e pictures of life.

When upon the St. Lawrence, gliding swiftly through the charming scenery
of the Thousand Isles, that like emerald gems adorn the bosom of that
noble river, now passing one with cultivated fields and quiet
farm-house, another low and level bathed in the rays of a setting sun,
others rocky and precipitous, crowned with cedar and fir; again a little
quiet spot where one would like long to tarry, or one with shrubbery and
light-house so peaceful in its rural beauty you almost envied the
occupants their retirement; even here, as I turned from the scene at the
whispered exclamation of a friend, "O, how beautiful!" my eye fell upon
two ladies bending over the pages of newly issued novels, their
countenances glowing--not with holy emotions awakened by the enjoyment
of a summer's sun-set upon the St. Lawrence, but with feverish
excitement, kindled by the overwrought pictures of the novelist. Fair,
young girls, how could you linger over the unreal when passing through
such scenes of God's own work? How could you shut out that gorgeous
sunset, turn from all the pure and heavenly feelings such scenes must
awaken, to sympathize with imaginary beings and descriptions?

And now I tarried at Niagara, wonderful, sublime Niagara--

----"Speaking in voice of thunder
Eternally of God--bidding the lips of man
Keep silence, and upon the rocky altar, pour
Incense of sweet praise."

Rambling along the shore of Iris Island, every step presenting a new
scene, impressing the mind with the greatness of God and the
insignificance of man, while "the voice of many waters" proclaimed to
erring reason "there is a God:" also, here, under the shade of a noble
oak, in full view of the great Cataract, sat a small group of ladies; in
their midst, a gentle girl reading aloud from one of the many works that
"charm the greedy reader on, till done, he tries to recollect his
thoughts and nothing finds--but dreamy emptiness." I lingered, and
learned this was the tale of a young authoress, whose writings are now
winning golden opinions from a portion of our religious press. Yet how
unsuitable the place for delighting in the extravagant and improbable
blending of truth and fiction, though it may have a _moral_ and
_religious_ under-current. At the side of that young reader sat her
_mother_. The favorable moments for impressing that immortal mind
committed to her guardianship, with right views of the Infinite Supreme,
were swiftly p