AN OLD MAN'S STORY.-MILTON THOMPSON.

'Tis only an old man's story,--a tale we have oft heard told, In a thousand forms and fancies, by the young as well as old, A tale of a life dragged hellward, bound down by a demon's chain,

Till the friendly hand of temp'rance had rescued it back again!

Though only a child at the time, friends, I well remember the night

Of our first great temp'rance meeting—it came as an angel of light,

Midst the darkness of vile intemp'rance, its myriad crimes

and sin;

A guiding light to the path of right, that all might enter in! A hymn, a prayer, an address; then the chairman's voice was heard

To call on any one present just to say but a warning word. Our pastor rose, midst cheering, but he strongly denounced the new cause

As "a movement which none but fanatics (hear, hear, and loud applause)

Would engage in, to injure the business of such respectable men,

And break up the time-honored usage of the country-" but just then

I saw, whilst a death-like silence reigned, an old man slowly rise

On the platform and fix on the speaker the glance of his piercing eyes!

That look held the audience spell-bound, and I noticed my father's cheek

Turn deadly pale as the stranger paused before he began to

speak.

At last, with an effort, the old man said, in accents low but clear:

"You've heard, friends, that I'm a fanatic, that I have no business here;

As men and Christians listen to truth, hear me and be just; My life-sands fast are running out, and speak to-night I must! O'er a beaconless sea I've journeyed, life's dearest hopes I've wrecked

God knows how my heart is aching, as I now o'er the past reflect.

I'm alone, without friends or kindred, but it was not always

80;

For I see awa” o'er that ocean wild, dear forms pass to and

fro.

I once knew a doting mother's love, but I crushed her fond old heart;

(He seemed to look at some vision, with his quivering lips apart.)

I once loved an angel creature with her laughing eyes so blue,

And the sweetest child that ever smiled, and a boy so brave and true!

Perhaps, friends, you will be startled, but these hands have dealt the blow

That severed the ties of kindred love, and laid those dear ones low.

Ah! yes, I was once a fanatic; yea, more-a fiend, for then I sacrificed my home, my all, for the riots of a drink fiend's

den.

One New Year's night I entered the hut, that charity gave,

and found

My starving wife all helpless and shivering on the ground; With a maddened cry I demanded food, then struck her a terrible blow;

'Food, food,' I yelled, 'quick, give me food, or by heaven out you go!'

Just then our babe from its cradle sent up a famished wail, My wife caught up the little form, with its face so thin and pale,

Saying, James! my once kind husband, you know we've had no food

For near a week. Oh, do not harm my Willie that's so good. With a wild Ha! ha! I seized them, and lifted the latch of the door;

The storm burst in, but I hurled them out in the tempest's wildest roar,

A terrible impulse bore me on, so I turned to my little lad, And snatched him from his slumbering rest-the thought near drives me mad.

To the door I fiercely dragged him, grasping his slender throat,

And thrust him out, but his hand had caught the pocket of my coat.

I could not wrench his frenzied hold, so I hit him with my

fist,

Then shutting the door upon his arm it severed at the wrist.

I awoke in the morn from a stupor and idly opened the door ; With a moan I started backward-two forms fell flat to the floor.

The blood like burning arrows shot right up to my dazed brain,

As I called my wife by the dearest words; but, alas! I called in vain.

The thought of my boy flashed on me, I imprinted one fervent kiss

On those frozen lips; then searched around, but from that black day to this

My injured boy I've never seen-" He paused awhile and

wept,

And I saw the tears on my father's cheek as I closer to him crept.

Once more the old man faltering said, "Ten long, long years

I served,

With an aching heart, in a felon's cell, the sentence I deserved;

But there's yet a gleam of sunshine in my life's beclouded

sky,

And I long to meet my loved ones in the better land on

high!"

The pledge book lay on the table, just where the old man stood,

He asked the men to sign it, and several said they would. · "Aye, sign it-angels would sign it," he exclaimed with a look of joy;

"I'd sign it a thousand times in blood, if it would bring back my boy!"

My father wrote his name down whilst he trembled in every limb;

The old man scanned it o'er and o'er, then strangely glanced

at him.

My father raised his left arm up-a cry, a convulsive startThen an old man and his injured boy were sobbing heart to heart!

Ere the meeting closed that evening, each offered a fervent

prayer,

And many that night, who saw the sight, rejoiced that they were there!

THE VENICE OF THE AZTECS.

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.

This beautiful extract from the "History of the Conquest of Mexico," refers to the first sight of the city of Mexico by the Spaniards under Cortes, 1519.

The troops, refreshed by a night's rest, succeeded, early on the following day, in gaining the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, which stretches like a curtain between the two great mountains on the north and south. Their progress was now comparatively easy, and they marched forward with a buoyant step, as they felt they were treading the soil of Montezuma.

They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the sierra, they suddenly came on a view which more than compensated the toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley of Mexico, or Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the natives; which, with its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, its shining cities and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and gorgeous panorama before them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere of these upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of coloring and at distinctness of outline which seem to annihilate distance. Stretching far away at their feet, were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens; for flowers, in such demand for their religious festivals, were even more abundant in this populous valley than in other parts of Anahuac. In the centre of the great basin were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of its surface than at present; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst,-like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls,-the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of the waters,-the far-famed "Venice of the Aztecs." High over all rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses, which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of Tezcuco, and, still further on, the dark belt of porphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich setting which nature had devised for the fairest of her jewels.

Such was the beautiful vision which broke on the eyes of the conquerors. And even now, when so sad a change has come over the scene; when the stately forests have been laid low, and the soil, unsheltered from the fierce

radiance of a tropical sun, is in many places abandoned to sterility; when the waters have retired, leaving a broad and ghastly margin, white with the incrustation of salts, while the cities and hamlets on their borders have mouldered into ruins ;--even now that desolation broods over the landscape, so indestructible are the lines of beauty which nature has traced on its features, that no traveler, however cold, can gaze on them with any other emotions than those of astonishment and rapture.

What, then, must have been the emotions of the Span iards, when, after working their toilsome way into the upper air, the cloudy tabernacle parted before their eyes, and they beheld these fair scenes in all their pristine magnificence and beauty! It was like the spectacle

which greeted the eyes of Moses from the summit of Pisgah, and, in the warm glow of their feelings, they cried out, "It is the promised land!"

PAT'S WISDOM.

Tim Dolan and his wife, wan night,
Were drinkin' av the crayture,
Whin something started up a fight,
And they wint at it right an' tight,
According to their nature.
O'Grady and mesilf stood near,
Expecting bloody murther.
Says he to me: "Let's interfere."
But I, pretending not to hear,
Moved off a little further.

"Lave off, ye brute," says he to Tim;
"No man wud sthrike a lady."
But both the Doolans turned on him,
And in a whist the two ay them
Were wallopin O'Grady.

That night whin I was home, in bed,
Remimbering this token,

I took the notion in my head
That the wisest word I iver said

Was the one that wasn't spoken.