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Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing

by T. S. Arthur · English · Gutenberg #4619 · 463,118 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing

Author: T. S. Arthur


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4619]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4619

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.


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Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.









WORDS OF CHEER FOR The Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing.


EDITED BY T. S. ARTHUR.



PHILADELPHIA



1856.




PREFACE.


AS we pass on our way through the world, we find our paths now
smooth and flowery, and now rugged and difficult to travel. The sky,
bathed in golden sunshine to-day, is black with storms to-morrow!
This is the history of every one. And it is also the life-experience
of all, that when the way is rough and the sky dark, the poor heart
sinks and trembles, and the eye of faith cannot see the bright sun
smiling in the heavens beyond the veil of clouds. But, for all this
fear and doubt, the rugged path winds steadily upwards, and the
broad sky is glittering in light.

Let the toiling, the tempted, and the sorrowing ever keep this in
mind. Let them have faith in Him who feedeth the young lions, and
clothes the fields with verdure--who bindeth up the broken heart,
and giveth joy to the mourners. There are Words of Cheer in the air!
Listen! and their melody will bring peace to the spirit, and their
truths strength to the heart.




CONTENTS.


  AUNT MARY
  THE DEAD
  DO YOU SUFFER MORE THAN YOUR NEIGHBOUR?
  WE ARE LED BY A WAY THAT WE KNOW NOT
  THE IVY IN THE DUNGEON
  THE GARDEN OF EDEN
  HAVE A FLOWER IN YOUR ROOM
  WEALTH
  HOW TO BE HAPPY
  REBECCA
  LIFE A TREADMILL
  ARTHUR LELAND
  THE SCARLET POPPY
  NUMBER TWELVE
  TO AN ABSENTEE
  THE WHITE DOVE
  HESTER
  THISTLE-DOWN
  THE LITTLE CHILDREN
  WHAT IS NOBLE?
  THE ANEMONE HEPATICA
  THE FAMILY OF MICHAEL AROUT
  BABY IS DEAD
  THE TREASURED RINGLET
  HUMAN LONGINGS FOR PEACE AND REST
  "BE STRONG"
  THE NEGLECTED ONE
  THE HOURS OF LIFE
  MINISTERING ANGELS
  OURS, LOVED, AND "GONE BEFORE"
  OUTWARD MINISTERINGS
  BODILY DEFORMITY, SPIRITUAL BEAUTY
  THE DEAD CHILD
  WATER
  BEAUTIFUL, HAPPY, AND BELOVED
  "EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING"
  AN ANGEL OF PATIENCE
  THE GRANDFATHER'S ADVICE
  A HYMN OF PRAISE
  AN ANGEL IN EVERY HOUSE
  ANNIE
  MOTHER
  GREAT PRINCIPLES AND SMALL DUTIES
  "OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN"
  THE OLD VILLAGE CHURCH
  "THE WORD IS NIGH THEE"
  AUNT RACHEL
  COMETH A BLESSING DOWN
  THE DARKENED PATHWAY
  LOOK ON THIS PICTURE
  THE POWER OF KINDNESS
  SPEAK KINDLY
  HAVE PATIENCE
  DO THEY MISS ME?




WORDS OF CHEER.




AUNT MARY.


A LADY sat alone in her own apartment one clear evening, when the
silver stars were out, and the moon shone pure as the spirit of
peace upon the rebellious earth. How lovely was every outward thing!
How beautiful is God's creation! The window curtains were drawn
close, and the only light in the cheerful room, was given by a
night-lamp that was burning on the mantel-piece. The occupant, who
perhaps had numbered about thirty-five years, was sitting by a small
table in the centre of the room, her head leaning upon one slender
hand; the other lay upon the open page of a book in which she had
endeavoured to interest herself. But the effort had been vain; other
and stronger feelings had overpowered her; there was an expression
of suffering upon the gentle face, over which the tears rained
heavily. For a brief moment she raised her soft blue eyes upward
with an appealing look, then sunk her head upon the table before
her, murmuring,

"Father! forgive me! it is good for me. Give me strength to bear
everything. Pour thy love into my heart, for I am desolate--if I
could but be useful to one human being--if I could make one person
happier, I should be content. But no! I am desolate--desolate. Whose
heart clings to mine with the strong tendrils of affection? Who ever
turns to me for a smile? Oh! this world is so cold--so cold!"

And that sensitive being wept passionately, and pressed her hand
upon her bosom as if to still its own yearnings.

Mary Clinton had met with many sorrows; she was the youngest of a
large family; she had been the caressed darling in her early days,
for her sweetness won every heart to love. She had dwelt in the warm
breath of affection, it was her usual sunshine, and she gave it no
thought while it blessed her; a cold word or look was an unfamiliar
thing. A most glad-hearted being she was once! But death came in a
terrible form, folded her loved ones in his icy arms and bore them
to another world. A kind father, a tender mother, a brother and
sister, were laid in the grave, in one short month, by the cholera.
One brother was yet left, and she was taken to his home, for he was
a wealthy merchant. But there seemed a coldness in his splendid
house, a coldness in his wife's heart. Sick in body and in mind, the
bereft one resolved to travel South, and visit among her relations,
hoping to awaken her interest in life, which had lain dormant
through grief. She went to that sunny region, and while there,
became acquainted with a man of fine intellect and fascinating
manners, who won her affections, and afterwards proved unworthy of
her. Again the beauty of her life was darkened, and with a weary
heart she wore out the tedious years of her joyless existence. She
was an angel of charity to the poor and suffering. She grew lovelier
through sorrow. A desire to see her brother, her nearest and dearest
relative, called her North again, and when our story opens she was
in the bosom of his home, a member of his family. He loved her
deeply, yet she felt like an alien--his wife had not welcomed her as
a sister should. Mary Clinton's heart went out toward's Alice, her
eldest niece, a beautiful and loving creature just springing into
womanhood. But the fair girl was gay and thoughtless, flattered and
caressed by everybody. She knew sadness only by the name. She had no
dream that she could impart a deep joy, by giving forth her young
heart's love to the desolate stranger.

The hour had grown late, very late, and Mary Clinton still leaned
her head upon the table buried in thoughts, when the bounding step
of Alice outside the door aroused her from her revery. She listened,
almost hoping to see her friendly face peeping in, but wearied with
the enjoyment of the evening, the fair young belle hastened on to
her chamber, and her aunt heard the door close. Rising from her seat
at the table, Miss Clinton approached a window, and threw back the
curtains that the midnight air might steal coolingly over her brow.
Her eye fell upon the rich bracelet that clasped her arm, a gift of
her brother, and then with a sad smile, she surveyed the pure dress
of delicate white she wore. "Ah!" she sighed, "I am robed for a
scene of gayety, but how sad the heart that beats beneath this
boddice! How glad I was to escape from the company; loneliness in
the crowd is so sad a feeling." At that moment the door of her room
opened, and Alice came laughing in, her glowing face all bright and
careless.

"Oh! Aunt Mary," she exclaimed, "do help me! I cannot unclasp my
necklace, and my patience has all oozed out at the tips of my
fingers. There! you have unfastened it already. Well! I believe I
never will be good for anything!" And Alice laughed as heartily, as
if the idea was charming. "When did you leave the parlours, Aunt
Mary? I never missed you at all. Father said you left early, when I
met him just now on the stairs."

"I did leave early," replied Miss Clinton. "I chanced to feel like
being entirely alone, so I sought my own apartment."

"Have you been reading, aunt? I should think you would feel lonely!"

"I read very little," was the reply, in a sad tone. No remark was
made on her loneliness.

"It seems so strange to me, Aunt Mary, that you are so fond of being
alone. I like company so much," said Alice, looking in her quiet
face. "But I must go," she added; she paused a moment, then pressed
an affectionate kiss upon her aunt's cheek, and whispered a soft
"good night." Miss Clinton cast both arms around her, and drew her
to her heart, with an eagerness that surprised Alice. Twice she
kissed her, then hastily released her as if her feeling had gone
forth before she was aware of it. Alice stood still before her a
moment, and her careless eyes took a deeply searching expression as
they dwelt upon the countenance before her. Something like sadness
passed over her face, and her voice was deeper in its tone, as she
repeated, "Good night, dear Aunt Mary!" With a slow step she left
the apartment, mentally contrasting her own position with that of
her aunt. Circumstances around her and the society with which she
mingled, tended to drown reflection, and call into play only the
brighter and gayer feelings, that flutter on the surface of our
being. She had never known the luxury of devoting an hour to genuine
meditation on the world within--or the great world without. The
earth was to her a garden of joy; she lived upon it only to enjoy
herself. Like many selfish people, Alice's mother made an idol of
her beautiful child, because she was a part of herself; and Mrs.
Clinton was not one to perform a mother's duty faithfully in
instilling right views of life into her daughter's mind. Thus, with
a depth of feeling, and rich gifts of mind, Alice fluttered on her
way like a light-winged butterfly, her soul's pure wells of tender
thought unknown to her. How many millions pass through a whole long
life, with the deepest and holiest secrets of their being still
unlocked by their heedless hands! How few see aught to live for, but
the outward sunshine of prosperity, which is an idle sunshine,
compared with the ever-strengthening light that may grow in the
spirit! How strong, how great, how beautiful may life be, when
smiled upon by our Creator! how weak, how abject, how trampled upon,
when turned away from his face!

With better and more quiet emotions, Mary Clinton retired to rest.
"I can love others, if I am not beloved," she murmured, and the dove
of peace fluttered its white wing over her. Her resigned prayer was,
"Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit." Tears of earnest humility
had washed away all bitterness from the wrung heart of that lovely
being. How beautiful was the angel smile that played over her face,
in her pure dreams!

A few weeks after, Alice entered her aunt's apartment one drizzling,
damp, foggy, uncomfortable day. "Such miserable weather!" she
exclaimed, throwing herself idly into an arm-chair; "I believe I
have got the _blues_ for once in my life. I don't know what to do
with myself; it makes me perfectly melancholy to look out of the
window, and nothing in the house wears a cheerful aspect. Mother has
a headache; when I proposed reading to her, she very politely asked
me if I would not let her remain alone. She says I always want to
sing, read, or talk incessantly if she wishes to be quiet. I can't
ding on the piano, for it is heard from attic to basement. I don't
want to read alone, for I have such a desire to be sociable--now,
Aunt Mary, you have a catalogue of my troubles, can't you relieve
me, for I am really miserable, if I don't look so!" Alice broke into
a laugh, although it did not bubble right up from her merry heart as
usual.

"If your attention was fully engaged, you would not mind the weather
so much," remarked Aunt Mary, with a quiet smile. "You are not in a
mood to enjoy a book just now, so what _will_ you do, my dear?"

"Mend stockings, or turn my room upside down, and then arrange it
neatly," said Alice in a speculative tone. "There is nothing in the
house to interest me; there is Patty in the kitchen, I have just
been paying her a visit. She is as busy as a bee, and as happy as a
queen. I believe poor people are happier than the rich, in such
weather as this, at least."

"Because they are useful, Alice; go busy yourself about some
physical labour for an hour or two, then come back to me, and I
predict your face will be as sunshiny as ever. I am in earnest--you
need not look so incredulous!"

"What shall I do?" asked the young girl laughing. "I don't know how
to do a single thing in domestic matters. Mother says I shall never
work. It would spoil my fairy fingers, I presume, a terrible
consequence!"

"But seriously Alice, you are not so entirely incapable of doing
anything, are you?"

"I am positively, but I can learn if I choose. I believe I will
sweep my room and put it in order, as a beginning. That will be
something new: now I will try my best!" Alice sprang from her chair,
and tripped from the apartment quite pleased with the idea. A smile
broke over Miss Clinton's features, after her niece had left her
alone. "How easily Alice might be trained to better things, by love
and gentleness," she said half aloud. "Oh! if she would only love
me, and turn to me fondly. How I would delight to breathe a genial
prayer over the buds of promise in her youthful heart, and fan them
to warmer life." More than an hour flew by, as Mary Clinton sat in
thought, devising plans to awaken her favourite to a true sense of
her duties--to a knowledge of her capabilities for happiness and
usefulness. We may be useful with a heart full of sadness; but we
can rarely taste of happiness, unless we are desirous to benefit
some one besides ourselves. A quietness came over the lonely one as
she mused--a spirit of beautiful repose; for she forgot all thoughts
of her own enjoyment, in caring for another.

"You are quite a physician, Aunt Mary, to a mind diseased,"
exclaimed Alice, breaking her revery as she came in with a smiling
face, after the performance of her unaccustomed labour. "I am quite
in tune again now. I believe there is a little philosophy in being
busy occasionally, after all."

"There is really," replied Miss Clinton, raising her deep blue eyes
to Alice's face, with their pleasant expression; "and there is also
philosophy in recreation--in abandoning yourself for a time to
innocent gayety. An hour of enjoyment is refreshing and beneficial."

"Why, Aunt Mary!" said Alice in some surprise, "I had no idea that
you thought so. You are always so industrious and quiet, I imagined
you disapproved of the merriment of ordinary people. When we have a
large company you almost always retire early. Why do you do so,
aunt, may I ask you?"

Mary Clinton was silent a moment, then she said gently, "When I
think I can add to the ease or enjoyment of any person present, I
take pleasure in staying; but when I feel that I am rather a
restraint than otherwise, I retire--to weep. You are yet young and
beautiful, my child, for you have never known such feelings. I am
too selfish, or I would not be sad so often; it is right that I
should pass through such a school of discipline. I hope it has
already made me better." The look of resignation that beamed from
Miss Clinton's tearful eyes, caused a chord in Alice's heart to
tremble with a strange blending of love, sweetness, and sorrow.

"_You_ should be happy, if any one should, dear aunt," she said in a
low voice, and she partly averted her head, to conceal the tears
that started down her cheek. "I am happy so often," she resumed,
turning around and seating herself upon an ottoman at her aunt's
feet. "You deserve so much more than I--to be as good as you are,
Aunt Mary, I would almost change situations, for then I should be
sure of going to heaven."

"You can be just as sure in your own position, as in that of any
other person. But, dear child, the more deeply we scan our hearts,
the more we see there to conquer, in order that we may become fit
companions for the angels."

Alice remained thoughtful for some moments, then she folded her
hands over Aunt Mary's lap, and lifted her eyes to the loving face
that bent over her. "Be my guardian angel," she prayed tearfully,
"your love is so pure; a gentleness comes over me, when I am with
you. All tumultuous feelings sink down to repose. I have not known
you, Aunt Mary; you have shown me to-day how lovely goodness is. I
can feel it in your presence. Oh! to possess it! I fear it will be
long years before I grow so gentle in my spirit--so unselfish--so
like a child of Heaven!"

"Hush, hush!" was Mary Clinton's gentle interruption. "You do not
know me yet, Alice. Perhaps I appear far better than I am."

Alice smiled, and laying her arm around Aunt Mary's neck, drew down
her face, and kissed her affectionately, whispering, "You will be my
guide, I ask no better."

"Thank you, thank you," broke from Aunt Mary's lips; she pressed
Alice's cheek with the ardent haste of love and gratitude; then
yielding to the emotions that thrilled her heart, she burst into
tears, and wept with a joy she had long been a stranger to. She felt
that her life would no longer be useless, if she could live for
Alice, and lift up to God her heart. How beautiful in its freshness,
is the early day when the light of a good resolve breaks like a halo
over the soul, and by its power, seeks to win it from its selfish
idols! Earnest and strong is the hopefulness that bids us labour
trustingly to become all we yearn to be--all we may be. How
tremblingly Mary Clinton leaned upon her Saviour! experience had
taught her the weakness of her fluttering heart; sorrow was
familiar, yet she prayed not to shrink from it. How clear and
vigorous was the mind of Alice--how shadowless was her unerring path
to be--how all weakness departed before the sudden thought that rose
up in her soul! How rich was the light that beamed from her steady
eye--how calm and trusting the slight smile that parted her lips!
How meek and confiding she was, and yet how full of strength! She
was a young seeker after truth, and she realized not yet, that that
same truth was the power to which she must bow every rebellious
thing within her. Months rolled on, and the quiet gladness in her
heart made it a delight to her to do anything and everything it
seemed her duty to do. The unexplored world within opened to her
gaze, and threw a glory upon creation. Infinitely priceless in her
eyes, were the thousand hearts around her, in which the Lord had
kindled the undying lamp of life.

One evening, at rather a late hour, Alice Clinton sought the chamber
of her aunt and seated herself quietly beside her, saying in a
subdued voice as she took her hand, "I am inexpressibly sad
to-night, Aunt Mary. There is no very particular reason why I should
feel so; no one can soothe me but you. Put your arms around me, Aunt
Mary, and talk to me--give me some strength to go forward in the way
I have chosen. I almost despair--I have no good influence, no moral
courage. Perhaps, after all, my efforts have been in vain to become
better, and I shall sink back into my former state. If all who are
my friends were like you, it would be an easy thing to glide on with
the stream. But I am in the midst of peril--I never knew until
to-night that it was hard to speak with a cold rigour to our friends
when they merit it. If I were despised, or neglected, I could more
easily fix my thoughts on heaven. I dread so to hurt the feelings of
any one."

"What do you refer to, dear?" inquired Aunt Mary, tenderly.

"My friend Eleanor Temple, and her brother Theodore, have been
spending the evening with me. You know how gay and witty they are.
In answer to a remark of mine, Theodore gravely quoted a passage of
Scripture, which applied to my observation in an irresistibly
ludicrous manner. I yielded to a hearty laugh which I could not
restrain; it came so suddenly I had no time for thought. But in a
moment after my conscience smote me, and I felt that my respect for
Theodore had lessened. I had no right to rebuke him, even if I had
the moral courage, for my laughter was encouragement. I turned away
from him and spoke to Eleanor; I was displeased with myself, and I
felt a sort of inward repugnance to him. But that was not the end;
several times afterwards Theodore did the same thing.

"'There are subjects which are not fit food for merriment;' I said
once in an embarrassed manner. 'If I do wrong, it is not
deliberately done.' Theodore was silent a moment, and he looked at
me as if he hardly knew how to understand me--then smiling, he
turned the conversation, and was as gay as ever. When they had taken
their leave, I entered the parlour again, and threw myself in a seat
by the open window. I turned the blind, and looked out after them.
Eleanor had caught the fringe of her mantilla in the railing of the
area. I was about to speak with her on the little accident, when
Theodore laughed, and said to his sister, 'Alice is as fond of
taking characters, as an actress. She attempted to reprove me, for
the very thing she had laughed at a little while before. Rather
inconsistent in our favourite, Nelly, don't you think so?' Eleanor
laughed, and said good-naturedly, 'Alice is impulsive, she don't
measure what she says, before it comes out.'

"I rose, and left the window. I felt sad, and peculiarly discomposed
and dissatisfied with myself. I knew that I had tried to do right in
some degree, and it grated on my feelings that my effort should be
called 'a taking of character.' Oh! if I could only live with good
people altogether, who would bear with me, and trust my motives! You
have my story, Aunt Mary, it amounts to nothing, but I am so sad."

"Life is made up of trifles," said Miss Clinton. "Few circumstances
are so trivial that we may not draw a lesson from them. Do not feel
sad, Alice, because you are misunderstood. Do not repine on account
of your position; no one could fill it but yourself, or you would
not be placed in it. Be resigned to meet those who call out
unpleasant feelings; they teach you better your own nature than ever
the angels could. They bring forth what is evil in you, that it may
be conquered. Do not understand me to mean that you should ever seek
those who may harm you. But a day can hardly pass over our heads,
that we do not meet with persons who ruffle that harmony of soul we
so labour after. It is keenly felt when one is as young in a better
life as you are. You need strength, and then you will be calm and
even. Time, patience, combating, prayer, good-will to man, must
bring your soul to order, then you will bear upon the spirits of
others with a still, purifying power which will soothe and soften
like far-off music. You have it in your power to do much good; your
Creator has blessed you with that inexpressible sympathy which may
glide gently into another human heart and open its secret springs
almost unconsciously to the possessor. I have watched you, child of
my love, and perhaps I know you better than you know yourself. There
are many latent germs within your being; Oh! Alice, pray God to
expand them to heavenly life. Bear on--and live for something worthy
a creature God has made." Mary Clinton paused in an unusual emotion;
her cheek glowed deeply, and the burning softness of her eyes
chained Alice's look as with a spell, to their angel expression. The
heart of the young girl throbbed almost to bursting, with the world
of undeveloped feeling that rushed over her. It was a moment which
many have experienced--a moment which breaks over the young for the
first time with such a thrill--she realized that God had gifted her
with power--with a soul that might and _must_ have its influence.
Bowing her head upon Aunt Mary's knee, she wept; and a flood of joy,
humility, and thanksgiving came over her, as she more deeply
dedicated herself to the holy Lord, and laid her gifts upon His
altar. Aunt Mary's words sunk peacefully into her soul, and a clear
light irradiated it and filled it with a calmness that made all
things right. With a look of irrepressible tenderness, and a voice
full of low music, Alice said to Aunt Mary, as she rose to retire,
"You have charmed away every discordant note that was touched
to-night, dear aunt. How unaccountable are our sudden changes of
mood! You have now thrown over me your own spirit of peaceful repose
and contentment. Good-night, and think you!"

"Well, I am content, entirely content," soliloquized Mary Clinton,
when the loved form of the child of her heart had disappeared. "To
try to bless another, how richly does the blessing fall back upon my
own soul! Yes! I have my joys. Why am I ever so ungrateful as to
murmur at aught that befalls me? I am blest--a sunshine is breaking
over the tender earth for me; all clouds are gone." With feelings
much changed from what they were a few months previous, Mary Clinton
sought the window, and with loving and devoted eyes dwelt upon the
night and stillness of the heavens--so boundless and so pure. The
moon was full; near it was one bright cloud of silver drapery, upon
the edge of which rested a single star. "So shall it be with me,"
she murmured, "be the clouds that float over the heavens of my soul
bright or dark, the star of holy trust shall linger near, ever
bringing to my bosom--peace."

About two years after, on a winter evening, there was a large
company assembled at Mr. Clinton's dwelling. It was in compliment to
Alice, for that day completed her twentieth year. As she moved from
one spot to another, her sweet face radiant with happiness, Aunt
Mary's eyes followed her with a devoted expression, which betrayed
that the lovely being was her dearest earthly treasure. The merry
girl was now a glad-hearted, but thoughtful woman. An innocent
mirthfulness lingered around her, which time itself would never
subdue, except for a brief season, when her sweet laugh broke out
with a natural, rich suddenness; there was a catching joy in it,
that could not be withstood. She was the gentle hostess to
perfection; with tact enough to discover congenial spirits, and
bring them together, finding her own pleasure in the cheerful home
thus made. She possessed the rare but happy art of making every body
feel perfectly at home, one knew not why. For a moment, Alice stood
alone with her little hand resting upon the centre-table. Behind
her, two rather fashionable young men were talking and laughing
somewhat too loud, and jesting upon sacred things. A look of pain
passed over the face of the fair listener as she slowly turned
round, and said in a low but earnest tone, "Don't, Theodore! Excuse
me, but _such_ trifling pains me." The young gentlemen both appeared
mortified. "Pardon me! Alice," exclaimed Theodore Temple, "I will
try to break that habit for your sake. I was not aware that it
pained you so much--a lady's word is law!" and he bowed gallantly.

"No, no! Base your giving up of the habit upon principle, then it
will be permanent. Much obliged for the compliment"--Alice bowed
with assumed dignity, and her sweet face dimpled into a playful
smile, "but I have no faith in these pretty speeches. Remember, now,
I have your promise to try to break the habit; you will forfeit your
word if you do not; so you see your position, don't you?" Thus
saying, and without waiting for a reply, the young lady left them.

"I believe Miss Clinton is right, after all," remarked Temple's
companion. "What is the use of jesting on such subjects? We never
feel any better after it, and we subject ourselves to the
displeasure of those who respect these things. I pass my word to
give it up, if you will, Temple."

"Agreed!" was Theodore's brief answer. Without saying how mingled
the motive might have been, which induced the young men to forsake
the habit, they _did_ forsake it permanently. Aunt Mary's lonely
life was at last smiled upon by a sunbeam--and that sunbeam was the
soul of Alice, which she had turned to the light. For that cherished
being Mary Clinton could have offered up her life, and there would
have been a joy in the sacrifice. Strongly and nobly were their
hearts knit together--beautiful is the devotedness of holy,
unselfish love! Blest are two frank hearts, which may be opened to
each other, pouring out like lava the tide of feeling hoarded in the
inward soul--such revelations are for moments when the yearning
heart will not be hushed to calmness. But "there is a moonlight in
human life," and there is also a blessing in that subdued hour which
whispers wearily to the loving one, of weaknesses and sins, with a
prayer for consoling strength to triumph yet, leaving them in the
dust. Thus was it with Mary and Alice Clinton; their souls were open
as the day to each other. They travelled along life's pathway with
earnest purpose, fulfilling the many and changing duties that fell
upon them, ever catching rich gleams of joy from above. And sorrows
came too! but they purified, and taught the slumbering soul its
rarest wealth--its deepest sympathies with all things good and
heavenly. It seemed a slight thing that took away the desolation
from the heart of Mary Clinton--she turned away from _self_, and
devoted her efforts to the eternal happiness of another. Is there
one human being in the wide world so desolate, that he may not do
likewise? Only a mite may be cast in, but God has made none of his
children so poor, as to be without an influence. The humblest
effort, if it is all that _can_ be made, is as full of greatness at
the core, as the most ostentatious display.




THE DEAD.


IT is strange what a change is wrought in one hour by death. The
moment our friend is gone from us for ever, what sacredness invests
him! Everything he ever said or did seems to return to us clothed in
new significance. A thousand yearnings rise, of things we would fain
say to him--of questions unanswered, and now unanswerable. All he
wore or touched, or looked upon familiarly, becomes sacred as
relics. Yesterday these were homely articles, to be tossed to and
fro, handled lightly, given away thoughtlessly--to-day we touch them
softly, our tears drop on them; death has laid his hand on them, and
they have become holy in our eyes. Those are sad hours when one has
passed from our doors never to return, and we go back to set the
place in order. There the room, so familiar, the homely belongings
of their daily life, each one seems to say to us in its turn,
"Neither shall their place know them any more." Clear the shelf now
of vials and cups, and prescriptions; open the windows; step no more
carefully; there is no one now to be cared for--no one to be
nursed--no one to be awakened.

Ah! why does this bring a secret pang with it when we know that they
are where none shall any more say, "I am sick!" Could only one
flutter of their immortal garments be visible in such moments; could
their face, glorious with the light of heaven, once smile on the
deserted room, it might be better. One needs to lose friends to
understand one's self truly. The death of a friend teaches things
within that we never knew before. We may have expected it, prepared
for it, it may have been hourly expected for weeks; yet when it
comes, it falls on us suddenly, and reveals in us emotions we could
not dream. The opening of those heavenly gate for them startles and
flutters our souls with strange mysterious thrills, unfelt before.
The glimpse of glories, the sweep of voices, all startle and dazzle
us, and the soul for many a day aches and longs with untold
longings.

We divide among ourselves the possessions of our lost ones. Each
well-known thing comes to us with an almost supernatural power. The
book we once read with them, the old Bible, the familiar hymn; then
perhaps little pet articles of fancy, made dear to them by some
peculiar taste, the picture, the vase!--how costly are they now in
our eyes.

We value them not for their beauty or worth, but for the frequency
with which we have seen them touched or used by them; and our eye
runs over the collection, and perhaps lights most lovingly on the
homeliest thing which may have been oftenest touched or worn by
them.

It is a touching ceremony to divide among a circle of friends the
memorials of the lost. Each one comes inscribed--"_no more_;" and
yet each one, too, is a pledge of reunion. But there are invisible
relics of our lost ones more precious than the book, the pictures,
or the vase. Let us treasure them in our hearts. Let us bind to our
hearts the patience which they will never need again; the fortitude
in suffering which belonged only to this suffering state. Let us
take from their dying hand that submission under affliction which
they shall need no more in a world where affliction is unknown. Let
us collect in our thoughts all those cheerful and hopeful sayings
which they threw out from time to time as they walked with us, and
string them as a rosary to be daily counted over. Let us test our
own daily life by what must be their now perfected estimate; and as
they once walked with us on earth, let us walk with them in heaven.

We may learn at the grave of our lost ones how to live with the
living. It is a fearful thing to live so carelessly as we often do
with those dearest to us, who may at any moment be gone for ever.
The life we are living, the words we are now saying, will all be
lived over in memory over some future grave. One remarks that the
death of a child often makes parents tender and indulgent! Ah, it is
a lesson learned of bitter sorrow! If we would know how to measure
our work to living friends, let us see how we feel towards the dead.
If we have been neglectful, if we have spoken hasty and unkind
words, on which death has put his inevitable seal, what an anguish
is that! But our living friends may, ere we know, pass from us; we
may be to-day talking with those whose names to-morrow are to be
written among the dead; the familiar household object of to-day may
become sacred relics to-morrow. Let us walk softly; let us forbear
and love; none ever repented of too much love to a departed friend;
none ever regretted too much tenderness and indulgence, but many a
tear has been shed for too much harshness and severity. Let our
friends in heaven then teach us how to treat our friends on earth.
Thus by no vain fruitless sorrow, but by a deeper self-knowledge, a
tenderer and more sacred estimate of life, may our heavenly friends
prove to us ministering spirits.

The triumphant apostle says to the Christian, "All things are
yours--Life and Death." Let us not lose either; let us make _Death_
our own; in a richer, deeper, and more solemn earnestness of life.
So those souls which have gone from our ark, and seemed lost over
the gloomy ocean of the unknown, shall return to us, bearing the
olive-leaves of Paradise.




DO YOU SUFFER MORE THAN YOUR NEIGHBOUR?


"WHOSE sorrow is like unto my sorrow?"

Such is the language of the stricken soul, such the outbreak of
feeling, when affliction darkens the horizon of man's sunny hopes,
and dashes the full cup of blessings suddenly from the expectant
lips.

"Console me not; you have not felt this pang," cries the spirit in
agony, to the kind friend who is striving to pour the balm of
consolation in the wounded heart.

"But I have known worse," is the reply.

"Worse! never, never; no one could suffer more keenly than I now do,
and live."

In vain the friend reasons; sorrow is always more or less selfish;
it absorbs all other passions; it consecrates itself to tears and
lamentations, and the bereaved one feels alone; utterly alone in the
world, and of all mankind the most forsaken. Every heart knoweth its
own bitterness, and there is a canker spot on every human plant in
God's garden. Some are blighted and withered, ready to fall from the
stalk; others are blooming while a blight is at the root.

What right have you to say, because you droop and languish, that
your neighbour, with a fair exterior and upright mien, is all that
his appearance indicates? What evidence have you that because you
suffer from want, and your neighbour rides in his carriage, that he
is, therefore, more abundantly blessed, more contentedly happy than
you?

As you walk through the streets of costly and beautiful mansions,
you feel vaguely, that, associated with so much of beauty, of
magnificence and ease, there must be absolute content, enviable
freedom, unmixed pleasure, and constant happiness. How deplorably
mistaken. Here, where gold and crimson drape the windows, is mortal
sickness; there, where the heavy shutters fold over the rich plate
glass, lies shrouded death. Here, is blasted reputation, there, is
an untold and hideous grief. Here, is blighted love, striving to
look and be brave, but with a bosom corroded and full of bitterness;
there the sad conduct of a wayward child. Here is the terrible
neglect of an unkind and perhaps idolized husband; there the wilful
and repeated faults of an unfaithful wife. Here is dread of
bankruptcy, there dread of dishonour or exposure. Here is bitter
hatred, lacking only the nerve to prove another Cain. There silent
and hidden disease, working its skilful fangs about the heart, while
it paints the cheek with the very hue of health. Here is undying
remorse in the breast of one who has wronged the widow and the
fatherless; there the suffering being the victim of foul slander;
here is imbecility, there smothered revenge. The bride and the
belle, both so seemingly blessed, have each their sacred but
poignant sorrow.

Have you a worse grief than your neighbour? You think you have; you
have buried your only child--he has laid seven in the tomb. Seven
times has his heart been rent open; and the wounds are yet fresh; he
has no hope to sustain him; he is a miserable man, and you are a
Christian.

Have you more trouble than your neighbour? You have lost your
all--no, no, say not so; your neighbour has lost houses and lands,
but his health has gone also; and while you are robust, he lies on
the uneasy pillow of sickness, and watches some faithful menial
prepare his scanty meal, and then waits till a trusty hand bears the
food to his parched lips.

Do you suffer more than your neighbour? True; Saturday night tests
your poverty; you have but money enough for the bare necessaries of
life; your children dress meagerly, and your house is scantily
furnished; you do not know whether or not work will be forthcoming
the following week. Your neighbour sees not, nor did he ever see,
want. House, wife and children are sumptuously provided for; his
barn is a palace to your kitchen. Step into his parlour and look at
him for a moment; papers surround him, blazing Lehigh floods the
grate, velvet carpets yield to the step; luxurious chairs invite to
rest--check the sigh of envy; there is a ring at the bell--hurrying
footsteps on the stairs--a jarring sound against the polished door,
and in bursts the rich man's son, his brow haggard, his eyes fierce
and red. He is a notorious profligate; gambling is his food and
drink, debauchery his glory and his ruin. Would you be that father?
Go back to your honest sons and look in their faces; throw the
bright locks from their brows, and bless God that there the angel
triumphs over the brute; be even thankful that you are not burdened
with corrupt gold, for their sakes; say not again that you suffer
more than your neighbour.

Do you toil, young girl, from daylight to midnight, while the little
sums eked out with frowns and reluctant fingers, hardly suffice to
provide for you food and raiment? And the wife of your rich
employer, who passes stranger-like by you, may sit at her marble
toilet-table for hours, and retouch the faded brow of beauty before
a gilded mirror; may lounge at her palace window till she is weary
of gazing, and being gazed at; do you envy your wealthier neighbour,
young sewing-girl? Go to her boudoir, where pictures and statuary,
silken hangings and perfumes delight every sense, and where costly
robes are flung around with a profusion that betokens lavish
expenditure; ask her which she deems happiest, and she will point
her jewelled finger towards you, and--if she speaks with
candour--tell you that for your single soul and free spirits, she
would barter all her riches. The opera, where night after night the
wealth of glorious voices is flung upon the air till its every
vibration is melody, and the spirit drinks it in as it would the
incense of rare flowers, is to her not so exquisite a luxury as the
choice songs, warbled in a concert room, to which you may listen but
few times in the year; such pleasure palls in repetition, on the
common mind, for nature's favourites are among the poor, and gold,
with all its magical power, can never attune the ear to music, nor
the taste to an appreciation of that which is truly beautiful in
nature or art. Keep then your integrity, and you never need envy the
wife of your employer. A round of heartless dissipation has sickened
her of humanity; and if it were not for the excitement of outshining
her compeers in the ranks of fashion, she would lay down her useless
life to-morrow.

Mothers, worn out and enfeebled with work, labouring for those who,
however good they may be, are at the best unable to pay you for you
unceasing toil, unable to realize your great sacrifices, do you look
upon your neighbour who has more means and a few petted children,
and wish that your lot was like hers? You pause often over your
task, and think it greater than you can bear.

"Tell mothers," said a lady to us a short time since, "who have
their little ones around them, that they are living their happiest
days; and the time will come when they will realize it. Tell them to
bend in thankfulness over the midnight lamp, to smile at their
ceaseless work and call it pleasure. I can but kneel in fancy by the
distant graves of my children; they are all gone. Could I but have
them beside me now, I would delve like a slave for them; I would
think no burden too hard, no denial beyond my strength, if I might
but labour for their good and be rewarded by their smiles and their
love."

Then in whatever situation we are, we should remember that even but
a door from our own dwelling there may be anguish, compared with
which ours is but as the whisper of a breath to the roll of the
thunder. We do not say then, let us _console_ ourselves by the
reflection that there are always those in the world who suffer
keener afflictions than ourselves, "but let us feel that though our
cup of sorrow may be almost full, there might be added many a drop
of bitterness;" and never, never should we breathe the expression,
"there is no sorrow like unto mine."




WE ARE LED BY A WAY THAT WE KNOW NOT.


WE are to consider the facts and circumstances which confirm the
doctrine that the Lord's providence is at once universal and
particular; and indeed that he leads us by a way unknown to
ourselves.

And who that has reflected upon his own life, or upon the life of
others, or upon the current events of the day, will not bear witness
to the universal application of this principle?

Look to the affairs of the world, to the nations and governments of
all the earth, and tell me, where is anything turning out according
to the forethought and prudence of man?

Look to the movements of our own country, and say whether human
prudence ever devised what we behold? What party or what individuals
have ever, in the long run, brought things about as they expected?
And how is it in our own city, and under our own eyes?

In the societies of the church, and in organizations for church
extension, the same rule applies. And I might ask, where does it not
apply? I might give examples. But this is unnecessary, when they are
so numerous, and so fresh in the memory of every one.

But when we turn to the experience of individuals, we meet with the
most unlimited application of our subject. The life of every one is
a standing memento of its truth. For who is there, that has come to
his present stand-point in life, by the route that he had marked out
for himself? I will imagine that ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago
each one of you fixed on your plan of life, for a longer or shorter
period. It matters not what the original plan was. It matters not
what prudence, sagacity, and forethought were employed in making it.
It matters not how much money and power have come to the support of
it. Still its parts have never been filled up as you originally
sketched them.

Many particulars were altered and amended, from day to day, as you
went along. Some things were abandoned as useless; some as hopeless;
some as impossible; some as injurious; some things were neglected,
and others forgotten. An unknown hand now and then interposed,
turning the tables entirely. An unaccountable influence was found
operating on certain individuals, changing their tone, and modifying
their conduct. An unknown individual has come alongside of you, and
has become your friend. He has mingled his emotions and his plans
with yours. You have modified your plans. He has changed his.
Business and commerce have taken an unexpected turn. You are the
gainer or the loser, it matters not; your plans are changed by the
event. An intimate friend has left you and become your open enemy;
an open enemy has been reconciled and has returned to the affection
and confidence of your heart. Your plans in life have to be changed
to suit such events as these. Several friends and relatives, that
were near to you, have been removed into the spiritual world. It may
be that by such providences, your feelings, thoughts, and actions
have been changed--changed utterly and for ever. Darkness of mind,
gloominess of life, and anguish of spirit may have come upon you, by
some such unexpected providence, and thus your plans may have been
changed, or even utterly abandoned.

But beyond matters of this description, which are somewhat external,
and as we say accidental, and certainly incidental, to a life in
this world, and in all of which we are led in a way that we know
not; there are unexpected changes of another kind, that we all have
experienced. I now refer to changes in the inner man, and in the
inner life.

For there is a Divinity within us that shapes our ends, and while
the things of the outward life remain much the same, we experience
changes of the inner life, that are at times amazing and terrible.
They come like the swelling of the tide, and like the beating of the
waves rolling on from a distant ocean; the deep emotions of the soul
arise and swell and sweep away; the fire of thought is kindled; the
imagination paints the canvas; the tongue stands ready to utter the
influx of love and wisdom; and the hand to illustrate it.

As these internal states of the soul change, by conjunction with the
Lord and communion with Heaven, on the one hand; or by opposition to
God and alliance with Hell, on the other, we see all things of the
outward world in a different light.

The changes of our internal man are, to appearance, much more
directly of the Lord's Divine Providence, than the events of the
outward life. Nevertheless, the two are so related by the
constitution of the mind, that each individual determines, in
rationality and freedom, which of the emotions and thoughts of the
_inner life_, he will bring forth into _ultimate acts_; and it is
here that the man may ally himself with the good and the true on one
hand, or with the evil and the false on the other; and in this
manner determine his destiny for heaven or hell.

The practical bearings of our subjects hinge chiefly on this; we are
to confide in the Lord; lean upon his great arm; and look to Him,
with the assurance that although He leads us by a way that we know
not, nevertheless He is leading us aright; and if we trust to Him,
and do His will, He will finally bring us to heaven.

Casting our eyes from one extreme of the Lord's vast dominions to
the other, we find the same Divine Providence everywhere operating
and operative. The angels of heaven, from the highest to the lowest,
are continually led by the Lord in paths that they have not known;
darkness is made light before them, and crooked things straight.
Nevertheless they are not led into infinite good nor infinite
delight. For this would be impossible. But constantly they are led
into a higher degree of good than they would naturally choose; and
they are defended from evil into which they would naturally subside.
So also it is with us.

Hence we may rest assured, that however meagre may be the good we
experience, it is vaster by far than we should inherit, if we had
been permitted to carry out our own plans and to have our own way in
those numerous particulars in which we have been frustrated in our
plans and disappointed in our hopes.




THE IVY IN THE DUNGEON.


  THE ivy in a dungeon grew,
  Unfed by rain, uncheered by dew;
  Its pallid leaflets only drank
  Cave-moistures foul, and odours dank.

  But through the dungeon-grating high
  There fell a sunbeam from the sky;
  It slept upon the grateful floor
  In silent gladness evermore.

  The ivy felt a tremor shoot
  Through all its fibres to the root;
  It felt the light, it saw the ray,
  It strove to blossom into day.

  It grew, it crept, it pushed, it clomb--
  Long had the darkness been its home;
  But well it knew, though veiled in night,
  The goodness and the joy of light.

  Its clinging roots grew deep and strong;
  Its stem expanded firm and long;
  And in the currents of the air
  Its tender branches flourished fair.

  It reached the beam--it thrilled--it curled--
  It blessed the warmth that cheers the world;
  It rose towards the dungeon bars--
  It looked upon the sun and stars.

  It felt the life of bursting Spring,
  It heard the happy sky-lark sing.
  It caught the breath of morns and eves,
  And wooed the swallow to its leaves.

  By rains, and dews, and sunshine fed,
  Over the outer wall it spread;
  And in the day-beam waving free,
  It grew into a steadfast tree.

  Upon that solitary place,
  Its verdure threw adorning grace.
  The mating birds became its guests,
  And sang its praises from their nests.

  Wouldst know the moral of the rhyme?
  Behold the heavenly light! and climb.
  To every dungeon comes a ray
  Of God's interminable day.




THE GARDEN OF EDEN.


ONE day little Alice hung about her mother's neck covering her
cheeks with kisses, and saying in her pretty, childish way,

"I love you, you nice, sweet mother! You are good--so good!" But her
mother answered earnestly,

"Dear child, God is good; if I have any good it is from Him; He has
given it to me; it is not mine."

Then the little one unclasped her caressing arms, and putting back
her hair with both hands gazed with a look of surprise into her
mother's face.

Presently she said--"But if He has given it to you, it is yours."

"No, darling," replied the lady, "you do not quite understand.
Listen. Suppose your dear father had a great garden full of all most
beautiful things that ever grew in gardens, and he should say to
you--'Come and live in my garden; you shall have as much ground as
you are able to cultivate, and I will give you seeds of all fruits
and flowers you love best, as many as you want. Here no evil thing
can ever come to harm you, but every day you will grow happier and
stronger, and then I will give you more ground and more seeds, and
you shall live with me for ever!' Suppose you were so glad to hear
this that you lost no time, but went in, at once, and began to plant
the seeds in your little plot, close by the gate--you know it would
be a tiny little plot at first, because you are small and weak; and
soon your flowers were to grow up and bloom, so tall, and so
beautiful, and your trees hang heavy with such delightful fruit that
every one passing by would exclaim,

"'Oh, what a beautiful garden! Are these flowers and fruit trees
yours?'

"Would you not say--

"Oh, no! they are not mine; they are all my father's. This is his
beautiful garden, but he said if I were willing I might stay here
always, and I have come to live with him because he is good. Nothing
at all here belongs to me, though my father likes me to give away
the fruits and flowers that grow in my plot to all who ask for them.
I am a great deal happier, all the time, when I think that even the
wild flowers in this grass, and the small berries, and the little
birds that eat them, belong to him, than I could be if they were
mine, and I had no one to love for them.'

"Should you not feel, dearest, as though you were telling a wicked
story, and almost as though you were stealing something, if you
said, 'Yes, they are all mine,' so that the people would not even
know you had a father?"

"Oh, yes! that would be very naughty indeed. I would give the people
some of the fruit and flowers, and say they grew on my father's
trees, and then they would love him too; but tell me more about the
garden."

"I will tell you all I think you can understand, and you must be
attentive, for I want you to remember it all your life. Did you ever
hear of the Garden of Eden?"

"Yes; that is where Adam and Eve lived."

"Well, that's the beautiful garden I've been telling you about, and
God is your good father. You can begin your journey there this very
day if you like."

"Is it a very long journey?--and will you go with me? Is there
really, _really_ such a garden? Oh, tell me where it is!"

"I desire nothing in the world so much as to lead you there, but the
path is rough and steep; I cannot carry you in my arms along that
road; you must walk on your own little feet, and I am afraid they
will sometimes get--very tired."

"You know, mother, I never do get tired when I am going to a
pleasant place; but, oh, dear! I do believe now it is all a
dream-story; you smiled and kissed me just as if it were."

"No, you need not look so disappointed, little one, for though it is
something like a 'dream-story,' there is nothing in the world half
so true and real. Think in that little head of yours, and tell me
what seems to you most like this beautiful garden."

"I cannot think of anything at all like it, except heaven.--Oh,
yes!--that is it! Heaven, is it not?"

"And what is heaven?"

"The place where good people go when they die."

"Think again. What is heaven?"

"I have thought again, and I cannot think of anything but the place
where God and the angels are. I do not know how you want me to
think."

"I want you to think why it is heaven, and why the angels are happy.
Do you understand?"

"Yes. Being beautiful and so pleasant makes it heaven; and the
angels are happy because they are in heaven."

"Then, of course, if you put even such wicked people into a
beautiful and pleasant place they would be angels, and happy?"

"Oh, now I see! You mean the angels are happy because they are
good."

"Why should that make them happy?"

"I don't know why, but I know the Bible says so. I suppose just the
same as when you promise me, in the morning, that if I say my
lessons all nicely you will tell me a beautiful fairy-tale after
tea."

"No, my little Alice, not exactly in that way, though at first
thought it does seem to be so. I want you very much indeed, to
understand the truth about it, but I am afraid you will not find it
easy. You know that God is good, and wise, and happy--ah, dearest!
better, wiser, happier than the purest angels will ever know, though
they go on learning it to eternity. When I say to you God is
infinitely good, and wise, and happy, you cannot understand that,
and neither can I; but one thing about it I can understand, and this
I will tell you. Just as every joyous ray of light and heat comes to
us from the sun, so all wisdom, all goodness, all beauty, all joy,
flow forth from God, and are His, alone. Our very souls would go out
of existence like the flames of a lamp when the oil is spent, if,
for the least fraction of a second, He ceased to give us life. This
truth that I am teaching you now is not mine, nor yours; it is only
a tiny stream flowing from the fountains of His infinite wisdom, and
would be the truth, all the same, if we had never been born, or
never learned to see it. The good and joyous feelings in your heart,
too, are also from God, just as the truth is, though they seem to
you more as if they were your own. You must never think of them as
your own, never; but thank God for them very gratefully and humbly,
for they are His fruits that grow in the garden of your father, the
Garden of Eden."

"Why do you call it the Garden of Eden?"

"Because, by the Garden of Eden, is signified the state of those who
live in obedience to God; and by the beauty and pleasantness of the
garden we are taught that, when we receive goodness and truth from
God, we, at the same time, receive happiness from Him, because He is
infinitely happy, as well as infinitely good, and when His spirit
fills our hearts, we are happy too. Happiness comes with goodness,
just as the flowers and songs of birds come with summer."

"Then are all good people happy? I thought not."

"It is true, there are many trials in this world, but do you not see
that if we were good we should acknowledge that God sent them as
blessings, and should be willing to accept them from him, and
should, therefore, not be made very unhappy by them. You may be sure
that people are really, in their heart of hearts, happy exactly in
proportion as they are good. I have known persons who had suffered a
great deal in many ways, and who yet said that nothing had been so
bitter to them as the consciousness of their own sins. Good people
see a thousand things to love and enjoy which the wicked world find
no pleasure in; they are sure to make friends, and, what is far
better, sure to love and do good to all about them. They take
delight in everything beautiful that God has created. They think of
Him, and all His goodness, and, in the midst of sorrow, their hearts
are comforted, and filled with heavenly peace."

"Why did you say the road was rough and long to that beautiful
garden?--is it so very, very hard to be good?--and does it take so
very long?"

"You must not feel sad because it is not easy to be good; you must
think of it bravely, and joyfully. Why, my Alice! did you not say
you never felt tired when you were going to a pleasant place? It is
not always easy to do right; sometimes we are sorely tempted, and
then it seems very difficult; but what of that? It is possible,
always, for God never requires of us what we cannot do. When you
feel discouraged, remember that angels in heaven were little
children once, and that some of them found it as hard as you do to
be good and true, but they tried over and over again, and are
blessed angels now. They love to acknowledge that it was not by
their own strength they overcame evil, but that all the good and
truth and happiness they have are from God. He does not love you
less than He did them, for His love is infinite to all His children,
and if you are willing He will lead you also into His Garden of
Eden."




HAVE A FLOWER IN YOUR ROOM.


A FIRE in winter, a flower in summer! If you can have a fine print
or picture all the year round, so much the better; you will thus
always have a bit of sunshine in your room, whether the sky be clear
or not. But, above all, a flower in summer!

Most people have yet to learn the true enjoyment of life; it is not
fine dresses, or large houses, or elegant furniture, or rich wines,
or gay parties, that make homes happy. Really, wealth cannot
purchase pleasures of the higher sort; these depend not on money, or
money's worth; it is the heart, and taste, and intellect, which
determine the happiness of men; which give the seeing eye and the
sentient nature, and without which, man is little better than a kind
of walking clothes-horse.

A snug and a clean home, no matter how tiny it be, so that it be
wholesome; windows, into which the sun can shine cheerily; a few
good books (and who need be without a few good books in these days
of universal cheapness?)--no duns at the door, and the cupboard well
supplied, and with a flower in your room!--and there is none so poor
as not to have about him the elements of pleasure.

Hark! there is a child passing our window calling "wallflowers!" We
must have a bunch forthwith: it is only a penny! A shower has just
fallen, the pearly drops are still hanging upon the petals, and they
sparkle in the sun which has again come out in his beauty.

How deliciously the flower smells of country and nature! It is like
summer coming into our room to greet us. The wallflowers are from
Kent, and only last night were looking up to the stars from their
native stems; they are full of buds yet, with their promise of fresh
beauty. "Betty! bring a glass of clear water to put these flowers
in!" and so we set to, arranging and displaying our pennyworth to
the best advantage.

But what do you say to a nosegay of roses? Here you have a specimen
of the most beautiful of the smiles of Nature! Who, that looks on
one of these bright full-blown beauties, will say that she is sad,
or sour, or puritanical! Nature tells us to be happy, to be glad,
for she decks herself with roses, and the fields, the skies, the
hedgerows, the thickets, the green lanes, the dells, the mountains,
the morning and evening sky, are robed in loveliness. The "laughing
flowers," exclaims the poet! but there is more than gayety in the
blooming flower, though it takes a wise man to see its full
significance--there is the beauty, the love, and the adaptation, of
which it is full. Few of us, however, see any more deeply in this
respect than did Peter Bell:--

  "A primrose by a river's brim,
  A yellow primrose was to him,
  And it was nothing more."

What would we think or say of one who had invented
flowers--supposing, that before him, flowers were things unknown;
would it not be the paradise of a new delight? should we not hail
the inventor as a genius as a god? And yet these lovely offsprings
of the earth have been speaking to man from the first dawn of his
existence till now, telling him of the goodness and wisdom of the
Creating Power, which bade the earth bring forth, not only that
which was useful as food, but also flowers, the bright consummate
flowers, to clothe it in beauty and joy!

See that graceful fuchsia, its blood-red petals, and calyx of
bluish-purple, more exquisite in colour and form than any hand or
eyes, no matter how well skilled and trained, can imitate! We can
manufacture no colours to equal those of our flowers in their bright
brilliancy--such, for instance, as the Scarlet Lychnis, the
Browallia, or even the Common Poppy. Then see the exquisite blue of
the humble Speedwell, and the dazzling white of the Star of
Bethlehem, that shines even in the dark. Bring one of even our
common field-flowers into a room, place it on your table or chimney
piece, and you seem to have brought a ray of sunshine into the
place. There is ever cheerfulness about flowers; what a delight are
they to the drooping invalid! the very sight of them is cheering;
they are like a sweet draught of fresh bliss, coming as messengers
from the country without, and seeming to say:--"Come and see the
place where we grow, and let thy heart be glad in our presence."

What can be more innocent than flowers! Are they not like children
undimmed by sin? They are emblems of purity and truth, always a new
source of delight to the pure and the innocent. The heart that does
not love flowers, or the voice of a playful child, is one that we
should not like to consort with. It was a beautiful conceit that
invented a language of flowers, by which lovers were enabled to
express the feelings that they dared not openly speak. But flowers
have a voice to all,--to old and young, to rich and poor, if they
would but listen, and try to interpret their meaning. "To me," says
Wordsworth,

  The meanest flower that blows can give
  Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

Have a flower in your room then, by all means! It will cost you only
a penny, if your ambition is moderate; and the gratification it will
give you will be beyond all price. If you can have a flower for your
window, so much the better. What can be more delicious than the
sun's light streaming through flowers--through the midst of crimson
fuchsias or scarlet geraniums? Then to look out into the light
through flowers--is not that poetry? And to break the force of the
sunbeams by the tender resistance of green leaves? If you can train
a nasturtium round the window, or some sweet-peas, then you have the
most beautiful frame you can invent for the picture without, whether
it be the busy crowd, or a distant landscape, or trees with their
lights and shades, or the changes of the passing clouds. Any one may
thus look through flowers for the price of an old song. And what a
pure taste and refinement does it not indicate on the part of the
cultivator!

A flower in your window sweetens the air, makes your room look
graceful, gives the sun's light a new charm, rejoices your eye, and
links you to nature and beauty. You really cannot be altogether
alone, if you have a sweet flower to look upon, and it is a
companion which will never utter a cross thing to anybody, but
always look beautiful and smiling. Do not despise it because it is
cheap, and everybody may have the luxury as well as you. Common
things are cheap, and common things are invariably the most
valuable. Could we only have a fresh air or sunshine by purchase,
what luxuries these would be; but they are free to all, and we think
not of their blessings.

There is, indeed, much in nature that we do not yet half enjoy,
because we shut our avenues of sensation and of feeling. We are
satisfied with the matter of fact, and look not for the spirit of
fact, which is above all. If we would open our minds to enjoyment,
we should find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We
might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit
with the fairies who wait on every flower. We want some loving
knowledge to enable us truly to enjoy life, and we require to
cultivate a little more than we do the art of making the most of the
common means and appliances for enjoyment, which lie about us on
every side. There are, we doubt not, many who may read these pages,
who can enter into and appreciate the spirit of all that we have now
said; and, to those who may still hesitate, we would say--begin and
experiment forthwith; and first of all, when the next flower-girl
comes along your street, at once hail her, and "Have a flower for
your room!"




WEALTH.


THE error of life into which man most readily falls, is the pursuit
of wealth as the highest good of existence. While riches command
respect, win position, and secure comfort, it is expected that they
will be regarded by all classes only with a strong and unsatisfied
desire. But the undue reverence which is everywhere manifested for
wealth, the rank which is conceded it, the homage which is paid it,
the perpetual worship which is offered it, all tend to magnify its
desirableness, and awaken longings for its possession in the minds
of those born without inheritance. In society, as at present
observed, the acquisition of money would seem to be the height of
human aim--the great object of living, to which all other purposes
are made subordinate. Money, which exalts the lowly, and sheds
honour upon the exalted--money, which makes sin appear goodness, and
gives to viciousness the seeming of chastity--money, which silences
evil report, and opens wide the mouth of praise--money, which
constitutes its possessor an oracle, to whom men listen with
deference--money, which makes deformity beautiful, and sanctifies
crime--money, which lets the guilty go unpunished, and wins
forgiveness for wrong--money, which makes manhood and age
respectable, and is commendation, surety, and good name for the
young,--how shall it be gained? by what schemes gathered in? by what
sacrifice secured? These are the questions which absorb the mind,
the practical answerings of which engross the life of men. The
schemes are too often those of fraud, and outrage upon the sacred
obligations of being; the sacrifice, loss of the highest moral
sense, the destruction of the purest susceptibilities of nature, the
neglect of internal life and development, the utter and sad
perversion of the true purposes of existence. Money is valued beyond
its worth--it has gained a power vastly above its deserving. Wealth
is courted so obsequiously, is flattered so servilely, is so
influential in moulding opinions and judgment, has such a weight in
the estimation of character, that men regard its acquisition as the
most prudent aim of their endeavours, and its possession as absolute
enjoyment and honour, rather than the means of honourable, useful,
and happy life. While riches are thus over-estimated, and hold such
power in the community, men will forego ease and endure toil,
sacrifice social pleasures and abandon principle, for the speedy and
unlimited acquirement of property. Money will not be regarded as the
means of living, but as the object of life. All nobler ends will be
neglected in the eager haste to be rich. No higher pursuit will be
recognised than the pursuit of gold--no attainment deemed so
desirable as the attainment of wealth. While the great man of every
circle is the rich man, in the common mind wealth becomes the
synonyme of greatness. No condition is discernable superior to that
which money confers; no loftier idea of manhood is entertained than
that which embraces the extent of one's possessions.

There is a wealth of heart better than gold, and an interior
decoration fairer than outward ornament.--

There is a splendour in upright life, beside which gems are
lustreless; and a fineness of spirit whose beauty outvies the
glitter of diamonds. Man's true riches are hidden in his nature, and
in their development and increase will he find his surest happiness.




HOW TO BE HAPPY.


OLD Mr. Cleveland sat by his comfortable fireside one cold winter's
night. He was a widower, and lived alone on his plantation; that is
to say, he was the only white person there; for of negroes, both
field hands and house servants, he had enough and to spare. He was a
queer old man, this Mr. Cleveland; a man of kind, good feelings, but
of eccentric impulses, and blunt and startling manners. You must
always let him do everything in his own odd way; just attempt to
dictate to him, or even to suggest a certain course, and you would
be sure to defeat your wisest designs. He seemed at times possessed
by a spirit of opposition, and would often turn right round and
oppose a course he had just been vehemently advocating, only because
some one else had ventured openly and warmly to approve it.

The night, as I have said, was bitter cold, and would have done
honour to a northern latitude, and in addition to this, a violent
storm was coming on. The wind blew in fitful gusts, howling and
sighing among the huge trees with which the house was surrounded,
and then dying away with a melancholy, dirge-like moan. The old tree
rubbed their leafless branches against the window panes, and the
fowls which had roosted there for the night, were fain to clap their
wings, and make prodigious efforts to preserve their equilibrium.
Mr. Cleveland grew moody and restless, threw down the book in which
he had been reading, kicked one of the andirons till he made the
whole blazing fabric tumble down, and finally called, in an
impatient tone, his boy Tom.

Tom soon popped his head in at the door, and said, "Yer's me, sir."

"Yer's me, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Cleveland, "what sort of a way is
this to build a fire?"

"I rispec you is bin kick um, sir," said Tom.

"Hey? What? Well! suppose I did bin kick um, if it had been properly
made, it would not have tumbled down. Fix it this minute, sir!"

"I is gwine to fix um now, sir," said Tom, fumbling at the fire.

"Well! fix it, sir, without having so much to say about it; you had
better do more, and say less," said Mr. Cleveland.

"Yes, sir," answered Tom.

"You _will_ keep answering me when there is no occasion!" exclaimed
Mr. Cleveland; "I just wish I had my stick here, I'd crack the side
of your head with it."

"Yer's de stick, sir," said Tom, handing the walking cane out of the
corner.

"Put it down, this instant, sir," said Mr. Cleveland; "how dare you
touch my stick without my leave?"

"I bin tink you bin say you bin want um, sir," said Tom.

"You had better tink about your work, sir, and stop answering me,
sir, or I'll find a way to make you," said Mr. Cleveland. "Bring in
some more light wood, and make the fire, and shut in the window
shutters. Do you hear me, sir?"

"Yes, sir," replied Tom.

"Well, why don't you answer, if you hear, then? How am I to know
when you hear me, if you don't answer?" said Mr. Cleveland.

"I bin tink you bin tell me for no answer you, sir," said Tom.

"I said when there was no occasion, boy; that's what I said,"
exclaimed Mr. Cleveland, reaching for his stick.

"Yes, sir," said Tom, as he went grinning out of the room.

Mr. Cleveland was, in the main, a very kind master, though somewhat
hasty and impatient. Tom and he were for ever sparring, yet neither
could have done without the other; and there was something comical
about Tom's disposition which well suited his master's eccentric and
changeable moods. Tom evidently served as a kind of safety valve for
his master's nervous system, and many an explosion of superfluous
excitability he had to bear.

On the night in question, Mr. Cleveland was particularly out of
sorts. The truth is, he was naturally a generous, warm-hearted man,
but in consequence of early disappointment, had lived a solitary
life, and was really suffering for the want of objects of affection.
His feelings, unsatisfied, unemployed, yet morbidly sensitive, were
becoming soured, and his untenanted heart often ached for want of
sympathy.

He rose and took several diagonal turns across the room. At length
he opened a window, and looked out upon the stormy night. "What
confounded weather!" he muttered to himself, "it makes a man feel
like blowing his brains out! There are no two ways about it, I'm
tired of life. What have I to live for? If I were to die to-morrow,
who would shed a tear?"

Then whispered conscience, "It is thine own fault. A man need not
feel alone because there are none in the world who bear his name, or
share his blood. All men are thy brethren. Thou art one of the great
human family, and what hast thou done to relieve the poor and
suffering around thee? Will not thy Master say to thee at the last
day, 'I was an hungered, and you gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and
you gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in;
naked, and you clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and you visited
me not. Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least of these my
brethren, _you did it not to me._'"

This was a strong and direct appeal, and it was not without its
effect. Then muttered Mr. Cleveland to himself again, "Well, how can
I help it? It has not been for want of inclination. Heaven knows I
am always ready to put my hand in my pocket whenever people call on
me for charity. How can I help it if the poor and suffering do not
make their wants known to me?"

Then again spake Conscience: "Thou art trying to deceive thyself,
but thou canst not deceive nor silence _me_. Thou hast known of the
existence of suffering, and thine indolence has prevented thee from
going abroad to relieve it. Did thy Master thus? Did he not _go
about_ to do good? Did he not sit down to meat with publicans and
sinners? Can you stand here, and look out upon such a night as this,
and not think of those who are exposed to its bitterness? Can thy
human heart beat only for itself when thou thinkest of the thousand
miseries crying to Heaven for relief? Resolve, now, before thy head
touches its comfortable pillow, that with the morning's dawn thou
wilt resolutely set about thy work; or, rather, thy Master's work."

"It is very hard," still muttered Mr. Cleveland to himself, "that
these thoughts will continually intrude themselves upon me. They
give me no peace of my life. Stifle them as I may, they come with
tenfold force. People have no business to be poor. I was poor once,
and nobody gave charity to me. I had to help myself up in the world
as well as I could. I hate poor people; I hate unfortunate people;
in fact, confound it! I hate the world and everybody in it."

Then answered once again the still, small voice: "For shame, Mr.
Cleveland, for shame! You will ruin your soul if you thus darken the
light within. You know better than all this, and you are sinning
against yourself. You want to be happy; well, you may be so. There
is a wide field of duty open before you; enter, in God's name, and
go to work like a man. What you say about having helped yourself, is
perfectly true, and you deserve all credit for it. But remember that
the majority of the poor are entirely destitute of your advantages.
You had the foundation rightly laid. A thousand circumstances in
your early life conspired to render you energetic and self-relying.
You had the right sort of education, and Providence also helped to
train you. Besides, once more I ask you, did your Master stop to
inquire how human misery was brought about before he relieved it?
Away with this unmanly, selfish policy! Follow thy generous
impulses, follow out the yearnings of thy heart, without which you
never can have peace; above, all, follow Christ."

Mr. Cleveland shut the window, heaved a deep sigh, and took several
more turns across the room. "I believe it is all true," at length he
said, "and I have been a confounded fool. I'll turn about, and lead
a different life, so help me Heaven! I have wealth, and not a chick
nor a child to spend it on, nor to leave it to when I die, and so
I'll spend it in doing good, if I can only find out the best way;
that's the trouble. But never mind, I'll be my own executor." He now
rang the bell for Tom.

Tom immediately appeared, with his usual "Yer's me, sir."

"Tom," said Mr. Cleveland, "put me in mind in the morning, to send a
load of wood to old Mrs. Peters."

"Yes, sir," said Tom, "an' you better sen' some bacon, 'cause I bin
yerry (hear) little Mas Jack Peter say him ain't bin hab no meat for
eat sence I do' know de day when. I rispec dey drudder hab de meat
sted o' de wood, 'cause dey can pick up wood nuf all about."

"You mind your own business, sir," said Mr. Cleveland, "I'll send
just what I please. How long is it since I came to you for advice?
Confound the fellow!" he muttered aside, "I meant to send the woman
some meat, and now if I do it, that impudent fellow will think I do
it because he advised it. Any how, I'll not send bacon, I'll send
beef or mutton."

Just at this moment, there was a knock at the door, and Tom, going
to open it, admitted Dick, the coachman.

"What do you want, Dick, at this time of night?" inquired his
master.

"Dere's a man down stays, sir," replied Dick, "and he seem to be in
great 'fliction. He says dey is campin' out 'bout half a mile below,
sir, and de trees is fallin' so bad he is 'fraid dey will all be
killed. He ask you if you kin let dem stay in one of de out-houses
tell to-morrow."

"Camping out such a night as this?" exclaimed Mr. Cleveland, "the
Lord have pity on them! How many are there of them, Dick?"

"He, an' his wife, and six little children, sir," answered Dick.

"No negroes?" inquired his master.

"Not a nigger, sir," said Dick. "I ain't like poor buckrah, no how,
sir, but I 'spect you best take dese people in, lest dey might die
right in our woods."

Tom, knowing his master's dislike of advice, and fearing that Dick
had taken the surest method to shut them out, now chimed in, and
said, "Massa, ef I bin you, I no would tek dem in none 't all."

"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Cleveland; "you surely must
be taking leave of your senses. Dick, you'll have to give that boy
of yours a thrashing. I'll not stand his insolence much longer.
Don't stand there, grinning at me, sir."

"No, sir," snickered Tom, skulking behind Dick, who was his father.

"Let the man come up here, Dick," said Mr. Cleveland.

When the traveller made his appearance, Mr. Cleveland was startled
at his wan and wo-begone appearance. "Sit down, my man," said he.

"I thank you, sir," replied the stranger, "but I must be back as
soon as possible to my family. Can you grant us a night's lodging,
sir?"

"Certainly, sir," replied Mr. Cleveland; "have you any means of
getting your family hither? I am told you have six little ones."

"They must walk, sir," replied the stranger, "for our only horse has
been killed by a falling tree; but I have not a word to say. It
might have been my wife or one of my little ones, and, poor as I am,
I can spare none of them."

Mr. Cleveland, whose feelings were at this time in an usually
softened state, got up, and walked rapidly to the book-case to
conceal his emotion, dashed away a tear, and muttered to himself, as
was his wont, "'Tis confoundedly affecting, that's a fact." Then
turning to the stranger, who was in the act of leaving the room, he
said, "If you will wait a few moments I will have my carriage got;
your wife and little ones must not walk on such a night as this."

"God bless you, sir!" said the stranger, in a trembling voice; "but
I am too uneasy to stay a moment longer."

"Well, go on," said Mr. Cleveland, "and the carriage shall come
after you, and I will go in it myself." The stranger brushed his
hand across his eyes, and left the room without speaking a word;
while Dick and Tom exchanged glances of surprise at their master's
uncommon fit of philanthropy; Tom feeling fully assured that the
"poor buckrahs," as he termed them, owed their good fortune to his
seasonable interference.

The carriage was soon in readiness, and Mr. Cleveland rode in it to
the spot. He found the family all gathered around the dead horse,
and lamenting over it; while the father, having just arrived, was
expatiating upon his kind reception by Mr. Cleveland. It took them
some little time to stow themselves away in the carriage, and Mr.
Cleveland actually carried two sturdy children on his knees. Yes,
there he was, riding through the dreadful storm, in danger every
moment from the trees which were falling all around him, with an
infant in its mother's arms squalling with all its might, and a
heavy boy on each knee, and squeezed almost to death into the
bargain--for there were nine in the carriage--and yet feeling so
happy! ay, far happier than he had felt for many a long day. Truly,
charity brings its own reward.

When they arrived at Mr. Cleveland's house, instead of being stowed
away in an out-building, as the poor man had modestly requested,
they were comfortably provided for beneath his own roof. That night,
as he laid his head upon his pillow, he could not help feeling
surprised at his sudden accession of happiness. "Well, I will go
on," he soliloquized; "I will pursue the path I have this night
taken, and if I always feel as I do now, I am a new man, and will
never again talk about blowing my brains out." He slept that night
the sleep of peace, and rose in the morning with a light heart and
buoyant spirits.

His first care was to take the father of the family aside, and
gather from him the story of his misfortunes. It was a long and
mournful tale, and Mr. Cleveland was obliged, more than once, to
pretend a sudden call out of the room, that he might hide his
emotion. And the tale was by no means told in vain. True to his new
resolutions, Mr. Cleveland thankfully accepted the work which
Providence had given him to do, and the family of emigrants, to this
day, mention the name of Cleveland with tears of gratitude and love,
and, when they implore God's mercy for themselves, never forget to
invoke, for their kind benefactor, Heaven's choicest blessings. Nor
is that the only family whose hearts glow at the mention of Mr.
Cleveland's name. Far and wide his name is known, and honoured, and
beloved.

And Mr. Cleveland has found out the real secret of happiness. It is
true that he and Tom still have their squabbles, for Tom is really a
provoking fellow, and Mr. Cleveland is, and always will be, an
eccentric, impulsive man, but his heart, which, when we first
introduced him to our readers, was far from being right with God, or
with his fellow-men, is now the dwelling-place of love and kindness,
and the experience of every day contributes to strengthen the new
principles he has imbibed, and to confirm him in the right.

Reader! art thou sad or solitary? I can offer thee a certain cure
for all thy woes. Contemplate the life of Him who spake as never man
spake. Follow him through all those years of toil and suffering. See
him wherever called by the sorrows of his human brethren, and
witness his deeds of mercy and his offices of love, and then--"go
thou and do likewise."




REBECCA.


  HER words were few, without pretence
  To tricks of courtly eloquence,
  But full of pure and simple thought,
  And with a guileless feeling fraught,
  And said in accents which conferred
  Poetic charm on household word.

  She needed not to speak, to be
  The best loved of the company--
  She did her hands together press
  With such a child-like gracefulness;
  And such a sweet tranquillity
  Upon her silent lips did lie,
  And such unsullied purity
  In the blue heaven of her eye.

  She moved among us like to one
  Who had not lived on earth alone;
  But felt a dim, mysterious sense
  Of a more stately residence,
  And seemed to have a consciousness
  Of an anterior happiness--
  To hear, at times, the echoes sent
  From some unearthly instrument
  With half-remembered voices blent--
  And yet to hold the friendships dear,
  And prize the blessings of our sphere--
  In sweet perplexity to know
  Which of the two was dreamy show,
  The dark green earth, the deep blue skies,
  The love which shone in mortal eyes,
  Or those faint recollections, telling
  Of a more bright and tranquil dwelling.

  We could not weep upon the day
  When her pure spirit passed away;
  We thought we read the mystery
  Which in her life there seemed to be--
  That she was not our own, but lent
  To us little while, and sent
  An angel child, what others preach
  Of heavenly purity, to teach,
  In ways more eloquent than speech--
  And chiefly by that raptured eye
  Which seemed to look beyond the sky,
  And that abstraction, listening
  To hear the choir of seraphs sing.

  We thought that death did seem to her
  Of long-lost joy the harbinger--
  Like an old household servant, come
  To take the willing scholar home;
  The school-house, it was very dear,
  But then the holidays were near;
  And why should she be lingering here?
  Softly the servant bore the child
  Who at her parting turned and smiled,
  And looked back to us, till the night
  For ever hid her from our sight.




LIFE A TREADMILL.


WHO says that life is a treadmill?

You, merchant, when, after a weary day of measuring cotton-cloth or
numbering flower barrels, bowing to customers or taking account of
stock, you stumble homeward, thinking to yourself that the moon is a
tolerable substitute for gas light, to prevent people from running
against the posts--and then, by chance, recall the time when, a
school-boy, you read about "chaste Dian" in your Latin books, and
discovered a striking resemblance to moonbeams in certain blue eyes
that beamed upon you from the opposite side of the school-room.

Ah! those were the days when brick side-walks were as elastic as
India rubber beneath your feet; shop windows were an exhibition of
transparencies to amuse children and young people, and the world in
prospect was one long pleasure excursion. Then you drank the bright
effervescence in your glass of soda-water, and now you must swallow
the cold, flat settlings, or not get your money's worth. Long ago
you found out that the moon is the origin of moonshine, that blue
eyes are not quite as fascinating under gray hair and behind
spectacles, and that "money answereth all things."

You say so, clerk or bank-teller, when you look up from your books
at the new-fallen snow glistening in the morning light, and feel
something like the prancing of horses' hoofs in the soles of your
boots, and hear the jingling of sleigh bells in your mind's ear,
long after the sound of them has passed from your veritable
auriculars.

You say so, teacher, while going through the daily drill of your A B
C regiments, your multiplication table platoons, and your
chirographical battalions.

You say so, factory girl, passing backward and forward from the
noise and whirl of wheels in the mills, to the whirl and noise of
wheels in your dreams.

You say so, milliner's apprentice, as you sit down to sew gay
ribbons on gay bonnets, and stand up to try gay bonnets on gay
heads.

You say so, housemaid or housekeeper, when the song of the early
bird reminds you of crying children, whose faces are to be washed;
when the rustling of fallen leaves in the wind makes you wonder how
the new broom is going to sweep; when the aroma of roses suggests
the inquiry whether the box of burnt coffee is empty; and when the
rising sun, encircled by vapoury clouds, brings up the similitude of
a huge fire-proof platter, and the smoke of hot potatoes.

There is a principle in human nature which rebels against
repetitions. Who likes to fall asleep, thinking that to-morrow
morning he must get up and do exactly the same things that he did
to-day, the next day ditto, and so forth, until the chapter of
earthly existence is finished!

It is very irksome for these soaring thoughts winged to "wander
through eternity," to come down and work out the terms of a tedious
apprenticeship to the senses. And yet, what were thoughts
unlocalized and unembodied? Mere comets or vague nebulosities in the
firmament, without a form, and without a home.

All things have their orbit, and are held in it by the power of two
great opposing forces.

Outward circumstances form the centripetal force, which keeps us in
ours. Let the eccentric will fly off at ever so wide a tangent for a
time, back it must come to a regular diurnal path, or wander away
into the "blackness of darkness." And if these daily duties and
cares come to us robed in the shining livery of Law, should we not
accept them as bearers of a sublime mission?

"What?" you say, "anything sublime in yardstick tactics or ledger
columns? Anything sublime in washing dishes or trimming bonnets? The
idea is simply ridiculous!"

No, not ridiculous; only a simple idea, and great in its simplicity.
For the manner of performing even menial duties, gives you the gauge
and dimensions of the doer's inward strength. The power of the soul
asserts itself, not so much in shaping favourable circumstances to
desired ends, as in resisting the pressure of crushing circumstances,
and triumphing over them.

Manufactures, trades, and all the subordinate arts and occupations
that keep the car of civilization in motion, may be to you machines
moving with a monotonous and unmeaning buzz, or they may be like
Ezekiel's vision of wheels involved in wheels, that were lifted up
from the earth by the power of the living creature that was in them.

Grumbling man or woman, life _is_ a treadmill to you, because you
look doggedly down and see nothing but the dull steps you take. If
you would cease grumbling, and look up, your life would be
transformed into a Jacob's ladder, and every step onward would be a
step upward too. And even if it were a treadmill, to which you and
other mortals were condemned for past offences, a kindly sympathy
for your fellow-prisoners could carpet the way with velvet, and you
might move on smilingly together, as through the mazes of an easy
dance.

It is of no use to preach the old sermon of contentment with one
condition, whatever it may be, a sermon framed for lands where
aristocracies are fixtures, in this generation and on this
continent. Discontent is a necessity of republicanism, until the
millennium comes.

Yet it is not sensible to complain of the present, until we have
gleaned its harvests and drained its sap, and it has become capital
for us to draw upon in the future. Most of the dissatisfied
grumblers of our day are like children from whom the prospect of a
Christmas pie, intended for the climax of a supper, takes away all
relish for the more solid and wholesome introductory exercises of
bread and butter.

What is it we would have our life? Not princely pop and equipments,
nor to "marry the prince's own," which used to form the denouement
of every fairy tale, will suffice us now; for every ingenious Yankee
school-boy or girl has learned to dissect the puppet show of
royalty, and knows that its personages move in a routine the most
hampered and helpless of all.

The honour of being four years in stepping from one door of the
"White House" to the other, ceases to be the meed of a dignified
ambition when it results from a skilful shuffling of political
cards, rather than from strength and steadiness of head and an
upright gait.

If we ask for freedom from care, and leisure to enjoy life--until we
have learned, through the discipline of labour and care, how to
appreciate and use leisure--we might as well petition from
government a grant of prairie land for Egyptian mummies to run races
upon.

If one might get himself appointed to the general overseership of
the solar system, still, what would his occupation be but a regular
pacing to and fro from the sun to the outermost limits of Le
Verrier's calculations, and perhaps a little farther? A succession
of rather longish strides he would have to take, to be sure; now
burning his soles in the fires of Mercury; now hitting his corns
against some of the pebbly Asteroids, and now slipping upon the icy
rim of Neptune. Still, if he made drudgery of his work by keeping
his soul out of it, he would only have his treadmill life over
again, on a large scale.

The monotony of our three-score years and ten is wearisome to us;
what can we think then of the poor planets, doomed to the same
diurnal spinning, the same annual path, for six thousand years, to
our certain knowledge? And, if telescopes tell us the truth, the
universe is an ever-widening series of similar monotonies.

Yet space is ample enough to give all systems variety of place.
While each planet moves steadily along on the edge of its plane, the
whole solar equipage is going forward to open a new track on the
vast highway of the heavens.

We too, moving in our several spheres with honest endeavours and
aspirations, are, by the stability of our motions, lifting and being
lifted, with the whole compact human brotherhood, into a higher
elevation, a brighter revelation of the Infinite, the Universe of
Wisdom and Love.

And in this view, though our efforts be humble and our toil hard,
life can never be a treadmill.




ARTHUR LELAND.


ARTHUR LELAND was a young lawyer of some twenty-seven years of age.
His office stood a stone's throw from the court-house, in a thriving
town in the West. Arthur had taken a full course in a Northern
college, both in the collegiate and law department, and with some
honour. During his course he had managed to read an amazing amount
of English literature, and no man was readier or had a keener taste
in such things than he. He had a pleasing personal appearance, a
fluent and persuasive manner, an unblemished character. Every
morning he came to his office from one of the most pleasant little
cottage homes in the world; and if you had opened the little front
gate, and gone up through the shrubbery to the house, you would have
seen a Mrs. Leland, somewhere in-doors, and she as intelligent and
pleasant a lady as you ever saw. You would have seen, moreover,
tumbling about the grass, or up to the eyes in some mischief, as
noble-looking a little fellow of some three years old as you could
well have wished for your own son.

This all looks well enough, but there is something wrong. Not in the
house. No; it is as pleasant a cottage as you could wish--plenty of
garden, peas and honeysuckles climbing up everywhere, green grass,
white paint, Venetian blinds, comfortable furniture.

Not in Willie, the little scamp. No; rosy, healthy, good head,
intelligent eyes, a fine specimen he was of an only son. Full of
mischief, of course, he was. Overflowing with uproar and questions
and mischief. Mustachios of egg or butter-milk or molasses after
each meal, as a matter of course. Cut fingers, bumped forehead, torn
clothes, all day long. Yet a more affectionate, easily-managed child
never was.

The mischief was not in Lucy, the Mrs. Leland. I assure you it was
not. Leland knew, to his heart's core, that a lovelier, more
prudent, sensible, intelligent wife it was impossible to exist.
Thrifty, loving, lady-like, right and true throughout.

Where was this mischief? Look at Leland. He is in perpetual motion.
Reading, writing, walking the streets, he is always fast, in dead
earnest. Somewhat _too_ fast. There is a certain slowness about your
strong man. You never associate the idea of mental depth and power
with your quick-stepping man. You cannot conceive of a Roman emperor
or a Daniel Webster as a slight, swift man. The bearing of a man's
body is the outward emblem of the bearing of his soul. Leland is
rather slight, rather swift. He meets you in his rapid walk. He
stops, grasps your hand, asks cordially after your health. There is
an open, warm feeling in the man. No hypocrisy whatever. Yet he
talks too fast. He don't give you half a chance to answer one of his
rapid questions, before he is asking another totally different. He
is not at ease. He keeps you from being at ease. You feel it
specially in his house. He is too cordial, too full of effort to
make your visit pleasant to you. You like him, yet you don't feel
altogether at home with him. You are glad when he leaves you to his
more composed wife. You never knew or heard of his saying or doing
anything wrong or even unbecoming. You look upon him as a peculiar
sort of man--well, somehow--but! He is at the bar defending that
woman, who sits by him, dressed in mourning--some chancery case. Or
it is a criminal case, and it is the widow's only son that Leland is
defending. If you had been in his office for the last week, you
would have acknowledged that he has studied the case, has prepared
himself on it as thoroughly as a man can. He is an ambitious man. He
intensely desires to make for himself a fortune and a position. His
address to the judge, or to the jury, as the case may be, is a good
one. Yet, somehow, he does not convince. He himself is carried away
by his own earnestness, but he does not carry away with him his
hearers. His remarks are interesting. People listen to him from
first to last closely. Yet his arguing does not, somehow, convince.
His pathos does not, somehow, melt. He is the sort of man that
people think of for the Legislature. No man ever thinks of him in
connexion with the Supreme Bench or Senate.

Wherein lies the defect? Arthur Leland is well read, a gentleman of
spotless character, of earnest application, of popular manners. Why
is not this man a man of more weight, power, standing? Why, you
answer, the man is just what he is. He fills just the position up to
which his force of mind raises him. Did he have more talent, he
would be more. No, sir. Every acquaintance he has known, he himself
knows, that he is capable of being much more than he is--somehow,
somehow he does not attain to it! It is this singular impression
Leland makes upon you. It is this singular, uneasy, unsatisfied
feeling he himself is preyed upon by. "He might be, but he is not,"
say his neighbours. "I am not, yet I might be," worries him as an
incessant and eternal truth.

It broke upon him like a revelation.

He was at work one fine morning in his garden, in a square in which
young watermelon plants of a choice kind were just springing. Willie
was there with him, just emerged fresh for fun from the waters of
sleep. Very anxious to be as near as possible to his father, who was
always his only playmate, Willie had strayed from the walk in which
his father had seated him, and stood beside his father. With a
quick, passionate motion, Leland seized his child, and placed him
violently back in the walk, with a harsh threat. The child whimpered
for a while, and soon forgetting himself, came to his father again
over the tender plants. This time Leland seized him still more
violently, seated him roughly in the walk, and, with harsh threats,
struck him upon his plump red cheek. Willie burst into tears, and
wept in passion. His father was in a miserable, uneasy frame of
mind. He ceased his work, bared his brow to the delicious morning
air. He leaned upon his hoe, and gazed upon his child. He felt there
was something wrong. He always knew, and acknowledged, that he was
of a rash, irritable disposition. He now remembered that ever since
his child's birth he had been exceedingly impatient with it. He
remembered how harshly he had spoken to it, how rudely he had tossed
it on his knee when it awoke him with its crying at night. He
remembered that the little one had been daily with him for now three
years, and that not a day had passed in which he had not spoken
loudly, fiercely to the child.

Yes, he remembered the heavy blows he had given it in bursts of
passion, blows deeply regretted the instant after, yet repeated on
the first temptation. He thought of it all; that his boy was but a
little child, and that he had spoken to it, and expected from it, as
if it were grown. All his passionate, cruel words and blows rushed
upon his memory; his rough replies to childish questions; his
unmanly anger at childish offences. He thought, too, how the little
boy had still followed him, because its father was all on earth to
him; how the little thing had said, he "was sorry," and had offered
a kiss even after some bitter word or blow altogether undeserved.
Leland remembered, too, as the morning air blew aside his hair, how
often he had shown the same miserable, nervous irritability to his
dog, his horse, his servants; even the branch of the tree that
struck him as he walked; yea, even to his own wife. He remembered
how the same black, unhappy feelings had clouded his brow, had burst
from his lips at every little domestic annoyance that had happened.
He could not but remember how it had only made matters worse--had
made himself and his family wretched for the time. He felt how
undignified, how unmanly all this was. He pictured himself before
his own eyes as a peevish, uneasy, irritable, unhappy man--so
weak-minded!

He glanced at the house; he knew his wife was in it, engaged in her
morning duties; gentle, lady-like, loving him so dearly. He glanced
at his sobbing child, and saw how healthful and intelligent he was.
He glanced over his garden, and orchard, and lawn, and saw how
pleasant was his home. He thought of his circle of friends, his
position in business, his own education and health. He saw how much
he had to make him happy; and all jarred and marred, and cursed by
his miserable fits of irritation; the fever, the plague increasing
daily; becoming his nature, breathing the pestilent atmosphere of
hell over himself and all connected with him.

As he thus thought, his little boy again forgot himself, and strayed
with heedless feet toward his father. Leland dropped his hoe,
reached toward his child. The little fellow threw up his hands, and
writhed his body as if expecting a blow.

"Willie," said the father, in a low, gentle voice. Willie looked up
with half fright, half amazement. "Willie, boy," said the father in
a new tone, which had never passed his lips before, and he felt the
deep, calm power of his own words. "Willie, boy, don't walk on pa's
plants. Go back, and stay there till pa is done."

The child turned as by the irresistible power of the slow-spoken,
gentle words, and walked back and resumed his seat, evidently not
intending to transgress again.

As Leland stood with the words dying on his lips, and his hand
extended, a sudden and singular idea struck him. He felt that he had
just said the most impressive and eloquent thing he had ever said in
his life! He felt that there was a power in his tone and manner
which he had never used before; a power which would affect a judge
or a jury, as it had affected Willie. The curse cursed here too! It
was that hasty, nervous disposition, which gave manner and tone to
his very public speaking; which made his arguments unconvincing, his
pathos unaffecting. It was just that calm, deep, serene feeling and
manner, which was needed at the bar as well as with Willie. Arguing
with that feeling and manner, he felt, would convince irresistibly.
Pleading with that quiet, gentle spirit, he felt would melt, would
affect the hearts as with the very emotion of tears.

Unless you catch the idea, there is no describing it, reader. Leland
was a Christian. All that day he thought upon the whole matter. That
night in the privacy of his office he knelt and repeated the whole
matter before God. For his boy's sake, for his wife's sake, for his
own sake, for his usefulness' sake at the bar, he implored steady
aid to overcome the deadly, besetting sin. He pleaded that,
indulging in that disposition, he was alienating from himself his
boy and his wife; yea, that he was alienating his own better self
from himself, for he was losing his own self-respect. And here his
voice sank from a murmur into silence; he remembered that he was
thus alienating from his bosom and his side--God!

And then he remembered that just such a daily disposition as he
lacked was exactly that disposition which characterized God when God
became man. The excellence of such a disposition rose serenely
before him, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ; the young lawyer
fell forward on his face and wept in the agony of his desire and his
prayer.

From that sweet spring morning was Arthur Leland another man; a
wiser, abler, more successful man in every sense. Not all at once;
steadily, undoubtedly advanced the change. The wife saw and felt,
and rejoiced in it. Willie felt it, and was restrained by it every
drop of his merry blood; the household felt it, as a ship does an
even wind; and sailed on over smooth seas constrained by it. You saw
the change in the man's very gait and bearing and conversation.
Judge and jury felt it. It was the ceasing of a fever in the frame
of a strong man; and Leland went about easily, naturally, the strong
man he was. The old, uneasy, self-harassing feeling was forgotten,
and an ease and grace of tone and manner succeeded. It was a higher
development of the father, the husband, the orator, the gentleman,
the Christian. Surely love is the fountain of patience and peace.
Surely it is the absence of passion which makes angels to be the
beings they are.

Men can become very nearly angels or devils, even before they have
left the world.




THE SCARLET POPPY.


ONE warm morning in June, just as the sun returned from his long but
rapid journey to the distant east, and sailed majestically up
through the clear blue sky, the many bright flowers of one of the
prettiest little parterres in the world, who had opened their
eyes--those bright flowers--to smile at the sunbeams which came to
kiss away the tears night had shed over them, were very much
surprised, and not a little offended to find in their very midst an
individual who, though most of them knew her, one might have
supposed, from their appearance, was a perfect stranger to them all.

The parterre, I have said, was small, for it was in the very heart
of a great city, where land would bring almost any price; but the
gentleman and lady who lived in the noble mansion which fronted it,
would not, for the highest price which might have been offered them,
have had those sweet flowers torn up, and a brick pile reared in the
place--their only child, the dear little Carie, loved the garden so
dearly, and spent so much of her time there.

Oh, it was a sweet little place, though it was in the midst of a
great city where the air was full of dust and coal smoke; for the
fountain which played in the garden kept the atmosphere pure and
cool, and every day the gardener showered all the plants so that
their leaves were green and fresh as though they were blooming far
away in their native woods and dells. There were sweet roses of
every hue, from the pure Alba to the dark Damascus; and pinks, some
of the most spicy odour, some almost scentless, but all so beautiful
and so nicely trimmed. The changeless amaranth was there, the pale,
sweet-scented heliotrope, always looking towards the sun; the pure
lily; and the blue violet, which, though it had been taught to bloom
far away from the mossy bed where it had first opened its meek eye
to the light, had not yet forgotten its gentleness and modesty; and
not far from them were the fickle hydrangea, the cardinal flower
with its rich, showy petals, and the proud, vain, and ostentatious,
but beautiful crimson and white peonias. The dahlias had yet put
forth but very few blossoms, but they were elegant, and the swelling
buds promised that ere long there would be a rich display of
brilliant colours. Honeysuckles, the bright-hued and fragrant, the
white jasmine, and many other climbing plants, were latticing the
little arbour beside the clear fountain, half hiding their
jewel-like pensile blossoms and bright red berries among the smooth
green leaves which clustered so closely together as to shut out
completely the hot sun from the little gay-plumaged and sweet-voiced
songsters whose gilt cage hung within the bower. But I cannot speak
of the flowers, there were so many of them, and they were all so
beautiful and so sweet-scented.

Well, this June morning, as I was saying, when the flowers, as they
were waked from their sleep by the sunbeams which came to kiss away
the tears night had shed over them, opened their eyes and looked
about them, they were surprised and offended to see a stranger in
their company.

There had been, through all the season, some little rivalries and
jealousies among the flowers; but from the glances which they turned
on each other, this morning, it was evident that their feelings
towards the stranger were exactly alike. However, as might be
expected from their different dispositions, they expressed their
dislike and contempt for her in different ways; but at first all
hesitated to address her, for no one seemed to find language strong
enough to express the scorn they felt for her; until the balsam, who
never could keep silent long, inquired of the stranger, in a very
impatient tone, what was her name, and how she came there.

The poor thing hesitated an instant, and her face grew very red; she
must have known that her presence in that company was very much
undesired, and when she spoke, it was in a low and embarrassed tone.

"My name is Papaver, and--"

But the Marygold laughed aloud. "Papaver!" she repeated in her most
scornful tone; "she is nothing more nor less than a Poppy--a great
offensive Poppy, whose breath fairly makes me sick. Long ago,
when--"

But here the Marygold stopped short, it would not do, to confess to
her genteel friends, that she had formerly been acquainted with the
disreputable stranger. They did not heed her embarrassment, however,
for every one, now that the silence was broken, was anxious to
speak; all but the Mimosa, who could not utter a word, for she had
fainted quite away--the red Rose who was very diffident, and the
Dahlia who was too dignified to meddle with such trifling affairs.

"You great, red-faced thing!" said the Carnation, "how came you here
in your ragged dress? Do you know what kind of company you are in?
Who first saw her here?"

"I saw her," said the Morning Glory, who usually waked quite early,
"I saw her before she had got her eyes open; and what do you suppose
she had on her head? Why a little green cap which she has just
pulled off and thrown away. There it lies on the ground now. Only
look at it! no wonder she was ashamed of it. Can you think what she
wore it for?"

"Why, yes!" said the Ladies' Slipper. "She is so handsome and so
delicate that she was fearful the early hours might injure her
health and destroy her charms!"

"No, no!" interrupted another; "she was afraid the morning breeze
might steal away her sweet breath!"

"You had better gather up your sweet leaves, and put on your cap
again," said the London Pride. "I see a golden-winged butterfly in
Calla's cup; your spicy breath will soon bring him here to drink of
your nectar!"

The most of the flowers laughed, but the Carnation still called
out--"How came she here?"

The Amaranth, however, who never slept a wink through the whole
night, would not answer the question, though the flowers were
certain that she could, were she so inclined.

"I do not see how you who are in her immediate neighbourhood, can
breathe!" said the Syringa, who was farthest removed from the poor
Poppy.

"I do feel as if I should faint!" said the Verbena.

"And I feel a cold chill creeping over me!" said the Ice Plant.

"That is not strange!" remarked the Nightshade, who had sprung up in
the shadow of the hedge, "she carries with her, everywhere she goes,
the atmosphere of the place whence she comes. Do you know where that
is?"

Some of the flowers shuddered, but the Nightshade went on:--

"The Poppy is indigenous now only on the verdureless banks of the
Styx. When Proserpine, who was gathering flowers, was carried away
to the dark Avernus, all the other blossoms which she had woven in
her garland withered and died, but the Poppy; and that the goddess
planted in the land of darkness and gloom, and called it the flower
of Death. She flourishes there in great luxuriance; Nox and Somnus
make her bed their couch. The aching head, which is bound with a
garland of her blossoms, ceases to throb; the agonized soul which
drinks in her deep breath, wakes no more to sorrow. Death follows
wherever she comes!"

"We will not talk of such gloomy things!" said the Coreopsis, with
difficulty preserving her cheerfulness.

But the other plants were silent and dejected; all but the Amaranth,
who knew herself gifted with immortality, and the Box, who was very
stoical. But another trial awaited the poor Poppy.

The Nightshade had hardly ceased speaking, when soft, gentle human
voices were heard in the garden, and a child of three summers, with
rosy cheeks, deep blue eyes, and flowing, golden hair, came bounding
down the gravelled walks, followed by a fair lady. The child had
come to bid good morning to her flowers and birds, and as she
carolled to the latter, and paused now and then to inhale the breath
of some fragrant blossom, and examine the elegant form and rich and
varied tints of another, the little songsters sang more loudly and
cheerily; and the flowers, it seemed, became more sweet and
beautiful.

The Poppy, who was as ignorant as was any one else how she had found
her way into the garden, now began to reason with herself.

"Some one must have planted me here," she said; "and though I am not
as sweet as that proud Carnation, nor so elegant as that dignified
Dahlia, I may have as much right to remain here as they!" and she
raised her head erect, and spread out her broad, scarlet petals,
with their deep, ragged fringe, hoping to attract the notice of the
little girl.

And so indeed she did; for as the child paused before pale
sweet-scented Verbena, the flaunting Poppy caught her eye, and she
extended her hand toward the strange blossom.

"Carie, Carie, don't touch that vile thing!" said her mother, "it is
poisonous. The smell of it will make you sick. I do not see how it
came here. John must bring his spade and take it up. We will have
nothing in the garden but what is beautiful or sweet, and this is
neither!"

The poor Poppy! She had begun to love the little girl, the child had
smiled on her so sweetly, and the other flowers had seemed so
envious when that little white hand was stretched out towards her;
and when she drew back, at her Mother's call, reluctantly, but with
look of surprise and aversion, the Poppy did not care how soon she
was banished from a place where she had been treated so unjustly.

However, she was suffered to remain; whether the lady neglected
giving instructions to the gardener respecting her, or whether he
forgot her commands, I am not sure; but there she remained, day
after day, striving every morning to wake up early and pull off her
little green cap before the other flowers had opened their eyes, but
never succeeding in so doing.

It was no enviable position that she occupied, laughed at, despised,
and scorned by all the other flowers in the garden, and in hourly
expectation of being torn up by the roots and thrown into the
street--the poor Poppy!

One day when the lady and her Carie were walking in the garden, the
little girl, who had looked rather pale, put her hands suddenly to
her head, and cried aloud. Her mother was very much frightened. She
caught up the little girl in her arms, and tried to ascertain what
was the matter; but the child only pressed her hands more tightly to
her head, and cried more piteously. The lady carried her into the
house, and the family were soon all in an uproar. The servants were
all running hither and thither; no one seemed to know what was the
matter; for the lady had fainted from terror at her child's pale
face and agonized cries, and the little girl could tell nothing.

"It is that odious Poppy who is the cause of all this!" said the
flowers one to another (little Carie was indeed playing in her
immediate vicinity when she was seized with that dreadful distress),
"she has poisoned her." And their suspicions were confirmed when one
of the servants came running into the garden, and seizing hold of
the Poppy, stripped off every one of her bright scarlet petals, and
gathering them up, returned quickly to the house.

"You poor thing!" said the Elder, as the Poppy, so rudely handled,
bent down her dishonoured head to the ground; but not one of the
other flowers addressed to her a single word.

Through the long day she lay there--the Poppy--on the earth, trying
to forget what had happened; for she did not know but their words
were true, and she was the cause of the little girl's suffering--she
would so gladly have soothed her pain. The other flowers thought she
was dead, and the Poppy herself believed that she should never see
the light of another morning; but just before the day was gone, the
lady walked again into the garden accompanied by her husband;
and--what do you suppose the other flowers thought?--without
noticing one of them, the lady walked directly to the Poppy, lifted
her head from the ground, and leaned it against the frame which
supported the proud Carnation, and then, with her white hands,
replaced the loosened earth about her half uptorn roots.

"Oh, I hope it will not die!" she said to her husband, "I should
rather lose anything else in the garden, for I don't know but it
saved dear little Carie's life! She had a dreadful headache, and
nothing afforded her the least relief, till we bruised the leaves of
the Poppy, and bound them on her temples, and then she became quiet,
and fell into a gentle sleep. Oh, I hope it will live!"

Don't you think the Poppy did live, and was proud and happy enough?
Do you think she was ever afterwards ashamed of her little green
cap, or her ragged scarlet leaves? And do you think the other
flowers ever laughed at her again, or were ashamed of her
acquaintance?

When the summer had passed away, and the bright blossoms one by one
withered and died before the autumn's cool breath, the Poppy
cheerfully scattered her little seeds on the earth, and laid herself
down to die; for she knew that when another spring should come, and
her children should shoot up from the ground, they would be nurtured
as tenderly, and prized as highly as those of the sweeter and far
more beautiful flowers.




NUMBER TWELVE.


WHEN I was a young man, working at my trade as a mason, I met with a
severe injury by falling from a scaffolding placed at a height of
forty feet from the ground. There I remained, stunned and bleeding,
on the rubbish, until my companions, by attempting to remove me,
restored me to consciousness. I felt as if the ground on which I was
lying formed a part of myself; that I could not be lifted from it
without being torn asunder; and, with the most piercing cries, I
entreated my well-meaning assistants to leave me alone to die. They
desisted for the moment, one running for the doctor, another for a
litter, others surrounding me with pitying gaze; but amidst my
increasing sense of suffering, the conviction began to dawn upon my
mind, that the injuries were not mortal; and so, by the time the
doctor and the litter arrived, I resigned myself to their aid, and
allowed myself, without further objection, to be carried to the
hospital.

There I remained for more than three months, gradually recovering
from my bodily injuries, but devoured with an impatience at my
condition, and the slowness of my cure, which effectually retarded
it. I felt all the restlessness and anxiety of a labourer suddenly
thrown out of employment difficult enough to procure, knowing that
there were scores of others ready to step into my place; that the
job was going on, and that, ten chances to one, I should never set
my foot on that scaffolding again. The visiting surgeon vainly
warned me against the indulgence of such passionate regrets--vainly
inculcated the opposite feeling of gratitude demanded by my escape;
all in vain. I tossed on my fevered bed, murmured at the slowness of
his remedies, and might have thus rendered them altogether
ineffectual, had not a sudden change been effected in my disposition
by another, at first unwelcome, addition to our patients. He was
placed in the same ward with me, and insensibly I found my
impatience rebuked, my repinings hushed for very shame, in the
presence of his meek resignation to far greater privations and
sufferings. Fresh courage sprang from his example, and soon, thanks
to my involuntary physician, I was in a fair road to recovery.

And he who had worked the charm, what was he? A poor, helpless old
man, utterly deformed by suffering, his very name unnoticed, or at
least never spoken in the place where he now was; he went only by
the appellation of No. 12--the number of his bed, which was next to
my own. This bed had already been his refuge during three long and
trying illnesses, and had at last become a sort of property for the
poor fellow in the eyes of doctors, students, nurse-tenders, in
fact, the whole hospital staff. Never did a gentler creature walk on
God's earth; walk--alas! for him the word was but an old memory.
Many years before he had totally lost the use of his legs; but, to
use his own expression, "this misfortune did not upset him;" he
still retained the power of earning his livelihood, which he derived
from copying deeds for a lawyer at so much per sheet; and if the
legs were no longer a support, the hands worked at the stamped
parchments as diligently as ever. But some months passed by, and
then the paralysis attacked his right arm; still undaunted, he
taught himself to write with the left; but hardly had the brave
heart and hand conquered the difficulty, when the enemy crept on,
and disabling this second ally, no more remained for him than to be
conveyed once more, though this time as a last resource, to the
hospital. There he had the gratification to find his former quarters
vacant, and he took possession of his old familiar bed with a
satisfaction that seemed to obliterate all regret at being obliged
to occupy it again. His first grateful accents smote almost
reproachfully on my ear: "Misfortune must have its turn, but _every
day has a tomorrow!_"

It was indeed a lesson to witness the gratitude of this excellent
creature. The hospital, so dreary a sojourn to most of its inmates,
was a scene of enjoyment to him; everything pleased him; and the
poor fellow's admiration of even the most trifling conveniences
proved how severe must have been his privations. He never wearied of
praising the neatness of the linen, the whiteness of the bread, the
quality of the food; and my surprise gave place to the truest pity,
when I learned that, for the last twenty years, this respectable old
man could only afford himself, out of the profits of his persevering
industry, the coarsest bread, diversified with white cheese, or
vegetable porridge; and yet, instead of reverting to his privations
in the language of complaint, he converted them into a fund of
gratitude, and made the generosity of the nation, which had provided
such a retreat for the suffering poor, his continual theme. Nor did
his thankful spirit confine itself to this. To listen to him, you
would have believed him an especial object of divine as well as
human benevolence--all things working for his good. The doctor used
to say that No. 12 had a "mania for happiness;" but it was a mania,
that, in creating esteem for its victim, infused fresh courage into
all that came within its range.

I think I still see him seated on the side of his bed, with his
little black silk cap, his spectacles and the well-worn volume,
which he never ceased perusing. Every morning, the first rays of the
sun rested on his bed, always to him a fresh subject of rejoicing
and thankfulness to God. To witness his gratitude, one might suppose
that the sun was rising for him alone. I need hardly say, that he
soon interested himself in my cure, and regularly made inquiry
respecting its progress. He always found something cheering to
say--something to inspire patience and hope, himself a living
commentary on his words. When I looked at this poor motionless
figure, those distorted limbs, and, crowning all, that smiling
countenance, I had not courage to be angry, or even to complain. At
each painful crisis, he would exclaim: "One minute, and it will be
over. Relief will soon follow. _Every day has its to-morrow!_"

I had one good and true friend--a fellow-workman, who used sometimes
to spare an hour to visit me, and he took great delight in
cultivating an acquaintance with No. 12. As if attracted by a
kindred spirit, he never passed his bed without pausing to offer his
cordial salutation; and then he would whisper to me: "He is a saint
on earth; and not content with gaining Paradise himself, must win it
for others also. Such people should have monuments erected to them,
known and read of all men. In observing such a character, we feel
ashamed of our own happiness--we feel how comparatively little we
deserve it. Is there anything I can do to prove my regard for this
good, poor No. 12?"

"Just try among the bookstalls," I replied, "and find the second
volume of that book you see him reading. It is now more than six
years since he lost it, and ever since he has been obliged to
content himself with the first."

Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of
literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of
printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness
and conceit; and as to writing--in his opinion a man was never
thoroughly committed until he had recorded his sentiments in black
and white for the inspection of his neighbours. His own success in
life, which had been tolerable, thanks to his industry and
integrity, he attributed altogether to his ignorance of those
dangerous arts; and now a cloud swept across his lately beaming face
as he exclaimed, "What! the good creature is a lover of books? Well,
we must admit that even the best have their failings. No matter.
Write down the name of this odd volume on a slip of paper; and it
shall go hard with me, but I give him that gratification."

He did actually return the following week with a well-worn volume,
which he presented in triumph to the old invalid. He looked somewhat
surprised as he opened it; but our friend proceeding to explain that
it was at my suggestion he had procured it in place of the lost one,
the old grateful expression at once beamed up in the eyes of No. 12,
and with a voice trembling with emotion, he thanked the hearty
giver.

I had my misgivings, however, and the moment our visiter turned his
back, I asked to see the book. My old neighbour reddened, stammered,
and tried to change the conversation; but, forced behind his last
entrenchments, he handed me the little volume. It was an old Royal
Almanac. The bookseller, taking advantage of his customer's
ignorance, had substituted it for the book he had demanded. I burst
into an immoderate fit of laughter; but No. 12 checked me with the
only impatient word I ever heard from his lips: "Do you wish our
friend to hear you? I would rather never recover the power of this
lost arm, than deprive his kind heart of the pleasure of his gift.
And what of it? Yesterday I did not care a straw for an almanac; but
in a little time it is perhaps the very book I should have desired.
_Every day has its to-morrow_. Besides, I assure you it is a very
improving study; even already I perceive the names of a crowd of
princes never mentioned in history, and of whom, up to this moment,
I have never heard any one speak."

And so the old almanac was carefully preserved beside the volume of
poetry it had been intended to match; and the old invalid never
failed to be seen turning over the leaves whenever our friend
happened to enter the room. As to him, he was quite proud of its
success, and would say to me at each time: "It appears I have made
him a famous present." And thus the two guileless natures were
content.

Towards the close of my sojourn in the hospital, the strength of
poor No. 12 diminished rapidly. At first, he lost the slight powers
of motion he had retained; then his speech became inarticulate; at
last, no part obeyed his will, except the eyes, which continued to
smile on us still. But one morning, at last, it seemed to me as if
his very glance had become dim. I arose hastily, and approaching his
bed, inquired if he wished for a drink; he made a slight movement of
his eyelids, as if to thank me, and at that instant the first ray of
the rising sun shone in on his bed. Then the eyes lighted up, like a
taper that flashes into brightness before it is extinguished--he
looked as if saluting this last gift of his Creator; and even as I
watched him for a moment, his head fell gently on the side, his
kindly heart ceased to beat. He had thrown off the burden of To-day;
he had entered on his eternal To-morrow.




TO AN ABSENTEE.


  O'ER hill and dale, and distant sea,
    Through all the miles that stretch between,
  My thought must fly to rest on thee,
    And would, though worlds should intervene.

  Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks,
    The farther we are forced apart,
  Affection's firm elastic links
    But bind thee closer round the heart.

  For now we sever each from each,
    I learn what I have lost in thee;
  Alas! that nothing less could teach
    How great, indeed, my love should be!

  Farewell! I did not know thy worth;
    But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized:
  So angels walked unknown on earth,
    But when they flew were recognised.




THE WHITE DOVE.


THE little Lina opened her eyes upon this world in the arms of her
father, the good Gotleib. He kissed the child with a holy joy:
"For," said he, "now is a thought of God fixed in an eternal form;"
and he felt that a Divine love flowed into this work of the great
God--this also thrilled his warm, manly heart with a wondrous love.
He felt the inmost of his being vibrating as with an electric touch,
to the inmost of the little new-born innocent. But the rapture of
the young father was altogether imperfect, until he had sealed his
lips in a love-kiss upon those of the fraulein Anna, who lay there
so white and beautiful in the new joy of a young mother. Like an
innocent maiden, she twined her arms around Gotleib's neck, and grew
strong in the influx of warm life that flowed into her responsive
cares of the husband of her heart. Then Gotleib held up the
newly-born Lina, and the mother's lips touched the soft cheek of the
tiny little one with a living rapture, as if all of Heaven were
embraced in this heart-possession.

And Gotleib knelt by the bedside, and thanked God for the beautiful
gift of love with a pious awe and holy joy--large tears stood in the
eyes of Anna. As he rose from his reverent posture, he kissed off
the bright tears even as the sun exhales dew-drops from a pure
flower, and said,

"Dost thou weep for joy, sweet one?"

And Anna said,

"Once--not long since--I had a dream--a beautiful dream--that this
day has been realized. I dreamed that I was in a quite heavenly
place--yet the place was as nothing--it was the _state_--for I sat
with an infant in my arms--a bright innocent little one--and, thou,
dearest Gotleib, knelt beside me; and an angel-woman stood near us,
in a soft heavenly glory, and said, in low musical,
spirit-words--'Behold the fruit of the union of good and truth.' And
then, methought, thou didst embrace me with a new joy of love, and
whispered, 'an angel of God is born of us.' This little one is the
dream-child, dear Gotleib."

Thus beautiful was the birth of the little Lina, who grew, daily, in
a pure innocent loveliness. While she is expanding in the first days
of her new, breathing, sensitive life, we will go back to the former
life of Gotleib and Anna.

Gotleib Von Arnheim had first seen the light in this same small
cottage, on the confines of the Black Forest of Germany. He was born
with a large, loving heart. But the father and mother, and the dear
God, were the only beings on whom his affections were fixed; for his
sensitive nature shrank from the contact of the honest-hearted, but
rough peasant neighbours, that made the little world of their simple
life. But soon death came, and the good father left the earth for
the beautiful Heaven-world. The little Gotleib missed his kind
father; but his mother told him of the bright inner life, and how
his father yet lived and loved him; and the heart of the boy was
comforted: he felt a sense of elevation in having his father, whom
he had known so familiarly here upon earth, now the companion of
angels, and living in such a bright and beautiful world.

Ah, life had to him such an inner beauty; and, when still, dreamy
moments of leisure intervened between his work and play, he revelled
in such dreams of fancy, as lent light and life and joy to his whole
being. But the death of the kind father had not only carried the
boy's fancy to the other world; it was also drawing the mother's
heart away to the fair spirit-land. Gotleib saw his mother's face
growing thin and pale; he knew that she was weak--for oftentimes, in
the long winter evenings, as he read to her from the holy word of
God, her hand would drop wearily with the raised spindle, and she,
who was never before idle, would fold her hands in a quiet, meek
resignation. At such times a tremour would seize the boy's heart.
The mother saw it; and, one night, when his fixed tender gaze rested
on her, she raised her spiritual eyes to his, and said,

"Dear Gotleib! thou wilt yet have the good God to love."

"Ah, mother! mother!" cried the boy, "wilt thou, too, leave me?"

His head was bowed upon her knees in bitter grief, the desolation of
earth was spread like an impenetrable pall over his whole future.
Suddenly he looked up, full of a strange, bright hope, and said,

"Mother, I too may die."

Then the mother put off her weakness, and long and loving was the
talk she held with her dear boy. She told him that from a little one
he had ever loved God; that the first word he had ever pronounced
was the name of the Holy One. She had taught him to clasp his tiny
baby hands and look up and say "God," ere any other word had passed
his lips. She had named him Gotleib, because he was the love of God
to her, and he was to be a lover of God. As she talked, the boy grew
strong and calm, and said,

"Yet, oh, my mother! God is so great for the heart of a small child.
God is so high and lifted up in the far heavens, that I feel myself
but as a tiny blade of grass that looks up to the far sun--dear
mother! the earth will be too lonely; ah, there is no hope but in
death."

"No, my son," said the mother, "there is a beautiful hope for the
earth also. I will tell you what will make you love God more truly
than ever."

The boy was fixed attention.

"Thou didst not know, dear Gotleib, that when God created thee a
strong, brave boy, He also created a tender, gentle little maiden,
like unto thee in all things, save thou wert a boy and she a maiden.
Thou wert strong and able to work, and she gentle and born to love
thee."

"Where is she?" inquired the excited Gotleib.

"I know not," replied the mother. "But God knows, and He will watch
over the two whom He has created, the one for the other; and, on
earth, or in heaven, the two will meet. Is it not better, then, not
to wish to die, but to leave all things to the will of God? For what
if thy little maiden is left alone upon the earth, and there is no
strong, manly heart upon which she may lean, and no vigorous arm to
labour for her, how will her spirit droop with a weary, lonely
sadness? No, my son, live! and the joy of a most beautiful, loving
companionship, may yet be thine. The earth will not be desolate ever
to thy orphan heart, with this beautiful hope before thee."

Thus, in the cold wintry night of a dark sorrow, did the good mother
plant a living seed of truth, that afterwards sprang up into a
vernal flowery Eden, that bloomed in the boy's heart with an eternal
beauty.

When the early spring came, Gotleib looked calmly and lovingly on
the beloved mother, who was leaving for the inner world. Death was
beautiful to him now; it was simply the new birthtime of a mature,
living soul.

The spirit of the mother's love seemed to linger over the home of
his childhood, and it was a great sorrow to leave the cherished
spot; but, his mother told him he was to seek a brother of hers in
the distant town of Heidelberg. As Gotleib turned from the now
voiceless home of his parents, a fervent desire arose in his heart
that he might again be permitted to dwell beneath this sheltering
roof and amidst its living associations.

The boy went forth into the unknown world, with a living trust in
his heart in the great God. His was a simple, childish faith, born
of his love--to him God was not a mystery. It was a Divine
personality he loved. Jesus had walked the earth, and his father and
mother also--all were now spirits, none the less to be loved and
trusted than when upon earth; but now they were to him in
transcendent states of glory. The Lord Jesus, as being infinitely
great and glorious, was the alone One to whom he now looked for
help--though ever as he knelt to pray to GOD, he felt that his
angel-mother bowed with his spirit, and by her prompting beautiful
words of humiliation and praise came to him, that he himself could
never have thought of; hence the affections of his heart all grew up
into the inner spirit-world.

And years passed in the good town of Heidelberg, years that brought
blessings to the orphan boy as they flew. The God in whom he trusted
had provided for him--had awakened a friendly kindness in many warm
hearts. And Gotleib, who was at first designed by his relatives to
spend his days over the shoemaker's awl and last, at length found
himself, by his own ardent exertions and the helpful kindness of
others, a student in the University. This was to him a most pure
gratification--not because of a love of learning, not because of
ambition, to attain a position before his fellow-men. Oh! it was
quite otherwise with the good youth--he had one object in life. The
hope that his dying mother had awakened in his heart was the guiding
star of all his efforts. That little maiden created for him, and to
be supported by him! The image was ever before him. Yes, he was a
student for a high and noble use. Science was to be to him the
instrument of a life of love and blessedness. To do good to others,
and thus to provide for the maiden, was what led him to the arduous
study of medicine.

It mattered not that cold and hunger and toil all bound him in an
earthly coil. The warm, hopeful heart has a wonderful endurance. The
delicate, attenuated form of the young student seemed barely
sufficient to hold the bright and glowing spirit that looked out
from his soft eyes, when he received his degrees. The desire of his
life was growing into a fruition; and when he returned to his poor
lodgings, a sense of freedom, of gratitude, and of delight, crowned
his yet barren life. To work! to work! seemed now the one call of
his being; but, whither was he to go? There was the childhood's
home, to which his heart instinctively turned; but, alone and
desolate, he could not dwell there. Gotleib had not forgotten his
mother's lessons; he knelt and prayed to God for guidance. Even as
he kneels, and feels his spirit in the sunshine of God's presence,
there is a knock at the door, and the good Professor Eberhard
enters. He has marked the student in his poverty and toil, and feels
that he will now hold out a helping hand to the young beginner. As
professor of anatomy, he needs the quick eye and delicate hand of an
expert assistant.

Gotleib looked upon the Herr professor as Heaven-sent, and in a few
days was installed in all the luxury of a life of active use.

Years passed away, and (sic) Gotlieb Von Arnheim sighed with a man's
full heart for a woman's sympathy and responsive affection. He had
seen bright eyes gleam and soft cheeks flush at his approach, and he
had looked wonderingly into many a sweet face. But he had not yet
seen the little maiden of whom his mother spoke--who was to be the
reflex of himself. All these German maidens were altogether
different from--and his heart remained unsatisfied in their
presence. He felt no visions of eternity as he looked into their
friendly faces.

Sometimes hope almost died out. But his trust in God seemed to
forbid the death of this sweet hope. Often he said, "the good God
would not have created this intense desire in one so wholly
dependent upon Him, were he not intending to satisfy it." At all
events, he thought--"If the maiden is not upon earth, she is in
heaven." So he worked and waited patiently.

The wintry winds were howling, as it were, a wild requiem over the
lordly ruins of the crime-stained castle of Heidelberg. Cold, and
bitter, and clear was the starry night, when the weary Gotleib
issued out of the Herr professor's warm house to answer the late
call of a sick woman. Gotleib looked up into those illimitable
depths where earths and suns hang suspended, to appeal to the
material perceptions of man that this is not the alone world--the
alone existence. The silent bright stars comforted the earth-wearied
heart in which the day's toil had dimmed the spirit's perception.
Gotleib stepped on bravely through the frosty darkness, and said
hopefully to himself,

"There is yet another world--another life than this."

And now he stood before the house in which his services were needed.
He entered a chamber, whose bare poverty reminded him of his student
days. But far sadder was cold poverty here, for a lady lay on a hard
couch before the scantily furnished grate, and her hollow cough, and
the oozing blood that saturated her white handkerchief, rendered all
words unnecessary.

A young girl, with blanched cheek and tearless eye of agony, knelt
by the wan sufferer. Gotleib felt himself in the sphere of his
life's use; cold and fatigue were alike gone. The sick and almost
dying woman seemed to revive under his touch--it was as if strength
flowed from the physician into the patient. His very presence
diffused an air of hope and comfort through the desolate apartment,
and the kind serving-girl, Bettina, who had guided him to the humble
lodging, seconded all his active efforts to produce warmth and
comfort, and soon returned with one of his prescriptions--an
abundance of fuel for the almost exhausted grate. The cheerful blaze
threw its strong light upon the young girl, who at first knelt in
hopeless grief beside her dying mother.

What was it that thrilled the heart of Gotleib, as he looked upon
this young maiden? Was it her beauty? No! he had seen others more
beautiful. Was it her sorrow? No! he had seen others quite as sad.
But, whatever it was, Gotleib felt he had met his destiny; the
fulness of his being was developed to him; and, all unconsciously,
the maiden turned to him as the Providence of God to her. She seemed
to rest her troubled heart upon his strong understanding. He said
her mother would not die immediately, and she grew calm.

It was very late that night when Gotleib retired; and very fervent
were the prayers that arose from his heart before he slept. He felt
a sense of gratitude for the uses he was permitted to perform to his
fellow beings, and, in his prayers, he felt that light shone from
the Divine sun upon that sorrowing maiden, and it was as if she
knelt by his side, and his strong spirit-arms upheld her in the
sunshine of God's love.

When the morning came, Gotleib awakened with a delicious sense of
enjoyment in life--with a looking forth into the events of the day,
that he had never before experienced. He hastened through his
morning duties with an elasticity of spirit and hope that was
altogether new to him. Though, as yet, his feeling was not defined
into a thought, it was a faint perception, a dim consciousness that
the elective affinities of his heart had all awakened. And while he
thought he was in an excessive anxiety to see after his feeble
patient, he was borne on rather by the attractions of his heart's
love. He paused in a thrilling excitement of hope and doubt before
the door of the poor chamber--he dreaded to have the agreeable
impressions of the last evening dissipated. But, when he knocked, a
light tread was heard; the door was gently opened, and the pale Anna
stood before him, with such a gentle grace, and so earnest a look of
gratified expectation, that, as she said in subdued tones,

"I hoped it was you," his heart bounded with exultation, to think
that the young girl had him in her thoughts. But, as he approached
the sick bed, his reason told him what was more natural than her
wishing for the arrival of her mother's physician.

A careful glance, by daylight, around the humble apartment, revealed
to Gotleib that Anna worked with her delicate, white, lady-looking
hands, for the support of her dying mother. A table, placed by the
window, was covered with artificial flowers of exquisite
workmanship, and, while he yet lingered in the chamber, Bettina, the
maid, entered from the street door, with a basket filled with the
same flowers--looked at Anna, and shook her head mournfully. The
young girl's lips quivered, and she pressed the tears back when she
saw no purchaser had been found for her labour. Gotleib saw and felt
with the most intense sympathy all that was passing. He lingered yet
longer--he made encouraging remarks to the sick mother, and, at
length, ventured to approach the table, and gazed with admiration on
the beautiful flowers, while his brain was busy in devising how he
was to make them the medium of conveying aid to the suffering mother
and daughter. He turned to the faithful Bettina, who clung to those
whom she served in their hard poverty--he told her that if she would
follow him he would find a purchaser for the pretty flowers. Anna
cast upon him a look of tearful smiling gratitude, and her simple,
"I thank you," as she held out her hand to him, bound him as with a
magnetic chain to her being. Bettina thought the Herr Doctor was a
most generous man, for he more than doubled the paltry sum she asked
for the flowers; though she did not consider it necessary to mention
the fact to Anna, she merely stated to her that she had found a
purchaser for as many flowers as she chose to make.

But Gotleib! what an Eden those flowers made of his chamber! with
what a joy he returned to it after hours of absence; it seemed as if
they brought him into contact with the sphere of a beloved
existence. He examined them with delight, and could not avoid
covering them with kisses. Never was patient visited or watched over
more attentively than was Madame Hendrickson; and, as the mother
revived, the daughter seemed to feel new life. Light beamed from her
soft eyes, and oftentimes Gotleib thought that the roses that
bloomed in her delicate face were far more beautiful and bright than
those that grew under her light and skilful touch.

For him she seemed to feel an earnest trustful gratitude. She never
concealed her glad recognition of his coming; she was too pure, and
innocent, and good, to think it necessary to conceal anything. And
Gotleib's visits were so pleasant, they grew longer and longer--for
he and Madame Hendrickson were of the same religious faith--and he
had a peculiar faculty for consoling her. Gotleib spoke of the other
world with such a definite perception of its existences and modes of
being, that the dying woman never wearied of listening to him. The
high and true faith of the good Gotleib opened to him a world of
beauty, which he poured forth in his earnest enthusiasm, more like a
gifted poet than a being of mere prose. Oftentimes, as he talked,
the light of his intelligence seemed to gleam back from the
answering eye of Anna, until his whole being was filled with
delight. While she felt that her hitherto dim and indistinct faith
was growing into form and fixedness, and her intellect awakened to a
sphere of ideas, to a world of perceptions, that endowed her all at
once with a charmed existence, and flooded her with the light of a
graceful beauty that made her appear to the admiring Gotleib like an
angelic spirit.

Thus were the spirit links being woven through the cold bright days
of winter. Madame Hendrickson was no longer confined to her bed; and
on the Sabbath days Anna could attend the public worship of God, of
whom, now, only she seemed truly to learn. It was to the Holy Supper
she went on that first solemn Sabbath day, after months of
confinement and sorrow. Oh! how blessed it was to listen to the
Divine Word, through which God seemed to her awakened perception to
shine, in a veiled beauty! and when she tasted the wine of spiritual
truth, flowing from the wisdom of the Divine One, and ate of the
bread of the celestial good of His love, Heaven seemed to open to
her receptive heart and mind--and, as her heart's prayers went up
with those of the shining angels round the throne of God, it was not
for herself that she prayed, but for him that had spoken living
truth to her virgin heart. Oh, the good child! In that holy moment
she rejoiced to reveal her heart's love to the Divine Father; she
knew that her love was born of her knowledge of God, and thus she
knew that it was blessed from above.

As she passed out of the church, she encountered the earnest glance
of surprised and delighted recognition from Gotleib. Very soon he
was at her side. In the fullness and stillness of her beautiful
thoughts and satisfied affections they walked on. Oh, how happy the
dear mother looked, when she saw the two enter her lonely chamber!
The heavenly light and warmth of love seemed to be within and around
them; and she saw that two beings so exactly created the one for the
other, could not but find an eternal happiness in each other.
Gotleib was truly in one of his genial, sunny moods; he seemed to
soar into worlds of light; his expanding heart was filling with the
glory of Heaven. The teachings of his childhood were all brought
forth; he talked of his beloved mother--now an angel of God--told of
the beautiful hope she awakened in his heart concerning the little
maiden created by God for him, when his heart shrunk in such pain
from the isolation her death would leave him in. Then he turned to
the blushing Anna, and said he thought the maiden was now found. She
lifted her love-lighted eyes to his--he clasped her hand and said
softly,

"Thou art mine!"

"I am thine," fell responsive from the maiden's lips; and an
infinite blessedness flowed into the loving, satisfied heart of
Gotleib.

The next day brought with it a new and beautiful joy,--a letter from
the beloved one, conveyed into his hand as he tenderly pressed hers,
at parting. For this his thirsty soul had yearned--for some
expression of the maiden's heart-love that had as yet gleamed upon
him but momentarily from her modest eyes. But alone in his chamber,
with the dear letter before him! Ah, now indeed he was to lift the
veil that hid his life's treasure. To have revealed to him the heart
and mind of the beloved one. And his whole being went forth to her
as he read the tender revealings. She wrote:

"Gotleib! my heart would fain speak to thine. It longs to say
gratefully, 'I love thee, thou heaven-sent one.' And I would tell
thee of a dream that came to me last night in my heart's beautiful
happiness.

"I was reading aloud to my mother in the book you lent me. I read of
how the angels ever have their faces turned to the Divine Sun. Of
how their shining brows are ever attracted to this central point, in
whatever position they may be--even as our feet are attracted to the
central point of the earth. I was happy in this beautiful truth, and
felt that through my love for thee, my thought was lifted upward,
and my face, too, was turned to the Lord; and when sleep came, it
seemed as if my happy spirit was conscious of a new and beautiful
existence. I found myself in a large place, and a company of angelic
spirits surrounded me; and we were seated at a table, adorned with
an exceeding elegance, and having many varieties of food, of which
we partook, but without a consciousness of taste--only there was a
genial delight of mind arising from the mutual love of all those
bright ones. An angel-woman spoke to me and said, 'This is the
Lord's Supper; appropriate to thyself the goods and truths of His
heavenly kingdom.' While she thus spoke, I saw thee, dear Gotleib,
approach, with such a smiling and beautiful grace, and thou saidst
to me, holding my hand--'Sweet one! how bright thou art! Hast thou
learnt some new truth! for thou art ever bright, when thou dost
perceive a new truth!' Then I answered, 'Ah, yes, indeed! I have
learned a beautiful new truth;' and I led thee to an east window and
pointed upward to the great Sun, that shone in such a Divine
effulgence--then I told thee how the angels were held by the
attraction of love in this centre of being--even as the children of
the world are held by the attraction of gravitation to the
earth--and as we talked, the light shone around thee, dear Gotleib!
with so heavenly a glory, that my heart was filled with a new love
for thee. For I saw, truly, that thou wert a child of God, and in
loving thee I loved Him who shone in such a radiant glory upon thee.
Oh! was not this a pleasant dream? Gotleib! what worlds of beauty
thou hast opened to me! Once my thought was so narrow, so bound down
to the earth; but thou hast lifted me above the earth. A woman's
heart is so weak--it is like a trailing vine, that cannot lift
itself up until its curling tendrils are wound round the lofty
tree-tops of a man's ascending thought. Gotleib, thus dost thou bear
me up into the serene, bright heavens, and like some blooming
flowery vine will my love ever seek to adorn thy noble thoughts."

Gotleib was charmed with the maiden's thoughts. Oh, yes--her flowers
were already flying over his highest branches. She soared above him,
and through her heavenly truths were growing clearer to him. How
grateful he was to his Heavenly Father, that from his own bosom, as
it were, was born his spirit's companion. But her life was from
God--and how holy was her whole being to him! She was enthroned in
his inmost heart, to be for ever treasured as the highest and best
gift of God.

It was evening when he next stood beside her. The mother slept, and
Anna and Gotleib stood in the moonlit window. Few, and softly
whispered, were his loving words to her. But she smiled in a oneness
of thought, when he said,

"In heaven, the sun shone upon us; upon earth the cold moonbeams
unite us; but the sunshine will soon come again."

Anna felt that her letter had made Gotleib very happy; and she bent
her head lovingly on his manly breast. Oh! to him, the desolate
forlorn one, how thrilling was the first caress of the maiden! His
lips touched her soft white brows with a delicious new joy. But
brow, eyes, cheeks, and lips, were soon covered with rapturous
kisses.

Ah! happy youth and maiden, thus bedewed with life's nectar of
blessedness! What are earth's sorrows to you? Heaven is in you, and
eternity only can satisfy the infinite desires of such hearts.

But as the days passed, the material body of the mother wasted away,
and her spirit was growing bright in its coming glory. She wished
much to see her beloved Anna in a holy marriage union before she
left this world. So a few weeks after the betrothal, Gotleib led his
bride to the marriage altar. It was a festive scene of the heart's
happiness even beside the bed of death. Madame Hendrickson felt that
she, too, was adorning for a beautiful bridal--and earthly care
being thus removed from her heart, she was altogether happy.

And the good, true-hearted Anna, in white bridal garments and virgin
innocence, looked to the loving mother and happy Gotleib like an
angel of God. Even the Professor Eberhard thought thus, and quite
certain it is, that the good minister spoke as if a heavenly
inspiration flowed into him, as he bound the two into an eternal
_oneness_ of being. "Little children!" said he, "love one another!
was the teaching of the great God, as he walked upon the earth.
Hence love is the holy of the holies. And it flows from God even as
heat flows from the material sun--and as the sun is in its own heat
and light, so God is in love."

And taking the marriage ring, he placed it on the soft, white,
rose-tipped finger of the bride, and said,

"How beautiful and expressive is this symbol of union, showing the
conjunction of good and truth, which conjunction first exists in the
Lord, for His love is the inmost, and His wisdom is like the golden
bond of truth encasing and protecting love. And this love of the
Lord flowing into man is received, protected, and guarded by woman's
truth, until, in her fitness and perfect adaptation to him, she
becomes the love of the wisdom of the man's love, and the twain are
no longer two, but one."

The fresh spring days were now coming--Madame Hendrickson went to an
eternal spring. But the heart of the loving Anna rose above the
earthly sorrow of separation, as if upheld by her husband's strong
faith; her imagination delighted itself in following the beloved
mother into her new and beautiful state of being.

Gotleib felt that now it was good for him to return to the home of
his childhood, for it was more delightful to live apart from the
strife and toil of men. In the simple country life much good might
be done, and yet there would be less of life's sorrow to look upon.
It was weary to live in a crowded haunt, where a perception of vice
and misery so mingled itself with the blessedness of his heart's
love. Anna was charmed and delighted with the pure country life, and
as business increased on the Herr Doctor's hands, it was so great a
happiness to her to minister to his comfort. After the long winter
rides, how she chafed his cold hands and warmed his frozen feet, and
how lovingly she helped him to the warm suppers of the good Bettina,
no homeless and desolate wanderer of earth can know. But to Gotleib,
what an inexpressible blessedness was all this; and how often he
left off to eat, that he might clasp Anna to his heart and cover her
with kisses! Thus went the blessed married life until another spring
brought with it the sweet "dream-child," as Anna called the little
one, whom the angel said, was "the fruit of the union of good and
truth."

The little Lina thus born into the very sphere of love, seemed ever
a living joy. The father's wisdom guided the mother's tender love,
and the little one was good and unselfish--and so gay in the
infantile innocence and grace of her being, that oftentimes the
young mother, leaning on the father's bosom, would whisper,

"Gotleib, she is indeed an angel of God."

One dark and wintry day, as the child thus sported in the inner glad
light and joy of her heart, and Gotleib and Anna as usual were
watching the light of her radiance, a beautiful White Dove flew
fluttering against the friendly window. The child grew still in her
wondrous joy. But the father quickly opened the window, and the
half-frozen bird flew in, and nestled itself in Anna's bosom. It was
fed and warmed and loved as bird never was before. For the little
one thought it was the spirit of God come down upon the house, and
Gotleib loved it because to him it was a living symbol of the peace
and purity of his married life, and Anna received it as a heavenly
gift for the loving child. Thus both literally and spiritually the
White Dove of innocence and peace dwelt in their midst.




HESTER.


  WHILE Hester lived, the day was bright
  With something more than common light--
  'Twas the moon's difference to the night.

  As summer sun and summer shower
  Revive the tree, the herb, and flower,
  Hers was the gift of warmth and power.

  She was not what the world calls wise;
  Yet, the mute language of her eyes
  Was worth a thousand homilies.

  She was so crystal pure a thing,
  That sin to her could no more cling
  Than water to a sea-bird's wing.

  Like memory-tones heard long ago,
  Her gentle voice was soft and low,
  But plaintive in its underflow.

  Her life so slowly loosed its springs,
  Long ere she passed from earthly things,
  We saw the budding of her wings.

  She lingered so in taking leave--
  Heaven granted us a long reprieve--
  That when she went we could not grieve.

  The very night that Hester died,
  There came and stood my couch beside,
  A gentle spirit glorified.

  And often in my darker mood,
  When evil thoughts subdue the good,
  I see her clasp the holy Rood.

  But when my better hopes illume
  The narrow pathway to the tomb,
  My Hester's presence fills the room.




THISTLE-DOWN.


THERE is no time like these clear September nights, after sunset,
for a revery. If it is a calm evening, and an intense light fills
the sky, and glorifies it, and you sit where you can see the new
moon, with the magnificent evening star beneath it, you must be a
stupid affair, indeed, if you cannot then dream the most _heavenly_
dreams!

But Rosalie Sherwood, poor young creature, is in no dreaming mood
this lovely Sabbath night. Her heart is crushed in such an utter
helplessness, as leaves no room in it for hope: her brain is too
acutely sensitive, just now, for visions. The thistle-down, in
beautiful fairy-like procession, floats on and up before her eyes,
and as she watches the frail things, they assume a new interest to
her; she feels a human sympathy with them. Like the viewless winds
they come, from whence she knows not; and go, whither? none can
tell. They are homeless, and she is like them; but she is not as
they, purposeless.

If you could look into her mind, you would see how she has nerved it
to a great determination; how that, mustering visions and hopes once
cherished, she had gone forward to a bleak and barren path, and
stands there very resolute, yet, in the first moment of her resolve,
miserable; no, she had not yet grown strong in the suffering; she
cannot _this_ night stand up and bear her burden with a smile of
triumph.

Rosalie Sherwood was an only child, the daughter of an humble friend
Mrs. Melville had known from girlhood. _She_, poor creature, had
neither lived nor died innocent.

On her death-bed, Cecily Sherwood gave her unrecognised child to the
care of one who promised, in the sincerity of her passion, to be a
mother to the unfortunate infant. And during the eighteen years of
that girl's life, from the hour of her mother's death to the day
when she was left without hope in the world, Rosalie _had_ found a
parent in the rigid but always kind and just Mary Melville.

This widow lady had one son; he was four years old when her husband
died, which was the very year that the little Rosalie was brought to
Melville House. The boy's father had been considered a man of great
wealth, but when his affairs were settled, after his decease, it was
found that the debts of the estate being paid, little more than a
competency remained for the widow. But the lady was fitted, by a
life of self-discipline, even in her luxurious home, to calmly meet
this emergency. With the remnant of an imagined fortune, she retired
to an humbler residence, where, in quiet retirement, she gave her
time to managing household affairs, and superintending the home
education of the children.

Her son Duncan, and the young Rosalie, had grown up together, until
the girl's twelfth birth-day, constant playmates and pupils in the
same school. No one, not even the busiest busy-body, had ever been
able to detect the slightest partiality in Mrs. Melville's treatment
of her children; and, indeed, it had been quite impossible that she
should ever regard a child so winningly beautiful as Rosalie, with
other than the tenderest affection. Under a light and careless rein,
the girl had been a difficult one to manage, for there was a light
little fire in her eyes, that told of strong will and deep passions;
and besides, her striking appearance had won sufficient admiration
to have completely spoiled her, if a guardian the most vigilant as
well as most discerning, had not been ever at hand to speak the
right word to and do the right thing with her.

Mrs. Melville was a thoroughly religious woman, and seriously
conscious of the responsibility she incurred in adopting the infant.
She could not quiet her conscience with the reflection that she had
done a wonderfully good thing in giving Rosalie a home and
education; the chief pity she felt for the unfortunate orphan, led
her to exercise an uncommon care, that all tendency to evil should
be eradicated from the heart of the brilliant girl while she was yet
young; that a sense of right, such as should prove abiding, might be
impressed on her tender mind. And her labour of love met with a
return which might well have made the mother proud.

There had been no officious voice to whisper to Rosalie Sherwood the
story of the doubtful position which she occupied in the world. She
was an orphan, the adopted child of the lady whom she devoutly loved
with all a daughter's tenderness; this she knew, and it was all she
knew; and Mrs. Melville was resolved that she should never know
more.

The son of the widow had been educated for the ministry. He was now
twenty-two years old, and was soon to be admitted to the priesthood.
In this he was following out his own wish, and the most cherished
hope of his mother, and it seemed to all who knew him, as though the
Head of the Church had set his seal upon Duncan from his boyhood. He
was so mild and forbearing, so discreet and generous, so earnest and
so honest; meek, and holy of heart, was the thought of any one who
looked upon his placid, youthful face. Yet, he had, besides his
gentleness, that without which his character might have subsided
into a mere puerile weakness; a firmness of purpose; a reverence for
duty; a strict sense of right, equal to that which marked his mother
among women. Duncan Melville's abilities were of a high order;
perhaps not of the very highest, though, if his ambition were only
equal to his powers, they would surely seem so to the world.

His voice had a sweet persuasive tone, that was fitted to _win_
souls, yet it could ring like a clarion, when the grandeur of his
themes fired his soul. With the warmest hopes and the deepest
interest, they, who knew the difficulties and trials attending the
profession he had chosen, looked on this young man.

Duncan and Rosalie had long known the nature of the tie which bound
them together--members of one family--and they never called
themselves brother and sister, after the youth came home a graduate
from college. For, from the time when absence empowered him to look
as a stranger would look on Rosalie, from that time he saw her
elegant and accomplished, and bewitching, as she was, and other than
fraternal affection was in his heart for her.

And Rosalie, too, loved him, just as Duncan, had he spoken his
passion, would have prayed her to love him. She had long ago made
him the standard of all manly excellence; and when he came back,
after three years of absence, she was not inclined to revoke her
early decision; therefore was she prepared to read the language of
Duncan's eyes, and she consecrated her heart to him.

During the years which followed his return from college, till he was
prepared for ordination, as a priest, he did not once _speak_ to her
of his love, which was growing all the while stronger and deeper, as
the river course that, flowing to the ocean, receives every day
fresh impetus and force from the many tiny springs that commingle
with it. Duncan Melville never _thought_ of wedding another than
Rosalie Sherwood.

It was, as I said, near the time appointed for his ordination, when
he felt, for the first time, as though he had a _right_ to speak
openly with her of all his hopes. He asked her, then, what, in soul
language, he had long before asked, a question which she had as
emphatically, in like language, answered--to be his partner for
life, in weal or woe.

He had tried to calmly consider Rosalie's character as a Christian
minister should consider the character of her whom he would make the
sharer of his peculiar lot; and setting every preference aside,
Duncan felt that she was fitted to assist, and to bear with him. She
was truthful as the day, strong-minded and generous; humane and
charitable: and though no professor of religion, a woman full of
reverence and veneration.

He knew that it was only a fear that she should not _adorn_ the
Christian name, that kept her back from the altar of the church, and
he loved her for that spirit of humility, knowing that she was "on
the Lord's side," and that grace, ere long, would be given to her,
to proclaim it in doing _all_ His commandments.

It was certainly with a joyful and confident heart that, after he
had spoken with Rosalie, Duncan sought his mother, to tell her of
the whole of that bright future which opened now before him.

How then was he overcome with amazement and grief when Mrs. Melville
told him it was a union to which she could never consent! Then, for
the first time in his life, the astonished young man heard of that
stain which was on the name poor Rosalie bore.

He heard the story to the end, and, with a decision and energy that
would have settled the matter with almost any other than his mother,
he declared,

"Yet for all that, I will not give her up."

"It would not be expected that you would fulfil the engagement.
Rosalie herself would not allow it, if she knew the truth of the
matter."

"But she need not know it. There is no existing necessity. Is it not
enough that she is good and precious _to me_? She is a noble woman,
whose life has been, thanks to your guidance, beautiful and lofty."

"God knows, I _have_ striven to do my duty by her, but I know what I
should have done if I had ever thought you would wish to change your
relations with her, Duncan."

"The world has not her equal! It is cruel--it is sinful--in you,
mother, to oppose our union."

"She _is_ a lovely woman; but, my son, there are myriads like her."

"No _not one_! Tell me you will never breathe a word of what you
have told me _to her_!"

"Never."

"Oh! thank you! thank you, mother! you could not wish another
daughter."

"But for that I have told you, I could not wish another."

"Then I say you must not work this great injustice on us. Rosalie
loves me. She has promised to be mine. You will break my heart."

"You are deluded and strongly excited, my son, or you would never
speak so to me," said the mother, with that persisting firmness with
which the physician resorts to a desperate remedy for a desperate
disease. Then she spoke to him of all the relations in life he might
yet be called upon to assume; of the misery which very possibly
might follow this union in after days. Hours passed on, and the
conference was not ended, until, with a crushed heart, and a
trembling voice, Duncan arose, abruptly, while his mother yet spoke,
and he said,

"If the conclusion to which you have urged me, in God's sight, is
just, He will give me--He will give Rosalie, too--strength to abide
by it. But I can never speak to her of this, and I must find another
home than yours and hers. You must speak _for me_, mother; and let
me charge you, do it gently. Do not tell her _all_. Let her think
what she will, believe, as she must, that I am a wretch, past
pardon; but do not blight her peace by telling _all_."

"I promise you, Duncan," was the answer, spoken through many tears,
and in the deepest sorrow.

An hour after, he was on the way from the village that he might
spend the coming Sabbath in another town.

And, after he was gone, the mother sought her younger, her dearly
loved child. Rosalie heard that familiar step on the stairway; she
had seen Duncan hurrying away from the house, and she knew the
conference was over; but she had no fear for the result. So she
hushed the glad tumultuous beating of her heart, and tried to veil
the brightness of her eyes as she heard the gentle tapping at her
door that announced the mother coming.

As for Mrs. Melville, her heart quite failed her when she went into
the pleasant room, and sat down close by Rosalie. In spite of all
the strengthening thoughts of duty which she had taken with her as a
support in that interview, she was now at a sore loss, for it had
been a bitter grief to her kind heart when, of old, for duty's sake,
she made her children unhappy. How then could sh endure to take away
their life's best joy, their richest hope? It was a hard thing; and
many moments passed before she could nerve her strong spirit to
utter the first word. Rosalie, anxious and impatient, too, but
unsuspecting, at last exclaimed,

"What can it be that so much troubles you, mother?"

Then Mary Melville spoke, but with a voice so soft and sad, so faint
with emotion, that it seemed not at all her voice. She said,

"I want you to consider that what I say to you, dear child, has
given me more pain even to think of than I have ever felt before.
Duncan has told me of your engagement to marry with him; and it has
been my duty, my most sorrowful duty, oh! believe me, to tell him
that such a tie must never unite you. He can never be your husband;
you can never be his wife."

She paused, exhausted by her emotion; she could not utter another
syllable. Rosalie, who had watched her with fixed astonishment as
she listened to the words, was the first to speak again, and she
tried to say, calmly,

"Of course, you have a reason for saying so. It is but just that I
should know it."

"It cannot _be_ known. If I had ever in my life deceived you,
Rosalie, you might doubt me now, when I assure you that an
impediment, which cannot be named, exists to the marriage. Have I
not been a mother to you always?" she asked, appealingly,
imploringly: "I love you as I love Duncan, and it cuts me to the
heart to grieve you."

"Has Duncan given you an answer?"

"Yes, Rosalie."

"And it--?"

"He has trusted to his mother!" she said, almost proudly.

"Rather than me," quickly interrupted Rosalie.

"Rather than do that which is wrong; which might hereafter prove the
misery of you both, my child."

"Where is he? Why does he not come himself to tell me this? If the
thing is really true, _his_ lips should have spoken it, and not
another's."

"Oh! Rosalie, he could not do it. I believe his heart is broken. Do
not look so upon me. Is it not enough that I bitterly regret, that I
shall always deplore, having not foreseen the result of your
companionship? Say only that you do believe I have striven to do the
best for you always, as far as I knew how. I implore you, _say it_."

"Heaven knows I believe it, mother. When will Duncan come home
again?"

"Monday; not before."

When Monday morning came, on the desk in Rosalie's room this letter
was found:--

"I cannot leave you for ever, Duncan; I cannot go from your
protecting care, mother, without saying all that is in my heart. I
have no courage to look on you, my brother, again. Mother! our
union, which we had thought life-lasting, is broken. I cannot any
longer live in the world's sight as your daughter by adoption. I
would have done so. I would have remained in any capacity, as a
slave, even, for I was bound by gratitude for all that you have done
for me, to be with you always--at least so long as you could wish.
If you had unveiled the mystery, and suffered me to stand before
you, recognising myself as _you_ know me, I would have stayed. I
would have been to you, Duncan, only as in childhood--a proud yet
humble sister, rejoicing in your triumphs, and sharing by _sympathy_
in your griefs. I would have put forth fetters on my heart; the
in-dwelling spirit should henceforth have been a stranger to you. I
_know_ I could have borne even to see another made your wife; but in
a mistaken kindness you put this utterly beyond my power. Too much
has been required, and I am found--wanting! If even the most
miserable fate that can befall an innocent woman; if the curse of
illegitimacy were upon me, I could bear that thought even, and
acknowledge the justice and wisdom that did not consider me a fit
associate for one whose birth is recognized by a parent's pride and
fondness.

"But, dear Mrs. Melville, I must be cognisant of the relation,
whatever it is, that I bear you. I cannot, I will not, consent to
appear nominally your daughter, when you scorn to receive me as
such.

"_Mother_--in my dear mother's name, I thank you for the generous
love you have ever shown me: for the generous care with which you
have attended to the development of the talents God gave me. For I
am now fitted to labour for myself. I thank you for the watchful
guardianship that has made me what I am, a woman--self-reliant and
strong. I thank you for it, from a heart that has learned only to
love and honour you in the past eighteen years. And I call down the
blessings of the infinite God upon you, as I depart. Hereafter,
always, it will be my endeavour to live worthily of you--to be _all_
that you have, in your more than charity, capacitated me to be.
Duncan, you will not forget me?

"I do not ask it. But pray for me, and live up to the fullness of
your being--of your heart and of your intellect. There is a happy
future for you. I have no word of counsel, no feeble utterance of
encouragement to leave you--you will not need such from _me_. God
bless and strengthen you in every good word and work--it shall be
the constant hope of the sister who _loves_ you. Mother, farewell!"

This letter was written on the Sabbath eve on which our story
opens--written in a perfect passion--yes, of grief, and of despair.
The anger that Rosalie may at first have felt, gave way to the
wildest sorrow now, but her resolution was taken, and her heart was
really strong to bear the resolution out.

After the sudden and most unlooked-for disappearance, the mother and
son sought long, and I need not say how anxiously, for Rosalie. But
their search was vain, and, at last, as time passed on, she became
to the villagers as one who had never been. But never by the widow
was she forgotten; and oh! there was in the world one heart that
sorrowed with a constant sorrow, that hoped with a constant hope for
her.

He had lost her, and Duncan sought for no other love among women.
When all his searching for Rosalie proved unavailing, the minister
applied himself with industry to the work of his calling, and verily
he met here with his reward; for as he was a blessing to the people
of his parish, in time they almost adored him. He was a spiritual
physician whom God empowered to heal many a wounded and stricken
heart; but there was a cross of suffering that he bore himself,
which could not be removed. It was his glory that he bore it with
martyr-like patience--that he never uttered a reproachful word to
her through whom he bore it.

As years passed away, the gifted preacher's impassioned eloquence,
and stirring words, bowed many a proud and impenitent soul with
another love than that he wished to inspire, still he sought not
among any of them companionship, or close friendship. They said, at
last, considering his life spent in the most rigid performance of
duty, that "_he was too high-church to marry_,"--that he did not
believe such union consonant with the duties of the cloth! But the
mother knew better than this--_she_ knew a name that was never
spoken now in Rosalie's old home, that was dearer than life to the
heart of her son; and desolate and lonely as he oft-times was, she
never _dared_ ask him to give to her a daughter--to take unto
himself a wife.

In a splendid old cathedral a solemn ceremonial was going forward,
on the morning of a holy festival. A bishop was to be consecrated.

A mighty crowd assembled to witness the ceremony, and the mother of
Duncan Melville was there, the happiest soul in all that company,
for it was on _her_ son that the high honour was to be laid.

How beautiful was the pale, holy countenance of the minister, who,
in the early strength of his manhood, was accounted worthy to fill
that great office for which he was about to be set apart! He was a
man "acquainted with grief,"--you had known it by the resigned,
submissive expression of his face; you had known that the passions
of mortals had been all but chilled in him, by the holy light in his
tranquil eyes. Duncan _had_ toiled--he _had_ born a burden!

A thousand felt it, looking on the noble front where religion
undefiled, and peace, and holy love, and charity, had left for
themselves unmistakable evidences: and, more than all, one being
felt it who had not looked upon that man for years--not since the
lines of grief and care had marked the face and form of Duncan
Melville. There was reason for the passionate sobs of one heart,
crushed anew in that solemn hour; there was pathos such as no other
voice could give to the prayers which went up to God from one
woman's heart, in the great congregation, for him. Poor, loving,
still-beloved Rosalie! She was there, her proud, magnificent figure
bent humbly from the very commencement to the close of the
ceremonial; there, her beautiful eyes filled with tears of love, and
grief, and despair, and pride; there, crushed as the humblest
flower--the glorious beauty!

And the good man at the altar, for whom the prayers and the praise
ascended, thought of her in that hour! Yes, in that very hour he
remembered how _one_ would have looked on him that day, could she
have come, his wife, to witness how his brethren and the people
loved and honoured him. He thought of her, and as he knelt at the
altar, even there he prayed for her; but not as numbers thought upon
the name of Rosalie Sherwood that day; for she also was soon to
appear before a throng, and there was a myriad hearts that throbbed
with expectancy, and waited impatiently for the hour when they
should look upon her.

Bishop Melville had retired at noonday to his study, that he might
be for a few moments alone. He was glancing over the sermon (sic)
the was to deliver that afternoon, when his mother, his proud and
happy mother, came quickly into the room, laid a sealed note on the
table and instantly withdrew, for she saw how he was occupied. When
he had finished his manuscript, the bishop opened the note and
read--could it have been with careless eyes?


"Duncan, I have knelt in the house of the Lord, to-day, and
witnessed your triumph. Ten years ago, when I went desolate and
wretched from your house, I might have prophesied your destiny.
Come, to-night, and behold _my_ triumph--at--the opera-house!

"Your sister,

ROSALIE."


Do you think that, as he read that summons, he hesitated as to
whether he should obey it? If his bishopric had been sacrificed by
it, he would have gone; if disgrace and danger had attended his
footsteps, he would have obeyed her bidding! The love which had been
strengthening in ten long years of loneliness and bereavement, was
not now to stop, to question or to fear.

"Accompany me, dear mother, this evening; I have made an engagement
for you," he said, as he went, she hanging on his arm, to the
cathedral for afternoon service.

"Willingly, my son," was the instant answer, and Duncan kept her to
her word.

But it was with wondering, with surprise that she did not attempt to
conceal, and with questions which were satisfied with no definite
reply, that Mrs. Melville found herself standing with her son in an
obscure corner of the opera-house that night. Soon all her
expressions of astonishment were hushed, but by another cause than
the mysterious inattention of her son: a queenly woman appeared upon
the stage; she lifted her voice, and sobbed the mournful wail which
opens the first scene in----.

For years there had not been such a sensation created among the
frequenters of that place, as now, by the appearance of this
stranger. The wild, singular style of her beauty made an impression
that was heightened by every movement of her graceful figure, every
tone of her rich melodious voice. She seemed for the time the very
embodiment of the sorrow to which she gave an expression, and the
effect was a complete triumph.

Mary Melville and her son gazed on the _debutante_--they had no
word, no look for each other: for they recognised in her voice the
tones of a grief of which long ago they heard the prelude--and every
note found its echo in the bishop's inmost heart.

"Come away! let us go home! Duncan, this is no place for us--for
_you_. It is disgrace to be here," was the mother's passionate plea,
when at last Rosalie disappeared, and other forms stood in her
place.

"We will stay and save her," was the answer, spoken with tears and
trembling, by the man for whom, in many a quiet home, prayers in
that very hour ascended. "She is mine _now_, and no earthly
consideration or power shall divide us."

And looking for a moment in her son's face steadfastly, the lady
turned away sighing and tearful, for she knew that she must yield
then, and she had fears for the future.

A half-hour passed and the star of the night reappeared, resplendent
in beauty, triumphing in hope;--again her marvellous voice was
raised, not with the bitter cry of despair that was hopeless, but
glad and gay, angelic in its joy.

Again the mother's eyes were turned on him beside her--and a light
was on that pale forehead--a smile on that calm face--a gladness in
those eyes--such as she had not seen there in long, long years; but
though she looked with a mother's love upon the one who stood the
admiration of all eyes, crowned with the glory-crown of perfection
in her art, she could not with Duncan hope. For, alas! her
woman-heart knew too well the ordeal through which the daughter of
her care and love must have passed before she came into _that_
presence where she stood now, who could tell if still the mistress
of herself and her destiny? who could tell if pure and undefiled?

That night and the following day, there were many who sought
admittance to the parlours of Rosalie Sherwood; they would lay the
homage of their trifling hearts at her feet. But all these sought in
vain; and why was this? Because such admiring tribute was not what
the noble woman sought; _and_ because, ere she had risen in the
morning, a letter, written in the solitude of night, was handed to
her, which barred and bolted her doors against the curious world.

"Rosalie! Rosalie! look back through the ten years that are gone; I
am answering your letter of long ago with words; I have a thousand
times answered them with my heart, till the thoughts which have
crowded there, filled it almost to breaking. We have met--met at
last--you and I! But did you call that a triumph when you stood in
God's house, and saw them lay their consecrating hands upon me?
Heaven forgive me! I was thinking of you then--and thinking, too,
that if this honor was in any way to be considered a _reward_, the
needful part was wanting--you were not there! Yet you _were_ there,
you have written me; ah! but not _Rosalie, my wife_, the woman I
loved better than _all_ on earth--the _acknowledged_ woman, her
whose memory I have borne about with me till it was a needful part
of my existence. You were by when the people came to see me
consecrated--and I obeyed your call; I saw _you_ when the people
anointed you with the tears of their admiration and praise. If you
read my heart at all, to-day, you _knew_ how I had suffered--you
_saw_ that I had grown old in sorrow. Was I mistaken to-night in the
thought that you, too, had not been unmindful of _our_ past; that
you were not satisfied with the popular applause; that you, also,
have been lonely, that you have wept; that you have trodden in the
path of duty with weariness?

"There is but one barrier now in the wide world that shall interpose
between us--Rosalie, it is your own will. If I was ever anything to
you, I beseech you think calmly before you answer, and do not let
your triumph, to-night, blind you to the fact which you once
recognised, which can make us happy _yet_. I trust you as in our
younger days; nothing, nothing but your own words could convince me
that you are not worthy to take the highest place among the ladies
of this land. Oh, let the remembrance that I have been faithful to
you through all the past, plead for me, if your pride should rise
up, to condemn me. Let me come and plead _with_ you, for I know not
what I write."

The answer returned to this letter was as follows:--

"I learned long ago, the bar that prevented our union; it is in
existence still, Duncan. Your mother only shall decide if it be
insurmountable. I have never, even for a moment, doubted your
faithfulness; and it has been to me an unspeakable comfort to _know_
that none had supplanted me in your affections. In the temptations,
and struggles, and hardships, I have known, it has kept me above and
beyond the world, and if the last night's triumph proves to be but
the opening of a new life for me on earth, the recollection of what
you are, and that you care for me, will prove a rock of defence, and
a stronghold of hope always. Severed from, or united with you, I am
yours for ever."

Seven days after there was a marriage in the little church of that
remote village, where Duncan Melville and Rosalie Sherwood passed
their childhood. Side by side they stood now, once again, where the
baptismal service had long since been read for them, and the mother
of the bishop gave the bride away!




THE LITTLE CHILDREN.


IT was Sabbath morning. Soft and silvery, like stray notes from the
quivering chords of an archangel's harp, floated the clear, sweet
voice of the church-bells through the hushed heart of the great
metropolis, while old men and little children--youth in its hope,
and manhood in its pride--came forth at their summons, setting a
mighty human tide in the direction of the sanctuaries, beneath whose
sacred droppings they should hear again the tidings which come to us
over the waves of nearly two thousand years, fresh and full of
exceeding melody, as when the Day-Star from on high first poured its
blessed beams over the mountain heights of Judea, and the song,
pealing over the hills of jasper, rolled down to the shepherds who
kept their night-watches on her plains; "Peace on earth and
good-will to men."

A child came forth with his ragged garments, unwashed face and
uncombed hair, from one of those haunts of darkness and misery which
fill the city with crime and suffering. He was a little child, and
yet there was none of its peace on his brow, or its light in his
eye, as he looked up with a strange, wistful earnestness at the
strip of blue sky that looked down with its serene heaven-smile
between the frowning and dilapidated pile of buildings which rose on
either side of the alley. The sunshine flitted like the
soft-caressing fingers of a spirit over his forehead, and the voice
of the bells fell upon his spirit with a strange, subduing
influence; and the child kept on his way until the alley terminated
in a broad, pleasant street, with its crowd of church-goers, and
still the boy kept on, unmindful of dainty robe and silken vesture
that waved and rustled by him.

He stood at last within the broad shadow of the sanctuary, while far
above him rose the tall spire, with the sunbeams coiling like a
heaven-halo around it, pointing to the golden battlements of the
far-off city, within whose blessed precincts nothing "which defileth
shall ever enter." The massive church doors swung slowly open as one
and another entered, and the child looked eagerly up the long,
mysterious mid-aisle, but the silken garments rustled past--there
was no hand outstretched to lead the ragged and wretched little one
within its walls, and no one paused to tell him of the Great Father,
within whose sight the rich and poor are alike. But while he stood
there, an angel with golden hair and gleaming wings bent over him,
holding precious heart-seed, gathered from the white plains of the
spirit-land, and as the child drew nearer the church steps, the
angel followed.

Suddenly the little dapper sexton, with his broad smile and bustling
gait, came out of the church. His eyes rested a moment upon the
young wistful face and on the ragged garments, and then he beckoned
to the child.

"Shall I take you in here, my boy?" asked a voice kinder and
pleasanter than any which the child had ever heard; and as he
timidly bowed his head, the sexton took the little soiled hand in
his own, and they passed in, and the angel followed them.

Seated in one corner of the church, the child's eyes wandered over
the frescoed walls, with the sunshine flitting like the fringe of a
spirit's robe across it, and up the dim aisle to the great marble
pulpit, with a kind of bewildered awe, for he had seen nothing of
the like before, unless it might be in some dim, half-forgotten
dream; but when the heavy doors swung together and the Sabbath hush
gathered over the church, and the hallelujahs of the organ filled
the house of the Lord and thrilled the heart of the child; he bowed
his head and wept sweet tears--he could not tell whence was their
coming. Then the solemn prayer from the pulpit--"O, Thou who lovest
all men, who art the Father of the old and the young, the rich and
the poor, and in whose sight they are alike precious, grant us Thy
blessing," came to the ears of the child, and a new cry awoke in his
soul. _Where_ was this Father? It did not seem true that He could
love him, a poor little, hungry, ragged beggar; that such a one
could be his child. But, oh! it was just what his heart longed for,
and if all others were _precious_ to this Great Father, he did not
believe He would leave him out. If he could only find Him--no matter
how long the road was, nor how cold and hungry he might be, he would
keep straight on the way, until he reached Him, and then he would go
right in and say, "Father, I am cold and hungry, and very wretched.
There is no one to love me, none to care for me. May I be your
child, Father?" And perhaps He would look kindly upon him, and
whisper softly, as no human being had ever whispered to him, "My
child!" and stronger and wilder from his heart came up that cry,
"Oh, if I could only find Him!"

Again the tones of the deep-toned organ and the sweet-voiced choir
floated on the Sabbath air, and crept, a strange, soft tide, into
the silent places of the boy's heart, softening and subduing it;
while during the long sermon, of which he heard little, and
comprehended less, that spirit cry rolled continually up from the
depths of his soul--"_Where_ is the Father?"

The benediction had been pronounced, and the house was disgorged of
most of its vast crowd of worshippers, and yet the boy lingered--he
could not bear to return to his dark and dismal dwelling, to the
harsh words and harsher usage of those who loved him not, without
having that question, which his soul was so eagerly asking,
answered. But that little timid heart lacked courage, and he knew
the words would die in his throat if he attempted to speak them, and
so he must go away without knowing the way to the Father--but his
feet dragged unwillingly along, and his eyes searched earnestly the
figures that, unwitting of his want, passed swiftly before him.

"What is it you want to know, little boy?" The voice was very
musical, and the smile on the lips of the child-questioner very
winning. The chestnut-brown curls floated over her silken robe, and
the soft blue eyes that looked into the boy's, wore that unearthly
purity of expression which is not the portion of the children of
this world.

The boy looked into that fair, childish face, and his heart took
courage, while very eagerly from his lips came the words, "Where is
the Great Father?"

"God is in heaven!" answered the little girl in solemn tones, while
a sudden gravity gathered over her features.

From lips that burned with blasphemies, amid oaths from the vile,
and revilings from the scoffer, had the boy first learned that name,
and never before had it possessed aught of import for him. But now
he knew it was the name of the Great Father that loved him, and
again he asked very earnestly, "Where is the way to God in heaven? I
am going to Him now."

The child shook her head as she looked on the boy with a sort of
pitying wonder at his ignorance, and again she answered, "You cannot
go to Him, but He will come to you if you will call upon Him, and He
will hear, though you whisper very low, for God is everywhere."

"Come, come, Miss Ellen, you must not stay here any longer," called
the servant, who had been very intent at ranging the cushions in the
pew, and who now hurried her little charge through the aisle,
apprehensive that some evil might accrue from her contiguity with a
"street-beggar."

But the words of the little girl had brought a new and precious
light into the boy's heart. That "cardinal explication of the
reason," the wondrous idea of the Deity, had found a voice in his
soul, and the child went forth from the church, while the
golden-winged angel followed him to the dark alley, and the darker
home; and that night, before he laid himself on his miserable pallet
in the corner, he bowed his head, and clasped his hands, and
whispered so that none might hear him, "My Father, will you take
care of me, and come and take me to yourself? for I love you." And
the angel folded his bright wings above that scanty pallet, and bent
in the silent watches of the night over the boy, and filled his
heart with peace, and his dreams with brightness.

Six months had rolled their mighty burden of life-records into the
pulseless ocean of the past. The pale stars of mid-winter were
looking down with meek, seraph glances over the mighty metropolis
along whose thousand thorough

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