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You have seen an indigent mother of a large family, with maybe a child at the breast, working the week through. See her of a washing-day,—up to her elbows in suds, her children quarrelling or complaining, her husband away in dissipation;—with little to eat, and little to expect, but every thing to do, what can be her compensation! "Bone-weary, many-childed, trouble-tried," what can be her reward?—Think you she is wretched? Nay, the soul rises to its mission, and fits her to her sphere. With strength of body, or strength of mind, (for the down-sick are seldom melancholy,) her body sweats, and the soul grows calm and still. She hopes too for a better world.—None but a laborer knows a laborer's compensation. We have stretched our limbs on the grass, of a summer evening, and looking up at the mellow harvest moon, have "wondered how earth could be unhappy," while labor is its own reward,

We remarked that the down-sick are seldom melancholy. When we are young, or full of life, death is the king of terrors: he lends the eye a terrible aspect, and we shun his presence. But when the life goes slowly out, the less we have the less we care to live. The fading consumptive walks slowly to his grave; he smiles at the old jest; he listens to the old story, calm, and pure, and still. The moment comes,—friends gather around,—wife, mother, brother, take him by the hand,—"he would not leave them, but he is not afraid to die; he is going to a better world."

Even those little discontents of a personal character, wherein we weary of our own, and desire the peculiarities of others, find compensation and use.