The next spring time, when the robins came home,
They sang over grasses and flowers

That grew where the foot of the ladder stood,
Whose top reached the heavenly bowers.

And the parents had dressed the pale, still child,
For her flight to the summer land,

In a fair white robe, with one snow white rose
Folded tight in her pulseless hand.

And now at the foot of the ladder they sit,
Looking upward with quiet tears,

Till the beckoning hand and the fluttering robe
Of the child at the top appears.

Our Young Folks.

POST NUMMOS VIRTUS.-ARCHBISHOP SPAULDING.

Ours is, emphat

Its motto

Avarice is the besetting sin of the age. ically, the enlightened age of dollars and cents! is: Post nummos virtus,-money first, virtue afterward! Utilitarianism is the order of the day. Everything is estimated in dollars and cents. Almost every order and profession-our literature, our arts, and our sciences—all worship in the temple of Mammon.

The temple of God is open during only one day in the week; that of Mammon is open during six. Everything smacks of gold. The fever of avarice is consuming the very heart's blood of our people. Hence that restless desire to grow suddenly rich; hence that feverish agitation of our population; hence broken constitutions and premature old age. If we have not discovered the philosopher's stone, it has surely not been for want of the seeking. If everything cannot now be turned into gold, it is certainly not for want of unceasing exertions for this purpose.

We have even heard of churches having been built on speculation! And if the traveler from some distant clime should chance suddenly to enter one of our fashionable meeting-houses, if he should look at its splendidly-cushioned

seats, on which people are seen comfortably lolling, and then glance at the naked walls, and the utter barrenness of all religious emblems and associations in the interior of the building, he would almost conclude that he had entered, by mistake, into some finely furnished lecture-room, where the ordinary topics of the day were to be discussed.

And if he were informed that this edifice had been erected and furnished by a joint-stock company on shares, and that these shrewd speculators looked confidently to the income from the rent of the seats as a return for their investment, his original impression would certainly not be weakened. But the conclusion would be irresistible if he were told still farther that, in order to secure a good attendance of the rich and fashionable, the owners of the stock had taken the prudent precaution to engage, at a high salary, some popular and eminent preacher! Those who have watched closely the signs of the times will admit that this is not a mere fancy sketch, and that it is not even exaggerated.

Alas! alas! for the utilitarianism, or rather materialism, of our boasted age of enlightenment! In such a condition of things can we wonder at the general prevalence of relig ious indifference and of unblushing infidelity? As in the days of Horace, our children are taught to calculate, but not to pray. They learn arithmetic, but not religion.

The mischievous maxim, that children must grow up without any distinctive religious impressions, and then, when they have attained the age of discretion, must choose a religion for themselves, is frightfully prevalent amongst us. This maxim is about as wise as would be that of the agriculturist who should resolve to permit his fields to lie neglected in the spring season, and to become overgrown with weeds and briers, under the pretext that, when summer would come, it would be time enough to scatter over them the good seed! It amounts to this: human nature is corrupt and downward in its tendency; let it fester in its corruption and become confirmed in its rottenness, and then it will be time enough to apply the remedy, or rather, human nature will then react and heal itself.

A TRIUMPH OF ORDER.-JOHN HAY.

The following poem is founded on the same incident as Victor Hugo's "Sur une Barricade."

A squad of regular infantry,

In the Commune's closing days,
Had captured a crowd of rebels
By the wall of Pere-la-Chaise.

There were desperate men, wild women,
And dark-eyed Amazon girls,

And one little boy, with a peach-down cheek
And yellow clustering curls.

The captain seized the little waif,

And said, "What dost thou here?"

"Sapristi, citizen captain!

I'm a Communist, my dear!"

"Very well. Then you die with the others!"
Very well. That's my affair,

But first let me take to my mother,
Who lives by the wine-shop there,

"My father's watch. You see it;
A gay old thing is it not?

It would please the old lady to have it,
Then I'll come back here and be shot."
"That is the last we shall see of him,"
The grizzled captain grinned,

As the little man skimmed down the hill
Like a swallow down the wind.

For the joy of killing had lost its zest
In the glut of those awful days,

And Death writhed, gorged like a greedy snake,
From the Arch to Pere-la-Chaise.

But before the last platoon had fired,
The child's shrill voice was heard-
"Houp-la! the old girl made such a row
I feared I should break my word!"

Against the bullet-pitted wall

He took his place with the rest;

A button was lost from his ragged blouse,
Which showed his soft, white breast.

"Now blaze away, my children,

With your little one-two-three!"
The Chassepots tore the stout young heart,
And saved society.

PERSEVERE.-JOHN BROUGHAM.

Robert, the Bruce, in his dungeon stood,
Waiting the hour of doom;

Behind him the palace of Holyrood,

Before him-a nameless tomb.

And the foam on his lip was flecked with red,
As away to the past his memory sped,
Upcalling the day of his past renown,

When he won, and he wore, the Scottish crown:

Yet come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"I have sat on the royal seat of Scone,"
He muttered below his breath;

"It's a luckless change, from a kingly throne

To a felon's shameful death."

And he clenched his hands in his mad despair,
And he struck at the shapes that were gathering there,
Pacing his cell in impatient rage,

As a new-caught lion paces his cage:

But come there shadow or come there shine,

The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"Oh! were it my fate to yield up life
At the head of my liegemen all,

In the foremost shock of the battle-strife
Breaking my country's thrall,

I'd welcome death from the foeman's steel,
Breathing a prayer for old Scotland's weal;
But here, where no pitying heart is nigh,
By a loathly hand it is hard to die:"

Yet come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"Time and again I have fronted the tide
Of the tyrant's vast array,

But only to see on the crimson tide

My hopes swept far away;

Now a landless chief and a crownless king,
On the broad, broad earth not a living thing
To keep me court, save this insect small,
Striving to reach from wall to wall:"

For come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

"Work! work like a fool, to the certain loss, Like myself, of your time and pain;

The space is too wide to be bridged across,
You but waste your strength in vain!"
And Bruce for the moment forgot his grief,
His soul now filled with the sure belief
That, howsoever the issue went,

For evil or good was the omen sent:

And come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

As a gambler watches the turning card
On which his all is staked,-

As a mother waits for the hopeful word
For which her soul has ached,-

It was thus Bruce watched, with every sense
Centred alone in that look intense;

All rigid he stood, with scattered breath-
Now white, now red, but as still as death:

Yet come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

Six several times the creature tried,
When at the seventh, "See, see!

He has spanned it over!" the captive cried;
"Lo! a bridge of hope to me;

Thee, God, I thank, for this lesson here
Has tutored my soul to PERSEVERE!"
And it served him well, for erelong he wore
In freedom the Scottish crown once more:

And come there shadow or come there shine,
The spider is spinning his thread so fine.

AT LAST.-CLARKSON CLOTHIER.

The ways of life, mysterious,

Work slowly toward some finite ends
Jehovah, 'neath a seeming cloud,

His creatures to his purpose bends;
When suddenly the end appears,
And breaks the spell of waiting years.

O weary pilgrim! where the path

Seems fraught with endless perils great,
Thy fainting heart may almost sink
O'erawed by thy apparent fate;
Take courage new, for soon or late,
Thy steps will reach the Golden Gate.