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And the falling dews, arrested, nourished every tender shoot, While beneath, the hidden moisture gathered to each wan

dering root.

So they grew; and I have watched them, as we journeyed year by year;

And we digged this well beneath them, where thou seest it, fresh and clear.

Thus from waste and loss and sorrow still are joy and beauty born,

Like the fruitage of these palm-trees and the blossom of the thorn;

Life from death,and good from evil!--from that buried caravan Springs the life to save the living, many a weak, despairing man."

As he ended, Abdel-Hassan, quivering through his aged frame, Asked in accents, slow and broken," Knowest thou that master's name?"

He was known as Abdel-Hassan, famed for wealth and power and pride;

But the proud have often fallen, and, as he, the great have died !"

Then, upon the ground before them, prostrate Abdel-Hassan fell,

With his aged hands extended, trembling, to the lonely well,-And the sacred soil beneath him cast upon his hoary head,Named the servants and the camels,-summoned Haroun from the dead,

Clutched the unconscious palms around him, as if they were living men,—

And before him, in their order, rose his buried train again. Moved by pity, spake the stranger, bending o'er him in his grief:

"What affects the man of sorrow? Speak,-for speaking is relief."

Then he answered, rising slowly to that aged stranger's knee,-"Thou beholdest Abdel-Hassan! They were mine, and I am he!"

Wondering, stood they all around him, and a reverent silence kept,

While amidst them, Abdel-Hassan lifted up his voice and wept.

Joy and grief, and faith and triumph, mingled in his flowing tears;

Refluent on his patient spirit rolled the tide of sixty years.
As the past and present blended, lo! his larger vision saw,
In his own life's compensation, nature's universal law.
"God is good, O reverend stranger! He hath taught me of

His ways,

By this great and crowning lesson, in the evening of my days.

"Keep the treasure,-I have plenty,--and am richer that I

see

Life ascend, through change and evil, to that perfect life to be; In each woe a blessing folded, from all loss a greater gain, Joy and hope from fear and sorrow, rest and peace from toil and pain.

God is great! His name is mighty! He is victor in the strife! For He bringeth good from evil, and from death commandeth life!"

BILL AND I.-G. H. MILES.

The moon had just gone down, sir,
But the stars lit up the sky;
All was still in tent and town, sir,
Not a foeman could we spy.
It was our turn at picket,

So we marched into the thicket,
To the music of the cricket
Chirping nigh.

Oh, we kept a sharp lookout, sir,
But no danger could we spy,
And no foeman being about, sir,
We sat down there, by-and-by;

And we watched the brook a-brawlin',
And counted the stars a-fallin',
Old memories overhaulin',

Bill and I.

And says he," Won't it be glorious
When we throw our muskets by,
And home again, victorious,—

We hear our sweethearts cry,

'Welcome back!" A step! Who goes there?
A shot-by heaven, the foe's there!
Bill sat there, all composure,

But not I.

By the red light of his gun, sir,
I marked the enemy:

In an instant it was done, sir-
I had fired and heard a cry.
I sprang across a stream, sir---
Oh, it seems just like a dream, sir,
The dizzy, dying gleam, sir,
Of that eye!

A youth, a very boy, sir,
saw before me lie;

Some pretty school-girl's toy, sir,
Had ventured here to die.

We had hated one another,

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But I heard him murmur," Mother!"
So I stooped and whispered, “ Brother!”
No reply.

I crossed the stream once more, sir,
To see why Bill warn't by;
He was sittin' as before, sir,

But a film was o'er his eye.

I scarce knew what it meant, sir,
Till a wail broke from our tent, sir,
As into camp we went, sir,
Bill and I.

"BLESSED ARE THE DEAD."-REV. C. F. SMARIUS.

[A brief extract from an eloquent funeral oration on WILLIAM H. BISSELL, late Governor of Illinois.]

"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."-APOC. xiv. 13.

Fellow-citizens: Were I to echo the plaintive murmurs of the immense multitude by which I am surrounded on this solemn and impressive occasion, were I to answer sigh for sigh and sob for sob, as they come from the feeling hearts of the sympathizing friends and relatives of the illustrious departed, whose earthly remains lie enshrined within the tabernacle of death before me, I should have to choose another text than that which I have selected for this well-deserved, but, alas! imperfect, tribute of gratitude and love to the memory of W. H. Bissell, the late governor of your flourishing State. For, considering that the urn of grief has been opened, and that it is fast being filled with the tears of respect and admiration, mixed with friendship and with love -considering that a whole State, nay, the nation, stand weeping over a loss which they cannot immediately, perhaps never again, repair-I should, consulting your natural feelings alone, find myself obliged to exclaim in the language of

seeming despondency, as did the king of Amalek in the days of yore, "Doth bitter death separate in this manner?" or in the equally melancholy expression of inconsolable grief, "Oh death, how bitter is thy memory!" But when I reflect on the peculiar circumstances in which I find myself placed before this wreck of earthly greatness, and in the midst of this scene of man's extreme littleness, the sepulchres of all the departed, I am forced to change the key-note of unavailing sorrow into the sounds of buoyant joy, and to cry out with the angel of the Apocalyptic vision, "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

Yes, fellow-citizens, blessed the illustrious dead whose demise you deplore. Blessed the faithful soldier, the dauntless warrior, who in days gone by, when the honor of his country was at stake, when national insult was to be avenged, and foreign justice forced to an equipoise of her balance, drew his ready sword in defence of all her rights and in defiance of all her boasting enemies-who girded himself with heroic courage and martyr fortitude for the battle, and modestly enjoyed the victories in which he had so large a share. Blessed, I repeat, is the faithful warrior, the dauntless hero, who, when his hour was come, yielded himself a calm, a nobly-resigned captive into the hands of that ingenious conqueror of our race, whose resistless power strikes with the same unsparing force against the marble palaces of the great, as it does against the thatched shanty of the lowlier and lessfavored subject. Blessed be the dead, who, like Governor Bissell, after having legislated for others, are willing to fold up the scroll of laws, which, as the representatives of their nations, they had the happiness to make or approve for the prosperity of their constituents, and to submit themselves, without repining, to a higher law and a higher lawgiver, whose stern decree was issued into this world under the shade of the beautiful and lovely trees of Paradise: "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." Blessed the dead who, like his excellency, now levelled down to our commonalty, although once filling the high places of power, and seated, as it were, on the throne of relative sovereignty, are nevertheless willing, yea happy, to come down from those often dazzling heights and deceitful thrones to obey the sum

mons of a governor who ruleth not one State alone, but the heavens with all their magnificence, harmony, and beauty, and the earth with all her varied scenes and sceneries; yea, blessed are the dead who, like this great, this beloved man, die in the Lord.

Blessed the dead who die a death whose every circumstance but enhances the intellectual, moral, and political worth of the departed. Blessed the dead whose memory, like that of his excellency, the late governor, shall remain in benediction among his children, and their children's children throughout succeeding generations, because of the examples set them, at that impressive hour, of every domestic, parental, and Christian virtue.

Physicians! ye have lost a brother who graduated with honor in your schools. Teachers of youth! ye deplore a colaborer in the great work of educating future generations to usefulness, to honor and renown. Members of the bar! ye have come to weep over a man of your distinguished profession, whose sterling integrity was above all suspicion, while his talents for debate were almost above competition. Soldiers! your brave hearts sympathize with a captain and a colonel whose bravery is as immortal as the memory of Buena Vista. Legislators! you gaze upon the countenance of a departed brother, whose services in the council and the chamber of state you regarded as worthy of your admiration. In fine, magistrates and rulers of the land! your tears flow over the grave of an officer of state, who teaches you in death what is the common lot of all-of the great and the little, of the ruler and the ruled. Loving children of a loving father! the source of your filial happiness lies here, suddenly dried up before its time, and the staff of your advancing years, bereaved widow! lies broken by your side.

Yet, with all these ruins so sadly strewn around me, with all these hopes so prematurely blasted, I repeat once more, blessed is the illustrious dead whose mortality we deplore-blessed, because he died in the Lord.

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