giving up his generous soul to the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in the wrong with Plato, than in the right with Epicurus. Tell them that a mother in Sparta would have rather seen her son brought home from battle a corpse upon his shield, than dishonored by its loss. Tell them that your mother is America, your battle the warfare of lips, your shield the breastplate of Religion.

ARTEMUS WARD ON WOMAN'S RIGHTS.-C. F. BROWNE.

I PICHT tent in a small town in Injiany one day last season, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a deppytashen of ladies came up and sed they was members of the Bunkumville Female Reformin & Wimmin's Rite's Associashun, and they axed me if they cood go in without payin.

"Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in."

"Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimmin a tall and feroshus lookin critter,-"do you know whe we air, Sir?"

"My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersory view, that you are shemales."

"We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman-" we belong to a society whitch beleeves wimmin has rights-whiteh beleeves in razin her to her proper speer-whitch beleeves she is endowed with as much intelleck as man is—which beleeves she is trampled on and aboosed-& who will re sist hence4th & forever the incroachments of proud and domineering men."

Durin her discourse, the excentric female grabbed me by the coat kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly over my head.

"I hope, marm," sez I, starting back, "that your intentions is honorable. I'm a lone man hear in a strange place. Besides, I've a wife to hum."

"Yes," cried the female, " & she's a slave! Doth she

ever dream of freedom-doth she never think of throwin off the yoke of tyrinny, & thinkin and votin for herself? Doth she never think of these here things?"

"Not bein a natral born fool," sed I, by this time a little railed, "I ken safely say that she dothun't."

"Oh, whot-whot!" screamed the female, swingin her umbreller in the air. "Oh, what is the price that woman pays for her experience!"

"I don't know," sez I, "the price to my show is 15 cents pur individooal.”

" & cant our society go in free?" asked the female. "Not if I know it," sed I.

"Crooil man!" she cried, & burst into teers.

"Won't you let my darter in?" sed anuther of the excentrick wimin, takin me afeckshunately by the hand. "Oh, please let my darter in, shee's a sweet gushin child of nature."

"Let her gush?" roared I, as mad as I cood stick at their tarnal nonsense: "let her gush." Whereupon they all sprung back with the similtanius observashun that I was a Beest.

"My female friends," sed I, "be4 you leeve, I've a few remarks to remark: wa them well. The female woman is one of the greatest institooshuns of which this land can boast. Its onpossible to get along without her. Had there been no female wimim in the world, I shood scarcely be here with my unparaleld show on this very occashun. She is good in sickness-good in wellness-good at all time. Oh, woman, woman!" I cried, my feelins worked up to a hippoltick pitch, "You air a angle when you behave yourself, but when you take off your proper appariel & (mettyforically speakin)-get into pantyloons-when you desert your firesides, &, with heds full of wimin's rites noshuns go round like roarin lyons, seekin whom you may devour somebody-in short when you undertake to play man, you play the devil and air an emfatic noosance. My female friends." I continnered, as they were indignantly departin, "wa well what A. Ward has sed!"

KK

MEMORY'S WILD-WOOD.

THE day, with its sandals dipped in dew,
Has passed through the evening's golden gates,
And a single star in the cloudless blue

For the rising moon in silence waits;
While the winds that sigh to the languid hours
A lullaby breathe o'er the folded flowers.

The lilies nod to the sound of the stream
That winds along with lulling flow,
And either awake, or half a-dream,

I pass through the realms of long ago;
While faces peer with many a smile

From the bowers of Memory's magical isle.

There are joys and sunshine, sorrows and tears
That check the path of life's April hours,
And a longing wish for the coming years,

That hope ever wreathes with the fairest flowers;
There are friendships guileless-love as bright
And pure as the stars in halls of night.

There are ashen memories, bitter pain,
And buried hopes and a broken vow,
And an aching heart by the reckless main,
And the sea-breeze fanning a pallid brow;
And a wanderer on the shell-lined shore
Listening for voices that speak no more.

There are passions strong and ambitions wild,
And the fierce desire to stand in the van
Of the battle of life--and the heart of the child
Is crushed in the breast of the struggling man;
But short are the regrets and few are the tears,
That fall at the tomb of the banished years.
There is a quiet and peace and domestic love,
And joys arising from faith and truth,
And a truth unquestioning, far above

The passionate dreamings of ardent youth;
And kisses of children on lips and cheek,

And the parent's bliss which no tongue can speak.

There are loved ones lost! There are little graves
In the distant dell, 'neath protecting trees,
Where the streamlet winds, and the violet waves,
And the grasses sway to the sighing breeze;
And we mourn for the pressure of tender lips,
And the light of eyes darkened in death's eclipse.

And thus, as the glow of the daylight dies,
And the night's first look to the earth is cast,
I gaze. 'neath those beautiful summer skies,

At the pictures that hang in the hall of the past, Oh, Sorrow and Joy, chant a mingled lay

When to memory's wild-wood we wander away!

A HOME PICTURE.-FRANCIS DANA GAGE.

BEN Fisher had finished his hard day's work,
And he sat at his cottage door ;

His good wife, Kate, sat by his side,

And the moon-light danced on the floor-
The moon-light danced on the cottage floor,
Her beams were clear and bright

As when he and Kate, twelve years before,
Talk'd love in her mellow light.

Ben Fisher had never a pipe of clay,
And never a dram drank he;

So he loved at home with his wife to stay,
And they chatted right merrily;

Right merrily chatted they on, the while
Her babe slept on her breast,

While a chubby rogue, with rosy smile,
On his father's knee found rest.

Ben told her how fast the potatoes grew,
And the corn in the lower field;

And the wheat on the hill was grown to seed,
And promised a glorious yield ;—

A glorious yield in the harvest time,
And his orchard was doing fair;

His sheep and his stock were in their prime,
His farm all in good repair.

Kate said that her garden looked beautiful,
Her fowls and her calves were fat;

That the butter that Tommy that morning churned,
Would buy him a Sunday hat;

That Jenny, for Pa, a new shirt had made,
And 'twas done too by the rule;

That Neddy, the garden, could nicely spade;

And Ann was ahead at school.

Ben slowly raised his toil-worn hand
Through his locks of grayish brown-
"I tell you, Kate, what I think," said he,
"We're the happiest folks in town."

"I know," said Kate, "that we all work hard-
Work and health go together, I've found;
For there's Mrs. Bell does not work at all,
And she's sick the whole year round.

"They're worth their thousands, so people say,
But I ne'er saw them happy yet;

'Twould not be me that would take their gold,.
And live in a constant fret;

My humble home has a light within,
Mrs. Bell's gold could not buy,
Six healthy children, a merry heart,
And a husband's love-lit eye."

I fancied a tear was in Ben's eye

The moon shone brighter and clearer,
I could not tell why the man should cry,
But he hitched up to Kate still nearer;
He lean'd his head on her shoulder there,
And he took her hand in his-

I guess (though I look'd at the moon just then,)
That he left on her lips a kiss.

THE OLD MAN IN THE STYLISH CHURCH.

JOHN. H. YATES.

WELL, wife, I've been to church to-day-been to a stylish oneAnd, seein' you can't go from home, I'll tell you what was done; You would have been surprised to see what I saw there to-day; The sisters were fixed up so fine they hardly bowed to pray.

I had on these coarse clothes of mine, not much the worse for wear,

But then they knew I wasn't one they call a millionaire;
So they led the old man to a seat away back by the door-
'Twas bookless and uncushioned, a reserved seat for the poor.

Pretty soon in came a stranger with gold ring and clothing fine;
They led him to a cushioned seat far in advance of mine.
I thought that wasn't exactly right to seat him up so near
When he was young, and I was old and very hard to hear,