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and went to the Through the fast

The old wife arose with difficulty from her seat, coffin to look her last look-to take her last farewell. falling tears she gazed long and fondly down into the pale, unconscious face. What did she see there? Others saw nothing but the rigid features of the dead; she saw more. In every wrinkle of that brow she read the history of years; from youth to manhood, from manhood to old age, in joy and sorrow, in sickness and health, it was all there; when those children, who had not quite outgrown the sympathies of childhood, were infants lying on her bosom, and every year since then-there it was. То others those dull, mute monitors were unintelligible; to her they were the alphabet of the heart, familiar as household words.

Then the future: "What will become of me? What shall I do now?" She did not say so, but she felt it. The prospect of the old wife is clouded; the home circle is broken, never to be reunited; the visions of the hearthstone are scattered forever. Up to that hour there was a home to which the heart always turned with fondness. That magic is now sundered, the key-stone of that sacred arch has fallen, and home is nowhere this side of heaven! Shall she gather up the scattered fragments of the broken arch, make them her temple and her shrine, sit down in her chill solitude beside its expiring fires, and die? What shall she do now?

They gently crowded her away from the dead, and the undertaker came forward, with the coffin-lid in his hand. It is all right and proper, of course, it must be done; but to the heart-mourner it brings a kind of shudder, a thrill of agony. The undertaker stood for a moment, with a decent propriety, not wishing to manifest rude haste, but evidently desirous of being as expeditious as possible. Just as he was about to close the coffin, the old wife turned back, and stooping down, imprinted one long, last kiss upon the cold lips of her dead husband, then staggered to her seat, buried her face in her hands, and the closing coffin hid him from her sight forever!

That kiss! fond token of affection, and of sorrow, and memory, and farewell! I have seen many kiss their dead, many such seals of love upon clay-cold lips, but never did I see one so purely sad, so simply hearttouching and hopeless as that. Or, if it had hope, it was that which looks beyond coffins, and charnel-houses, and damp, dark tombs, to the joys of the home above. You would kiss the cold cheek of infancy; there is poetry; it is beauty hushed; there is romance there, for the faded flower is still beautiful. In childhood the heart yields to the stroke of sorrow, but recoils again with elastic faith, buoyant with hope; but here was no beauty, no poetry, no romance.

The heart of the old wife was like the weary swimmer, whose strength

has often raised him above the stormy waves, but now, exhausted, sinks amid the surges. The temple of her earthly hopes had fallen, and what was there left for her but to sit down in despondency, among its lonely ruins, and weep and die! or, in the spirit of a better hope, await the dawning of another day, when a Hand divine shall gather its sacred dust, and rebuild for immortality its broken walls!

Zeph Higgins was quarrelsome, exacting, and stubborn to such a degree that he was repulsive to the village people. His first real trouble came in the death of his loving, patient wife-whose last request was that he would put away all hard feelings, and make up his old feud with the church.

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44
FROM POGANUC PEOPLE."

OTHING could be rougher and more rustic than the old schoolhouse,-its walls hung with cobwebs; its rude slab benches and desks hacked by many a schooolboy's knife; the plain, ink-stained pine table before the minister, with its two tallow candles, whose

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dim rays scarcely gave light enough to read the hymns. There was nothing outward to express the real greatness of what was there in reality.

From the moment the Doctor entered he was conscious of a present Power. There was a hush, a stillness, and the words of his prayer seemed to go out into an atmosphere thrilling with emotion, and when he rose to speak he saw the countenances of his parishioners with that change upon them which comes from the waking up of the soul to higher things. Hard, weather-beaten faces were enkindled and eager; every eye was fixed upon him; every word he spoke seemed to excite a responsive emotion.

The Doctor read from the Old Testament the story of Achan. He told how the host of the Lord had turned back because there was one in the camp who had secreted in his tent an accursed thing. He asked, "can it be now and here, among us who profess to be Christians, that we are secreting in our hearts some accursed thing that prevents the good Spirit of the Lord from working among us? Is it our hard feeling against a brother? Is there anything that we know to be wrong that we refuse to make right-anything that we know belongs to God that we are withholding? If we Christians lived as high as we ought, if we lived up to our professions, would there be any sinners unconverted? Let us beware how we stand in the way. If the salt have lost its savor wherewith shall it be salted? Oh, my brethren, let us not hinder the work of God. I look around on this circle and I miss the face of a sister who was always here to help us with her prayers; now she is with the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, with the spirits of the just made perfect. But her soul will rejoice with the angels of God if she looks down and sees us all coming up to where we ought to be. God grant that her prayers may be fulfilled in us. Let us examine ourselves, brethren; let us cast out the stumbling-block, that the way of the Lord may be prepared."

The words, simple in themselves, became powerful by the atmosphere of deep feeling into which they were uttered; there were those solemn pauses, that breathless stillness, those repressed breathings, that magnetic sympathy that unites souls under the power of one overshadowing con

viction.

When the Doctor sat down, suddenly there was a slight movement, and from a dark back seat rose the gaunt form of Zeph Higgins. He was deathly pale, and his form trembled with emotion. Every eye was fixed upon him, and people drew in their breath, with involuntary surprise and

suspense.