Speak gently to the erring!
For is it not enough

That innocence and peace are gone
Without thy censure rough?
It sure must be a weary lot

That sin-crushed heart to bear
And they who share a happier fate
Their chidings well may spare.

Speak kindly to the erring!

Thou yet may'st lead them back,
With holy words and tones of love,
From misery's thorny track,
Forget not thou hast often sinned,
And sinful yet may be;

Deal gently with the erring one
As God has dealt with thee!"

Gentle star-bespangled evening now retired with all her glittering train. Night advanced to wrap Earth and all her inhabitants in a dark mantle of silence.

On

Montgomery came and presented Kate with a jewel, the worth of which she could not value until she had examined it very attentively a long time. presenting he said, "God entrusts us with talents, not to hoard them, for mere selfish purposes; but to increase and distribute them, that by doing good to as many as we can, we should make them feel that "every good gift" comes from God, and that through our instrumentality they may be led to glorify the bounteous Giver."

This is his present.

Night.

"Night is the time for rest;

How sweet when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose;

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is and truth that seems

Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams of day-light are!

Night is the time for toil

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
'Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poet sung or hero wrought.

Night is the time to weep;
To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;

Hopes that were angels in their birth,
And perished young like things of earth.

Night is the time to watch;
On ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care;

Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of Despair Come to our lonely tent;

Like Brutus midst his slumbering host Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.

Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul

Takes flight and with expanding views

Beyond the starry pole,

Descries athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray;
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away
So will his followers do;

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace,

Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease;
Think of heaven's bliss and give the sign
To parting friends; such death be mine!"

One by one the little groups were broken up, and each individual retired to his own apartment, to seek repose. Kate soon followed their example. She retired, but not to sleep. The scenes of the past day returned to her mind with energy and distinctness as if to leave an indelible impress there. The ghost of wasted hours and days appeared to her, to reproach her for misspending so much precious time. She now recalled the