e her eyes in "death's dreamless sleep;"
Her spirit, we trust, has to glory ascended,
Hope whispers sweet peace while in sadness we weep.

The Power of Custom.

Custom is a despotic tyrant, wielding an iron sceptre over man,
before whose unbounded sway unnumbered millions hourly bend. We are
controlled by its influence from earliest infancy to latest age, even
from the making of an infant's frock to the shroud. In early youth
we must go to this school, or that lecture, or to that resort of
fashionable amusement, because others go, and it is the custom.

It seems strange that custom should hold such a dominion over us--we,
the people of this enlightened age, be bound to such a tyrant! it
seems almost impossible, but so it is. We see it in the professional
man, the man of business, and men in all grades of society, and from
the lady at her toilet to the factory operative. We must have our
clothing cut after such a style, and wear it after such a manner; and
why? O, it is the custom. It is too much the custom for people to look
with contempt upon those who have not quite so good advantages, or
more especially, those who have not so much wealth, without regard to
intellect or education.

Custom has introduced into society vices of all descriptions. Not long
since it was the custom to pass the social glass, and it has been the
means of making a great many inebriates, and making beggars of a great
many families; thus we see the effects of that custom. The custom of
revelry, balls, parties, and gay assemblies, tend to dissipate the
minds of youth, and lead them into the paths of vice. The custom
of card-playing has led to the gaming-table, and been the ruin of
thousands.

"The suns of riot flow down the loose stream,
Of false and tainted joy on the rankled soul,
The gaming fury falls, till in one gulf
Of total ruin; honor, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune
Headlong sink."

Annie Howard.

It was a chill, dreary day in November. The autumn winds swept with
a dirge-like sound through the tops of the tall old trees that
overshadowed a stately mansion, where a group of sorrowing friends
had collected, to pay the last sad rite, to one of earth's fairest,
loveliest flowers. All without wore an air of gloom and melancholy.
Ever and anon a sere and yellow leaf would fall with a faint rustling
sound, speaking in mournful language to the heart, that all things
earthly must decay;