are engaged to enter wedlock five years with a sufficiently lonely man, who is not good for a commercial mainte

nance-"

"The very deuce he isn't. Now you jist git up and git out, or I'll knock what little brains out you've got left."

With that, old Thompson took Smith and shot him into the street as if he'd run him against a locomotive train at the rate of sixty miles an hour. Before old Thompson had time to shut the front door, Smith collected his legs, and one thing and another that were lying around on the pavement, arranged himself in a vertical position, and yelled out:

"Mr. Thompson, sir; it may not be known to you—” which made the old fellow so pink with rage, that he went out and set a bull terrier on Smith, before he had a chance to lift a brogan, and there was a scientific dog fight, with odds in favor of the dog, for he had an awful hold for such a small animal.

Smith afterwards married the girl, and lived happily about two months. At the end of that time he told a confidential friend that he would willingly take more trouble, and under、 go a million more dog bites-to get rid of her.

WHAT I SAW.-J. MILTON AKERS.

I saw a pretty cottage stand

In grounds that were both trim and neat,
Where graveled walks and charming flowers,
Solicited the wandering feet.

A very Paradise it seemed,

With virgin joys and glories crowned;

A spot upon this sin-cursed earth

Which yet the serpent had not found.

I saw a woman, pure and good,

Upon whose cheek the roses bloomed;
Who deep inhaled the atmosphere

Her dearest husband's love perfumed.
A calm and happy life was hers,

No grief upon her spirits pressed;
And hope, the darling angel bright,
Sat monarch in her loving breast.

I saw a happy family,

With ruddy cheeks and faces bright, Whose joyous hearts expression found

In eyes that danced with pure delight. The maids were modest, chaste, and fair, The boys were brave and noble, too; The families as blest as this

The sun shines on, I trow, but few.

I saw a man with form erect,
And with a calm, expressive face,
Upon the lineaments of which

It was not hard for one to trace
The workings of a noble soul;

A sympathetic friend, and kind; More ardent, constant, firm than whom 'Twas ne'er my privilege to find.

I saw that cottage once again;

But ah! 'twas sinking to decay;
The window lights were broken in,

The shutters had been wrenched away,
The grounds were overgrown with weeds;
No hand had trained the vines of late,
And want dwelt now where wealth had been;
'Twas blighted, cursed, and desolate.

I saw that woman once again;

Her face was thin, her cheek was pale;
And from old Care's deep chiseled lines,
I read, with pain, her sorrow's tale.
Within her heart, where hope had reigned
When all was joyous, bright, and fair,
A monarch crowned with ebon sat,
Whose name I've learned to call Despair.

I saw that family again;

But oh! the change, how very sad.
They wandered forth, to virtue lost,
In filthy, tattered garments clad.
Their eyes no longer danced with joy,
Nor could they longer happy be,
For sin and poverty and shame
Had overwhelmed that family.

I saw that man but once again,
With blood-shot eyes and bloated face,
Upon the lineaments of which

It was not hard for one to trace

The workings of a fallen soul,—
A vicious, prostituted mind,

More wretched and depraved than whom
May God forbid I e'er should find!

77

A man, a family, a wife,

Once good and happy, young and fair,
Have fallen from the heights of hope
Far down the starless gulf, despair.
The cottage, too, the home of peace,
Has been surrendered up to fate,
And now its many tongues repeat
"Behold, I, too, am desolate."

What agency, or arm so strong,
What evil genius, or spell
Can so bring down the human race,
From heaven's gate, so near to hell?
In one short word of letters three,
Of human ills we find the sum,
The with ring, blighting, damning scourge,
Which bears the simple name of RUM.

MY NEIGHBOR'S BABY.

Across in my neighbor's window, with its drapings of satin and lace,

I see, 'neath its flowing ringlets, a baby's innocent face;
His feet, in crimson slippers, are tapping the polished glass;
And the crowd in the street look upward, and nod and smile
as they pass.

Just here in my cottage window, catching flies in the sun,
With a patched and faded apron, stands my own little one;
His face is as pure and handsome as the baby's over the

way,

And he keeps my heart from breaking, at my toiling every day.

Sometimes when the day is ended, and I sit in the dusk to rest,

With the face of my sleeping darling bugged close to my lonely breast,

I pray that my neighbor's baby may not catch heaven's roses all,

But that some may crown the forehead of my loved one as they fall.

And when I draw the stockings from his little weary feet,
And kiss the rosy dimples in his limbs so round and sweet,
I think of the dainty garments some little children wear,
And that my God withholds them from mine so pure and
fair.

May God forgive my envy-I know not what I said;
My heart is crushed and troubled,-my neighbor's boy is

dead!

I saw the little coffin as they carried it out to-day :

A mother's heart is breaking in the mansion over the way.

The light is fair in my window, the flowers bloom at my door;

My boy is chasing the sunbeams that dance on the cottage floor.

The roses of health are blooming on my darling's cheek today,

But the baby is gone from the window of the mansion over the way.

LIBERTY.-FRANK E. BRUSH.

Among the myriad ideas which bound man's life, are some that have run parallel with him through all the ages, furnishing the motive principle of his action,-a polar star shining far above the tempests of earth, through whose rifted clouds comes to him its cheering beam.

As a typical idea illustrating the power and permanence of the whole class may be mentioned this one thoughtliberty. Born with man, it has followed his devious course through the world, never forsaking him. Protean in character, at times occult in its workings, its direct influence may not always have been clearly perceived in the dark hour of political convulsion, or the sharp agony of national conflict; but to the calm inquirer of the past, on every page of human life, on every leaf of national destiny is disclosed its own handwriting. This idea of liberty is enshrined in the most hallowed chamber of the soul whence the wildest storms of oppression and the fiercest gales of persecution can never eradicate it. Though always present and exercising a potent sway in human affairs, its manifestation has been extremely variable. At first it appeared crude and shapeless, an undefined yearning, a simple innate repugnance to restraint ; but as man has slowly risen from out the infolding gloom, and his knowledge has widened, it has enlarged the circle of its comprehension till it embraces all the attributes of human

nature.

The ancient conception of liberty was the liberty of com munities and nations as personated by kings, magistrates, aristocracies, or by the ruling classes in whatever form. The freedom of the individual was lost in that of the state. All the energy of the people was exercised to preserve intact their nationality. Men might be deprived of citizenship, chained to the triumphal car of the victor, oppressed with all the atrocities of servitude, and if the government maintained its freedom the cause of liberty was nobly vindicated. The state was paramount—the man only incidental.

This view of liberty, in some degree, tinctured all the nations of antiquity; but reached its highest development in Greece and Rome. Men, trained to believe that the state was supreme and its liberty an inestimable treasure, and that human life was valuable only so far as it should conserve the national interest, eagerly fronted horrid tortures and bloody death. So there have descended to us from that shadowy past echoes of chivalrous feats whose mention is an inspiration. What if iconoclastic reviewers, with the mallet of criticism, shatter our cherished idols of exalted heroism, grand endurance, sublime self-sacrifice; what if they pronounce utopian fancies, Leonidas at Thermopyla, Horatius at the Bridge, Regulus enduring Carthagenian tortures, and the long catalogue of heroes and their peerless exploits which have shed such a lustre about the names of Greece and Rome for two thousand years? Let them fall, the ideas immortalized in those conceptions have for ages incited humanity to deeds of dauntless daring and undying fame! This notion of liberty led ancient empires to such an eminence in wealth and magnificence as has not since been witnessed. But amid all the gorgeous splendor of rival monarchies; amid all the sublimated achievements of imperial legions, man's personal freedom was unrecognized. The liberty of the individual had its birth with Jesus Christ. The herald angels, that proclaimed a Saviour to the world, at the same time chanted the glad anthem of man's release from the thrall of ages. The crucified Nazarene, with Divine sanction, declared the complete physical, intellectual, and moral liberty of man. The newness and the tremendous

power of this idea waked the slumbering minds of men and