Your back has gone up and your shoulders gone down,
And all the old roses are under the plough;
Why, Jack, if we'd happened to meet about town,
I wouldn't have known you from Adam, I vow!

You've had trouble, have you? I'm sorry; but, John,
All trouble sits lightly at your time of life.
How's Billy, my namesake? You don't say he's gone
To the war, John, and that you have buried your wife?

Poor Katherine! so she has left you,-ah me!
I thought she would live to be fifty, or more.
What is it you tell me? She was fifty-three!
Oh no, Jack! she wasn't so much by a score!

Well, there's little Katy,-was that her name, John?
She'll rule your house one of these days like a queen.
That baby! good Lord! is she married and gone?
With a Jack ten years old! and a Katy fourteen!

Then I give it up! Why, you're younger than I
By ten or twelve years, and to think you've come back
A sober old graybeard, just ready to die!

I don't understand how it is,-do you, Jack?

I've got all my faculties yet, sound and bright;
Slight failure my eyes are beginning to hint;
But still, with my spectacles on, and a light
"Twixt them and the page, I can read any print.

My hearing is dull, and my leg is more spare,
Perhaps, than it was when I beat you at ball;
My breath gives out, too, if I go up a stair,-
But nothing worth mentioning, nothing at all!

My hair is just turning a little, you see,

And lately I've put on a broader-brimmed hat Than I wore at your wedding, but you will agree, Old fellow, I look all the better for that.

I'm sometimes a little rheumatic, 'tis true,

And my nose isn't quite on a straight line, they say; For all that, I don't think I've changed much, do you? And I don't feel a day older, Jack, not a day.

SOWING AND HARVESTING.

There is nothing more true than that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and we have abundant proof, in the every-day experience of life, that "he that Soweth iniquity shall reap iniquity;" that "they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, shall reap the same;' and that those who have "sown the wind shall reap the whirl wind." And then, again, we have the comforting assurance that if we "be not weary in well-doing, in due season we shall reap, if we faint not;" and that "to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward." These are metaphors in which all men are described as husbandmen, sowing the seeds for the harvest, and reaping the fruits thereof.

They are sowing their seed in the daylight fair,
They are sowing their seed in the noonday glare,
They are sowing their seed in the soft twilight,
They are sowing their seed in the solemn night;
What shall their harvest be?

Some are sowing their seed of pleasant thought;
In the spring's green light they have blithely wrought;
They have brought their fancies from wood and dell,
Where the mosses creep, and the flower-buds swell;
Rare shall the harvest be!

Some are sowing the seeds of word and deed,
Which the cold know not, nor the careless heed,-
Of the gentle word and the kindest deed
That have blessed the heart in its sorest need:
Sweet shall the harvest be!

And some are sowing the seeds of pain,
Of late remorse, and in maddened brain;
And the stars shall fall, and the sun shall wane,
Ere they root the weeds from the soil again:
Dark will the harvest be!

And some are standing with idle hand,
Yet they scatter seeds on their native land;
And some are sowing the seeds of care,

Which their soil has borne, and still must bear:
Sad will the harvest be!

And each, in his way, is sowing the seed
Of good or of evil, in word or deed:

With a careless hand o'er the earth they sow,
And the fields are ripening where'er they go;
What shall the harvest be?

Sown in darkness, or sown in light,—
Sown in weakness, or sown in might,—
Sown in meekness, or sown in wrath,-
In the broad work-field, or the shadowy path,-
SURE will the harvest be!

LIFE'S BATTLE. AN ORATION.

"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

"Life is real! life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal.
'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,'

Was not spoken of the soul."

The course of things below is not a relentless fate. Man's will is unconquerable, and by it he is maker and lord of his destiny; by it, relying on Eternal Power and his own fiery energies, he can build a monument of greatness reaching to the very heavens; by it, allowing those faculties with which he is so richly endowed, to lie dormant in him, and following the low instincts of nature, he may plunge to the very depths of perdition.

Yet it was never a part of the Divine plan that he should go down in ignorance and guilt to the darkness of eternal night; existence never was given him that he might degrade it; else why these high and holy aspirations,-these longings after immortality,-these shrinkings from that which is unseen and unknown which pervade the soul even when clothed in the habiliments of vice?

"Mighty of heart and mighty of mind," pure as the angels and only a little lower was he when in the morn of creation the beauties of Eden first burst upon his wondering vision, "ere the serpent had accomplished his deadly work and the tree of knowledge yielded its fatal gift." Mighty of heart and mighty of mind," impure and fallen was he when the

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flaming swords of the angel sentries forever barred his approach to the tree of life, "Lest," said the great I AM, “since he has become as one of us to discern good and evil, he put forth his hand and take of its fruit and live forever." In that bitter hour, when the gates of Paradise were closed against him, and the earth became accursed for his sake, when the fiat of Jehovah went forth condemning him to toil and pain and death, whatever else was taken, the privilege of glorifying anew his ruined manhood, of doing noble and true things, and vindicating himself as a God-made man was not denied him.

There is still within him the upspringing of lofty sentiment which contributes to his elevation, and though there are obstacles to be surmounted and difficulties to be vanquished, yet with truth for his watchword, and leaning on his own noble purposes and indefatigable exertions, he may crown his brow with imperishable honors. He may never wear the warrior's crimson wreath, the poet's chaplet of bays, or the statesman's laurels; though no grand universal truth may at his bidding stand confessed to the world,-though it may never be his to bring to a successful issue a great political revolution-to be the founder of a republic whose name shall be a "distinguished star in the constellation of nations," -yea, more, though his name may never be heard beyond the narrow limits of his own neighborhood, yet is his mission none the less a high and holy one.

In the moral and physical world, not only the field of battle, but also the consecrated cause of truth and virtue calls for champions, and the field for doing good is "white unto the harvest;" and if he enlists in the ranks, and his spirit faints not, he may write his name among the stars of heaven.

Then trust thyself, O man! "Every heart vibrates to that iron string." Accept thy place in the ranks and throw thyself boldly into the battle tumult of the world. The chief of men is he who stands in the van, fronting the peril which frightens all others back.

Set thy ideal standard high; go on from strength to strength, ever upward, onward; aspire to noble acts, heroic work, and true heart-utterance, and thy deeds shall rise up melodiously in a boundless, everlasting Psalm of Triumph!

SONG OF SARATOGA.-JOHN G. SAXE.

"Pray what do they do at the Springs?"
The question is easy to ask:
But to answer it fully, my dear,
Were rather a serious task.
And yet, in a bantering way,

As the magpie or mocking-bird sings,
I'll venture a bit of a song,

To tell what they do at the Springs.

Imprimis, my darling, they drink

The waters so sparkling and clear; Though the flavor is none of the best, And the odor exceedingly queer; But the fluid is mingled, you know, With wholesome, medicinal things;

So they drink, and they drink, and they drink,— And that's what they do at the Springs!

Then with appetites keen as a knife,

They hasten to breakfast, or dine;

The latter precisely at three,

The former from seven till nine. Ye gods! what a rustle and rush,

When the eloquent dinner-bell rings! Then they eat, and they eat, and they eat,And that's what they do at the Springs!

Now they stroll in the beautiful walks,
Or loll in the shade of the trees;
Where many a whisper is heard

That never is heard by the breeze;
And hands are commingled with hands,

Regardless of conjugal rings:

And they flirt, and they flirt, and they flirt,-
And that's what they do at the Springs!

The drawing-rooms now are ablaze,
And music is shrieking away;
Terpsichore governs the hour,
And fashion was never so gay!

An arm round a tapering waist,

How closely and fondly it clings!

So they waltz, and they waltz, and they waltz,— And that's what they do at the Springs!