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ZEPH HIGGINS' CONFESSION.

"Wal, I must speak," he said. "I'm a stumbling-block. I've allers been one. I hain't never ben a Christian, that's jest the truth on't. I never hed oughter 'a'ben in the church. I've ben all wrong-wrong— WRONG! I knew I was wrong, but I wouldn't give up. It's ben jest mny awful WILL. I've set up my will agin God Almighty. I've set it agin my neighbors-agin the minister and agin the church. And now the Lord's come out agin me; He's struck me down. I know He's got a right—He can do what He pleases-but I ain't resigned-not a grain. I submit 'cause I can't help myself; but my heart's hard and wicked. I expect my day of grace is over. I ain't a Christian, and I can't be, and I shall go to hell at last, and sarve me right!"

And Zeph sat down, grim and stony, and the neighbors looked one on another in a sort of consternation. There was a terrible earnestness in those words that seemed to appall every one and prevent any from uttering the ordinary commonplaces of religious exhortation. For a few moments the circle was silent as the grave, when Dr. Cushing said, “Brethren, let us pray;" and in his prayer he seemed to rise above earth and draw his whole flock, with all their sins, and needs, and wants, into the presencechamber of heaven.

He prayed that the light of heaven might shine into the darkened spirit of their brother; that he might give himself up utterly to the will of God; that we might all do it, that we might become as little children. in the kingdom of heaven. With the wise tact which distinguished his ministry he closed the meeting immediately after the prayer with one or two serious words of exhortation. He feared lest what had been gained in impression might be talked away did he hold the meeting open to the well-meant, sincere, but uninstructed efforts of the brethren to meet a case like that which had been laid open before them.

After the service was over and the throng slowly dispersed, Zeph remained in his place, rigid and still. One or two approached to speak to him; there was in fact a tide of genuine sympathy and brotherly feeling that longed to express itself. He might have been caught up in this powerful current and borne into a haven of peace, had he been one to trust himself to the help of others; but he looked neither to the right nor to the left; his eyes were fixed on the floor; his brown, bony hands held his old straw hat in a crushing grasp; his whole attitude and aspect were repelling and stern to such a degree that none dared address him.

The crowd slowly passed on and out. Zeph sat alone, as he thought; but the minister, his wife, and little Dolly had remained at the upper end of the room. Suddenly, as if sent by an irresistible impulse, Dolly

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stepped rapidly down the room and with eager gaze laid her pretty little timid hand upon his shoulder, crying, in a voice tremulous at once with fear and with intensity, "O, why do you say that you cannot be a Christian? Don't you know that Christ loves you ?"

Christ loves you! The words thrilled through his soul with a strange, new power; he opened his eyes and looked astonished into the little earnest, pleading face.

"Christ loves you," she repeated; "oh, do believe it!”

"Loves me!" he said, slowly.

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Why should He?"

He died for you.

"But He does; He loves us all. He died for us.

Oh, believe it. He'll help you; He'll make you feel right. Only trust Him. Please say you will!"

Zeph looked at the little face earnestly, in a softened, wondering way. A tear slowly stole down his hard cheek.

"Thank'e, dear child," he said.

"You will believe it?"

"I'll try."

"You will trust Him?"

Zeph paused a moment, then rose up with a new and different expression in his face, and said, in a subdued and earnest voice, "I will." "Amen!" said the Doctor, who stood listening; and he silently grasped the old man's hand.

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The heart of Pachel, for her children crying, Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,-the child of our affection,-
But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

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B

ALFRED TENNYSON.

UT Enoch yearned to see her face again;

'If I might look on her sweet face again

And in it throve an ancient evergreen,
A yew-tree, and all around it ran a walk
Of shingle, and a walk divided it:

But Enoch shunned the middle walk and stole

And know that she is happy." So Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence

the thought

Haunted and harassed him and drove

him forth

At evening when the dull November day
Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.
There he sat down gazing on all below:
There did a thousand memories roll upon him
Unspeakable for sadness. By and by
The ruddy square of comfortable light,
Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house,
Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures
The bird of passage, till he madly strike
Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind, With one small gate that opened on the waste, Flourished a little garden square and walled:

That which he better might have shunned, if

griefs

Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

For cups and silver on the burnished board
Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth;
And on the right hand of the hearth he saw
Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,
Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees
And o'er her second father stoopt a girl,
A later but a loftier Annie Lee,
Fair-haired and tall, and from her lifted
hand

Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring
To tempt the babe, who reared his creasy

arms,

Caught at and ever missed it, and they laughed:

And on the left hand of the hearth he saw

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