"Here's your bonnet," said Betsey, eagerly snatching it from the chair-knob on which it was hung, and pulling it down hard upon Mrs. Pettigrew's head, who shook it back affrontedly. "And now," said that guest, "I don't see how we're to get home without something to light us along the road, as the moon an't riz yet. I'spose you keep a lantern?"

"To be sure we do," answered Mrs. Corndaffer. "And more than one of them, too. Nace, go and bring the horn-sided lantern.'

"And here, Nace," called out Mrs. Pettigrew; "see that there is a good long stick of candle in it."

The lantern was brought and given to Timothy, his wife adding, "Margy, as you say you've plenty of lanterns, we won't be particular about sending this one home till we've borrowed it awhile. Tis very dark about Stony Lonesome." She then gave Timothy's arm a pull along, and hurried away as if fearing to hear a refusal

of the lantern loan.

When they were fairly off, the family all sat down and laughed.

"Was there ever such a pack?" said the farmer.

"I guess you'll find them no laughing matter before you've done with them," remarked Betsey Buffum. "Margy, I advise you to take care in future, and not own that you have full and plenty of anything. You'll never see that lantern again-mark my words."

"I doubt if we shall," said the farmer: "so, Margy, remember to get another next time you send to the store; and let that be to-morrow. The holey lantern is not enough." "I see we shall find these people a great plague," said Mrs. Corndaffer. "But then what are the poor creatures to do? Somebody must be plagued with them, and why not us?"

Right, mother," said Gideon. "And as they have plagued so many neighbourhoods out, it is but fair that we should have our turn of them."

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"Let us wait and see," answered the farmer. Perhaps when they have got fairly settled down, we shall find them less troublesome."

"The settling of them down will have to be done by ourselves, that's easy to be seen,' ," said Margy.

"The character I heard of them is true enough," observed Gideon.

"If we should find them too craving, and too bold and forward," resumed the farmer"If!" interrupted Betsey Buffum; "if! do you say?"

"We must then," he continued, "try to keep

them back, and hold out against indulging them in their idleness. In the meantime, Margy, go down to Stony Lonesome to-morrow, and look in at them, and see what they are most in want of. Only don't trouble me about it." "Nor me," said Gideon. "Nor me," said Martin. "I wash my hands of all such."

"And I, too," said Betsey Buffum.

Next morning Mrs. Corndaffer prepared to make a visit to Stony Lonesome; having sent word to that effect by the boy Jemmy and the girl Sally, each of whom had been at her house before breakfast, to obtain a loan of coffee, fish, and butter, with some wheat flour, and some shortening for short cakes."

Stony Lonesome was a remote corner of a large farm, and well deserved its name. It was a by-place hidden from the road by a strip of woodland, and approached by a dark, rugged path leading to a weedy lane abounding in pokeberries. The house stood on a small bit of waste ground, producing nothing but stones and mullens; and formed into a small islet by the windings of a rapid stream that surrounded it on all sides, sometimes rippling over pebbles, and sometimes roaring among ledges of low rock. It was crossed in one place by stepping-stones, in another by a rough log. The scene was shut in by steep hills, with masses of rock protruding from them, shaded by shaggy and mis-shapen trees. The cottage was an old, neglected, blackish frame structure, with a small log kitchen on one side, and a tumble-down stable behind. It was the intention of young Ira Green to erect a mill near this place, as there was a good water-power on the stream (which was the branch of a large creek that wandered through the whole county), and to build also a comfortable house for the miller. But this could not be done till he came of age, and got his property into his own hands, and himself out of the control of a very close guardian, who at present occupied the farm and the large farm-house, but was to remove when Ira became twenty-one.

As she approached, Mrs. Corndaffer saw the two boys bringing out the four horses from the old stable, to take them somewhere in search of pasture or pickings. The girl Sally she had seen in the edge of the woods, looking for huckleberries.

On entering the house (where the aspect of everything was disorderly and miserable), she found Mrs. Pettigrew slowly washing up the breakfast-things in a skillet that stood on the little round table, and wiping them with a piece of the remnant of an old pair of striped tow trowsers, to which two or three buttons were still adhering-very inconvenietly for the present purpose. The floor was still covered with a sort of beds and a sort of bed-clothes, on which the family had lain the preceding night. On the sill of the open back-door sat Timothy, holding the baby, a child about eighteen months old, who was pulling hard at its father's long, thin locks, and had already dragged loose his wisp of a checkered cravat, whose checkers

were nearly faded out. Poor Timothy looked as if he was afraid even of the baby, and with reason; for on his trying to withdraw his hair from its grasp, it commenced slapping his face. Presently came in from the kitchen the eldest daughter, a rather well-looking girl, whom her mother introduced as 66 our Polly." The state of her hands and apron showed that she had just been at the wash-tub, and the only thing she said to Mrs. Corndaffer was-"I was thinking of coming up to your house myself, to borrow some soft-soap.'

Mrs. Pettigrew soon communicated various other wants to her visitor, who, in return, inquired (but in a very kind manner) what were their plans, and what exertions they intended to make for their living?

"It's pretty soon to question strangers about their plans, and not very polite," replied Mrs. Pettigrew, "seeing as we've only moved into the neighbourhood yesterday, and have good blood in us-all but Timothy. I reckon it's the man's business to provide for the family. I dare say we shall get along, and no thanks to nobody."

"I dare say we shall," said Timothy. "We've always made out somehow," she continued, "and there an't no reason why we should not."

"No reason on yearth," echoed her husband. "Who's that speaking so peart down there on the door-step?" said the wife, turning sharply round. "Timothy, what's come over you? What right have you to be putting in your word when I'm a-talking? Mind the baby, will you? and keep him and yourself quiet. There, there; where are your eyes? He's got away from you, and is splashing through the run with the water flying up to his waist, and his petticoat all one draggle. Can you do nothing but stand and stare at him? Run, run, Polly, and bring the child in-his father an't fit to take care of a kitten!"

Before Polly could reach the boy, he had waded across the brook, and arriving on the other side had lain down, and was rolling about in the mud. His sister snatched him up and shook him hard, as a punishment; and Mrs. Corndaffer, fearing that Mrs. Pettigrew might chastise poor Timothy in the same manner, hastily took leave, glad to escape from the scene, and to make the best of her way home.

Over the Corndaffers' dinner-table a council was held upon the Pettigrews. After much debating, the farmer gave the casting vote; and it was decreed that, rather than be subjected to the annoyance of their perpetually coming to the house for borrowings, it would be best to give them at once some household articles indispensable to comfort, and to send them every day, without farther applications, sufficient food for their meals: and the kind Mrs. Corndaffer proposed also to add some articles of clothing and of household implements."

"It will save a great deal of trouble," said the farmer, "to keep them supplied as they go along. And they must be told to stop coming

to borrow; for if that is allowed it will be the nuisance of our lives. I'll go down myself and talk to them, and tell them that I've no objection to lend a helping hand to poor shiftless creatures, that are unfit for anything; but if I do so, they must keep to themselves, for I hate to be troubled."

If you talk that way," said Mrs. Corndaffer, "I do not believe the woman will bear it: she's very high."

"Then I shall coolly bid them take care of themselves the best way they can, and turn my back on them for ever.

Hilary Corndaffer did make the Pettigrews one decisive visit-did offer to keep them from starving and perishing, and was not insulted by the wife of Timothy, even when he forbade all further applications for loans. It is true Mrs. Pettigrew did abuse him inordinately as soon as he had taken leave, and gone out of hearing. The supplies were liberally dealt out to them, and they no longer came borrowing, which was a great relief to the Corndaffers, whose generosity in encouraging such a family was, however, unanimously condemned by all their neighbours.

One day, Betsey Buffum having gone on an errand to the store (the chief gossiping place for country women), came home walking very fast, just as the family had assembled to supper; and looking a sort of aghast, threw herself into a chair, exclaiming-" Now, what do you think? Guess what I've heard of them trash at Stony Lonesome! You allow them such a good supply of victuals, that they are taking boarders!" (To be continued.)

THE FLOWER THAT BLOOMS IN HEAVEN!

BY MRS. ABDY.

There is a flower, a lovely flower,
Soft, tender, fragile, fair:

I guard it through each changeful hour
With fond, assiduous care.

I love its springing buds to screen
From tempest, blight, or cold;
And yet my eyes have never seen
Those cherished buds unfold!

When in my youth that flower I nursed,
I pined in grief and gloom,
Because its buds refused to burst

To fresh and fragrant bloom.
I chide not now its coy delay;
My doubts have long been stilled :
I feel that on a future day
Its pledge will be fulfilled.

What is that flower, well-known to all,
Whose blossoms never ope
At mortal prayer, or mortal call?
That mystic flower is Hope!
Sent from a purer, brighter sphere,
To earth awhile 'tis given;
We greet its buds of promise here-
It only blooms in Heaven!

"A primrose on the river's brim
A yellow primrose is to him,
And nothing more,"

had an inherent and unconscious tendency to admire those objects which corresponded with his ideal of the beautiful; those outward and visible manifestations of the inner life; those reflections in the glass of nature, of the thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the desires, of the human heart. Yes, more or less, we are all worshippers at the shrine of sensuous beauty-beauty of form, and hue, and sound-which can be felt, and seen, and heard, and the kind and degree of homage which we yield is in accordance with the purity, the freedom from worldly taint, of our minds; while its degree of intensity depends much, if not wholly, upon nervous temperament and susceptibility to outward impressions. A child-like heart, an humble, prayerful soul, is that which most truly admires and loves the beautiful-a heart like that of the great poet, which "leaps up" when he beholds "a rainbow in the sky;" and in the pure fresh feelings of which old age shall make no difference. And what, it may be asked, are the qualifications of such a mind and such a nature? We may answer in the words of N. P. Willis :

"It is to have attentive and believing faculties;
To go abroad rejoicing in the joy
Of beautiful and well-created things;
To love the voice of waters, and the stream

Of silver fountains leaping to the sea;

To thrill with the rich melody of birds
Living their life of music; to be glad
In the gay sunshine, reverent in the storm.

has the author of the volume before us; who, indeed, sees, and hears, and breathes the evidence, the wisdom of God in the world of creation, which is to him as an open book, whose pages are covered with revelations of divine wisdom, and power, and love, written in characters of light and beauty.

"Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God has written in the stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation
In these stars of earth-these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart."

So says Longfellow, and so does Mr. Slack tell us all through these imaginary dialogues of his, from which we shall now proceed to give a few quotations, interspersing them with such remarks as the subject may suggest.

"The Ministry of the Beautiful," as the author has here endeavoured, and very successfully endeavoured, to exhibit it, "consists chiefly in its omnipresent power of stimulating the fancy and the heart to join the intellect in adoration of the good and true;" and "as external objects exert a principal action in exciting our faculties, natural scenery has been made to form the ground-work of the reflections that are presented to the reader;" and, we may well add, presented in so striking and attractive a form, both as regards thoughts and language, that he must be a dull and insensate being indeed who is not led to admire and reflect upon these "wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous," which God has "written all over this great world of ours."

66

gems

of

Upon a very slight thread of incident has Mr. Slack strung together his true thought:" his dramatis persona are but two, of whom we only know that they bear the names Edith and Lyulph, and in whose converse is reflected whatsoever features of beauty the external world presents, and whatsoever corresponding reflections of moral and intellectual loveliness are called forth by their examination, as “face answereth to face in a glass."

The first conversation is supposed to take place in a cavern, where "the Universal Spirit makes its presence strongly felt, and unfolds new views of religion and philosophy to prepared minds ;" and where, amid many noble and truthful utterances, we listen to such simply eloquent embodiments of thought as these―

"The wisest of us, which is the holiest, see somewhat by the eyes of faith."

"Nothing unreasonable can be true; but man often imagines that opposed to reason which is above it. The sceptic denies the realities of faith as the blind might deny the beauty of colour, or the deaf the harmony of sound."

Art is only a hieroglyphic, or sacred language in which noble thoughts should be expressed."

From the cavern, by a very natural transition, we are conducted to the sea-shore, the scenery of which is beautifully described, and where footsteps in the sand give occasion for some very grand and striking reflections, which, however, we must not pause to quote.

The next scene is the old oak wood, previous to entering which we pause to admire the joyous mountain stream, that goes flashing and leaping from rock to rock, and to listen while our author observes

"What a contrast it is to the deep repose which at this season the noontide brings to other objects Day and night its bustling active race goes on; flowers grow on its banks, and often fling their leaves across its course in such profusion as to conceal it from the view; but seen or unseen, it pursues its work insensibly yet surely, deepening its channel in the rock. The valley in which we walk is a monument of its labour, which took countless centuries to accomplish. Wonderful is the work performed by small streams, the capillary veins and arteries of the earth. Every where small causes are producing stupendous results; whole continents built up by the small coral polypes, and huge valleys excavated by tiny rivulets. Perseverance and time triumph over the most gigantic obstacles."

The sights and sounds of woodland scenery, and their beautiful and sublime associations, afford themes for eloquent discourse, as do also those of spring-time on the Western coast, a journey by night, a quarry among the hills, Druidical remains, the beech wood, the ruined castle, the hill-top, a winter landscape, a great city at night, a rocky lane in summer, the sacred lake, an old hall. Let us pick out a few more of the gems and lumps of pure ore which so abound amid the waters of this river of high converse, ever flowing onward to the vast and eternal.

"Those who love most know most. To the true worshipper nature exhibits beauty and sublimity, while to the irreverent is barrenness and vacuity. Two men may live on the same spot, one dwelling in an Eden garden, sparkling with fountains, odorous with the loveliest flowers, and full of celestial sounds, while the other is in a desert, the abode of uncleanness and desolation. In proportion as a man develops beauty within, does he find it without."

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By faith we behold eternity in time, light in darkness, life in death: infancy reveals omniscience; weakness, omnipotence; the finite, the infinite; the transient, the eternal."

"In vain man builds an edifice of hard intellectual unbelief in which to dwell; night will enter with unquiet terror, while to the mansions of faith she brings calm repose."

"No savage, worshipping the most preposterous idol, ever believed greater absurdities than a modern sceptic, who makes his small modicum of reason the standard by which to measure the boundless universe."

"The seeds of Christianity are only germinating, the harvest is yet to come. There is still paganism in abundance, in the worship of wealth and station, which is more degrading than that of the gods of Olympus

*

only a part of ancient idolatry has passed away. We valued entirely for that which is within them, and must wait long for the time when men will be not at all for fictitious advantages which are without; for the time when as much divinity will be seen in the peasants of Gallilee as in the Son sitting on the throne of heaven."

:

and star, with charms more certain than those of Beauty unites all things, links together flower reason. The poet, the artist, thus finds the clue which guides them in their pilgrimage through the

world."

"None can live well who are not worshippers of the beautiful."

"Happy are they to whom the past teaches wisdom, and the future hope; whose imagination, borne on the wings of fervid faith, can soar to some exalted heaven, visit some land of paradise glowing in the sunlight of a golden age, and bring some of its radiant light and fragrant flowers to give splendour and loveliness to their present home. This world, so full of varied beauty, so rich in suggestive forms, should be only like an illuminated book, where beautiful as may be the shape of the letters, exquisite as the pictured margin, they are but faint and feeble images of the divine thoughts its words express.

External nature should be idealised to the utmost

extent, and then it appears but the image of the tains, oceans of deep emotion reflecting the face of human soul; for there are cloud-piercing mounheaven, fertilizing rivers of affection with golden sands, rich groves, ample plains of thought, deep mines of love, in which lie buried myriads of priceless gems, seeds of amaranthine flowers and deathless fruits, which may wait ages for their full development, but with the certainty that it is to come. In the physical world heaven and earth combine to give beauty to a scene like this; but whatever beauty we can see without, we should realize more within. External objects grow more and more lovely in proportion to the perfection of the light which our own souls can cast upon them, and ever stimulate to higher progress; and not only great wishes, but still more great thoughts and deeds, speak with increasing eloquence, shine with increasing light. Whatever was true once, is more true, true to higher and more extended faculties, as we advance. The world's teachers remain the same from age to age; the same stars that taught the shepherds of old Chaldea led the magi to the cradle at Bethlehem, and still teach them lessons of eternal truth; the accents which fell from the lips of earliest wisdom, still sound in the world; a great thought never

C

grows old, never can die, but exercises from age to age an unseen, and perhaps unfelt, but growing influence, to raise man to his loftiest condition.”

If these be not oracles worthy of utterance at the shrine of eternal Beauty and everlasting Truth, we know not what may be so considered. Truly are they reflections of a divine light within-utterances of an earnest soul that has drunk largely at the wells of poetic inspiration. One of the main charms of this volume to us is its beautiful simplicity and lucidness of style. Every thought-and almost every sentence contains a complete and perfect one-is like a shape of loveliness encased in crystal, which heightens and irradiates its beauty, so that one is compelled to pause, and examine, and admire it, and thus it becomes fixed in the memory. If all who utter great truths, and endeavour to teach their fellow-men how to become better, and wiser, and happier, were to do it in this simple and attractive manner, we should see far different results from those which now afflict the thoughtful and the good. Here are no mystical revelations calculated to confuse and baffle the understanding, and send it compassless and rudderless into the wide sea of doubt and infidelity; no dogmatical assertions, and imperious ipse dixits, which arouse all the elements of opposition in the mind, and make men even inclined to question the truths which, advanced in a more persuasive manner, they were prepared to admit no pandering to that pride of intellect which we take to be the great bane and mischief of the moral and religious philosophy of the present day: no exaltation of merely human reason into an infallible standard, whereby may be weighed and measured all mysteries of earth or heaven-of nature or of Divine revelations. No, none of these; but simply a giving, as it were, an interpretation of the many voices which everywhere in the world of creation are uttering -alas! how often to unheeding ears--those solemn truths meant for our guidance, our warning, our reproof, our rescue from sin and death. If we would but listen to these voices, and follow their holy teachings, we should be led insensibly up to the footstool of the Author of our being, the finisher of our salvation, the origin of all truth, the creator of all beauty, whether ideal or material, and there, with spirits humble and trusting, await those instructions and that guidance, which are denied to none who confidingly ask them; saying, after the manner of A. L. W. in her "Hymns and Meditations"

"I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,

Seeking for some great thing to do,
Some secret thing to know:
I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go."

Such then is "The Ministry of the Beautiful," not merely to conduce to man's sensual pleasure and delight, but to elevate and refine his taste, to instruct and exalt his intellect, and, above all, to purify his mind, and to qualify him for a

higher and better state of existence than this brief and sorrowful, because sinful one, does. And a true and faithful priest of such a ministry is the author of this volume, than which we can imagine no more delightful companion for a woodland ramble, or a sea-side walk, or a tarriance, short or long, amid any of the scenes most rife with the beauties and sublimities of nature. H. G. A.

"OUR NATIVE HOME."
(Farewell Stanzas.)

BY F. LOUIS JAQUEROD.
How sweet seems every flower,

Each scene-nay, all we prize,
When calls the parting hour,

And turn our sadd'ning eyes
From that dear home, our native shore,
Where we may roam, ah, never more!

The voice we fondly love,

Its accents soft and true, What dearer cares they move

Breathing a last adieu,

When from our home, our native shore We part, perchance to meet no more!

The stranger lip may smile
Beneath inspiring skies,
But nought can e'er beguile

The heart which truly sighs

For that dear home, its native shore,
Where it may roam, ah, never more!

Ah! yes, Life brighter seems,
When all we hold most dear
Thus gilds its transient dreams,

Sharing each hope and fear

In that lov'd home, our native shore, Where we may roam, ah, never more!

So, when all earthly strife

And joy for ever cease, The soul with freedom rife

Seeks its atoning peace

In that dear home, its native shore, Again to roam, oh, never more! Borders of Lake Leman (Switzerland), 1849.

TRUTH.

Just as the ruddy morning light
The darkness drives away,
So Truth, dispelling error's night,
Turns it to glorious day.

As on the mountain summits first
The rising splendour gleams;
So on the loftier spirits burst
Truth's earliest dawning beams,

Nor till the hills have shone awhile,
Light glances o'er the plain;
So men of souls more base and vile
In error long remain.
Doncaster.

HENRY CHADWICK.