Page images
PDF
EPUB

corner of the area, having the steep part of Bezetha on the left, and then descending gradually to St. Stephen's Gate.-Dr. Robinson.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Ir is only to the child of calamity, on whom no sun shines cheerfulness, to whom no day brings cessation from toil or suffering, or to the gloomy discontented misanthrope, that Christmas does not bring pleasure of some kind.

To the Christian parents of a happy and united family, on which misfortune has not pressed, from which no link has been recently dissevered, which, by the mercy of God, has been kept together amidst all the changes of this mortal life, and betrays no symptoms of approaching dissolution, Christmas day is always one of holy joy. They see the goodness of the Lord in all his dealings, and hail the "Sun of righteousness," who, as he then, as it were, arises with healing in his wings," imparts fresh rays of warmth to their hearts, and invigorates and renews them; and while they count the years that have passed over their heads, and given strength and beauty to the olive branches around their table, they view another happy year in the perspective of hope.

If the severity of the winter season makes them feel, in their own frames, that the freshness of health has deserted them, and that pain and debility succeed in its stead, they look forward with hope to the renovating influences of a genial spring: hence they take a higher and far nobler view, while they see before them the crocus, the snowdrop, and the rose of Christmas, and consider their own position on the boundary which separates the old and new years, and contemplate the earth as teeming with life, and preparing to yield its produce in the coming season, they look with the eye of faith, from the deadness of surrounding nature, to the ever-existing soul, even during the sleep of death, to the morning of the resurrection, when that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption, that which is sown in weakness shall be raised in power, 1 Cor. xv. 42, 43.

While the elders of the family view the present scene, as wisdom teaches, and offer their thanksgivings to God, that all is well beneath the family roof on this eventful day, the younger members of the family have their appropriate

sources of enjoyment; for some, the sports and hospitalities of the season have their pleasures; to others, the holidays of a month open an interminable vista of enjoyment, and the presentation of gifts, and acts of kindnesses and charity to dependents and poor neighbours, are among the chief pleasures of the seniors. In short, all are more or less happy; and if there be no real enjoyment on this day, we may be certain, provided there be no afflictive event, actual or anticipated, to mar domestic felicity, that there is something wrong in the temperaments, or the conduct of the heads of the family. Some years ago, it happened that I was a guest in a family party, which I shall endeavour to describe.

Mr. Brabazon, the father of several children, was then a merchant of considerable respectability; and on the occasion to which I am about to refer, the centre of a very happy social circle assembled in his drawing room, just before the announcement of their Christmas dinner. When the servant summoned us to table, Mr. Brabazon, with a placid countenance, yet not indicative of a heart unoccupied by cares or apprehensions, led out the mother of his wife, who, though far advanced in years, seemed one of the happiest of the entire procession, as she cast her eyes upon the three generations of her descendants which followed.

I gave my arm to Mrs. Brabazon, a cheerful and singularly amiable woman, who looked the very personification of matronly bliss, and seemed as if her sole study had been to make those around her happy. A married son and a married daughter, with their respective partners, followed; the curate of the parish escorted one of the unmarried daughters, and youngsters, of various ages, comprehending two grand-children (who for the first time toddled along to a Christmas dinner in the parlour) brought up the rear.

When grace was said, I looked for an instant at Mr. Brabazon, and perceived what I thought a tear in his eye, while a low and half-suppressed sigh involuntarily escaped from him: Mrs. Brabazon appeared to have observed the emotion also; but she at once entered into the bustle of the dinner arrangements, as if her object had been to promote a general degree of vivacity.

Healths were drunk, and "many happy returns of the season" cordially wished

to "Gran," in particular; the affectionate | the one hundred and third psalm, and interchanges of kind expressions went thanked God for the innumerable merround, and the usual jokes about plum- cies vouchsafed, from time to time, to pudding and mince pies passed among those who were then kneeling in supplithe children, and every one seemed at ease cation, and prayed that any future disand merry, except Mr. Brabazon, who, pensations, of an afflictive character, though evidently pleased at having his might be sanctified to them, and ultifamily around him, and anxious that they mately end in good, my own heart was should enjoy themselves, looked as if affected; and as I glanced at the fine family temporary cessation from care, and comaround me, in the enjoyment of every temposure of mind, were the highest de- poral comfort, I asked myself, Where grees of enjoyment of which his mind shall we all be this day twelvemonth? was capable.

At the close of dinner, he devoutly and audibly thanked God for having permitted him to see his beloved family around him, and invoked a blessing upon them all; but it appeared to me as if there was a degree of effort in his words and movements, something of a struggle between pleasure and pain, a smile and a tear. He looked as if he were thinking to himself, Where shall we all be this day twelvemonth? The goodness of God has hitherto preserved this circle entire; has added to it, within the revolution of two or three years, some valued members, a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law; but will all here meet again at this table, on the next Christmas day? will there be none missing?

One of his sons was just then seeking a cadetship in the Indian army; would he be in the East on that day twelvemonth? and if so, was there any probability of his own reunion with him again upon earth?

I had been intimate with Mr. Brabazon during many years, and well knew the variableness of his spirits, the softness of his heart, and the occasional depression of his mind; and I felt almost certain, that on the present occasion, some delicate chord had been touched, and some disturbing influence in movement; and of this I felt certain, in the course of this evening, during which he did not join the party in the drawing room, where the piano-forte was beautifully played upon by his eldest daughter; nor during an entire hour, while Mrs. Brabazon, and others of the family, blended their voices together, in "Sound the loud timbrel," and other sacred melodies.

Mrs. Brabazon went out of the room two or three times, and at length her husband came in and joined in the general occupations.

It was late when family devotions commenced; and as the clergyman read

On the ensuing morning, two of the young men went out to shoot, another to skate; the older ladies made visits to their neighbours, and the little people ran about the walks, and got tumbles, and were as merry as crickets.

No distressed villager came to the house that day, because on Christmas eve, every poor person, and every labourer on their land, had received meat, coals, and clothing from Mr. and Mrs. Brabazon, who would have been unhappy if, when they and their household sat down to a Christmas dinner, there had been one unsupplied table in their neighbourhood, one forgotten pauper, one miserable family, which, with their power of relieving, they did not assist.

Although the day was frosty, there was much sunshine and warmth, and I walked in my friend's demesne with his married daughter; and in the course of our conversation, ascertained the probable cause of her father's ill-concealed melancholy on the preceding day. Three years previously, his favourite child, to whom his heart still clung, had, for the last time, dined at the family table on Christmas day; a malady was then commencing, which, four weeks afterwards, laid her in the grave. On that Christmas day it was her happy privilege to dine at the big table with papa and mamma. It was her farewell feast upon earth!

My companion added, that on the succeeding Christmas day, her father was so cast down that he could hardly keep his place at table. "You saw him yesterday," said she, "in a very moderate degree of grief; and time is exercising its usual influence."

66

'My mother," she continued, "possesses more energy of character; and though she is exquisitely sensitive in her own way, she has that fortitude which has enabled her to minister consolation to my father: and I am sure, that neither of them would now venture to recall

Mary to earth again, even if they had the power to do so.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

'Ifancy," said I, "that the youngest of the family, at present, the girl born after the death of the child of which we have been speaking, seems to have crept round her father's heart, and to have supplied the link which had been broken." But I soon learned that there were other circumstances calculated to render Mr. Brabazon at that time melancholy.

He was then involved in mercantile transactions with an insolvent house in North America, which was largely indebted to him; and he was apprehensive, from the various complications involved in other quarters, with which he was connected, that his family might be scattered far and wide before the ensuing Christmas.

On the preceding day, he had received letters intimating that his own solvency was considered doubtful, and some demands were made upon him in a manner which indicated the unfavourable opinion of his credit. When he looked at his wife and children, and thought even of the possibility of their becoming reduced to poverty, he felt, as any sensitive man would feel, under such fearful circumstances; and as an additional drop will cause an already full vessel to run over, so did his rising tear of sorrow for the death of his little Mary, combining with the great and deep source of apprehension, which was then springing up in his heart, overwhelm his feelings.

Mr. Brabazon's fears were sadly realized. The deep "waters of affliction" soon overpowered him with irresistible force.

While he was in the metropolis, on business, a few days afterwards, he received a letter from a friend, to the effect, that in the general panic regarding mercantile men at that crisis, certain loud creditors were about to issue proceedings against him, on the principle of "First come, first served." He struggled, but in vain; his ruin followed; and on the next Christmas day, his table was unspread, his place sold, his property had departed into other hands, and his wife was a widow. One of his sons, a cattle driver at the Cape of Good Hope; another, a subordinate clerk in a petty office; his eldest unmarried daughter a governess, or rather an upper servant in a vulgar, yet proud family; the second girl a teacher, without a salary, in a boarding school; and his younger children domesticated

with two relatives, who were very cross to them.

If we had known, (but happily the future is hid from us,) on the Christmas day which I passed under Mr. Brabazon's roof, all that one year would bring forth, what "lamentation, and mourning, and woe," would have resounded there! I shall ever have a sober chastened feeling in a family party on Christmas day.

My own heart has been long since wrung and withered. Though I have never been the head of a family, and therefore have not felt precisely as my friend Mr. Brabazon must have been affected, I have formed no unimportant link in many a family chain; and I have witnessed the dissolution of many domestic circles; have seen the "silver cord loosed,' and the "golden bowl broken." I have experienced enough of human life to know that the blessings of Providence, which flow in profusion to many households, are heedlessly and thoughtlessly received; and that the mercies which are new and countless every morning, are often received without any sense of gratitude to the Dispenser of them, and without any just notion of the value of the enjoyments possessed, or any reflection upon the greatness of the price with which, if threatened with their withdrawal, they would purchase the continuance of them, supposing they had the power of bidding for them. What great and unforeseen events may not a year bring forth! It is long to look forward from one Christmas to another, nothing to look back upon.

66

The months are passing over us; how few days between this, upon which I have written the foregoing sketch, and Christmas! Who of us, the writer or the reader, will live to hail the day, which so emphatically announces, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men ?" Who among us shall see our friends and families about us, entire, unhurt, in health; none absent, none disgraced, or children of sin, and shame, and sorrow?

Reader, think of these things, and even if you shall see another, and another, Christmas day, (and may they be many and happy ones!) remember that at last you must meet in judgment, and face to face Him, whose coming in the flesh you now commemorate, whose name is Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, Isa. ix. 6. Reflect that the sha

dows will become real; the invisible, visible; and that fleeting time will lapse into eternity. Remember the great mystery of godliness which Christmas day ought to unfold to your minds, and prepare for the last day, when Jesus Christ shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead.-M. D.

EVIL SPEAKING-THE LYING TONGUE.

THIS is a vice as common unto many, as words are to their mouths. In their usual talk, commerce and communication, it is as ordinary and familiar with them, as if their whole life had been an apprenticeship to the father of lies, to learn the faculty of lying; so prompt and ready are they therein, as if it were the mystery of their study all their life long. Now, there are many reasons why this vice should be utterly banished from among men: because we are members one of another, and if Christians, members of the same body of Christ, which is his church, and the Head of this body is the Truth itself. "I am the TRUTH,' saith Christ, and "there was no deceit found in his mouth." How monstrous, then, is it that the members which live under this Head, should lie one to another, and practise guile and deceit! In the human body, no one member deceiveth another; for were that the case, it would tend to their own hurt and fraud; he therefore that deceiveth his brother deceiveth himself. It is a shameful thing for one man to lie unto another-even one stranger to another; but more shameful is it for a domestic friend to lie unto a domestic friend, a brother to a brother, a servant to his lord. What then must it be for a member of Christ to lie unto a member of Christ, a Christian to a Christian, the faithful to the faithful! Oh what a detestable and loathsome thing is this! He that perverteth the order, constituted of God among men, sinneth grievously; and the liar doth this: for the order which God hath appointed is, that by our words the sense and meaning of the mind should be manifested; wherefore words are said to be the notes of the things contained in the mind: consequently, the liar perverteth the order of God, and sinneth grievously; for which cause the Spirit of God saith, "The lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, Prov. xii. 17. 19.-Est's Glass of Godliness.

[ocr errors]

THE PERAMBULATOR. THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE, IN CARDIGANSHIRE.

WHAT a delightful thing is liberty, Were we both at home and abroad! compelled to roam the mountain and the moor, when disposed to indulge in the comforts of domestic life; or constrained to be housekeepers, when our spirits urged us on to visit distant scenes and solitary places, it would be a trouble to us all. He who has health, a spirit of enterprise, a keen conception of the "sublime and beautiful" in nature, a grateful heart, a holy reverence for Divine things, and the means and opportunity to wander wide, has enough to fill his bosom with joy, and to occupy his tongue with praise.

"Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,

And marvel men should quit their easy chair; The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated ease can never hope to share."

There are moments when a spirit of ardent lover of nature's varied beauties; eager enterprise is indulged in by the and then no mountain is high enough, no excavation deep enough, no rifted crag clothed enough with awe and terror; and no spot sufficiently romantic fully to satisfy his unreasonable expectations. Such a moment is the present one with bing, and my eye brightening with exciteme; my heart is beating, my pulse throbment; and no wonder! Who can gaze on the piled-up heights, the fearful depths, the rugged rifts, the rushing torrents, and the roaring falls of this British Switzerland, without emotion!

He who has never visited Pont Bren, trod the vale of Nant Francon, (the valley of beavers,) mused on the threeheaded mountain of Trivaen, gazed on the Falls of Ogwen, ascended Great Orme's Head, nor stood in triumph on into my present excitement. But a word the top of Snowdon, can hardly enter

or two on Wales.

It was in my boyhood that I first visited the principality. No wonder that its high mountains, its rushing rivers, its tumbling cataracts, and its overawing loneliness, should much affect my youthful mind. It appeared to me as a new creation; instead of the low unmeaning hills and monotonous flats to which I had been accustomed, giant mountains presented themselves on every side. In natural scenery, objects of magnitude always impress the mind, more than objects of mere beauty.

"Amid

The various forms which this full world presents,
Like rivals to his choice, what human breast
E'er doubts, before the transient and minute,
To prize the vast, the awful, the sublime?
Who, that from heights aerial sends his eye
Around a wide horizon, and surveys
Indus, or Ganges, rolling his broad wave
Through mountains, plains, and spacious cities old;
And regions dark with woods, will turn away
To mark the path of some penurious rill
That murmurs at his feet?"

The mountains were Andes and Dhawaligiras in my estimation, and the rushing cataracts were rivals of Niagara, while the remains of proud castles, frowning on the rocky steeps, proclaimed the power and boldness of the ancient inhabitants of the country. We are most of us educated to think highly of those who have dared to defend their own possessions against the attack of an aggressor. The commonwealths of Rome resisted the invading power of Persia, and, in more modern times, the patriots of Switzerland dared to defend their mountain fastnesses against their invaders; but scarcely did the Romans or the Swiss more resolutely defend their country, than the Welsh did theirs, before the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, overcame them. These things were present to my youthful memory, as well as the knowledge that the Welsh were honest, hospitable, and devotional: I therefore honoured the people around me, and gazed on their mountains and their valleys with admiration and joy.

Since then, years have rolled away; the boy has become a man, and the stripling, whose heart beat with such emotion, amidst these wilds and solitudes, has shared the multiplied mercies of maturer years; yet still, with grey hairs on his head, he cannot, even now, gaze on these goodly scenes without emotions of awe and delight.

There are so many parts of North and South Wales, which alone would exhaust the powers of the most eloquent speaker, or the most enthusiastic writer, in their description, that it will be but common prudence in me to confine my present remarks to this fairy scene. Leaving Cader Idris, and the Peak of Snowdon, whence may be seen at once Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland,

and where

"The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

Hills high o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise." Leaving the vales of Dyffryn, Clwyd, and Langollen, the lakes of Bala and

Llyn Ogwen, the falls of the Cynfall and Dovey, the castles of Powys, Conways, and Caernarvon, and the farfamed Menai bridge, where science and enterprise have been seen to

"Raise the tall pier, extend the massy chain,

And lead the millions o'er the subject main ;
Alike serenely when the tempest roars,
And when the placid waters greet the shores."

Leaving all these, let me shortly describe, in such manner as I may, surrounded by all that is huge and awful, turbulent and terrible in natural scenery, the far-famed fairy land of Devil's bridge.

Dark traditions, and dark unearthly stories, are yet perpetuated concerning the place, and truly its general character is well adapted to call forth the wonder, and excite the imagination of those who are far better educated than the olden inhabitants of this rocky domain. The most sober and probable account of the Devil's bridge, so far as its name is concerned, is this: when the monks of Ystrad Fflur abbey, situated near the source of the Tivy, had succeeded in flinging the bridge Pont y Monach (bridge of the monks) across the fearful rent in the earth, which yet calls forth the wonderment of the stranger, the common people, believing that it was impossible to have effected such a work without Satanic assistance, gave to the bridge the name of the Devil's bridge; and this name it is likely to retain. How it was that the more reasonable supposition of the monks being assisted in a useful work, by a more wise and benevolent Being, should have been overlooked, it is hard to say; but it shows the disposition of the time to ascribe any thing wondrous to a diabolical, rather than to a benevolent and almighty agency.

The

The Devil's bridge is in Cardiganshire, in North Wales. At the present day, it consists of an arch thrown from rock to rock, over the old bridge; from the centre of this arch, the awe-struck stranger looks down a fearful rift into a dark abyss, more than a hundred feet below. rift, or chasm, through which the pentup waters rush with terrible impetuosity, is more than a mile in extent, and its rocky sides are almost perpendicular. "Through the bottom of this abyss the river Mynach pours its roaring tide, hidden from the eye by the deep shade of woods, but bursting upon the ear in the awful sound of many waters' in the thunder of numerous cataracts, leaping

« PreviousContinue »