FullReads

P. S.

I enclose, too, according to promise, some scraps
Of my Journal–that Day-book I keep of my heart;
Where, at some little items, (partaking, perhaps,
More of earth than of heaven,) thy prudery may start,
And suspect something tender, sly girl as thou art.
For the present, I’m mute–but, whate’er may befall,
Recollect, dear, (in Hebrews, xiii. 4,) St. Paul
Hath himself declared, “marriage is honorable in all.”

EXTRACTS FROM MY DIARY.

Monday.

Tried a new chaele gown on–pretty.
No one to see me in it–pity!
Flew in a passion with Fritz, my maid;–
The Lord forgive me!–she lookt dismayed;
But got her to sing the 100th Psalm,
While she curled my hair, which made me calm.
Nothing so soothes a Christian heart
As sacred music–heavenly art!

Tuesday

At two a visit from Mr. Magan–
A remarkably handsome, nice young man;
And, all Hibernian tho’ he be,
As civilized, strange to say, as we!
I own this young man’s spiritual state
Hath much engrossed my thoughts of late;
And I mean, as soon as my niece is gone,
To have some talk with him thereupon.
At present I naught can do or say,
But that troublesome child is in the way;
Nor is there, I think, a doubt that he
Would also her absence much prefer,
As oft, while listening intent to me,
He’s forced, from politeness, to look at her.

Heigho!–what a blessing should Mr. Magan
Turn out, after all, a “renewed” young man;
And to me should fall the task, on earth,
To assist at the dear youth’s second birth.
Blest thought! and ah! more blest the tie,
Were it Heaven’s high will, that he and I–
But I blush to write the nuptial word–
Should wed, as St. Paul says, “in the Lord”;
Not this world’s wedlock–gross, gallant,
But pure–as when Amram married his aunt.

Our ages differ–but who would count
One’s natural sinful life’s amount,
Or look in the Register’s vulgar page
For a regular twice-born Christian’s age,
Who, blessed privilege! only then
Begins to live when he’s born again?
And, counting in this way–let me see–
I myself but five years old shall be.
And dear Magan, when the event takes place,
An actual new-born child of grace–
Should Heaven in mercy so dispose–
A six-foot baby, in swaddling clothes.

Wednesday.

Finding myself, by some good fate,
With Mr. Magan left tete-a-tete,
Had just begun–having stirred the fire,
And drawn my chair near his–to inquire,
What his notions were of Original Sin,
When that naughty Fanny again bounced in;
And all the sweet things I had got to say
Of the Flesh and the Devil were whiskt away!

Much grieved to observe that Mr. Magan
Is actually pleased and, amused with Fan!
What charms any sensible man can see
In a child so foolishly young as she–
But just eighteen, come next Mayday,
With eyes, like herself, full of naught but play–
Is, I own, an exceeding puzzle to me.

[1] “Morning Manna, or British Verse-book, neatly done up for the pocket,” and chiefly intended to assist the members of the British Verse Association, whose design is, we are told, “to induce the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland to commit one and the same verse of Scripture to memory every morning. Already, it is known, several thousand persons in Scotland, besides tens of thousands in America and Africa, are every morning learning the same verse.”

[2] According to the late Mr. Irving, there is even a peculiar form of theology got up expressly for the money-market, “I know how far wide,” he says, “of the mark my views of Christ’s work in the flesh will be viewed by those who are working with the stock-jobbing theology of the religious world.” “Let these preachers.” he adds, “(for I will not call them theologians), cry up, brother like, their article,”–Morning Watch.”– No. iii, 442. 443.