ing, the roar of the winds was dying in the tree-tops, and the deep tones of thunder clouds came in fainting murmurs from the eastern hills.

I rose, and looked tremblingly and almost deliriously around. She was there, the dear idol of my infant love, stretched out upon the green earth. After a moment of irresolution I went up and looked upon her. The handkerchief upon her neck was slightly rent, and a single dark spot upon her bosom told where the pathway of death had been. At first I clasped her to my breast with a cry of agony, and then laid her down, and gazed upon her face almost with feelings of calmness.

Her bright disheveled hair clustered sweetly around her brow; the look of terror had faded from her lips, and infant smiles were pictured there; the rose tinge upon her cheeks was lovely as in life; and, as I pressed them to my own the fountains of tears were opened, and I wept as if my heart were waters. I have but a dim recollection of what followed. I only know that I remained weeping and motionless till the coming twilight, and I was taken tenderly by the hand, and led away where I saw the countenances of parents and sister.

Many years have gone by on the wings of light and shadow, but the scenes I have portrayed still come over me at times with terrible distinctness. The oak yet stands at the base of the precipice, but its limbs are black and dead, and the hollow trunk looking up to the sky, as if "calling to the clouds for drink," is an emblem of rapid and noiseless decay.

A year ago I visited the spot, and the thought of bygone years came mournfully back to me. I thought of

the little innocent being who fell by my side, like some beautiful tree of spring, rent up by the whirlwind in the midst of blossoming. But I remembered and oh, there was joy in the memory! that she had gone where no lightnings slumber in the folds of the rainbow cloud, and where the sunlit waters are broken only by the storm breath of Omnipotence.

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS

MRS. HEMANS

NOTE TO THE PUPIL. Felicia Dorothea Browne was born at Liverpool in 1793. When eighteen years old she married Captain Hemans of the English navy. Among many beautiful short poems of hers are the following: Casabianca," "The Graves of a Household," "Bernardo del Carpio," "The Landing of the Pilgrims," ""The Hour

of Death."

HE breaking waves dashed high,

THE

On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches tossed.

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came,
Not with the roll of stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame.

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea,

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roared— This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band; —
Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?-
They sought a faith's pure shrine !

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod !

They left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God.

WHAT IS A MINORITY?

JOHN B. GOUGH

NOTE TO THE PUPIL.-John B. Gough was born in Kent, England, in 1817. He came to America in 1829, and while learning the trade of bookbinder in New York formed intemperate habits, and sunk to the lowest depths of poverty and wretchedness. About 1840 he was induced to sign the pledge. He became greatly interested in temperance reform, and soon distinguished himself as the most eloquent advocate of the cause. He was the most popular lecturer of his time. He spoke nearly one hundred times on temperance in Exeter Hall, London. He died in 1886.

WHAT

HAT is a minority? The chosen heroes of this earth have been in the minority. There is not a social, political, or religious privilege that you enjoy to-day that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient sufferings of the minority. It is the minority that have vindicated humanity in every struggle. It is the minority that have come out as iconoclasts to beat down the Dagons their fathers have worshiped,

the old abuses of society. It is the minority that have stood in the van of every moral conflict, and achieved all that is noble in the history of the world. You will find that each generation has been always busy in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes of the past, to deposit them in the golden urn of a nation's history.

Look at Scotland, where they are erecting monuments -to whom? to the Covenanters. Ah, they were in a minority! Read their history, if you can, without the blood tingling in the tips of your fingers! Look at that girl, of whose innocent stratagem the legend has come down to us, and see how persecution sharpens the intel

lect as well as gives power to faith! She was going to the conventicle. She knew the penalty of that dee' was death. She met a company of troopers. "My girl, where are you going?" She could not tell them a lie; she must tell the truth. It was death to go to that conventicle. To tell that she was going there was to reveal its place to these soldiers, and the lives of her friends were in her hands. "Let me go!" she said. "I am going to my father's house. My elder brother is dead and he has left a will, and I am in it; and it is to be read to-day." "Go, my girl," said he; "and I hope you will have something handsome." These were the minority that, through blood and tears and scourgings,-dyeing the waters with their blood, and staining the heather with their gore, — fought the glorious battle of religious freedom.

Minority if a man stand up for the right, though the right be on the scaffold, while the wrong sits in the seat of government; if he stand for the right, though he eat, with the right and truth, a wretched crust; if he walk with obloquy and scorn in the by-lanes and streets, while falsehood and wrong ruffle it in silken attire,let him remember that wherever the right and truth are, there are always "troops of beautiful, tall angels' gathering round him, and God himself stands within the If a man dim future, and keeps watch over his own. stands for the right and the truth, though every man's finger be pointed at him, though every woman's lips be curled at him in scorn, he stands in a majority; for God and good angels are with him, and greater are they that are for him than all they that be against him!