"Just one more hour, just one! Delay!
Leave me mine own once more, I pray!
And, by the sacred name of wife,
If in that time he shows no life-
When you return, if yonder bed
Still holds him prone, I'll grant him dead!
Go, go! Be mine this one fleet hour,
Then will I bow me to your power."

Reluctantly they turned and went.
Then Heaven's own messenger was sent
To aid that woman's matchless faith
And join her in her watch with death.
And all the while the air is red
With scorching heat, and wildest dread
Attends the still recurring cry:

"Bring out your dead!"

The hour was spent. Once more they came
Depositing their gruesome frame.
They mount again the creaking stair
And this behold on entering there:
A woman pale, yet glorified

By some mysterious, Heaven-sent tide,
Which seemed to overflow the room
And light this picture in the gloom;
For there upon her faithful breast,
Pale, ghastly, living and at rest,

He leaned, while she looked up and said:
"Go now in peace; he is not dead!"

GREAT men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external nature give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and consoles them, and of which the laborers on the surface do not dream.

A LETTER TO MOTHER NATURE.

You

SYDNEY DAYRE.

OU dear old Mother Nature, I am writing you a letter,
To let you know you ought to fix up things a little better.
The best of us will make mistakes-I thought perhaps

if I

Should tell you how you might improve, you would be glad to try.

I think you have forgotten, ma'am, that little girls and boys Are fond of dolls, and tops, and sleds, and balls, and other toys; Why didn't you-I wonder now-just take it in your head, To have such things all growing in a lovely garden-bed?

And then I should have planted (if it only had been me) Some vines with little pickles, and a great big cookie tree; And trees, besides, with gum-drops and caramels and things, And lemonade should bubble up in all the little springs.

I'd like to have the coasting and skating in July,

When old Jack Frost would never get a single chance to try To nip our cheeks and noses; and the Christmas trees should stand

By dozens, loaded!-in the woods-now wouldn't that be

grand!

Ah! what
what a world it would have been.

madam, make

How could you,

Such lots of bread and butter to so very little cake?
I'd have it just the other way, and everyone would see
How very, very, very, very nice my way would be.

But as I can not do it, will you think of what I say?
And please, ma'am, to begin and alter things this very day.
And one thing more—on Saturdays, don't send us any rain.
Good-bye. If I should think of something else, I'll write again.

PLAIN-SPOKEN PHILOSOPHY.

J

HOWARD Y. NEWELL.

EST keep the heart a-beatin' warm;
Be kind ter every feller;

Look fer the rainbows in the storm,
But-carry yer umbreller!

Be brave to battle with the strife;
Be true when people doubt you;
Don't think that money's all in life
But-carry some about you!

An' when it's time to shuffle off,
An' you have done yer mission,
Jest put yer trust in Providence
And hire a good physician!

THE NEW DEACON.

WADE WHIPPLE.

D

E Zion Chu'ch has had anudder racket in de fol'.

Last monf dey jined a member by de name ob Littlesole,
An' sho'tly to de deaconship dey gib de chap a start

Ter fill de place resigned by Ebenezar Bonypart.

De fust occasion ob his sarvice happened Sunday las',
His talent bein' in deman' de sasser fo' ter pass.
Dis 'quired amblin' down one 'ile, accordin' to de rule,
An' comin' to de udder by de outside westerbule.

He took de hat, an' right an' left' ter pass de same begin,
A-keepin' time mos' graceful to de jinglin' ob de tin,
An' when he reach de westerbule, an' pars de do'way froo,
De parson, sorter narvous, watch' de udder appychoo.

He watch' an' watch' an' people in de oncollected pews
Dey stretch deir han's a-waitin' fo' a chance ter pay deir jues,
Twell suddintly ol' Jinglejaw he riz up with a fuss

An' hollered: "Hi! de deacon's sloped! Run out an' grab de cuss!"

Jehosaphat! Dere nebber was no benediction sent
A congregation out so fas' as dem dar sinners went;
Dey kim out like de contents ob a fo'ty-pounder gun,
An' arter Deacon Littlesole dey started on de run.

Fust Elder Limberheel he hab de call, den Brudder Slope
He led 'em by a yard, twell 'long kim Sister Antelope,
An' she an' Sup'entenden' Scud dey made a flyin' break
An' tuk de front wid ninety-'leben sinners in deir wake.

Dey shassayed froo de co'n fiel's an' dey jump de medder rails,
Attracted by de sight ob Deacon Littlesole's coat-tails,
An' ebbery time dey'd gain, he'd drap a copper from de hat,
An' den dey'd stop de chase an' go ter skummishin' fo' dat.

Sakes! Wasn't dat a race! De landscape nebber look so spry
As when dem followers ob de Lam' went amberlatin' by.
But sho! Dey nebber cotch de chap. Dey learnt f'om Squire
Brown

De deacon wuz a bank cashier dat skipped f'om Swindlerstown.

Sence dat, old Parson Jinglejaw has tuk it in his pate
Ter double-joint a rope aroun' de man dat pass de plate,
An' whilst he rambles down one 'ile, de parson slacks it slow
But nebber loses grip till he comes in de udder do'.

THE OUTCAST.

IND friends, will you listen to an outcast's tale? 'Tis

K briefly told. Until my fifteenth year, beneath the roof

of a poor village priest, not far from home, my childhood wore away. Then arose within me restless thoughts and deep. Throughout the liberal and harmonious nature, something

seemed absent; what, I scarcely knew, till one calm night, when over slumbering seas watched the still heavens, and down on every wave looked some soft, lulling star, the instinctive want learned what it pined for; and I asked the priest, with a quick sigh, why I was motherless. He answered that I was nobly born, and that the cloud that dimmed the dawning sun aloft but foretold its splendor at the noon. As thus he spoke, faint memories struggling came, faint as the things some former life had known, a face sweet with stately sorrow, and lips that breathed the words that mothers murmur.

About that time a stranger came to our hamlet; rough, yet, some said, well born, and comrade such as youth delights in. Sailor, he called himself, and naught belied the sailor's metal ringing in his talk of El Dorado and enchanted isles, of hardy Raleigh and of dauntless Drake, and great Columbus with prophetic eyes fixed on a dawning world. His legends fired me, and from the deep whose billows washed our walls, the alluring wave called with a siren's music. And thus I left my home with that wild seaman.

Scarce had the brisker sea-wind filled our sails, when the false traitor, who had lured my trust, cast me into chains and darkness. Days went by; at length, one belt of desolate water around, and on the decks one scowl of swarthy brows (a hideous crew, the refuse of all shores), under the flapping of his raven flag, the pirate store revealed and thus called his captive. Grimly he heard my boyish loud upbraidings, and grimly smiled in answering:

"I, like thee, cast off and disinherited and desperate, had but one choice-death or the pirate flag. Choose thou! I am more gracious than thy kindred, I proffer life; the gold they gave paid thy grave in the ocean."

66

Hold! thou liest, demon!'

Swift as I answered so, his blade flashed forth; but selfdefense is swifter still than slaughter. I plucked a sword from one who stood beside me, and smote the slanderer to my feet. Then all that human hell broke loose; oaths rang, steel tightened when, in the death swoon of the caitiff chief, the pirate next in rank forced back the swarm, and, in that superstition of the sea, which makes the sole religion of its outlaws, forbade my doom by bloodshed, gripped and bound me to a slight plank, spread to the winds the sail, and left me on the waves alone