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the hands that did this were those of a loving Southern woman, whose father had fallen on the Confederate side in the battle, I said: "The war indeed is over; let us have peace!"

Gentlemen; soldiers; comrades; the silken folds that twine about us here, for all their soft and careless grace. are yet as strong as hooks of steel! They hold together a united people and a great nation; for, realizing the truth at last,--with no wounds to be healed and no stings of defeat to remember, the South says to the North, as simply and as truly as was said three thousand years ago in that far away meadow upon the margin of the mystic sea: Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

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A GOOD JOKE ON MARIA.

The Centennial Celebration of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was held in Philadelphia, May 17-29, 1888. During the week commencing May 21, the Butchers held their National Convention in the same city and paraded in their peculiar dress on the 24th. The day was a very rainy one.

I've got a good joke on Mariar,

'Nd that allers does me proud.

"Taint that I'm no ways spiteful,

But she's a leetle inclined to crowd.

I don't say nothin' agin her,

I haint never had no call;

But I must say this, ef she is my wife,
She sets up to know it all.

Well, me an' Mariar is Baptists:
I don't think we're no ways sot;
1 haint, 'nd she says she haint,
'Nd that's ez fur ez we've got.
Whatever there is to see or hear,
We're up to see an' hear it,
Whether it's Baptist or whether it haint,
In a genooine Christian speerit.

So we come in, the twenty-fourth,
To obsarve the celebration

The Presbyterians had got up

For their hundredth centenation. 'Nd we stood there in all that rain To see their grand parade.

Ef it hadn't 'a' been to encourage 'em I don't think I'd 'a' stayed.

I've got purty liberal idees,

So I didn't mind it much

To see them preachers a horseback, 'Nd wearin' white gowns, 'nd such I only hunched Mariar, 'nd says:

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Presbyterians is pretty gay;

I didn't hardly expect to see 'em
Carry on in no sech way.”

I wish you'd 'a' seen Mariar,

She jest looked round an' smiled In sech a high-up superious way That I jest nacher❜ly biled. "You've mistook the denomination; 'Most any man would, ye see; Them haint no Presbyterians; Them's 'Piscopals," sez she. Then a man next to me spoke up, Ez civil ez civil could be: "They're wet enough to be Baptists But they're jest the Butchers," se I gin one look at my pardner;

Her face wuz ez red ez fire;

So I jest let the matter drop,

But I've got a good joke on Mariar.

UP HIGHER.-JOSEPH BERT SMILEY.

Every time you miss, or fail,

Start in on a higher scale.

Let each tear, and sigh, and moan,

Only be a stepping-stone;

Let each dark experience

Point you to an eminence

Up higher.

Every stab that racks your heart
Fits you for a stronger part.

Every stunning blow of pain
Lifts you to a broader plain.
Every foe that can appear
Trains you for a larger sphere
Up higher.

Never pause, and ne'er look back
O'er the fast-receding track.

There's a ghost there, grimand gaunt—

What's ahead is what you want.

Turn, and you will stand aghast.
Never search the bitter past,
Look higher!

From each crushing blow of pain
Rise and go ahead again.

Though your days fly swiftly past,
Push to conquer to the last.
Upward yet, and upward ever;
Onward still, and backward never!
Even when you hear the sound
Of Death's whisper, look beyond,-
Up higher.

THE FIREMAN'S PRIZE.

These lines were suggested by the brave act of Fireman McAlhattan, in res ming a little child from death, near Dimmock Station, Pa., April 21, 1891.

With his hand upon the throttle as the train swept round the bend,

The engineer stood ready the signal forth to send ;

His eye alert and watchful as he scanned the iron way That between him and the station in the gleaming sunlight

lay.

All alone he kept his vigil, save for one who, true and tried, With a spirit never failing, shared each danger by his side,→ His fireman, brave and dauntless, with his nerves like tempered steel,

But, with heart of gold within him, prompt to act and quick to feel.

Like a flash of summer lightning, onward dashed the fiery steed,

Never pausing for a moment in its rush of headlong speed. When suddenly the whistle sounded shrill upon the air, And the engineer grew pallid with a look of wild despair;

for there, before him standing, not a hundred yards away, Was a tiny blue-eyed baby, from its mother's arms astray,A fairy little figure, with its bright hair floating back, All unconscious of its danger, on the curving railway track From the throttle-valve his fingers in a nerveless tremor fell;

But only for an instant-quick as thought he struck the bell,

And reversed the flying engine, but, alas, in vain, in vain! For, with terrible momentum, onward sped the rushing train.

"You stay! I'll save the baby!" all at once rang in his ear; And, almost before the meaning of his comrade's words was clear,

From his cab had leaped the fireman, of the danger thinking naught,

Driven onward by an impulse that with generous love was fraught.

Like a deer before its hunters, like an arrow through the

sky,

Sped he on his noble mission, the dread monster to outvie, While from every door and window of the scarcely slackened train

Anxious eyes his footsteps followed as he strove the goal to gain.

On he dashed, the score of watchers gazing with suspended breath

At the contest, so unequal, in the very jaws of death;
Every voice to whispers sinking, direst fear in every face,
Lest the brave man, speeding onward, should be conquered
in the race.

It could last but little longer, and a breathless silence fell,
When suddenly, like thunder, rose a wild, triumphant yell,
That, echoing and re-echoing, seemed to pierce the very
skies,

For the fireman was the victor, and the baby's life his prize!

Ah! the smiles and tears and praises showered on him every where

As he placed the blue-eyed baby in its mother's tender

care;

Then, to his post up-springing, as the train again moved on, Mid the sound of cheering voices, in a moment he was gone. -Golden Days.

THE CLOSING SCENE.

On the liquor vender stern Death had called,
He his last day on earth had passed;
The sins of the flesh and the love of gain,
Found a fitting rebuke at last.

His cold corpse lay in its damp bed of clay,
And his salesrooms with crape were hung,
While he, himself, the spiritual man,

To the cold river Styx had come.

Oh! the waves of that cruel stream flowed fast,
He fain would have stayed on the land,
For the loose sails shook in the cutting blast,
As he felt the force of Death's hand.

He entered the time-worn and dismal craft
And trembled so in affright

That the weird and hideous boatman laughed
Till the echoes darkened the night.

"Oh, where are we going?" the dealer cried.
In mocking, sepulchral tone,

The ferryman Charon grimly replied:

"To the gates of your future home." A fearful voyage was that, in all truth, To the wretched and abject man;

His thoughts returned to the days of his youth,
And he wished he was young again.

The boat touched the strand of a dreary land,
"We separate here," Charon said;

On the shore stood Nemesis, pointing where
A path through a dark tunnel led.
Impelled by a power he could not see,
He followed his merciless guide
Until they arrived at a loathsome den,
By the foot of a mountain side.

"Spirit," the regal custodian said,

"Behold here the home you have won! Here you must live till your victims forgive The numerous wrongs you have done.

The growth of seeds sown in your earthly home
You are called upon here to reap,

And here you must learn what you should have known
Ere you planted those seeds so deep."

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