centuries or more. Do you feel as though you might some time, perhaps, be weary of life,-be thinking that there is nothing new in it, and no more to be known from it? Weary of it you will never be, uncle; for you will be patient, and always you will think that life, even as endurance only, will prove to be a privilege, and a rare one, perhaps; for they are not many who live to exercise the patience of fourscore years. The patience of eighty years, did I say? I ought to have said the blessedness of them; for with a God to be glad in, the believing soul must always be happy, or else be just about being the happier for suffering.

MARHAM.

Yes, and so I hope for more faith than I have. I want it. In my last days I fear feeling to have no pleasure in them; for it ought not to be so with me, as a Christian.

AUBIN.

Nor will it be, if you keep looking for the great hope, and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Childhood, youth, manhood, marriage, friendship, trading, study, pleasure and sorrow, you have got the good of them all; and some of them you might have tired of, if they had lasted with you long, but now they feel like the first lessons introductory to a wondrous book tha hast to be opened yet.

MARHAM.

O, the very thought an old man ought to wait with!

AUBIN.

Feelings and motives in hearts of flesh you know the working of, various as it may be; so you now are ready for the knowledge of souls in some other than this fleshly estate. In the hum of the town that is near us, a youth hears what inspirits him; but you do not, for you have heard it so long. And your heart, as it gets purer, craves a holiness that is not of this world; and so the city of God is the easier for you to see with your eyes of faith; and the less you are of this world, the more plainly are the voices to be heard which call to you from above to go up thither.

MARHAM.

And up there, O, that I may go! For thither they have ascended whose lives were parts of my life, and in whose death I died myself-died deaths that have no resurrections yet; but they will have: for every affection of mine will live again, or rather will be joy again in the sight of dear, recovered friends. But in this, mean while, I do not see them; and others are being taken after them.

Yes, one by one

AUBIN.

MARHAM.

And faster and faster

AUBIN.

There are being assembled in the other world all your kindred, both after the flesh and after the spirit; and with their going hence, this world is to you less and less like an abiding-place.

MARHAM.

As you know, Oliver, my friends have died fast lately.

AUBIN.

And become spirits, and friends of yours gone into bliss. And with every longing after them, you grow more akin to heaven. And so, out of the very decay of this life, there grows in you the spirit of another life.

MARHAM.

Once I saw a large tree so hollow as to be little better than a case of bark; still it was living.. But inside the tree, and over-topping it, grew a sapling so strong and green. And the hull of the old tree was a fence round the young one; though, indeed, they were both one tree, for they had the same root, and it was only the stem renewing itself. A very curious and pretty sight it was. And it pleased me, as being a happy emblem of myself. And I said, "My life is rooted in God fast and everlasting, and though outwardly I may perish, there is within me a life to be renewed to all eternity."

AUBIN.

Such a tree I myself saw near Dieventer in Holland, with an old man and a little child near it. A very old man he was. He must be dead before this, and his grandchild be growing up into his place in the world. Dead is a word that must be used; so that I wish all wrong meaning could be kept out of it. For there is a sense in which that old man is not dead, and never will be, though departed he is, no doubt. Through one minute's look at him, he lives on in my memory; and does not he, then, surely live on in the universe that produced and supported him? O, surely, surely! Since I saw what I have been speaking of, I have never once recollected it till this minute, and it is as though I saw it now. Even without my knowledge, that scene has lived on in me six years. Now my soul is like a thought in God; so I will never fear dying out of the Divine mind. Last night it occurred to me that to be remembered of God is to live in Him. And so it is, I have no doubt, though to-day I do not understand how. For there are some truths which at one time are quite plain, though at another time they seem obscure. This is according to what mood we are in. Just as the stars shine more or less brightly with the state of the atmosphere.

MARHAM.

There cannot be any forgetfulness in God, and all things live in Him according to their nature, the robin for its two or three years, the lark for its seven or eight, and the raven for its century.

AUBIN.

In God the fountains rise, and the rivers run, and the oceans ebb and flow; and shall not my spirit continue to be a spirit in Him? But in death there is the loss of the body; and in health, is not there a losing of the body, and a regaining of other flesh every minute? And then, has a river the same water running in it any two hours together? A fountain is a fountain, in God, for a hundred, a thousand, and many thousand years; so I will not fear but my soul will be a soul in Him for ages of ages, as the Greek has it, or, in our English phrase, for ever.

FROM MOUNTFORD'S EUTHANASY.

AILEEN.

I said to you, Kathleen, when I'd shed scarce a tear,
And say now, when I've wept tears of grief o'er his bier,
That my John never brook'd an ungenerous thought,
Nor a breath whose savor of selfishness seem'd wrought.
Happiest then my hours when his ways I might sing!

Happier now if I might transfuse as living flame,

From his last sun's glowing, his manhood's bright day-spring, This his mood that so spurn'd, as 'twere scorpion sting,

These twin min'strants to wrong, in God's sight burning shame!

The Christian's lot, O, how blest, at the tomb unwasted-
The worldling's gold and death-all else the wasting worm!
Thus anon typed his mood, face to face contrasted,
Hallow'd life's fair issues, selfish greed's tortured form.

Might he lore, each hour now, from the spirit-land impart;

In throng'd thoroughfares place where the sky's unclouded,
The full sum of ill gain, and its corpse unshrouded,

Ev'n self-seekers must fly these wheedlers of the heart!

To me, alas! 'tis left but to say, in earth's sphere,

He deem'd the Lord's precepts bid us be of good cheer;
Bid us think this world God's, once the home of his Son,
Who heaven for the soul that entreats it hath won!

For right use think it ours, with its wealth, scenic charms,

Its flora and fauna, its sea-tribes, and wing'd swarms;

Its sunlight and moonlight, and the spangled sky's sparkling,

And God's love-light and grace, when death's hour comes darkling!

Yet this I may tell you, and thank God evermore,
A loving, winning heart in his bosom he bore!
Is it strange that I rove, 'scaping sadness the while,
For fresh reminiscence of his.brow and gay smile,
And bring back thus again, as morning sun his sheen,

His image in sunshine, or the storm's wild excitement;
Or as mem'ry oft brings on chance-blown incitement,
My old sense of his bland, manly, truth-speaking mien?

Oh, Cushla, if not strange, is it wrong to retrace
My scroll of his blitheness, his endearments and grace,
As at eventide's hour, or the breeze-stirring dawn,
Our fireside he gladden'd, or the mead, or the lawn?
To recall with what glee he'd cajole herd and flock;
And how fondly his voice by them all was confessed,
As 'mong them we loiter'd, caressing and caress'd,
Ere the shadows of night reach'd the spring by yon rock!

Nay, I'm thrill'd with the thought, his spirit answers mine-
From his new home above to his old now so lone,-
His ripe faith ever calls in his old gladsome tone,
Hail, Aileen! The mem'ry o' leal love is divine!

Lov'd one! Sped from earth, as spent bloom from the plain,
Erewhile my own, Aileen, I may own you again,

And again, eye to eye, unsoil'd our earth-born love,
Adoring, we love on as heaven may approve.

Heaven speed me in my faith! Let my soul plume her wing,
And right soon let the knell of her leave-taking ring!
Let no truant sound, adrift in the ringing,

Tell of repining, or betoken dismay;

Nor moan nor loud sob dull the funeral singing,
As onward she speeds, exultant on the way!

Christian hearts need recoil, but sorrowing rejoice,

When, claimed for choirs above, hence hies a lov'd voice-
Fond spirits, as Paul's, must needs be found swaying,
'Twixt fellowship here and speedy flight to heaven;
But tears turn to smiles, truest solace displaying,
Where'er assured hope of reunion is given.

Earth hath charms! Here our Lord, who lov'd Lazarus, wept,
Tends his own, ere athwart the dark valley they're swept;
Here gives the mystic cruise, dispensing, refilling,

Where'er his own ways are the law of the home;
Here finds them sweet balm by the way-side distilling,
And brightens their hope as tow'rd heaven they roam.

Oh! here, on his foot-stool, ever fed from his life,
I was blest as a child, and as maid, and lov'd wife!
Sin-soil'd, 'twas yet God's, still blooming, still teeming,
Toned in his mercy, for redemption retained!
Now renew'd, I own my soul lags in the beaming

Of th' new light our God for its pathways ordain'd.

But, lo! the Lord's loved ones, above sin, beyond pain,
Living on, tho' like him in the tomb they have lain.
Should wailing be heard, as to these I'm soaring?
Nay, joy, as I'm hailed by the exalted, glad throng,
Rapt joy as I join them, the Lord God adoring,
In anthems unknown to earth's timbrel and song!

NORRISTOWN.

A CRADLE SONG.

Come to my arms, you bewildering elf!
Let me gather you, body and soul to myself,
Bury your shining eyes, head and hair,
And all the glory and grace you wear,
From twinkling feet to golden crown,
Deep in the folds of my crimson gown;
Clasping you close to my bosom and heart,
A thing of my holiest being a part:
Crowing a song in the olden rhyme,
Tender and sweet as a vesper chime.

Sleep, baby-boy:
The little birds rest,
Downy and soft,

In the mother-birds' nest;
The lambkins are safe
In the shepherds' warm fold;
The dew-drops asleep
In the butter-cups gold:

The violet nods
To the daisy's dream;
The lily lies hushed
On the lap of the stream;
And all holy and calm.
Like motherly eyes,

The stars look down
From the silent skies.

Sleep, baby-boy!
My birdling, my flower,
My lily, my lambkin,
My dew-drop, my dower!
While heart against heart
Beats softly in time,

To the mumuring flow,
Of my tender old rhyme.

PETER'S RECOVERY FROM HIS FALL.

BY THE EDITOR.

Before we speak of the penitence and recovery of Peter, we must say something in regard to the cause of his fall.

"Pride

It

His fall may be traced first of all to his pride and self-reliance. goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." That this was his weak point is proverbial. It is a general feature always appearing where we have any exibition of his character. It shows itself in his forwardness to be spokesman. It showed itself on the Sea of Galilee, when he desired to walk on the water like the Saviour. It is seen where he did not at first permit the Saviour to wash his feet. showed itself when he said to the Saviour (after he had told them of his coming sufferings,)-"Be it far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee." It showed itself on the very evening on which he denied Him while they were on their way to Gethsemane, when he told the Saviour if all forsook Him he would not; and when he refused to believe the words of the Saviour, that he should deny Him that night.

He was by nature bold and resolute, and he depended too much on his own heroism. This spirit is directly the opposite of what is proper in religion. Piety empties the man of all his own strength, and consequently of his own dependence. Peter thought he stood, and was not taking heed lest he fall. Ah! Peter was not the first, and he was not the last, that fell into this condemnation.