and is converted into implements of utility, or floats on the ocean. The metals become ornaments, and a medium of exchange among all nations, and the hum of happy industry rises on every gale. Music strings her harp, and poetry chants her numbers. The marble breathes-it starts to life: the granite is converted into the abodes of man, and into temples of the Most High.

In conclusion, we say that the perversion of taste to evil is no argument against its proper cultivation. Like all that was originally good, and designed to promote happiness, it is liable to become an instrument of the arch enemy; but if cultivated with a becoming spirit, it may be like the star which shone over Bethlehem-it may lead wise men to worship God.

TYRE.

BY J. CLEMENT.

PROUD City! Once the mistress of the earth,
Whose might and majesty all nations owned;
Where Art to proud magnificence gave birth,
And Taste, for ages honored, sat enthroned!
Thy glory, once to lordly empire loaned,
Is in the grave of vanished years interred;
And Desolation there has sadly moaned
For centuries, and ceaselessly is heard

The hollow scream of wild Destruction's vulture bird.

The seat of Science once, the learned were proud

In thee a mother and a friend to claim;

The voice of eloquence amid the crowd,

Rang through thy streets in praise of thine own name :

Thy sons exulted in thy spreading fame,

And men of State, with honor's laurels crowned,

And men of lore, from distant nations came,
And sat well pleased within thy halls renowned,

Listening with awe-struck brow to Wisdom's words profound.

The mart of nations, far along thy coast,

A cloud of sails once wooed the swelling breeze:
Of traffickers most noble thou couldst boast,

From every land and island of the seas. Young Commerce, with her splendid argosies, Along thy shores magnificently strode;

And thou could'st proudly point to treasuries, Whose stores, like inundating fountains flowed, Whilst thou upon the waves of rising glory rode.

But all thy greatness like a dream has fled,

Thy wealth is spoiled by stateless havoc's rust;
The iron foot of Time, with ponderous tread,
Has trampled all thy grandeur in the dust.
Dominion was assumed by sordid lust,
And all thy virgin charms became his spoil;
Then smote the great Avenger, ever just,
Whose stroke no human power can ever foil,
And prostrate thou wert laid, as in thy dying coil.

Through all thy streets, where traffic drew her throng
Of bustling votaries, and men of lore

With thoughtful mien brushed rapidly along,
The queen of solitude reigns evermore.
No human form is seen upon the shore
So crowded once, save a small rugged clan
Of fishermen, or stranger, come to pore

O'er power dethroned, and thy dark ruins scan,

Which waken mournful thoughts, and quell the pride of man.

Unscared, the slimy monsters of the deep

Bask on the rock where stood the stately dome;

And scaly reptiles from thy ruins creep,

And o'er the broken columns peaceful roam,

Making those vaulted cellars now their home,
Which once thy countless treasures did command;
And birds of prey amid the ocean's foam,
That whitens all thy lone unpeopled strand,
In hosts innumerous flock-a bold marauding band.
Thus art thou fallen, proud and haughty Tyre!
Yet though now prostrate, like the sturdy oak,
That fronts the blast for ages, towering higher,
Long, long thou stood'st the strong invader's stroke;
In vain Assyria's wrath against thee broke,
Her mightiest hosts Chaldea for years arrayed,
And all her hottest ire against thee woke,
Ere thou the debt of empire lingering paid,

And Macedon's dread path thy blackened ruins made.

Yet this, O Tyre! was not thy last repose,

Though slumbering long in shame's inglorious rest;
Again thou, like a Phoenix, sudden rose

From thine own ashes, and thy lofty crest
In stern defiance reared on ocean's breast;

As if the Almighty's fiat to gainsay,

Thyself in beauty's robe thou didst invest,
And held once more with sister powers thy sway,
And vainly boasted yet an endless gala day.

True, thou wert deemed Religion's sacred seat,
And Christian truth a home within thee found;
The messenger of peace with beauteous feet,
High o'er the mountains on his errand bound,
Woke thee to joy with glad salvation's sound.
Then rose the temple with its gilded spire,
To Him who is the Lord of glory crowned,