"I warrant'ce, zur."

At this assurance I felt a throb of joy, which was almost a compensation for all my sufferings past.

“Boots," said I, "you are a kind-hearted creature, and I will give you an additional half-crown. Let the house

be kept perfectly quiet, and desire the chamber-maid to call me

"At what o'clock, zur?”

"This day three months at the earliest !"

HEAVIER THE CROSS.-FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHMOLKE,

HEAVIER the cross, the nearer heaven;
No cross without, no God within,-
Death, judgment, from the heart are driven
Amid the world's false glare and din.

Oh, happy he with all his loss,

Whom God hath set beneath the cross!

Heavier the cross, the better Christian;
This is the touchstone God applies.
How many a garden would be wasting,
Unwet by showers from weeping eyes!
The gold by fire is purified;

The Christian is by trouble tried.

Heavier the cross, the stronger faith,
The loaded palm strikes deeper root,

The wine-juice sweetly issueth

When men have pressed the clustered fruit;
And courage grows where dangers come,
Like pearls beneath the salt sea foam.

Heavier the cross, the heartier prayer;
The bruised herbs most fragraut are.

If sky and wind were always fair

The sailor would not watch the star; And David's Psalms had ne'er been sung If grief his heart had never wrung.

34

ONE HUNDRED

Heavier the cross, the more aspiring;
From vales we climb to mountain crest;
The pilgrim, of the desert, tiring,

Longs for the Canaan of his rest.
The dove has here no rest in sight,
And to the ark she wings her flight.

Heavier the cross, the easier dying,
Death is a friendlier face to see;
To life's decay one bids defying,
From life's distress one then is free.
The cross sublimely lifts our faith
To him who triumphed over death.

Thou Crucified! the cross I carry,-
The longer may it dearer be;
And lest I faint while here I tarry,
Implant thou such a heart in me,
That faith, hope, love, may flourish there,
Till for the cross my crown I wear!

• THE DEACON'S STORY.-N. S. EMERSON.

THE solemn old bells in the steeple

Are ringin'. I guess you know why,

No? Well, then, I'll tell you, though mostly
It's whispered about on the sly.

Some six weeks ago, a church meetin'

Was called-for-nobody knew what;
But we went, and the parson was present,
And I don't know who or who not.

Some twenty odd members, I calc'late,
Which mostly was women, of course ;
Though I don't mean to say aught ag'in 'em;
I've seen many gatherin's worse.

There, in the front row, sat the deacons,
The eldest was old Deacon Pryor-

A man countin' fourscore-and-seven,
And gin'rally full of his ire.

Beside him, his wife, countin' fourscore,
A kind-hearted, motherly soul;
And next to her young Deacon Hartley,
A good Christian man on the whole.

Miss Parsons, a spinster of fifty,

And long ago laid on the shelf,

Had wedged herself next; and beside her,
Was Deacon Munroe-that's myself.

The meetin' was soon called to order,
The parson looked glum as a text;
We gazed at each other in silence,

And silently wondered "What next!"
Then slowly uprose Deacon Hartley;

His voice seemed to tremble with fear As he said: " Boy and man you have known me, My good friends, for nigh forty year.

"And you scarce may expect a confession
Of error from me; but-you know,
My dearly loved wife died last Christmas,
It's now nearly ten months ago.
The winter went by long and lonely,
The spring hurried forward a-pace;
The farin-work came on, and I needed
A woman about the old place.

"The children were wilder than rabbits,
And still growing worse every day;
No help to be found in the village,
Although I was willin' to pay.
In fact, I was nigh 'bout discouraged
For everything looked so forlorn;
When good little Patience McAlpine
Skipped into our kitchen, one morn.

"She had only run in of an errand;
But she laughed at our miserable plight,
And set to work, jist like a woman,
A putting the whole place to right.
And though her own folks was so busy,
And illy her helpin' could spare,
She flit in and out like a sparrow,
And most every day she was there.

"So the Summer went by sort o' cheerful,
And one night my baby, my Joe,
Seemed feverish and fretful, and woke me
By crying, at midnight, you know.
I was tired with my day's work and sleepy,
And couldn't no way keep him still;
So, at last I grew angry, and spanked him,
And then he screamed out with a will.

"Just about then I heard a soft rapping,
Away at the half-open door;

And then little Patience McAlpine
Walked shyly across the white floor.
Says she: I thought Josey was cryin',
I guess I'd best take him away.
I knew you'd be gettin' up early
To go to the marshes for hay,

So I stayed here to-night to get breakfast;
I guess he'll be quiet with me.
Come, Josey, kiss papa, and tell him

What a nice little man you will be!'
She was stooping low over the pillow,
And saw the big tears on his cheek;
Her face was so close to my whiskers,
I darsn't move, scarcely, or speak;
Her hands were both holdin' the baby,
Her eye by his shoulder was hid;
But her mouth was so near and so rosy,
I-kissed her. That's just what I did."

Then down sat the tremblin' sinner,

The sisters they murmured of "shame,”
And she shouldn't oughter a let him,
No doubt she was mostly to blame."
When straightway uprose Deacon Pryor,
"Now bretherin and sisters," he said,
(We knowed then that suthin' was comin',
And all sot as still as the dead),
You've heard brother Hartley's confession,
And I speak for myself when I say,
That if my wife was dead, and my children
Were all growin' worse every day;

And if my house needed attention,

And Patience McAlpine had come

And tidied the cluttered up kitchen,

And made the place seem more like home;.
And if I was worn out and sleepy,

And my Baby wouldn't lie still,
But fretted and woke me at midnight,
As babies, we know, sometimes will;
And if Patience came in to hush him,
And 'twas all as our good brother sez-
I think, friends-I think I should kiss her,
And 'bide by the consequences."

Then down sat the elderly deacon,
The younger one lifted his face,
And a smile rippled over the meetin'
Like light in a shadowy place.

Perhaps, then, the matronly sisters
Remembered their far-away youth,

Or the daughters at home by their firesides
Shrined each in her shy, modest truth;
For their judgments grew gentle and kindly,
And-well-as I started to say,

The solemn old bells in the steeple

Are ringin' a bridal to-day.

Appleton's Journal.

LITERARY PURSUITS AND ACTIVE BUSINESS.
A. H. EVERETT.

IIEED not the idle assertion that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life. Reject it as a mere imagination, inconsistent with principle, unsupported by experience. Point out to those who make it the illustrious characters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes forging, by the light of the midnight lamp, those thunderbolts of eloquence, which

"Shook the arsenal, fulmined over Greece,

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Cæsar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from heaven and the sceptre from the hands of the oppressors. Do they say to you that study will lead you to scepticism? Recall to their memory the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure? Tell them they are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. Repeat to them the ancient apologue of the youthful Hercules, in the pride of strength and beauty,