Clergyman, clerk, bearers, all seemed soulless automata in some painful mechanism; no bosom heaved a sigh to interrupt the dulness; no child's voice raised its innocent prattle, to awaken the heaviness of the funeral of the "village Deist."

I passed by the churchyard after some days, to mark the spot where the buried remains of that once haughty man now lay; no headstone rose from among the many graves, to tell its voiceless tale to the men of the years to come. There was nought but the newly heaped mould. And when a few more years shall have vegetated a dark green covering for his resting place, the wanderer will gaze unknowingly, the schoolboy tread unthinkingly, the sheep graze unconsciously, over the grave of the forgotten village Deist. For "the face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.”

S. G. J.

THE FEARFUL DISCIPLES.

"And as they followed, they were afraid," Mark x. 32.

OH, Saviour! Thou hast some disciples still,
Timid and fearful;

They follow Thee; but dread of coming ill

Oft makes them sad and tearful;

How strange that any in thy path should tread

With trembling footstep, and with drooping head.

Afraid! when Thou, their Master and their Guide,
Goeth before them;

When Thou, with love so long and deeply tried,

Art ever watching o'er them;

Afraid! when they so oft thy voice have heard,
Which calms the strongest tempest with a word.

Their faith is weak, and therefore do they shrink
From care and sorrow;

For if to-day their sky looks bright, they think
Of the clouds that come to-morrow.

Clearly they see the dangers of their way;

But fail to make thine arm their strength and stay.

And thus they travel on uncheered, distrest;
Their path, how dreary!

By gloomy doubts and anxious fears opprest.
Slow is their step, and weary;

Yet, sad and sinful as their fears must be,
Lord, we are thankful that they follow Thee.

For Thou with their distrust will gently bear,
"Till faith shall strengthen;

Wilt teach them not to bend to grief and care;
Nor fear when shadows lengthen ;

Wilt nerve them for the hardship and the strife,
Which all must meet with in the march of life.

Better it is to follow Thee in fear,

Alarmed by dangers,

Than wander in the way of sinners here,

Lured by the voice of strangers.

For blest in time and in eternity,

Are even those who "fear" and "follow Thee."

H. M. W.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

WHAT is to be done? How frequently, and with what varying importance, does the question present itself! The perplexed school-boy who is poring over a sum that wont come right, and the chagrined statesman who has to deal with a refractory parliament, alike ask it. The little girl who has just discovered an alarming rent in her spencer, and the sovereign lady who finds her crown beset with thorns, alike ask it. It has burst from the lips of many a noble youth when about to enter the thickest strife of life's great battle; it has been uttered in solitude by the blushing maiden whose heart has, for the first time, become conscious of a new passion.

My dear young friends, let me suppose (what 1 hope is true) that you are really desirous of passing through the world so as to leave some bright trace behind you-some deeply-marked "footprints in the sands of time," that shall serve to cheer, to instruct, to encourage, at least one of the immortal souls with whom you are associated by the ties of relationship, friendship, and universal brotherhood.

"Of course," cries a hasty, self-complacent listener, "everybody wants to be doing something now-a-days, so you need not speak to us as if we were mere children; I mean to do something that is worth doing."

Just so, my good sir; but you see there are many different opinions as to what things are, and what things are not worth pursuing, with the noble energies God has given us.

Look at that young man, yonder. Observe his pale face, thin body, lanky limbs, bent shoulders, feeble gait, and nervous manners. Why, you might feel sure, previously to my telling you, that he is an enthusiastic student; one to whom the highest seat

of learning is the only paradise on earth. With him, the only thing to be done is to clothe himself with the learning of past ages, preparatory to a brilliant literary career through life. To this object everything else must give way, and sink into utter insignificance. Poor fellow! he is putting a host of stumbling-blocks in his own way. Scarcely ever associating with living truth-truth in living men; and shutting himself out of much sweet social intercourse, his ever-bent mind must be a prodigy indeed, if it do not acquire a distorted bias.

Look at that band of little ones playing at "hide and seek." Their childish fun, instead of delighting him, seems rather to increase his nervous unsocial cogitations; and his darkly-knit brow casts quite a chill upon the warm little faces that look up into his. Oh, that is a blind head, that shuts up the sympathy of the heart from little children; he is an ignorant student who cannot learn much from them.

On he goes, almost upsetting in his reverie a decrepit old man, who, with the help of a good stout stick, has walked out a little way into the sunshine.

Now he is passing a cottage, where lies a young man who has not long to live. Surely he will go in and say a kind word or two to his suffering brother? No, he cannot; he thinks he would like to be useful, but what can he do? he is sure to be in the way. Besides, it will unsettle his mind, and unfit him for study, &c., &c., &c.; and so he passes on, and one of the golden opportunities of his life is thrown away.

Cast your eye back a little, and you will see a fellow student of his coming this way, with a smile of peace on his pleasant countenance. A very different kind of person is he, although quite as well versed in "school matters." Now he has reached the corner where the children are playing. Dear me, what a shout! What do they know about him? If I heard rightly, they called him "Teacher." That coat of his

should be a pretty strong one, if it is to stand such pulling and tugging from juvenile friendship. The little fellow, who is commanded to rifle teacher's pockets of the little picture books, is hardly tall enough to accomplish it, but he contrives to pull them out somehow. Then what smiling faces, and pretty bows, as each of them receives a book! That young man is doing something.

Going down the street, he overtakes that old man we saw just now, and finds him leaning, like a weary pilgrim, upon his staff. Ah! it is pretty evident the wayworn traveller knows that voice. How his dim eye brightens while the young man talks to him! That young man is doing something.

But now the cheerfulness of his face takes a nobler and a more serious cast. He is thinking of that dying friend, to whom his conversation has been greatly blest. He walks up the stairs: everybody there knows him, and he is quite at home. With all the warm affection of a brother in Christ, he sits down close to the bedside and sympathizes with his friend, reads to him, prays with him, and talks of the good land where they hope to meet, never to part again. That young man is doing something. Do you think he will study the worse for it to-morrow?

MAIDEN! modest, yet industrious one; prudent, yet loving one; you perhaps are lamenting that you can do so little; that your sphere of life, your circle of intercourse, is so contracted; that your powers of mind are weak, and sadly uncultivated; that you have more accomplishments than really useful acquisitions; that you are only capable of doing little things, and cannot soar away to those sunny regions of scientific contemplation, which other minds have continually spread before them; or, to those sublime achievements, the records of which are graven, as with an iron pen, in the rock for ever. Is it so? Then, my dear friend, whatever you do, do not despise the little things. See