"Then can you tell me now what the passage means that I have been reading to you?" "There's so much of it," said Henry, hopelessly, "I wish you'd just tell me in short order, father." "Oh, read it for yourself," said Mr. H., as he pushed the book towards the boy; for it was to be confessed that he perceived at this moment that he had not himself received any particularly luminous impression, though of course he thought it was owing to his own want of comprehension. Mr. H. leaned back in his rocking-chair, and on his own private account began to speculate a little as to what he really should think the verse might mean, supposing he were at all competent to decide upon it. "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness," says he: "that's money, very clearly. How am I to make friends with it or of it? Receive me into everlasting habitations: that's a singular kind of expression. I wonder what it means. Dr. Scott makes some very good remarks about it; but somehow I'm not exactly clear." It must be remarked that this was not an uncommon result of Mr. H.'s critical investigations in this quarter. Well, thoughts will wander; and as he lay with his head on the back of his rocking-chair and his eyes fixed on the flickering blaze of the coal, visions of his wet tramp in the city, and of the lonely garret he had been visiting, and of the poor woman with the pale, discouraged face, to whom he had carried warmth and comfort, all blended themselves together. He felt, too, a little indefinite creeping chill, and some uneasy sensations in his head like a commencing cold; for he was not a strong man, and it is probable his long, wet walk was likely to cause him some inconvenience in this way. At last he was fast asleep, nodding in his chair. He dreamed that he was very sick in bed, that the doctor came and went, and that he grew sicker and sicker. He was going to die. He saw his wife sitting weeping by his pillow,-his children standing by with pale and frightened faces; all things in his room began to swim, and waver, and fade; and voices that called his name, and sobs and lamentations that rose around him, seemed far off and distant in his ear. "O eternity, eternity! I am going, I am going," he thought; and in that hour, strange to tell, not one of all his good deeds seemed good enough to lean on, all bore some taint or tinge, to his purified eye, of mortal selfishness, and seemed unholy before the ALL PURE. "I am going," he thought; "there is no time to stay, no time to alter, to balance accounts; and I know not what I am, but I know, O Jesus, what THOU art. I have trusted in thee, and shall never be confounded." was past. And with that last breath of prayer earth A soft and solemn breathing, as of music, awakened him. As an infant child not yet fully awake hears the holy warblings of his mother's hymn, and smiles half conscious, so the heaven-born became aware of sweet voices and loving faces around him ere yet he fully woke to the new immortal LIFE. "Ah, he has come at last! How long we have waited for him! Here he is among us. Now forever welcome! welcome!" Isaid the voices. Who shall speak the joy of that latest birth,-the birth from death to life-the sweet, calm, inbreathing consciousness of purity and rest,-the certainty that all sin, all weakness and error, are at last gone forever, the deep, immortal rapture of repose, felt to be but begun,-never to end! So the eyes of the heaven-born opened on the new heaven and the new earth, and wondered at the crowd of loving faces that thronged about him. Fair, godlike forms of beauty, such as earth never knew, pressed round him with blessings, thanks, and welcome. The man spoke not, but he wondered in his heart who they were, and whence it came that they knew him; and as soon as the inquiry formed itself in his soul, it was read at once by his heavenly friends. "I," said one bright spirit, "was a poor boy whom you found in the streets: you sought me out, you sent me to school, you watched over me, and led me to the house of God; and now here I am." "And we," said other voices, "are other neglected children whom you redeemed: we also thank you." "And I," said another, "was a lost, helpless girl: sold to sin and shame, nobody thought I could be saved; everybody passed me by till you came. You built a home, a refuge for such poor wretches as I, and there I and many like me heard of Jesus; and here we are." "And I," said another, "was once a clerk in your store. I came to the city innocent, but I was betrayed by the tempter. I forgot my mother and my mother's God. I went to the gaming. table and the theatre, and at last I robbed your drawer. You might have justly cast me off; but you bore with me, you watched over me, you saved me. I am here through you this day." "And I," said another, "was a poor slave-girl,-doomed to be sold on the auction-block to a life of infamy, and the ruin of soul and body. Had you not been willing to give so largely for my ransom, no one had thought to buy me. You stimulated others to give, and I was redeemed. I lived a Christian mother to bring my children up for Christ, they are all here with me to bless you this day, and their children on earth, and their children's children, are growing up to bless you." "And I," said another, "was an unbeliever. In the pride of my intellect, I thought I could demonstrate the absurdity of Christianity. I thought I could answer the argument from miracles and prophecy; but your patient, self-denying life was an argument I never could answer. When I saw you spending all your time and all your money in efforts for your fellow-men, undiscouraged by ingratitude and careless of praise, then I thought, 'There is something divine in that man's life,' and that thought brought me here." The man looked around on the gathering congregation, and he saw that there was no one whom he had drawn heavenward that had not also drawn thither myriads of others. In his lifetime he had been scattering seeds of good around from hour to hour, almost unconsciously; and now he saw every seed springing up into a widening forest of immortal beauty and glory. It seemed to him that there was to be no end of the numbers that flocked to claim him as their long-expected soul-friend. His heart was full, and his face became as that of an angel as he looked up to One who seemed nearer than all, and said, "This is thy love for me, unworthy, O Jesus! Of thee, and to thee, and through thee, are all things. Amen." Amen! as with chorus of many waters and mighty thunderings the sound swept onward, and died far off in chiming echoes among the distant stars; and the man awoke. 1 These tender and beautiful lines refer to the melancholy death, July 9, 1857, of a son, a student of Dartmouth College, of fine character and promise, who went with some classmates to the Connecticut River to bathe, got beyond his depth, and was drowned. One year, one year,-one little year, And yet the even flow of life Moves calmly on. The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair, No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray Says he is dead. THIS genial printer-poet is of Scotch descent, his father having emigrated to this country in the latter part of the last century. He was born in the city of New York, on the 12th of August, 1812, and was early destined for college; but, his father's fortunes failing, he entered, when fourteen years old, a newspaper printing-office, where he thought he would have good opportunities to indulge his literary tastes. After two years, he entered the establishment of J. & J. Harper, where he soon proved, by his intelligence, integrity, and energy, to be an important member of it. Here the passion for writing verse seized him, and he would often drop his composing-stick, and with a type write his couplets on paper, as they occurred to him; but these early pieces have never seen the light. In 1833, he removed to Philadelphia, and entered the type-foundry of Lawrence Johnson. In 1834, he was married, and soon after wrote occasionally for the "Journal" of the Sunday-School Union; then for the "United States Gazette;" and then for Joseph C. Neal's "Gazette," under the signature of "Tam." During all this time his post of business was a very arduous one, and most of his pieces were composed while he was walking from his home to the foundry. His first volume-Droppings from the Heart-was published in 1844, and was very favorably noticed. His second publication was Tam's Fortnight Ramble, issued in 1847, in which year he was admitted as a partner to an interest in the business of Mr. Johnson. His last book is entitled Lines for the Gentle and Loving,—a beautifully printed volume, which appeared in 1853. Mr. Mackellar's poetry is pure, simple, elevated, and goes directly to the heart, for the best of all reasons: it comes from he heart. LIFE'S EVENING. The world to me is growing gray and old, My sire departed ere his locks were gray; And when my offspring at our altar kneel |