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Said Abraham: "All this is so,
And, one by one, they're sure to go;
So I will have use for my beautiful spade,
And you will continue the coffin trade.

“Good night to you, my old friend Giles.”
"Good night to you, friend Lane.”
The former dropped a fervent tear,
The latter did the same.

Said Giles, who looked him in the eye,
"Friend Abraham-we, too, must die!"
And, here, he firmly held his hand,
And both were lost to self-command.
"Yes, Abraham, we, too, must go
From all we love and prize below.
They'll say, 'Old Lane and Giles are dead;'
Some tears will flow, some words be said;
In our village ground we'll вOTH be laid;
The dirt may be thrown by that beautiful spade,
And we, in our turn, help the coffin trade."

PRAYERS OF CHILDREN.

IN the quiet nursery chambers,—
Snowy pillows yet unpressed,-
See the forms of little children

Kneeling, white-robed, for their rest.

All in quiet nursery chambers,
While the dusky shadows creep,

Hear the voices of the children;
"Now I lay me down to sleep."

In the meadow and the mountain
Calmly shine the Winter stars,
But across the glistening lowlands
Stand the moonlight's silver bars.
In the silence and the darkness,

Darkness growing still more deep,
Listen to the little children,

Praying God their souls to keep.

"If we die"-so pray the children,
And the mother's head droops low,
One from out her fold is sleeping

Deep beneath the winter's snow

"Take our souls ;"-and past the casement
Flits a gleam of crystal light,
Like the trailing of his garments,
Walking evermore in white.

Little souls that stand expectant,
Listening at the gates of life,
Hearing, far away, the murmur
Of the tumult and the strife,
We who fight beneath those bauners,
Meeting ranks of foemen there,
Find a deeper, broader meaning
In your simple vesper prayer.

When your hand shall grasp this standard
Which to-day you watch from far,
When your deeds shall shape the conflict
In this universal war:

Pray to Him, the God of battles,

Whose strong eyes can never sleep,

In the warring of temptation,

Firm and true your souls to keep.

When the combat ends, and slowly
Clears the smoke from out the skies;
When, far down the purple distance,
All the noise of battle dies;

When the last night's solemn shadow
Settles down on you and me,
May the love that never faileth
Take our souls eternally!

PATRIOTISM.-T. F. MEAGHER.

BEREFT of patriotism, the heart of a nation will be cold and cramped and sordid; the arts will have no enduring impulse, and commerce no invigorating soul; society will degenerate, and the mean and vicious triumph. Patriotism is not a wild and glittering passion, but a glorious reality. The virtue that gave to Paganism its dazzling lustre, to Barbarism its redeeming trait, to Christianity its heroic form, is not dead. It still lives to console, to sanctify humanity. It has its altar in every clime-its worship and festivities.

On the heathered hills of Scotland the sword of Wallace is yet a bright tradition. The genius of France, in the brilliant literature of the day, pays its high homage to the piety and heroism of the young Maid of Orleans. In her new Senate-Hall, England bids her sculptor place, among the effigies of her greatest sons, the images of Hampden and of Russell. In the gay and graceful capital of Belgium, the daring hand of Geefs has reared a monument, full of glorious meaning, to the three hundred martyrs of the revolution.

By the soft, blue waters of Lake Lucerne stands the chapel of William Tell. On the anniversary of his revolt and victory, across those waters, as they glitter in the July sun, skim the light boats of the allied cantons. 'From the prows hang the banners of the republic, and, as they near the sacred spot, the daughters of Lucerne chant the hymns of their old poetic land. Then bursts forth the glad Te Deum, and Heaven again hears the voice of that wild chivalry of the mountains which, five centuries since, pierced the white eagle of Vienna, and flung it bleeding on the rocks of Uri.

At Innspruck, in the black aisle of the old cathedral, the peasant of the Tyrol kneels before the statue of Andreas Hofer. In the defiles and valleys of the Tyrol, who forgets the day on which he fell within the walls of Mantua? It is a festive day all through this quiet, noble land. In that old cathedral his inspiring memory is recalled amid the pageantries of the altar-his image appears in every house-his victories and virtues are proclaimed in the songs of the people-and when the sun goes down, a chain of fires, in the deep red light of which the eagle spreads his wings and holds his giddy revelry, proclaims the glory of the chief, whose blood has made his native land a sainted spot in Europe. Shall not all join in this glorious worship? Shall not all have the faith, the duties, the festivities of patriotism?

LL

A CATASTROPHE.

ON a pine woodshed, in an alley dark, where scattered noonbeams, shifting through a row of tottering chimneys and awnings torn and drooping, fell, strode back and forth, with stiff and tense-drawn muscles and peculiar tread, a

cat.

His name was Norval; on yonder neighboring sheds his father caught the rats that came in squads from the streets beyond Dupont, in search of food and strange adventure.

Grim war he courted, and his twisted tail and spine upheaving in fantastic curves, and claws distended, and ears, flatly pressed against a head thrown back, defiantly told of impending strife.

With eyes a-gleam and screeching blasts of war, and steps as silent as the falling dew, young Norval crept along the splintered edge, and gazed a moment through the darkness down, with tail awag triumphantly.

Then with an imprecation and a growl-perhaps an oath in direst vengeance hissed-he started back, and crooked his body like a letter S, or like a U inverted (1) stood in fierce expectancy.

'Twas well. With eyeballs glaring and ears aslant, and open mouth, in which two rows of fangs stood forth in sharp and dread conformity, slap up a post from out the dark below, a head appeared.

A dreadful toesin of determined strife young Norval uttered, then, with a face unblanched and mustache standing straight before his nose, and tail flung wildly to the passing breeze, stepped back in cautious invitation to the foe.

Approaching each other, with preparations dire, each cat surveyed the vantage of the field. Around they walked, tails uplifted and backs high in air, while from their mouths, in accents hissing with consuming rage, dropped brief but awful sentences of hate.

Twice around they went in circle, each eye upon the foe intently bent, then sideways moving, as is wont with cats, gave one long-drawn, terrific, savage yeow, and buckled in.

Yeow-spit-rip-scratch-there goes an eye! Slapyeow-spit-rip-there goes an ear! Hirr-ra-rr-ooghyeow-hay! Curse you-cat you-maul you-kat!

The fur flew. A mist of hair hung o'er the battle field. High above the din of passing wagons rose the dreadful tumult of struggling cats. So gleamed their eyes in frenzy, that to me who saw the conflict from the window near, naught else was plain but gory stars that moved in orbs eccentric.

Silence supervenes! Then a low, tremulous wail, like. the expiring note of a wheezy hand-organ, breaks the awful stillness. A shiver-a shake of the tail, a gasp, and the cat-as-trophe is consummated. A cat is in shadow land. Then went I forth with lantern, and the fleld surveyed -what saw I?

Six claws, one ear, of teeth, perhaps, a handfull; naught else except a solitary tail. That tail was Norval's; by a ring I knew it. The car was-but we'll let the matter The tail will do without the ear.

pass.

GRADATIM.-J. G. HOLLAND,

HEAVEN is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to the summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true;

That a noble deed is a step toward God-
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by things that are under our feet:
By what we have mastered of good and gain;
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,

When the morning calls us to life and light;
But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night,
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

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