my poor village schoolmaster? I fling his pity away. Had he not found in her love the verdict of God, that he was worth loving! Did he not in her possess the eternal and the unchangeable? Were not her eyes openings through which he looked into the great depths that could not be measured or represented! She was his public, his society, his critic. He found in her the heaven-or as the Scotch pronounce it, the haven of rest. God gave unto him immortality, and he was glad. For his ambition, it had died of its own mortality. He read the words of Jesus, and the words of great prophets whom he has sent, and he learned that the wind-tossed anemone is a word of God as real and true as the great unbending oak beneath which it growsthat reality is an absolute existence precluding degrees. If his mind was, as his room, scantily furnished, it was yet lofty; if his light was small, it was brilliant. God lived, and he lived.

All night long he had sat there, and morning was drawing nigh. He has not heard the busy wind all night, heaping up snow against the house, which will make him start at the ghostly face of the world when at length he opens the shutters, and it stares upon him so white. For up in a little room above, white-curtained, like the great earth without, there has been a storm, too, half the night-moanings and prayers-all things but forbidden tears; and now, at length, it is over; and through the portals of two mouths instead of one, flows and ebbs the tide of the great air-sea which feeds the life of man. With the sorrow of the mother the new life is purchased for the child; our very being is redeemed from nothingness with the pains of a death of which we know not till long after.

An hour has gone by since the watcher below has been delivered from the fear and doubt that held him. He has seen the mother and the child-the second she has given to life and him-and has returned to his lonely room quiet and glad, yet thoughtful. But not long did he sit in silence before new thoughts of doubt awoke in his mind. He remembered his scanty income, and the somewhat feeble health of his frame. One or two small debts he had contracted seemed absolutely to hang on his neck; and the new-born child--oh! how doubly welcome, he thought, "if I were but half as rich again as I am"-brought with it, as its own love, so its own care. The dogs of need that so often hunt us up to heaven seemed hard upon his heels, and he prayed to God with fervor; and as he prayed he fell asleep in his chair, and as

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he slept he dreamed. The fire and the lamp burned on as before, but threw no rays into his soul; yet now, for the first time, he seemed to become aware of the storm without, for his dream was as follows:

He lay in his bed and listened to the howling of the wintry wind. He trembled at the thought of the pitiless cold, and turned to sleep, when he thought he heard a feeble knocking at the door. He rose in haste and went down with a light. As he opened the door, the wind, entering with a gust of frosty particles, blew out his candle; but he found it was unneeded, for it was gray dawn. Looking out, he saw nothing at first; but a second look, directed downwards, showed him a little half-frozen child, who looked quietly, but beseechingly, in his face. His hair was filled with drifted snow, and his little hands and cheeks were blue with cold. The heart of the poor schoolmaster almost burst with the springflood of love and pity that welled up within it, as he lifted the child to his bosom, and carried him into the house; where, in the dream's incongruity, he found a fire blazing in the room in which he now slept. The child said never a word, as he first set him by the fire, and then made haste to get hot water and put him in a warm bath. He never doubted that this was a stray orphan who had wandered to him for protection, and he felt that he could not part with him again; although all the train of his previous troubles and doubts once more passed through the mind of the dreamer, and there seemed no answer to his perplexities for the lack of that cheap thing, gold-yea, silver. But when he had undressed and bathed the little orphan, and having dried him on his knees, set him down to reach something warm to wrap him in, the boy suddenly looked up in his face, as if revived, and said with a heavenly smile, "I am the child Jesus." "The child Jesus!" said the youth, astonished. "Thou art like any other child." "No, do not say so," returned the boy, "but say, any other child is like me." And the child and the dream slowly faded away; and the youth awoke with these words sounding in his heart"Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me." When he opened his eyes he found his eldest child, his little comforting daughter, who was up early, looking up in his face, and pulling at his coat, with the cry of all creation on her tiny lips-Father, father. He clasped her in his arms in the name of the child Jesus; and in that

embrace he knew that he received God to his heart. And the voice of God seemed to say to him: Thou wouldst receive the child whom I sent thee out of the cold, stormy night; receive the new child out of the cold waste into the warm human house, as the door by which it can enter God's. If better could be done for it, or for thee, Would I have sent it hither? Through thy love my little one must learn mine and be blessed; and thou shalt not keep it without thy reward. For thy necessities, in thy little house, is there not yet room? in thy barrel is there not yet meal? and thy purse is not empty quite. Thou canst not eat more than a mouthful at once. I have made thee so. Is it any trouble to me to take care of thee? Only I prefer to feed thee from my own hand, and not from thy store." And the schoolmaster sprang up in joy, ran up stairs, kissed his wife and child again with a tender, beaming face; and soon was wading through the snow to the school house, where he spent a happy day amidst the rosy faces and bright eyes of his boys and girls; whom, likewise, he loved the more dearly and joyfully for that dream and those words in his heart; so that, amidst their true faces, when all was going well with them, (as not unfrequently happened in his schoolroom,) he felt as if all the elements of Paradise were gathered around him, and knew that he was God's child, doing God's work.

But while that dream was passing through the soul of the husband, another visited the wife as she lay in the faintness and trembling joy of the new motherhood. For that she had been mother before, made her not less a new mother to the new child. Her former relation could not cover with its wings the fresh bird in the nest of her bosom. She was twice a mother, with the added beauty that her children were sister and brother. As she lay half in a sleep, half in a faint, with the vapors of a gentle delirium floating through her brain, without losing the sense of existence she lost the consciousness of its form, and thought she lay, not a young mother in her bed, but a nosegay of wild flowers in a basket, crushed, flattened, half-withered. With her in the basket lay other bunches of flowers, whose odors, are and rich, revealed to her the sad contrast in which she was placed. Beside her lay a cluster of delicately-curved, faintly-tinged, tea-scented roses; while she was only blue hyacinth bells, pale primroses, amethyst anemones, closed, blood-colored daisies, purple violets, and one sweetscented, pure white orchis. The basket lay on the counter of a well-known little shop in the

village, waiting for purchasers, as she believed. By and by her own husband entered the shop, and approached the basket to choose a nosegay. "Ah!" thought she, "will he choose me? How dreadful if he should not, and I should be left lying here, while he takes another! But how should he choose me? they are all so beautiful, and even my scent is nearly gone. And he can not know that it is I lying here. Alas! alas!" But as she thought thus, she felt his hand clasp her, heard the ransom-money fall on the counter, and felt that she was pressed to his face and lips, as he passed from the shop. He had chosen her; he had known her. She opened her eyes, and her husband's kiss had awakened her. She spoke not, but looked up thankfully in his eyes, as if he had, in fact, like one of the old knights, relieved her from the transformation of evil magic by the counter-enchantment of a kiss, and restored her from a half withered nosegay to be a woman, a wife, a mother. The dream comforted her much, for she often feared that she, the simple, so-called uneducated girl, could not be enough for the great schoolmaster. But soon her thoughts flowed into another channel; the tears rose in her dark eyes, shining clear from beneath a stream that was not of sorrow; and it was only weakness that kept her from uttering audible words like these:-"Father in heaven, shall I trust my husband's love, and doubt of thine? Wilt thou meet less richly the fearing hope of thy child's heart than he in my dream met the longing of his wife's? He was perfected in my eyes by the love he bore me-shall I find thee less complete? Here I lie on thy world, faint, and crushed, and withered; and my soul often seems as if it had lost all the odors that should float up in the sweet-smelling savor of thankfulness and love to thee. But thou hast only to take me, only to choose me, only to clasp me to thy bosom, and I shall be a beautiful singing angel, singing unto God, and comforting my husband while I sing. Father, take me, possess me, fill me!"

That day she, too, did her work well; that is, she lay patiently waiting for the summer time of restored strength that drew slowly nigh. With her husband and her children near her, in her soul, and God everywhere, there was for her no death, and no hurt. When she said to herself, "How rich I am!" it was with the riches that pass not away-the riches of the Son of man; for in her treasures the human and divine were blended-were one. Oh, how lowly in outward seeming and aim may that household be, in which Jesus dwells, as with the family at Bethany!

THE WORM AT THE FLOWER.

BY J. MONTGOMERY, ESQ.

YOU'RE Spinning for my lady, Worm,
Silk garments for the fair;
You're spinning rainbows for a form
More beautiful than air;
When air is bright with sunbeams,
And morning mists arise

From woody vales and mountain streams
To blue autumnal skies.

You're training for my lady, Flower!
You're opening for my love-
The glory of her summer bower,
While sky-larks soar above.
Go, twine her locks with rose-buds,
Or breathe upon her breast;
While zephyrs curl the water-floods,
And rock the halcyon's nest.

But oh! there is another worm
Ere long will visit her,
And revel on her lovely form
In the dark sepulchre ;
Yet from that sepulchre shall spring
A flower as sweet as this:
Hard by the nightingale shall sing,
Soft wings its petals kiss.

Frail emblems of frail beauty, ye,

In beauty who would trust!
Since all that charms the eye must be
Consigned to worms and dust.

Yet, like the flower that decks her tomb,
Her spirit shall quit the clod,
And shine in amaranthine bloom
Fast by the throne of God!

POWER OF EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

BY REV. JOHN TODD.

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the wife and one of the boys were gone to carry grain to the mill a few miles off. The Indians at once killed the man and his son, and took the two little girls, one aged ten and the other nine, and carried them away, along with a great many other weeping children whom they had taken after murdering their parents. It was never known what became of Barbara, the oldest girl; but Regina, with another little girl two years old, whom Regina had never seen before, were given to an old Indian woman, who was very cruel. Her only son lived with her, and supported her; but he was sometimes gone for several weeks, and then the old woman used to send the little girls to gather roots and herbs in the woods, for the old woman to eat; and when they did not get enough, she used to beat them cruelly. Regina never forgot her good father and mother, and the little girl always kept close to her. She taught the little girl to kneel down under the trees and pray to the Lord Jesus, and to say over with her all the hymns which her parents had taught her. In this state of slavery these children lived for nine long years, till Regina was about nineteen, and her little friend was eleven years old. Their hearts all this time seemed to wish for that which is good. They used to repeat not only the texts of Scripture which Regina could remember, but there was one favorite hymn which they often said over. It was the same hymn which you have just now been saying to me! In the year 1764, the kindness of God brought the English Colonel Bouquet to the place where they were. He conquered the Indians, and made them ask for peace. He granted it, on condition that all the white prisoners and captives should be given him. More than four hundred were brought to the Colonel; and among them these two girls. They were all poor, wretched-looking objects. The Colonel carried them to a town called Carlisle, in Pennsylvania, and had it printed in all the newspapers, that all parents who had lost children by the Indians might come and see if they were among the four hundred poor captives. Poor Regina's sorrowing mother-a poor widowamong others, went to Carlisle to see if she could find her children! But when she got there, she did not and could not know Regina. She had grown up, and looked, and dressed, and spoke, like the Indians. The mother went up and down among the captives weeping, but could not find her child. She stood gazing and weeping, when Colonel Bouquet came up and said, "Do you recollect nothing by which your child might be

MANY years ago a German left his country, and with his family came into the State of Pennsylvania to live there. He was a poor man, and had a large family. There were no schools there during the week, or on the Sabbath, and no churches. So the poor man used to keep his family at home on the Sabbath, and teach them from God's Word-for he was a very good man. In the year 1754, a dreadful war broke out in Canada between the French and the English. The Indians joined the French, and used to go to Pennsylvania, burn houses, murder the people, and carry off every thing they wanted. They found the dwelling of this poor German. The man, and his oldest boy, and two little girls, named Barbara and Regina, were at home, while