"Now eat away, my boy, As much as you like," I said. With joy, And a soft expression of childish grace, He looked up into my friendly face, And sobbed, as he strove to hide a tear: "Oh, if mother and baby Kate were here!" But eat," said I, "never mind them now," A thoughtful look stole over his brow, And lo! from his face the joy had fled. "What! While they're starving at home!" he said: Oh, no, sir! I'm hungry, indeed, 'tis true, But I cannot eat till they've had some too." The tears came rushing-I can't tell whyTo my eyes, as he spoke these words. Said I: 'God bless you! Here, you brave little man, Here, carry home all the bread you can." 'Twas four years ago. But one day last May, As I wandered by chance through East Broadway, A cheery voice accosted me. Lo! "Mister," he said, "I'll never forget The kindness you showed when last we met. I work at a trade, and mother is well, So is baby Kate; and I want to tell You this that we owe it all to you. 'Twas you don't blush, sir-that helped us through In our darkest hour; and we always say Our luck has been better since that day When you sent me home with bread to feed Those starving ones in their hour of need." THE BELFRY PIGEON. N. P. WILLIS. N the cross-beam under the Old South | And the gentle curve of its lowly crest; 614 THE RESPONSIVE CHORD. He broods on his folded feet, unstirred, I tread, like thee, the crowded street; Or, at a half-felt wish for rest, I would that in such wings of gold, And while the world throngs on beneath, THE RESPONSIVE CHORD. J. WILLIAM JONES. N tne early spring of 1863, when the Confederate and Federal armies were confronting each other on the opposite hills of Stafford and Spottsylvania, two bands chanced one evening, at the same hour, to begin to discourse sweet music on either bank of the river. A large crowd of the soldiers of both armies gathered to listen to the music, the friendly pickets not interfering, and soon the bands began to answer each other. First the band on the northern bank would play "Star Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," or some other national air, and at its conclusion the "boys in blue" would cheer most lustily. And then the band on the southern bank would respond with "Dixie " or " Bonnie Blue Flag," or some other Southern melody, and the "boys in gray" would attest their approbation with an "old Confederate yell." But presently one of the bands struck up, in sweet and plaintive notes which were wafted across the beautiful Rappahannock, were caught up at once by the other band and swelled into a grand anthem which touched every heart, "Home, Sweet Home!" At the conclusion of this piece there went up a simultaneous shout from both sides of the river-cheer followed cheer, and those hills, which had so recently resounded with hostile guns, echoed and re-echoed the glad acclaim. A chord had been struck responsive to which the hearts of enemies-enemies then-could beat in unison; and, on both sides of the river, "Something down the soldier's cheek N THE TRUE TEMPLE OT where high towers rear Not 'neath the vaulted dome, Their lofty heads above some costly Or fretted roof, magnificently flung, fane, Doth God our Heavenly Father on ly deign Our humble prayers to hear, Not where the lapsing hours The cankering footprints of the spoiler, time, Are idly noted with a sounding chime, From proud cathedral towers; Not where the chiseled stone, And shadowy niche, and shaft and architrave, The dim old chancel, or the solemn nave Seem vast and chill and lone; O'er cushioned seats, or curtained desks o'er hung With rare work of the loom; Not where the sunlight falls From the stained oriel with a chastened sha le O'er sculptured tombs where mighty ones ar laid, Till the last trumpet calls; Not where rich music floats Through the hushed air until the soul is stirred, As 't were a chord from that bright land as heard When angels swell the notes. AM aware that the ballot-box is not everywhere a consistent symbol; but to a large degree it is so. I know what miserable associations cluster around this instrument of popular power. I know that the arena in which it stands is trodden into mire by the feet of reckless ambition and selfish greed. The wire-pulling and the bribing, the pitiful truckling and the grotesque compromises, the exaggeration and the detraction, the melo-dramatic issues and the sham patriotism, the party watchwords and the party nicknames, the schemes of the few paraded as the will of the many, the elevation of men whose only worth is in the votes. they command,-vile men, whose hands you would not grasp in friendship, whose presence you would not tolerate by your fireside-incompetent men, whose fitness is not in their capacity as functionaries, or legislators, but as organ pipes; the snatching at the slices and offal of office, the intemperance and the violence, the finesse and the falsehood, the gin and the glory; these are indeed but too closely identified with that political agitation which circles around the ballot box. But, after all, they are not essential to it. They are only the masks of a genuine grandeur and importance. For it is a grand thing,-something which involves profound doctrines of right,-something which has cost ages of effort and sacrifice, it is a grand thing that here, at last, each voter has just the weight of one man; no more, no less; and the weakest, by virtue of his recognized manhood, is as strong as the mightiest. And consider, for a moment, what it is to cast a vote. It is the token o inestimable privileges, and involves the responsibilities of an hereditary trust. It has passed into your hands as a right, reaped from fields of suf |