adornment of the Christian character, it is the illuminate power which, when possessed in its fullness, must make the owner a shining light, which cannot be hid. Let us see to it that we know something of charity beyond its mere name—so that, in that day when we shall be sent, like the most miserable of beggars, perhaps, the blessing of God; pleasant dreams tian graces of which an obtainment of reputation will hold you in their soft embraces. But before is so easy, there is none perhaps in which it is so you listen to these sweet songs of fairy land, let difficult honestly to perfect oneself. Threefold in me ask you question that I would to heaven my its nature-of thought, and of word, and of deed voice might ring through the ends of the earth--it comprehends almost every excellence, and how many hearts have you made glad to-day? Of all the multitude, of the crowd nigh surrounding you, how many have you made go to their rest this evening, feeling, as the light of the New Year grows stronger over head, that they have, what they almost began to fear they had not, a friend upon this cheerless earth! How many have you sent to their rest well fed and warm for the first time in long weeks? How many hearts have you empowered to think over your name, and mingle with it blessings for your charity, and far more, ah! yes, far more for your kind and sympathising words? I am told there is much of sterling charity in words of advice given to the hungry beggar at my door. This is a very truism; but so long as I know the power of physical want, I also cannot fail knowing how worse than idle is unasked advice to the faint and weary mortal, who perhaps, probably knows far better what disposition to make of himself, and of his time, than we, such perfect strangers to his life, and his intentions, and desires. I do not deny it is well to administer sometimes such charity, but I do say, we should examine and take good heed to whom, and wherefore we address it. Let not an idly-spoken word, or for-a-moment-interested thought, in its utterance, part the husband and the wife. If any human feeling is still left in her breast, she can bear his unkindness far better than your cruel words of him, whom she has loved, whom, despite his faults, she may still love. Do not bid the little child who is yet, if the children of the poor ever are, in the land of the blessed ideal-do not bid her, with rebuking words to " go to work." Remember you, whose days are passed in pleasant idleness, in blessed, or rather unblessed ease, remember how hard those little hands will become through the toil of years—the very years which with you will pass so swiftly and so happily away. Think, as night after night draws on, how wearied and care-worn she will grow. How she will rise early, and toil through the long day, and yet her work cease not as the even-time draws nigh. It is an easy thing to bid a child work; it requires no very great exertion to tell the fainting but loving woman to seek a home in the poor-house, and bind out her children, the children for whom, blessed be God! she feels as much affection, and "receives as great a recompense of reward" in loving, as the richest, proudest mother! and you may call this charity; it does not make it so. As long as this world endures, as long as one portion of His children have ten talents committed to their trust, and to others barely one, it is a duty terribly binding on every one who hath, to aid his brother whom he seeth in need of his aid. Why pray God's kingdom may speedily come? Is it not idle, a very mockery indeed, when we scorn and spurn His poor, who with us are bound eternity-ward! Now, is there not a vast amount of humbugging in this so-called charity! Of all the Chris "Stripped, and naked to the grave," we may not blush to think of the time when we were clothed "in the purple and fine linen" of riches every day. Of the life that remains on earth to Robert Retson and his wife I may not speak, without it it is in the language of a prophet, which I do not profess to be. If revelling in the fashion of this world, and making "idols" of such "a perishing thing" as gratified ambition, and the like, can make the happiness of immortal mortals, then I cannot hesitate in saying they will be happy always. But if, when old age creeps over them, they have not laid up in their past a store of better recollections than they have yet done, I scarcely think they are among the to-be-envied people of the earth. The splendid woman will not care to think of more than one pale little face from whose tale of want and sorrow she has turned with a deaf ear away! Oh! let not this New Year shine upon you as it does on her, an unworthy recipient of His goodness and mercy! She is the admiration, and wonder, and envy of the circle in which she moves-but still unworthy, unworthy! What would you think were you see a child, snatched by kindly hands from a life of penury and distress, and reared in a home of luxury, at an age too when she could retain a vivid recollection of the destitution of her early days, what would you say if you saw such an one turning unmindfully from the cries of the children of her father and her mother, who lived in misery beneath the same roof where first she saw the light? You would turn away in horror from such an one, and all her beauty, and grace, and charms, would be loathsome in your sight. Could we but look upon life thus! for it is in just such a light the King of Heaven regards us all. All his children-fed by his bounty-yet some through one negligence and selfishness feeding on the husks and the crumbs of the bountiful repast. Do not, with the impression that beggars are oftentime impostors, draw the conclusion that all are unworthy, and therefore decide you will not give at all. It betokens a strange and not desirable state of mind, when one, either early or late in life, can turn a deaf ear to the voice of want. Just imagine for a moment what must be their thoughts, to whom only a glance at the comforts of life is given-and these comforts in the possession of another-think with what feelings they must watch your richly and warmly-robed form treading through the very streets where they must walk with downcast eyes, and looks of deep humility-who must draw nigh to you, and speak with you only in the language of supplication! I have heard of beggars sometimes spurning the proffered crusts and bones of them who find the unsavory store so fast increasing that they can afford to give the worst away! I do not, cannot wonder at it, when I think they are the same in nature as we, I cannot be amazed that they spurn sometimes in bitterness of heart the refuse of the tables, from partaking of whose fatness chance only has expelled them! Our country does not, like the old world, teem with multitudes of paupers, but there are poor enough surrounding us. See to it, you whose larger charities go abroad to the ends of the earth, you know not whither, which are indeed like "bread cast upon the waters," which shall return again. Do not, in giving for purposes in which you cannot feel so deeply interested because of your very ignorance of the recipients, do not shut from yourself the luxury of making one human heart happier and better. Do not deprive yourself of the joy of seeing one care-dimmed eye growing brighter, one desponding voice becoming more glad and joyous in its tone because of your aid. Oh! there is a blessing more to be coveted than riches, and power, and knowledge-it is the blessing the Almighty God pronounces on the heart of the "cheerful giver;" and much of humbug as there is attending this most "excellent of gifts," and masquerading in its outer garb, there is in it the loftiest, and chieftest virtue; therefore, if to-night, when I say to you, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not self unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily puffed up, nor vaunteth itself, doth not behave itprovoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and never faileth;" if you can say in reply to all this, "It is mine, this heavenly charity," then, ere I go from you, then would I say, peace be in your house, and happiness in your heart; though even this is half idle, when the very fountain of Love, which is Charity, dwelleth in you, and will be ever with you a source of unfailing joy and consolation. If I have inveigled you into hearing a discourse on charity, by presenting the subject under what might prove a more attractive head, do not feel that you have exactly been humbugged; for I do assure you, my dear friend, there is something fearfully real in the power which human beings have to do good to one another; and if, under any feint, I have induced you to think to-night more earnestly of what you have little thought upon before, I cannot consider my work on this New Year's day a profitless and useless one. THIS is one of the numerous wildly romantic | easy to find its rival on any other river, either in views on the river Wye in Wales. Its name is England or Wales. A huge rocky dyke stretches pure Celtic and the meaning of it is the cataract. To us Americans who are accustomed to Niagara Falls, the Falls of the Passaic, the Genesee Falls, Trenton Falls, and numerous other stupendous water falls, such cataracts as that of the Wye do not very forcibly impress the imagination. But our English friends make the most of their small water falls. across the bed of the stream, and seems to shut out its progress. In some places the water forces its way over the barrier, but the main body winds round, and through breaks in it. Before the bridge was built, the water used to rush over and form a noble cascade, whence the town derived its name-Rhayader Gwy, for so it is called in Welch, signifying the cataract of the Wye.' But when the bridge was erected, the bed of the river was deepened, and the fall in consequence destroyed. BORDER BULLETS. NO. IV. THE TRAPPER'S STORY.* BY C. W. HOLDEN. "AND so," said I to the old Trapper, as we sat cosily over a cheerful wood fire, after partaking of an abundant supper, " you, who have been fed, as it were, upon real dangers, and lulled to sleep, for years, by portentous winds, do not profess to be invulnerable to attacks of fear? How singular that you, the boldest among bold hunters, the hardiest of hardy trappers, should plead guilty to such a womanly weakness." "I can't say, youngster," answered the old man very complacently, as he filled another pipe with genuine Cavendish; "I can't say as I'm ashamed to tell you that I have been afeard. It certainly is a quality of a brave man to fear danger; a rash man may unnecessarily court it. For my part, I have never felt inclined to throw away my life foolishly, but have yet ventured it carelessly where it was endangered, when I knew it was my duty to do so. Agin, I've been unknowingly drawn into curious scrapes, almost impossible to get out of, and in one or two cases felt as if I would rather be at home under my buffalo skin in the corner, though there mightn't be as much glory in it. Did I ever tell you a singular affair of mine that happened, but I know I haven't told you this; so, if you will draw your chair up a little closer, and lay another log on the fire, I'll try and interest you for an hour or so." I needed no second bidding. The log was soon blazing away at us; and as, in the interim, the old man's pipe had been newly replenished, preparatory to one of his long tales, I drew my low chair to his side as he commenced. its purity, and I knew that a boy brought up in the settlements could hope to bring down half a dozen antlered bucks before sundown, if he tried. I filled my horn to its utmost capacity, pocketed two extra flints, and double my usual number of balls, and before the sun had shown his face before my door, was carefully picking my way along the bushes which skirted the rear of my hut. But I could not find any intimation of the presence of a deer, and the sun was high in the heavens before the foot-print even of a rabbit had greeted my eyes. Civilized members of humanity would have cursed and raved; I did no such thing. I changed my course to a section where at all seasons deer most abound, well knowing that success would repay the trouble of reaching so distant a spot. This favorite hunting-ground of mine was about twenty-eight miles from my hut, which might render necessary my absence from home for one night at least. But with no ties of family to draw me home, I cared nothing for its pleasures, and resolutely bent my energies to the task of annihilating space as speedily as possible. My step in those days, youngster, was as firm and elastic, as buoyant and graceful, as the fantastic curvatures of young maidenhood in the giddy mazes of the dance; while my bound was as aerial as the flight of an offending fairy before the hot pursuit of terrific Oberon; and ere the sun had half-way descended the dark clouds which would escort him to the invisible world, I had reached my destination. In an hour a splendid buck was at my feet, past the agonies of death, and the work of a few minutes more rendered me the possessor of as fine a meal of venison as ever graced the board of a king. Then I was supremely happy, and, while feasting and drinking, did the honors of the table in a manner to suit all the guests, myself included. 66 "I never kept a log-book or almanac in all my life," said the old man quietly, "and so I can't be expected to give you dates and figures of months, or days, or years, like an accountant's clerk. I can only say such and such things happened, and the only marks by which I can even tell that they really took place, are scored on my breast and 'Of course you know the effects of a full arms so plainly, that I can't think I dreamed of hearty meal-especially of venison-upon a them. A smart cut of a hunting-knife across the stomach deplorably wan with abstinence from breast-bone can't be scratched off with a pen-animal food; and you can imagine how cosily I knife like a blot of ink, nor can a lunge in the ribs be effaced like a pencil mark beneath India rubber. I carry with me no schoolboy recollections my memories are all of my manhood's prime. "It was a fine autumnal morning, of some twenty, perhaps thirty, years ago, when I started out very early to try my hand upon some of the deer with which the forests abounded. There had been a slight fall of snow the night previous, just tinting the branches of the trees and the underbrush with sat over the remains of the feast and cogitated upon my probable prospect of reaching home that night, which at first seemed not improbable. But as the sun was fast disappearing, and I did not much relish a forced march without the blessing of sunlight, judgment taught me to stay in the forest till morning. This I did not much dread, as I saw no indications of an approaching storm; and accordingly resigned myself quietly to an evident desire for sleep, now manifest in my corporeal functions. Insensibly there stole over me *To those who would raise objections to the "Border Bullets" because the expressions are not idiomatical to border hunters, but are peculiar to the vernacular tongue of the settlements, I can only say, I am no Trapper, or even Frontier man. These tales were told me some years ago by an old hunter with whom I chanced to become acquainted in the West, and thongh in putting them on paper the spirit of his peculiarly expressive pronunciation and tenacious hold upon ancient orthography, which to me gave them their greatest zest, are totally lost, the incidents and matter are all his Own. that opiate slumber which is the precursor of a suspension of nature's faculties, and I gradually faded away into a deep sleep, as quietly as though at my own fire-side. "And then across me gradually stole those indescribable feelings, constantly impelling the body onward to deep sleep. They seemed to encircle my heart with promises of a benign slumber, whose influences should quiet all my pains, and soothe my fears and sorrows. Tempting me through the wondrous power of nature, I could hardly resist the dalliance of the universal pas sion, and nearly relinquished myself to its em across me the recollections of old men and young, warriors as well as women, manhood as often as infancy, swallowed up in the vortex of inexorable death through a moment's weakness, and I nerved myself to a contest with the insidious adversary. Stern was the struggle, and I had once nearly resigned myself to fate, when a sudden suspicion of skylight met my eye, and for the time thwarted the deadly designs of the tempter. Those who have never ventured the perils of a wintry storm, without a hope of succor, can only imagine very faintly the strength of mind and tenacity of purpose requisite to a safe deliverance from the dangers of a snow-storm slumber, with nothing to pillow the head but the drifting flakes of white. "How long I slept I know not, but when I opened my eyes the forest before me loomed up in all the density of total darkness, and my vision in vain tried to pierce the surrounding gloom. It seemed as though the black shades of midnight brooded over the whole scene in the in-braces without a struggle. But then there came tensity of darkening horror, and hemmed me in from retreat on every side. I instantly realized a peculiar sensation about my feet not belonging to the awakening from a common sleep, and at the same moment a tingling thrill of the veins of my hands warned me of some reaction in the atmosphere. Simultaneous with this discovery was my sudden uprising to a sitting posture, and as I spread my hands beside me, preparatory to rising, I found my arms imbedded to the elbows in the chill embraces of newly-fallen snow. I will not say that I was horror-struck, but the warm blood rushed through my veins in rapid pulsations, and instantly awoke me to a sense of my terrible situation. There was I, more than a score of miles from my own threshold-that dear threshold, whose humble pleasures I had never sufficiently realized when in full possession and peaceful security and before me a sheet of the pure white of nature, whose simple folds would, perhaps ere the rising of the sun, enshrine me in a shroud, whose majestic beauty would hardly atone for the sacrifice of a cherished life, and leave me to wither or rot in the varying changes of a western winter. And then, benumbed and chilled with cold, which reigned supreme in the air around, pierced to the bone of my every limb with the terrible power of the triumphant element, I bent my knee humbly before that God who had protected me through many equally imminent perils, and invoked of him aid to my weary body, that I might safely reach some sheltered spot ere I consigned my immortal part to his care. And then rising, refreshed from my communion with his invisible spirit, I calmly betook myself to the task of unfolding the intricacies of the path, covered as it was with the evening snow. "The blue crescent of heaven, which but a few hours before had gleamed so brilliantly above me, was now completely shut out from view, and the blinding gusts of driven snow which, at measured intervals, swept past with the accompaninent of monotonous wailing so sad and mournful in its impressions of momentary solemnity, smote the strings of my heart as something terrible and overpowering in promises of ill. Involuntarily, and without aim or purpose, I wandered on, ever and anon turning from my direct path with serpentine flexibility, and always straining eagerly for a glimpse of that heaven which I could not but fear would never again greet my eyes. And as I brushed from my cheek the delicate flakes which rested there so gently that I scarcely acknowledged their presence, I with mathematical precision computed the probable number of hours ere I should lack the strength necessary to brush off from my flesh the feathery fleece which should entomb my corse. "Oh! the hours of that long night were lengthened into slow marches of eternity, and expanded into an infinity of time. Daybreak seemed retrogressing, and its accessories entirely eclipsed. But at last it came, and never beamed light more invigorating to my soul; and yet it in a measure proved painful to me, for it served to show in vivid colors the horror of my situation. The horizon seemed muffled in the pale folds of wintry weaving to such an extent that the deep blue of heaven and the yellow of the forest foliage were commingled in a formation of purest white. As far as my eye could extend, desolation reigned supreme. No welcome cabin, no friendly hut, rose in perspective to break the monotony of the landscape; but one interminable bank of driven snow, whose surface was as treacherous to the foot of man as the slight crust that springs upon the lake after an early frost, bound my straining vision. "But I had no time for reflection. The lethargic slumber, which had threatened my system a few hours before, might return with redoubled violence, and it was absolutely necessary that I found shelter from the driving sleet which nearly pierced my vitality. I must look around for means whereby the stern winter could at least be avoided for awhile. Alas! no cave, or cavity, or crevice, offered any hope; an unbroken level of pure white occupied the whole scene. But onward I kept my course, as steadily as though upon a hunting excursion in sunlight. Tightening the belt of my hunting-shirt, and gathering its folds securely about my neck, I groped my way through the pitiless blasts of wintry air, ever trusting in the goodness of God for redemption from my trials. "At last, as I turned the sharp angle of a clump of alders which skirted a swampy piece of ground, I thought I discerned afar off the outline of a rude hut, though so enveloped in snow as hardly to be discernible. At first I imagined that my feverish thoughts had conjured up some spectral |