ersity and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us or the
invader's step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come! for
he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit, and his shadowy
march on the eve of danger must ever be the pledge that New England's
sons will vindicate their ancestry.

SUNDAY AT HOME.

Every Sabbath morning in the summer-time I thrust back the curtain to
watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple which stands opposite my
chamber window. First the weathercock begins to flash; then a fainter
lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower
and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold as it points to
the gilded figure of the hour. Now the loftiest window gleams, and now
the lower. The carved framework of the portal is marked strongly out.
At length the morning glory in its descent from heaven comes down the
stone steps one by one, and there stands the steeple glowing with
fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves
among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks though the same
sun brightens it every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar
robe of brightness for the Sabbath.

By dwelling near a church a person soon contracts an attachment for
the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls
and its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and
somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost in our
thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant with a mind
comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and
small concerns of all the town. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the
few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their
separate and most secret affairs. It is the steeple, too, that flings
abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither
have gladness and festivity found a better utterance than by its
tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the
steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of
this connection with human interests, what a moral loneliness on
week-days broods round about its stately height! It has no kindred
with the houses above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow
thoroughfare--the lonelier because the crowd are elbowing their
passage at its base. A glance at the body of the church deepens this
impression. Within, by the light of distant wind