Where is the Enemy?

L. M. CHILD says "I have somewhere read of a regiment ordered to march into a small town, and take it. I think it was in the Tyrol but wherever it was, it chanced that the place was settled by a colony who believed the Gospel of Christ, and proved their faith by works. A courier from a neighbouring village informed them that troops were advancing to take the town. They quietly answered" If they will take it, they must." Soldiers soon came riding in, with colours flying, and fifes piping their shrill defiance. They looked round for an enemy, and saw the farmer at his plough, the blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns and spinning-wheels. Babies crowed to hear the music, and boys ran out to see the pretty trainers, with feathers and bright buttons, "the harlequins of the nineteenth century." Of course none of these were in a proper position to be shot at. "Where are your soldiers?" they asked, "we have none," was the brief reply.-" But we have come to take the town." -"Well friends it lies before you."-"But is there nobody here to fight?"-No, we are all Christians."

Here was an emergency altogether unprovided for a sort of resistance which no bullet could hit: a fortress perfectly bomb-proof. The commander was perplexed. "If there is nobody to fight with, of course we cannot fight," said he, "It is impossible to take such a town as this." So he ordered the horses heads to be turned about, and they carried the human animals out of the village as guiltless as they entered, and perchance somewhat wiser.

This experiment on a small scale, indicates how easy it would be to dispense with armies and navies if men only had faith in the religion they profess to believe.

Clarkson at Wadesmill.

LUCY BARTON.

A WANDERER by the road-way side,
Where leafy tall trees grow,

Casting their branching shadows wide,
Sits on the turf below.

Though rich the landscape, hill and plain
Before him there outspread,

One hand holds fast his bridle rein,
One props his thoughtful head.

36

THE WORTH OF HOURS.

Not vainly has he watched the ark,
Wherein his hopes were shrined,
Nor vainly fanned fair freedom's spark,
In many a kindling mind.

Che Worth of Bours.

BELIEVE not that your inner eye

Can ever in just measure try
The worth of hours as they go by:

For every man's weak self, alas!

Makes him to see them, while they pass,
As through a dim or tinted glass.

But if in earnest care you would
Mete out to each its part of good,
Trust rather to your after-mood.

Those surely are not fairly spent,

That leave your spirit bowed and bent, In sad unrest and ill-content:

And more though, free from seeming harm,
You rest from toil of mind or arm,
Or slow retire from Pleasure's charm:

If then a painful sense comes on
Of something wholly lost and gone,
Vainly enjoyed or vainly done;

Of something from your being's chain
Broke off, nor to be linked again

By all mere memory can retain,

IN MEMORIAM.

Upon your heart this truth may rise:
Nothing that altogether dies,
Suffices man's just destinies.

So should we live that every hour
May die, as dies the natural flower,
A self-reviving thing of power:

That every thought and every deed,
May hold within itself the seed
Of future good and future meed;

Esteeming sorrow, whose employ
Is to develope, not destroy,
Far better than a barren Joy.

R. M. MILNES.

In Memoriam.

THE path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Though four sweet years, arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:

And we with singing cheered the way,
And crowned with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,

And glad at heart from May to May:

But where the path we walked, began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,

As we descended, following Hope,
There sat the Shadow feared of man.

37

38

IN MEMORIAM.

Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapped thee formless in the fold,
And dulled the murmur on thy lip;

My blood an even tenor kept

Till on my ear this message falls,
That in Vienna's fatal walls

God's finger touched him, and he slept.

Oh thou and I wert one in kind

As moulded like in nature's mint ;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.

For as the same cold streamlet curled
Through all his eddying coves the same;
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.

At one dear knee we proffered vows,
One lesson from one book we learned,
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turned
To black and brown, on kindred brows.

I falter where I firmly trod,

And, falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope through darkness up to God;

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope
And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

ALFRED TENNYSON.