MAYWEED BLOSSOMS.

TO THE READER.

Kind Reader:

You may think that I have chosen a singular name for the collection which I now give you in book form; but is it not good to seek to glorify common things? And though

L. W.

MAYWEED BLOSSOMS.

WHEN the sunlight bursts forth in its brightness, or the rainbow arches the clouds, my soul leaps with gladness, and I think, "Who so happy as I? Who so much cause for rejoicing?" But when the clouds return after the rain, and the chilling winds cause my sensitive spirit to shrink within itself, I feel like exclaiming, "O, ye that pass by, turn and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow!"

It was upon such a time as this that I wandered forth and sat me down upon a friendly log, by the side of which grew the homely Mayweed. "Just like my entire life," said I, as I looked upon its familiar face; "unattractive without and bitter within; no sweetness, no beauty, covered with dust, and trampled under foot in the highway." But as I thus pondered, a busy bee paused in its onward flight to salute the humble weed, while a voice, that seemed to issue therefrom, said, "Were there no sweetness the bee would not tarry in its flight, and as for the beauty, wait." Surprise changed the current of my thoughts, and forgetting my sorrow, I listened intently for more, and lo! I was taken back to the very morning of my childhood.

The simple weed seemed possessed of clairvoyance, for it told me of the time when I had pressed its kindred beneath my little feet, as I made my way for the first time to the portico of a-b-c-dom, and there was no sorrow in the recollection. Ah, the very spirit of Mayweed! I could fancy it to have stepped forth from the form, and to be leading my spirit over the pathway of that life of which I had spoken so bitterly. Back and forth we went over the devious windings of that summer at school. "See here," said my guide; "do you remember this creek, by the side of which you used to play, bringing moss from the woods to carpet the sand, the floor of the play-house, and to make a bed for dolly, decking the whole with the scarlet berries that grew beneath the pines?" Just here came the thought of the day I played in that same creek till the teacher had to wrap me in her shawl while she dried my clothes. Well, I suppose it was not quite so pleasant in the time of it, but I question if the delight of paddling in the liquid crystal did not fully compensate for the annoyance of the wise sayings of, "See what little girls get by being naughty," etc., etc. If not, I am sure that the laughs I have had since, in reference thereto, have more than made up the deficiency. No, there was no sorrow in the recollection of those years. What cared I for poverty? The trees and the flowers were as beautiful to me as to the richest; the broad earth was as green, and the blue heavens as bright; and then, in my grandfather's home, where I was privileged to stay through that, my four-year-old summer,—a very unpretending dwelling by the way, but to me wonderful,—within was comfort, and without the glorious old pear trees, the big sweet apple tree that almost tossed its fruit into our bedroom window, with the plums, and the cherries, the walnuts that grew in the fields, and the chestnuts in the woods. What a world of treasure stored away in the chambers of Memory, to be enjoyed even yet! "Is it not so?" said Mayweed; and my spirit could but reply in the affirmative; and yet, with a kind of perversity which is perhaps peculiar to me, I look some two years ahead to a scene in that same home, where I find myself in tears. Tears for what? Why, you see, "Little girls must be industrious," and I was learning to knit; but the glad shouts of uncles not much older than myself, and of cousins also, have tempted me from my task, and here I am in the midst of them, my hair streaming in the wind, and as merry as the merriest; but a voice that I dare not disobey summons me back to my little chair and my knitting needles with, "Ain't you ashamed to be out there with the boys?" and so I weep, but not much; for that only brings additional reproof to the eldest granddaughter, of whom they are somewhat proud, and would like to manufacture into the article known as "Lady."

A little thorn this, but I cannot forget the pain quite so quickly as I did the other, for it was a real robbery of my rights, and my heart goes out in sympathy to the thousands who have been robbed in like manner.

Mayweed, however, is again at hand, and she gently leads me back to the school-room. "Do you recollect," she says, "when you read of the lazy sheep who ate 'grass, and daisies white,' how you wondered what the white daisy was? There was a golden-colored, buttery-leafed flower, which you had named yellow daisy, but nothing that had ever fallen under your eye that filled your idea of what a white daisy should be; and yet you might be mistaken, and, wandering in a by-path by yourself, when recess came, you gathered some of the fairest of the Mayweeds among my ancestors, and tried to make yourself believe that they were the flowers intended."

While Mayweed was thus reminding me of the ancient examination, I plucked, and began, unconsciously, to examine a blossom from the one before me, when a voice by my side—a real human voice—said, "You think that is homely, auntie; but just look through this, and then see;" presenting me, at the same time, a magnifying glass of moderate power.

"Well, Charley, this does change the appearance somewhat," said I; "but it is not very beautiful yet."

He regarded me a moment with an amused look, and then handed me one of much higher power. I adjusted it to the humble weed, and what a transformation! Glorious beyond all I had ever imagined, the very dust upon its leaves sparkling like diamonds. "Beautiful! beautiful!" I exclaimed, in rapt astonishment, when there came a soft whisper, "No beauty, no sweetness. Is thy life like the Mayweed's?" "Would to God it might be!" was the full response of my heart. "The lens of thy spirit is the glass through which thou must look upon it," came in sweet reply. "As it expands thou wilt find the bitter bringing sweetness—the unattractive changing to attractive—then beautiful, then dazzlingly glorious—brighter and still brighter, as the jewels polished by the rough hand of Time reflect the blaze of Eternity." I listened till the voice ceased, and then went forth content.

O, the heart! the heart! What a strange, complicated piece of workmanship! The human heart,—the seat of feeling and affection, of all the various emotions which go to make so large a share of the happiness or misery of the individual! Heart leaves: turn them over; read them till their number shall exceed the leaves of the forest; but do not imagine, even then, that thy task is accomplished, for new ones continue to present themselves, each varying from the other, and stretching on, onward, till the years of eternity are numbered. Only to the eye of the Infinite are they spread out in one ever-present panorama.

As the lights and shades—the rough and smooth places, and all that, taken separately, would look like unmeaning distortions—are needed to make the work of the artist perfect, to make a picture that shall proclaim a master's hand, so is each leaf in that wondrous book called "The Heart" needed to form a perfect volume. But here there are no stereotyped editions—no ten thousands struck from the same type. No; each book is a new work, complete in itself—original and distinct from all others.

You may do them up in the same covers, give them the same title, and try to pass them off for copies of the same work, but it will not do; sooner or later you will discover that God declares his infinity in all his works, and that variety is the natural language of that infinity. Cease then, poor foolish mortal, to measure the capabilities of another by thine own. Think not, when thou hast deciphered a portion of what is written upon some page of thine own heart, that thou hast obtained so much of an insight into the multitudes of hearts around. thee; for none but the "dear God" can fathom the life springs of humanity, and he only can touch the chords to which their deep pulsations vibrate.

"O, Miss, we've got a garden! come and see our garden!" said a little, slender, blue-eyed child, in one of those dwellings so common in cities—those which are so closely huddled together that there seems hardly room left for a breath of air to intervene. I wondered where room could be found for a garden in that crowded place. I followed the child, however, and she led me to the back part of the building, then pointing to a window over the sink, she bade me look out, and there, on about a yard of ground, I saw a few green sprouts of some kind, the seeds of which had been accidentally scattered, and had taken root in that uncongenial place. Never shall I forget the sickening feeling which came over me as I looked at those pale, sickly plants, and then into the eyes of that equally delicate child, as they danced for joy, while she continued repeating, "See! we've got a garden! haven't we got a garden?" It was Nature's own voice, speaking in language not to be misunderstood, asserting her right to the love of her children. And then to think that this feeling must be warped, twisted out of shape by the force of surrounding circumstances, and perhaps entirely crushed from the heart of that trusting one ere womanhood was attained, was indeed sad. How often since then have I thought of that child, and wondered what has been her fate; and how often, as I have seen large plats of ground running to waste for want of cultivation, have I thought how differently they would look, if the owners loved their gardens as she loved hers!

Thoughts are angel children, begotten in the depths of congenial minds, and brought forth from thence, to bless or curse the world. See to it, then, O mortal! even to the character of thy thoughts, for by them thou shalt know whether thou art in sympathy with good or evil angels. Evil is undeveloped good.

When I was twelve years of age, my father rented a house and lot of Esquire C——, in the town of D——. His daughter had her bed for flowers, and of course I must have one, so I selected a spot, and filled it with the choicest seeds and roots that I could obtain. Two years passed. They grew and flourished, yielding their share of beauty to gladden our hearts, and then we changed our residence. The following spring I visited my friend, and with her the spot which had once been my home. How changed! The house was full of machinery instead of happy children. The garden fence was thrown down, and what had once been so carefully tended was exposed to the invasion of anything that chose to enter. I surveyed the scene in silence, but passing round the house, a vision of beauty met my eye which chased away my sadness. There were some of my flowers in full bloom, bending their heads gracefully to the morning breeze in spite of the surrounding ruin. And can we not thus plant flowers in the moral, as well as in the natural world, such as will bloom in the midst of desolation? What though we move from place to place, is it any the less our duty to scatter sunshine as we go?

"It is very pretty, but I don't know as it is of much use to soul or body either."

The above remark was made in my hearing, not long since, by a lady who has lived more than sixty years in this beautiful world, upon being shown a nice piece of worsted embroidery. "It is very pretty, but I don't know as it is of much use to soul or body either."

And what is your idea of use? thought I, as I looked into her time-worn face. Is it that a thing is of no value, unless it will bring money or its equivalent?

God must have made a strange mistake in preparing a home for man, if money is the sine qua non of all that is desirable; if a beautiful thing is of no use because we can neither eat, wear, or sell it, which latter we could never do if there were none to appreciate it. If, then, it is of no use because it cannot be appreciated in any of these ways, why did God send forth the spirit of beauty to pervade, like the breath of life, all created things?

Beautiful, and yet of no use! O, woman, thy gray hairs should make thee venerable; but has the lapse of years so shrivelled up thy soul that thou canst feel no joy in looking upon that which is lovely? Does the song of birds, the delicately tinted flower, the stately tree,

the gorgeous sunset clouds, the shining stars, or blush of early morn, never awaken emotions of gladness, and cause thy spirit to thrill with unutterable bliss?

Canst thou see nought in fields of waving grain, flocks of bleating sheep, droves of lowing kine, but the shining dollar? Canst thou look upon the abundance of luscious fruit, or listen to the hum of bees, and think of nothing but the gratification of the palate? Then, indeed, art thou miserably poor. Though thy possessions should reach from the rising of the sun to the setting thereof, the veriest beggar, whose heart is open to the charms of nature, is richer than thou, and may say, in the language of the poet,

If that mother has spent all the years of her life thus, if she has brought up her ten children to see no value in aught but money, the world could well have spared her for all the good she has ever done it.

She may be called an energetic woman; but of what use has that energy been, if it has only moulded the hearts of her children into stone, by making them insensible to all the softer influences of life, thus crushing out the better part of their natures? If, under her influence, her sons and daughters barter their best affections for gold or position, what is gained by such energy? Are families made happy, is society better, does the blessing of the poor follow in its footsteps?

"God is love, and they who dwell in love dwell in God;" 'tis true, also, that he is an energetic power, and that energy, which trains souls without the love of God as seen in his works, is training them for a harvest of sorrow.

Suppose those children yield themselves to such an influence, become moulded and fashioned with one absorbing idea, money, what happiness can their companions or children find in their society? And even if their love of possession should be restrained sufficiently to keep their hands off the property of another, what benefit will they ever be to neighbors or friends?

But suppose, when they come to act for themselves, that they should break away from the unnatural restraints of their childhood, and seek, in the gratification of their appetites or passions, compensation for the higher and nobler enjoyments of which they have been deprived, what then? Why, we shall have the drunkard, the glutton, or the heartless libertine.

O, mother, what a sad mistake you made when you thought that the love of the beautiful was of no use to soul or body either! This love is implanted in the heart of all, it is a want of our nature, and throughout the works of Nature we find provision made to meet this want; but if this provision is left unappropriated, this part of ourselves uncultivated, the restless longings of our souls will find vent somewhere, and streams turned from their course are apt to do mischief.

If parents only felt, and taught their children to feel, that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," what different looking homes should we see all over the land! Neatness would take the place of filth, and beauty of deformity. We should not see pigsties and barnyards in such close proximity to our dwellings, neither would those dwellings be exposed to the scorching rays of the summer sun or the driving blasts of winter because each cooling, protecting shade had been destroyed; and their walls would not be lined, as they now often are, with store advertisements, or other coarse pictures.

How my heart ached to see rooms that were daily frequented by bright-eyed, beauty-loving cherubs, disfigured by the portrait of some public dancer, dressed in almost any conceivable style but a modest one; or perhaps a rude sketch of some bloody battle, placed in a conspicuous view.

Do such parents ever stop to think of the power of association, or do they not care? Do they not know that our characters are, in a great measure, formed by what is continually presented for our admiration? and if they admire such things enough to give them a place in that sacred spot called home, will not their children think them valuable, and the scenes they represent worthy of being imitated?

Very young children will, if properly taught, soon see the difference between the beautiful and the comical or ludicrous. I was once spending a few months in a family where this part of the soul was well cultivated. One day Charley brought in a comic picture that he had found somewhere, and gave it to his little sister, but little more than three years old. She looked at it a moment, then commenced laughing heartily. "Is it pretty, Fanny?" said her mother. "It's funny," she replied. It was not pretty, but funny; it excited her mirth, but not her admiration. Very correctly answered; but how had this young child learned so soon to select the proper language for expressing the difference? Go to the play-room where she spent hours each day with her brothers and sisters. Look at the papers and magazines that were appropriated to their use, and from which every beautiful picture was carefully selected and arranged, while the funny ones were laughed at and thrown aside, and you will have an answer.

Children love pictures, but this love is liable to be perverted. If we take no pains to place before them images of the beautiful and true, the image of that which is deformed and untrue will form its counterpart in their minds, and go to help make up their characters. But it is not only children that love pictures—the passion is universal, or so nearly so, that of him who does not, it may be said, as of him who has no music in his soul, he

Then why should this part of our souls be so neglected? "Better be earning something to support herself, than spending her time making pictures," said a stern backwoodsman of his sister, who was gratifying her love of nature by trying to imitate its beauties. But who support themselves best? Let those who know them both answer. And go ask that sister if she regrets the time thus spent because it has brought her no golden returns, and she will tell you that money could never purchase such pure pleasure as she has derived from thence.

No; believe me reader, let your walls be adorned by pictures of your own make, or the works of others, that you have learned to appreciate by discipline in that direction, and their presence will create a charm from which you would not willingly break away; a something without which your life would seem incomplete.

How many young men, who now frequent the saloon or gambler's hell, would never have been seen there if pains had been taken to make their homes attractive, by gratifying this innate part of their nature. And why should those who have taken it upon them to lure souls to ruin, understand this so much better than they to whom God has intrusted the business of training them aright?

"O," says the poor man, "I have to work to get a living for my family. I have no time to whitewash, paint, plant trees, or train vines. I have no money to buy pictures, or to pay out to have my children taught to make them." But you may find time to have an aching heart when they flee from your comfortless home, to seek at Destruction's mouth the gratification of those tastes for which you have neglected to provide.

"Where there's a will, there's a way." If you could but see the value of such things, you would find time and money too, even if you did without your tobacco, or something else equally useless, if not pernicious.

"But," says one, "what has all this to do with worsted embroidery?"

Nothing, only it forms a part in the chain of the beautiful, the ornamental, which go to make up so much of the enjoyment of life; and they who would repudiate it, because "it does no good to soul or body either," would repudiate a thousand other things for the same reason, without which life would not be very desirable.

Recreation we must have; it is a necessity of our existence; even the toiling captive proves this by songs that lead the unthinking to believe him happy; and what more innocent recreation can we find than trying to imitate God in his works?

"But," says another, "would you have a woman neglect her household affairs to embroider or paint?"

Never. I would have her see that these are kept in the best of order, but I would have her taught so to arrange them, as not to make a drudge of herself; and I would have her husband, brothers, and sons remember that she needs relaxation as well as they; and I would have them all feel that whatever tends to increase their happiness, whatever adds to the attractions of home, and makes the thought of it a pleasant thing, is good for soul and body both.

The magnetic chain which binds in one the universe of mind and matter,—the gravitating power attracting all things to one common centre, even to Him, whose love is the life of all things.

Discouraged, ah! Discouraged, are you? Well, I do not know that I can give you better advice than father used to give me when I complained of being tired. He used to say that I must put tired to tired, and at it again; and I suppose you will have to do the same with your discouragements. Poor consolation, do you say? I know that it is, but I can give you no better; and I am not sure that it is so poor after all. What could I say that would be more to the purpose? You don't know? Neither do I; if I did, I would say it. Of what use is it for you to keep struggling, do you ask? Of what use will it be for you to stop? Tell me that? Why, you can die, at least. I deny it: you cannot die. You may pass out from your present habitation, but you cannot die; and if you pass thence before the work that has been assigned you is accomplished, what then? God knows, and the future will reveal it; I cannot.

It is easy to talk, say you, but to what does it amount? I know it is, my friend, and if talking would dispel clouds, would scatter gloom, what a bright world we should have! how quickly the slightest mist of sorrow would vanish! But the poet says,

Bah! Poets should know better than to sing such stuff. They should soar above the earth-bound fogs and mists that envelop common mortals; they should become so etherealized as to feel no weight of care while hymning the praise of cheerfulness; and instead of battling with despair, when faith and hope are the themes of their inspiration, they should frighten the monster to death with one of their gifted smiles. Hunger and cold should fly from the magic touch of their dainty fingers like dew before the summer sun. They should say to neglect and scorn,

and to Penury's meagre train,

Yes, they should say all this, and feel it, too; but such is the perversity of human nature that we ask for "bread" to mingle with "the word that proceedeth from the mouth of God;" and when darkness comes upon us like clouds in the morning, or thick darkness like the pall of night, we fear that it will not be given us. When told that

we point to the scattering drops that have been licked up, almost, before they reached the thirsty earth, and to the clouds which return after the rain—to the chilling winds and biting frosts—to the empty garner and the empty purse. Strange, is it not, that we should think of such things?

The visible evidence of an invisible God,—the breath of his nostrils,—the beating pulse that tells of his continued existence,—a spontaneous effort of his begetting power,—an artery filled from the Heart of hearts,—a stream from an exhaustless fountain,—a perpetual outflowing from the ever-living, ever-moving, everywhere-present Deity,—from the All in all—the GOD.

Once upon a time there stood, upon the banks of a marshy stream, a young and thrifty vine. The time had come when she could no longer sustain the accumulated weight of her own growth, and the question arose as to where she should seek for the needed support. Upon the left, close upon the borders of the marsh, was an abundance of shrubs and weeds, some of but a year's growth, and some of longer standing; on the right, and but a few rods distant, stood a stately oak.

The oak looked kindly down upon the youthful vine, and said, "Come to me; your graceful foliage shall be a wreath of beauty about my rugged trunk, while I lift you high above the earth, into heaven's broad sunlight; you shall rest securely upon my branches, and together will we listen to the notes of the aerial songsters that come to refresh themselves from your pendent clusters."

But the inhabitants of the marsh said, "Nay, why should you leave your friends for a stranger? Some of us rejoiced at your birth, and others have since come to admire your beauty; we all love you, and why should we be separated? To be sure, we are small as yet, but, like you, we are in the morning of life, and while the oak, that has seen so many years, is going to decay, we shall be flourishing in the vigor of our prime. Come, then, let us grow together, and cement the friendship so happily begun."

The vine, thus harangued, looked thoughtfully from one to the other, and thus communed within herself: "I should like to sit, like a queen, upon yonder oak; but I do not like the idea of crawling on the ground to reach it, and then to climb so far, with nothing but that rough, rugged trunk to twine about: the very thought of it is shocking. But then, to unite myself with those low bushes would be quite too bad. I ought not to think of it for a moment, and yet they are really growing very fast. Who knows but they may become as high as the oak in the time it would take me to crawl thither and climb to its branches, and by continuing with them, I shall thus save myself all this humiliation and toil."

Delighted with this pleasing conclusion, the vine reached forth her tendrils, and clasping them around her professed friends, agreed to cast in her lot with theirs. Time passed on; the broad-leaved luxuriance of the thrifty vine nearly hid her supporters from sight; only here and there a sprout, more vigorous than the rest, or requiring less room, found its way upward. Autumn came, and the heavy clusters bowed the frail reeds nearly to the earth. Mutual recriminations took place. The vine complained that, instead of being sustained, as she had a right to expect, her fruits were constantly in danger of being destroyed by the four footed beasts that went that way. And the bushes said, "It is all your own fault; you hide from us the light of heaven, leaving us to pine for its vivifying influence, and then load us with a burden intolerable to be borne."

But their murmurings were of short duration; for a thirsty herd of lowing kine came thither in search of water, and together they were trampled into the mire, the beautiful clusters being crushed beneath the broad hoofs.

In the mean time the son of the thrifty farmer complained that they had not land enough, and wished his father to purchase more. "But why should we do this," replied the thoughtful sire, "when much that we now have remains uncultivated? The bed of yonder stream can be straightened and deepened, thus making acres that are now useless not only tillable, but of a superior quality?"

The marsh was accordingly cleared; its shrubs and brakes, together with the vine, gathered into heaps and burned. But while they were exterminated, the roots of the vine remained, and life was strong within. Again she sent forth her branches, and again she bent beneath her own weight; but having learned that "humility is before promotion," and "a haughty spirit before a fall," she bowed herself humbly to the earth, and, regardless of the invitations of others, made her way towards the oak; patiently she ascended the rugged trunk, till at last she sat like a "Crown of Glory," a "Diadem of Beauty," upon the topmost boughs.

————

I saw thee last night, sweet sister, but not as thou now art; the rosy cheeks, and rosebud lips that I kissed so passionately, were those of long, long ago. Even when thy brothers and sisters, proud of the beauty of the youngest darling of the household, took turns in placing thee against the wall, and then stepped back for thee to come tottling, falling into their arms, amid shrieks of childish laughter, while our mother sat watching us with the fond loving pride of her maternal heart. Sweet sister, never shall I forget when I first took thee from our mother's arms, a dewdrop from the skies, the breath of heaven fresh upon thy velvet cheek. Ah, thou wert a very rosebud, the last of our domestic summer! For the frosts of death came all too soon, and the parent stem withered beneath its touch. Then they took the pillow from thy head, even thy mother's bosom, and thee from us; then we were scattered like leaves of autumn before the breath of poverty.

Yes, we were scattered, and now I see thee only in dreams, but never will the sweet prattling of thine infant years be erased from thy sister's heart; and though our paths on earth are widely separated, a mother's eye is looking from the heavens upon us. A mother's yearnings mingle with those of the great Infinite Heart over all the dear ones left behind, and we hope to meet a united family in heaven.

I was walking along the streets one pleasant morning, when I saw an awkward-looking, coarsely-dressed boy crossing the Common at a little distance. He was singing. At first I could not distinguish the words, but my involuntary thought was "some vulgar rhyme, no doubt." I had been particularly grieved that morning by the naughty conduct of one who was dear to me, and my feelings were running in rather a sad channel, and I followed out those feelings by proceeding to mourn over the evil effects of such coarse and often deeply impure rhyming, when the words "My God, my heaven, my all," fell distinctly on my ear. He had paused, and was looking down into a pond of water which stood in the centre of the Common, but he continued his singing, and seemed to dwell almost unconsciously on the words, "My God, my heaven, my all."

I had heard them hundreds of times, but never did they sound half so sweetly as now. Those few words from that poor ignorant child—that undeveloped image of the Deity—were to me like the song of an angel, or like the voice of the great Father speaking through mortal lips, saying, "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God." Yes, he was my God, my heaven, and my all.

I had started to my day's labor, looking within upon my own sad thoughts, instead of without where the sunlight lay, like the smile of love over all the force of nature; but the words that I had heard touched a new chord in my heart, and it thrilled to the hidden harmonies within—harmonies which gushed forth to meet the spirit of gladness that was abroad in the earth. I now felt that I could walk and not be weary, could run and not faint, in the path that was marked out for me; yea, as though I could mount up as on the wings of eagles, to meet that God who was "my God, my heaven, my all," and not only mine, but of every suffering son and daughter of earth.

Somebody says that "all women, whatever their attainments, have a yearning desire to love and be loved again; that the head cannot be educated at the expense of the heart, and that if they cannot obtain such as they can most venerate and respect, they unite themselves to such as tender them the love they have the need of: they dream of happiness, and awake to disappointment." . . . "Not alone are women of genius thus unhappy; men suffer too, from ill-assorted marriages."

"Men suffer, too!" Well, why shouldn't they? Are they so complete in themselves that they can do without love? Are they a whole, and we only a part, that must be attached to them, ere we can survive? Have they no hearts, no longings for affection? Woman may suffer,—I sometimes think she is made for suffering,—but deliver me from the anguish of a truly noble-hearted man, who finds that his affections are misplaced, his tastes unappreciated.

But must it always be thus? Is there no remedy for the ill-assorted selections, the wretched mistakes that are made here? Is there nothing to satisfy the longing for companionship, that is a characteristic of the race? Believe it not. "In that world they neither marry nor are given in marriage," is the language of the Nazarene; but shall there be no union of congenial natures compatible with this declaration? Is not the soul, so to speak, separated into two, each incomplete without the other? and if divided here, will they not, when freed from the body, be drawn together by mutual attraction, and clasping in an eternal embrace, be henceforth essentially and inseparably one? If to be perfect and complete is necessary to unmingled happiness, why may not this union be an ingredient in the cup of heavenly bliss, and the want of it add to the sorrows of those who have not, as yet, entered into the fruition of life?

Tell me, ye who have felt this unsatisfied longing, if the prospect of bearing it about with you forever would not, of itself, be sufficient to insure misery?

But rejoice, ye that trust in the wisdom of the Infinite; ye that believe he will meet the wants of your entire being. He created you as you are, and will not annihilate what he has created.

If perverted, He may cleanse, as it were, by fire; but your wants shall be met, and your longings for companionship abundantly satisfied, for in Him is fulness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Some people seem to have imbibed the idea that children and young folks have but few serious thoughts. This I consider a great mistake. I do not believe that I am so different from others; but in looking back upon my early years, I sometimes laugh, and sometimes feel indignant, as the retrospection brings to mind the world of anxiety, the absolute mental torture that a false theology inflicted upon me. When I was some four and a half years of age, a minister told me of Jesus who died on a tree for little children like myself, and said I ought to love him. "I do love him," I replied, in the simplicity of my heart, for the story of his goodness won me at once. The following summer, if I remember rightly, I learned to read in the Testament, and there it said that Jesus died on the cross. Now here was a puzzler. The preacher said a tree, the book said the cross; how to reconcile the two I knew not, for I had not the most distant idea that it was possible for big folks or books to be mistaken, or tell stories; only careless, bad girls, like myself, could be guilty of either. What did it mean? I dared not ask, for I never heard these things spoken of only by the preacher, and the book, both so commanding my reverence that I feared to question; and how my little brain used to ache in trying to solve the problem! From this time forth I was in constant trouble. The wonderful stories told in the book made a vivid impression upon my susceptible mind, and what the preacher said of the certainty of death for all, and of hell for those who did not love and serve God, drove me nearly wild at times.

But it is only the old story, only what thousands have experienced, and I will not dwell upon it; suffice it to say that when a little past fourteen, I fell in with a protracted meeting, and was counted with the converts. Yes, I thought I had got religion; but my mind being progressive, I had no idea of standing still; I must go ahead. The command, "Be ye holy, for I am holy," and the like, were they not in the Bible? and being there, were God's word; and, as he would not command what we could not obey, it was plainly my duty to make the above practical. In a word, sanctification was possible; it was for me, and I must obtain it, or fall short of my duty as a Christian. Honest conclusion; but how should I reach the desired ultimate? To be consistent, or not to be; that was the question. Some three fourths of a mile away from my home lay Lake Erie, to be reached by crossing meadow after meadow belonging to the rich man on whose farm we were but poor tenants; and close along the bank of the rock bound shore grew a few blueberry bushes.

One day, as I went in search of this, my favorite fruit, my mind was particularly exercised on this same subject, sanctification. Several months had passed since I had professed religion. I had become weary of the sinning and repenting, and my heart longed for rest; if I could only get the blessing I sought, of course all would be peace. At length, after a strange process of reasoning, resolving, and faith, I psychologized myself into the belief that I had actually obtained it. True, I did not feel the rapture I had expected, but I had done what I could—I had given up all, and as His promises were "yea, and amen," it were sin to doubt, and so there was peace, and I tried to exult in that peace, but it was only trying. Blueberries were scarce, so I made up my mind that I must take them all home, and that it would be wrong for me to eat even one; but after a while I found my hand going to my mouth with a very large one between my fingers. I checked myself in time, however; soon the process was repeated, again, and yet again, till finally the tempting berry slipped down my throat, and away went my sanctification.

From that day to this I have never been able to find it again; but sometimes my mind goes back to that long strip of meadow, to the blue waves beating against forty feet of perpendicular rock, and to the struggle between sanctification and the big blueberry, in which the latter came off triumphant.

Ah! and whose fault is it, if they do not? Did they thrust themselves upon you, thus forcing you to provide for them against your wills? Has their coming been a dreaded, instead of a looked and longed for event? Be this last as it may, it is certain that they have only come at your call; and if you have called from the lower instead of the higher plane of your natures, then God pity you, and them also, for the suffering that is thus brought upon you both.

"Children do not pay for their bringing up." And what recompense are you seeking, poor earth-bound mortal? Must you be paid in dollars and cents for bearing the burden of God's greatest blessing? Have your hearts become so stultified that the trusting confidence of their loving natures is of no value to you?

Why, children are our guardian angels! To how much of good have they stimulated us, and from how much of evil have they kept us back? Some of us are so selfish in our very natures, that I sometimes think we should dry up and blow away were it not for the demands children make upon us.

But here comes another, who says, "When our children are small, they lie heavy on our arms; but when they are large, they lie heavy on our hearts."

Alas, that this should ever be true! But is there not a cause? Had they held a larger place in your hearts ere they came to your arms, would not the result have been different? Had you been as careful in laying the foundation of being as you are in laying the foundation of your dwellings, would the rearing of the superstructure be so difficult a task?

That we do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles, is as true in one department of God's kingdom as in another; and those who sow to the wind must not complain if they reap the whirlwind in return. The fountain must be cleansed ere the streams can be pure. Study the laws of your own being, and live in accordance therewith, and you will no more have occasion to say that children never pay for their bringing up; will no more find that their maturer years bring to your yearning hearts a burden too intolerable to be borne, for Nature's laws are just and equal—they are God's laws, and their fulfilment can never result in positive evil.

Earth, air, and sea are full of its spirit, and so are all human hearts. Their hidden fountains are replete with its untold beauties; but often they lie so deep that the arrows of affliction must penetrate to the very core ere they can come forth to the embrace of that which is without, thus begetting "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," beautiful embodiments of brighter ideas. Beautiful embodiments! yet tinged too often with a spirit of sadness from the unhealed wounds through which they have escaped into freedom.

Once upon a time, a man of large heart and noble charity, who had succeeded in rescuing a lost one from the haunts of degradation, was speaking of the trials through which he passed in accomplishing that work of love. "It was a hard place," said he, "but I shrank not, and when it was over, a chorus of angels would have been discord to the music that was singing in my soul;" and to-night I can say the same.

Angels of light, my soul leaps with joy as I clasp your loving hands, and ask, "What am I, that I should be made the agent of loved ones gone before, in the mission of love and justice?" Music singing in my soul! O, these singing birds of harmonic rhythm! birds that are caged till the sharp, grating file of affliction rasps away the bars behind which they sit in silence, and then with quivering wing and open throat, they pour forth such volumes of ecstasy, that we ask, where is the place of sorrow, and whither hath she fled?

but when we reach the glory, we forget the tribulation, or remember it only with the exceeding thankfulness that wonders at being honored with the draught of purification which alone could fit us for joys so heavenly.

Blessed mission! Mediums, mediators between those in the form, and those who have left it; bearing the cross—wearing the thorns—drinking the wormwood and the gall—tonics for the soul, making it vigorously erect to bear the exceeding weight of glory that shall come after. Blessed mission to sustain the weak, to lift up the fallen, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to have the desire to do this, trusting the angels for the means and the opportunity, having respect unto the "recompense of reward," that comes welling up from the innermost soul-depths, saying, "They are saved! they are saved!" Thanks, O, ye angels! ye dear ones, whose hands I have clasped, and whose lips I have pressed in the earth-life; thanks for making me your agent, your unworthy but rejoicing instrument of good. And yet ye come, and through mortal lips ye thank me for what I have done, for what I could kiss your very feet in the proud humility of exaltation for, the blessed privilege of doing. With an angel mother's arms around me, and her breast to lean upon, with an angel brother, lover, friend to clasp my hand, and shower thrilling kisses upon lips and brow, why should I fear to enter into the very blackness of the Valley of Shadows, in order to lead forth those who have lost their way amid its wildering mazes.

'Twas thus I sung, long years ago. I have met with the angels, and my soul is singing its song.

I am glad, I am glad, for the dawning of the morning breaks upon thy spirit; the shadows are fleeing away, and soon shall the rising sun proclaim the reign of the night at an end. I have watched the pathway of thy progress with all the interest that my soul could feel in that which was as dear to me as my own life, even thy success; and as I see the time drawing nigh for the brightness of its earthly fruition to show itself to others, as thou hast ever felt it in the depths of thy spirit, and as we have seen it from the shores of the beyond, surely I may rejoice in the prospect, and share thy heart's gladness. A new era is rising, not only for thee, but for others that have waited, watched, and prayed. The answer to thy prayers tarrieth not, but hasteneth to crown thee with rejoicing. Thy star is in the ascendency, and though a cloud flit across its disk, it cannot obscure the brightness of the glory that shall cause coming generations to call thee blessed; yea, most blessed, for thy flowers shall be unfading, while the thorns that have scratched thy bleeding feet shall be removed forever. But not yet; not quite yet; the morning dawneth, but those who are in the valley can not catch the first rays of sun as we can see it from the hill tops. It was thus, when my soul was sad, that the angels whispered their words of comfort,—

"God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.' " How simple; how beautiful; how sublime! No coruscations of eloquence to herald in the mighty truth. They were not needed for that which could stand upon its own grandeur as its vital element. "Let there be light." Hearken! The chariot wheels of receding darkness are sounding like the voice of many waters, as the smile of Omnipotence fulfils his behest, by diffusing itself over the oceans of immensity.

Light, the garment of God—the flowing robe whose hem we may touch—the illimitable sea upon the bosom of which we live and move and have our being, and the undulations of the waves of which shall bear us onward in our progress from the lower to the higher, from the outer to the inner life. For within this garment, fittingly put on, there is a robe whose correspondence is to the eyes of the soul.

Close thine eyes, O, mortal, and say there is no sun! Stop thine ears, and deny the possibility of sound; but wait till the last ray of light is withdrawn from the earth ere thou darest to deny the existence of God!

"And there was light." How it went rushing past the lifted curtain that had held it from the face of the newborn earth,—how it sought out every nook and corner,—every crevice where there was a possibility of ingress! And even so does that inner, that higher light seek to enter into and pervade our souls. Even so does it strive to penetrate its darkest corners, to illuminate its deepest recesses; and it shall accomplish that where unto it is sent, for the eternal years of God are given for the exercise of its renovating power.

Though on earth we had no meeting, I have heard your words of greeting, Words that come like rippling music, from that far off seraph shore, Telling of the waves of gladness Sweeping o'er the lines of sadness, Traced upon thine earthly being, till it bled at every pore.

Words that wake anew the yearning, Which within my heart is burning, For the blending of my being with some soul I can adore. 'Tis an ever-restless yearning, Outward going, ne'er returning, As from the ark the raven wandering went in days of yore.

Long I've watched for some sweet token, For some branch from olive broken, Presage that the breath of heaven woke the earth to life once more. But the dove, forlorn and weary, Comes from o'er the waters dreary, Telling that the raging billows rise above the highest shore.

Draining here the cup of sadness, Till thy soul was stung to madness, While life's bitter burning billows swept thy burdened being o'er; From the bondage that enslaved thee, Thou hast found the love that saved thee, While I wander searching for it, searching, wandering evermore.

Once methought that I had found it, Then I seized and quickly bound it To my heart more fondly, closely than I e'er had ought before; But the viper turned upon me, Like a poisonous adder stung me, Till the depth of love and trusting changed into a canker sore.

Now I feel with life mismated, Ofttimes feel accursed and fated, As the tides of desolation flood my being o'er and o'er, And I pray that life's poor token, Canker-eaten may be broken, Setting free the chafing spirit beating 'gainst its prison door.

O, my earthborn spirit-brother, Well I know there is another,— One to meet my spirit's yearning, one to love and to adore, Tell me, is my bright ideal In the land where all is real? Have you seen him? is he waiting, waiting on the other shore?

Have you ne'er, at morn or eve, Seen him from the gates of heaven, With a lover's eager footsteps, turning towards this mortal shore? Does he know my spirit's anguish, As in bondage here I languish, Strive the balm of consolation in my wounded heart to pour?

Ah, he does! for heavy-laden, Sighing for that distant Aiden, For which weary ones are sighing, seeking, sighing evermore; Often times the light supernal, Beaming in that home eternal, Flashes on my inner being, thrilling it at every pore.

When the anguish, all unspoken, Of the spirit bruised and broken, Feeding on the soul and substance till it writhes in anguish sore, Is forgotten, till the raven Memory plays the traitor craven, And the bright-hued bow of promise, I, for tears, can see no more.

But though storms and clouds surround me, Though in darkness they have bound me, Yet I know the sun is shining high above the tempest's roar, And I'll seek until I find it, Give of love till I can bind it, Like an amulet of safety to my heart forevermore.

Yes, and pretty thoroughly too; wet to the skin, and all from my own foolhardiness. Perhaps you would like to know how it came about! I will tell you. Long, long ago,—before we made our home on the shore of Lake Erie, away back in my childhood years,—my parents lived on what was called the East Hill, in a certain county of the old Empire State. On the hill, but not at the top; for after going across the big meadow, across the pasture field, and full half the way across the bush lot, and all the way up hill, we came at length to where the blueberry bushes grew. O, the delicious fruit with which they were loaded in summer! and so abundant! It was before I was troubled with the question of Sanctification; but even in that case, they were so plenteous, that I could have eaten my fill without injuring my peace of mind.

Well, I went one day with my little sister to my favorite resort, the very top of the hill, to gather berries. Before we had been there long the clouds began to look black and threatening, and a few drops of rain foretold the coming shower. I did not like the idea of going home empty basketed, but what should I do? go without accomplishing the object for which I came, or stay and get a shower bath? I finally concluded that I would do neither. I would break branches from the surrounding shrubbery, form a temporary shelter, gather all the well-filled blueberry bushes we could find handily, take them under this shelter, and pick the fruit from them at our leisure.

Sister acquiesced, for she never thought of questioning my superior wisdom, and so we went to work with a will. The shelter was prepared, the bushes broken off and brought thither for picking; and none too soon, for the few drops that had come, and then held off, as if on purpose for us to escape, were now increased to a gentle shower. However, we huddled together in our house of refuge, and began to fill our baskets; I boasting, meanwhile, to my silent auditor, who, while she tried to smile, kept turning her blue eyes towards the intruding drops, for our shelter was rather leaky,—I boasting, however, that we were not going to be scared out; not we.

But the rain fell thicker and faster; courage waned, and water increased in our little domicile, till finally courage took to her heels, and with little sister close behind, broke into a full run for home, right through the hardest of the shower, down through the bush lot, down through the pasture field; but by the time we reached the meadow it had spent its force, and retiring in haste, left the liquid pearls it had flung so profusely over field and forest to sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight.

Beautiful, O, how beautiful the scene! But I was in no condition to enjoy it, for upon my head must fall the blame of not only my own condition, but that of my little sister's. You see I have never forgotten it; and I often wonder if there are not reformers who some times brave public opinion as recklessly, provide for themselves as poor a defence, and retreat from the contest as ingloriously as I did from my fortification in the blueberry field.

"Good morning, Mrs. Cleves. You see I have taken a friend's privilege of calling without ceremony."

"Just as I wish you to do. It is pleasant to meet those we love, untrammelled by the restraints of fashionable life."

"And I shall use my privilege further, by asking what you were reading?"

"O, 'tis one of Mary Irving's stories, with which I am much pleased. Have you not read it? I believe you take the Journal?"

"Mr. Hanson takes it on account of the business portion, which he thinks good; but I cannot bother myself with such dry stuff, and I never read stories. I think the coloring thrown over them gives one false views of life, unfitting the mind for every-day duties."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Hanson; but I could not help smiling to hear you plead for practical utility, and complain of the dryness of business details, in the same breath. I agree with you as to the importance of selecting such reading as shall best fit us for the duties we owe to ourselves and each other. That there is much written in the form of stories which is injurious, I acknowledge; but in this, as well as in other things, we can select the good and leave the bad. A truth illustrated by scenes from real life is certainly more powerful for good than the same truth without the illustration; and there are facts enough upon which to base stories, and make them more interesting, more intensely thrilling, than any of fiction can be."

"Then I have known but little of real life, for I have never seen much that could compare with the stories that are to be found in almost every newspaper or periodical one takes up. As to the one of which you were speaking, I heard sister Mary read it, and I own it is well written; and had I not felt, as I always do when listening to such things, 'O, it is all made up; there is no truth in it,' it might have had some effect upon me."

"I see no reason why it may not be true; and if not, is it not a good illustration? Is there not a truth embodied therein which may thus find access to some heart, which could be approached in no other way?"

"I think truth potent enough to do her own work without questionable aid. Do you not detract from her authority, when you represent her as seeking such means of success?"

"Certainly not. As well might we think it detracted from the wisdom of the Creator because he often uses the most simple things to accommodate himself to our understandings. But to return to Miss Irving's story. You will be surprised to hear that it recalls most vividly some scenes in my own life."

"In your life! Is it possible?"

"It is not only possible, but actual. You have known me only in prosperity; and when you tell me how happy I always am, you little dream of the struggles through which I have passed,—struggles so severe, that it makes me shudder even yet to think of them; but they are over, and I have gained by the conflict."

"My dear Mrs. Cleves, you astonish me; but if it is not too painful a subject, will you be kind enough to give me some account of the struggles of which you speak?"

"Certainly. The pleasure of gratifying you will more than compensate for any painful emotions that may be awakened thereby. And, indeed, I think it does me good to live again, at times, in the past. Poverty is associated with my earliest recollections. We never went cold, nor hungry; but our father had to strain every nerve to keep us from becoming so, for he had nothing but what his hands earned from day to day, and our mother's health was such that she could do nothing to assist him.

"Often have we staid at home from church for want of proper clothing; for much as we desired to attend, we could not go dressed so badly as to attract attention. I involuntarily looked upon those who could dress well, and live in good houses, as better than those who could not; yet my heart rebelled that it should be so.

"You will smile when I tell you that my highest ambition was to own a white dress, to be able to teach school, and to make coats. I thought that if I could accomplish these objects, I should be as good as the best of them.

"Never shall I forget the pride with which I put on my new hat and cloak the fall before I was thirteen. I had, with the help of the younger children, gleaned wheat for the first. To procure the means of purchasing the latter, I went three miles through the hot sun to gather blueberries; then took them about as far the other way to sell them; added a little by selling grapes gathered with an equal amount of labor; knit socks and braided corn-husk mats for the remainder, the cloak costing the entire sum of five dollars.

"I will pass over a few years, my mother's death, my marriage with a comparative stranger, the bitter rueing of my haste, and the blighting desolation which bowed me to the very earth. Indeed, you would as soon have looked for a tree that had been torn up by the roots, and left to wither in the scorching sun on a barren heath, to become green again, as for happiness to flourish anew in my heart.

"Deceived, heartbroken, I wandered from place to place, supporting myself by hard labor a few weeks here and a few months there. I might have taught school, but I had lost all confidence in myself. Life seemed a great failure, and the constant cry of my heart was, 'What's the use?' I felt that I was out of my sphere, yet knew not how to find it. Water and oil could have mingled as easily as I could have entered into and become a part of that with which I was surrounded. I was constantly seeking society, yet ever alone; and I would gladly have sunk into annihilation, to escape from the unsatisfied longing which filled my soul.

"Well, after a winter of severe labor, that left me unable to do housework, I resolved to visit a while. I had but little money, but hoped to add to it from time to time with my needle. After spending a few months among my relatives, I resolved to visit an old friend who was attending school at Woodville. After spending a few days here, I intended to visit the home of my childhood, but I was so charmed with the spirit of the place, that I knew not how to leave it; it soothed my wounded spirit like healing balm. I had never before seen such quiet happiness and such earnest effort.

"I thought I should like to stay there forever; but what should I do? Why, I could study; but for what? O, to pass away time. Life had become a burden to me, and the lighter I could make that burden the better. I liked study, and I might as well do that as anything.

"It was something new, to say the least; so I obtained a situation in a small family, did the work at small wages, and took half studies. I joined the Ladies' Literary Society, which, with my other duties, kept me quite busy, and I was comparatively happy. Still I had no idea of using the knowledge thus obtained; as a person on the cars takes up a book, so did I take up mine.

"The lady with whom I staid seemed to understand me better even than I understood myself; little by little she drew my history from me, and strove to awaken hope. She told me that my mind and my associations had been at variance; that I pined for something different from what I had ever found, and must not be discouraged if the past had been a failure; that if I could not swim, it was no sign that I could not soar, if I would but plume my wings.

"Remarks like these awoke my benumbed aspirations, and I thought that perhaps after a while I would try and do something; yet I was sure to put it off as far as possible; I would stay and prepare myself for a long time. But my old feelings would often return, and I could give vent to my anguish only in floods of tears. In this manner I spent the fall and winter; but in the spring took full studies, and sewed for my board, while the family hired a good strong girl, and boarded several students.

"But I soon found myself so reduced for clothing, that something must be done to replenish my wardrobe. Mrs. —— proposed teaching; but I shrank from the thought, and offered to do her work the next term, as the girl she then had was soon to leave, and she knew not where to get another.

"She was a feeble woman, and needed some one on whom she could rely, and I never dreamed of a refusal. Judge then of my surprise, when she quietly but firmly said, 'No, there are enough who can do my work, who can do nothing else. You can teach, and you are needed in that capacity. 'Tis true I know not who to get, but I shall find some one, and I shall not let you do it.'

"This proof of disinterested friendship touched me deeply; it gave me courage to make the effort which proved the foundation of all the success that has since been mine. Those who, with feeble health, have to depend so much upon their kitchen help for the comfort of themselves and families, can best realize the sacrifice made for my benefit, in thus exchanging a certainty for an uncertainty; for I can say, without boasting, that I was responsible help.

"To some this might seem a matter of but little importance, but it was the hinge upon which great things have turned; at least for me; and surely the happiness of even one heart is no small matter. And how many others might be led from darkness to light, if those who have the power to do, would show that they care for the interests of others as well as for their own.

"This lady was so circumstanced that she could not have rendered pecuniary aid, had she so desired; but she gave what was of greater value—the encouragement which enabled me to use my own resources. It is better to teach one to walk than to carry them, though at the sinking point; as Miss Irving says, something may be needed besides words. Yet if there is a heart to do, an empty purse cannot prevent the accomplishment of much that is good in the way of blessing others.

"That 'words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver,' is as true now as when it was first written; and could I speak to every suffering, struggling soul upon earth, I would say, 'Take fast hold of hope; let her not go, for she is thy life. Though clouds intervene, hiding the sun from thy view, keep her lamp burning, and thou shalt yet emerge into the light of a glorious day.' "

Love is the flower of wisdom; and as the flower fadeth when separated from the stalk, even so doth the beauty of love change into that which hath no comeliness, if wisdom cease to sustain and direct.

If there is ever a time when angel visitants are hovering over us, it is when the moon, with her countless train of stars, is magnetizing the earth with her softest, most attractive form of beauty. Who has not felt, on such a time as this, that the very air was redolent with heavenly odors, while the entire being became so harmoniously still, so quietly sensitive, that we could almost hear the movement of ethereal wings, or feel the soft breath of our guardian spirits upon our cheeks.

It was on such a night that the then youthful patriarch was permitted to see the connecting link between earth and heaven; a link that has continued to this day, in spite of the efforts of ignorance and superstition to rend it in twain. Let us avail ourselves for a moment of our God-given powers, and leaping backwards through the lapse of ages, plant our feet upon one of Judea's favored plains.

The sun has retired behind the distant mountains, and the shades of night are gathering slowly around, when a traveller from the land of the children of Heth, weary and foot-sore with his journeyings, comes slowly up a rocky gorge separating the adjacent hills, and looks anxiously around for some place of shelter. But no friendly habitation appears in sight; no dwelling reared by the hand of man, for he is the first of all his race who has penetrated these solitudes. But a grassy plot and a friendly stone soon furnish him with bed and pillow, and speedily he sinks into the repose of innocent tranquillity; meanwhile, a band of angels have issued from the gates of Paradise, and are hastening to their accustomed trysting place on earth. As they descend, they behold, on the very spot their feet have so often pressed, a being in form like unto themselves, but clothed in garments of a different texture. This wonderful stranger is sleeping with one hand beneath his head, and the other lying where it had fallen after brushing from his forehead the locks that are now sparkling with the dews of the night.

For a while they gaze in rapt astonishment, and then hasten to tell the wondrous tale to their companions in light. Straightway a ladder is let down from heaven till its foot rests beside the unconscious sleeper; and through the long watches of that eventful night were the angelic hosts ascending and descending thereon, while the God of his fathers stood at the top, well pleased with the interest that was thus manifested in this their earth brother.

But how fared it with the sleeper? Did he know aught of the loving wandering ones who thus surrounded him? Ah, yes! for their kisses have opened his soul's eyes, that he might see, and their whisperings have penetrated his soul's ears, that he might hear and understand, while his whole being was filled with wonder at what was thus revealed.

But the coming morn summons the sleeper from the inner to the outer life; the God of his fathers retires within the veil, and the ascending and descending hosts are no longer visible. Jacob arouses from his slumbers, and thinks that he has dreamed. O, blessed dreaming! O, holy tie between the interior and the eternal! If we would oftener shut the doors of our souls, and enter into its secret chambers, we might still see the Father smiling tenderly upon us, and his willing ministers hastening to bring messages of truth and love.

The visible expression of God's power, love, and wisdom,—the ever-present evidence of his omniscience, omnipresence, and incomprehensibility. Study her laws if you would learn of their great Author; trust her unhesitatingly; for as a mother teaches her child to honor its earthly father, so will she teach us to reverence understandingly Him who is the Father of all.

I was walking along the streets of a great city one pleasant afternoon, in one of those dreamy states of abstraction in which one almost forgets their own existence, when the words "Mother, look at the baby!" fell on my ear, and arrested my attention. I turned, and saw a boy of some ten summers leading the wee, toddling one by the hand, while the mother looked up from her work to bestow upon them that smile of love which none but a mother can give.

"Mother, baby," I kept repeating to myself, as I passed on my way, trying to ascertain which gave forth the sweetest sound. It was an idle task, for both were so beautifully tender,—so united by mutual dependencies that one could not exist without the other.

The poet has said that "A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure." If this be so, then the mother must be a fountain; yea, a fountain of the deepest joy that Heaven e'er gave to earth. It was for this that she was created, and this she will become if inherited conditions and present surroundings are right. A fountain of life, of love so deep, so wide, and so high, that there is nothing in the universe but the love of the Infinite God which has ever yet been given as a measure for it. A fountain whose streams of unfailing tenderness possess such an inherent energy that neither time, nor distance, nor change can interrupt or turn them from their course, and whose well-springs, if developed in wisdom, shall become the beautiful embodiment of our brightest ideals; yea, shall enlarge those ideals as the germs of still higher embodiments.

But, alas! these fountains have too often sent forth only the waters of bitterness. Their healing virtues have been neutralized, yea, poisoned by the hand of ignorance. Deformity has taken the place of beauty, hatred of love, and contention of harmony; and all because man has attempted to divorce the natural from the spiritual, the law of nature from the law of God. Crowned with the semblance of wisdom, and taking superstition as her willing hand-maiden of her wishes, ignorance has reigned supreme in this garden of our God, making it but too often a Gethsemane of the bitterest agony to those of high and holy aspiration.

Yes, ignorance has done this; but the time is coming, and now is, when the gates she has reared shall roll back upon their ponderous hinges, letting in the light of wisdom upon the fountains of life, till, purified from all uncleanness, their well-springs shall go forth to bless a waiting world.

"Learned what?" Why, that I could run away. "And how did you learn it?" Mother told me. You look as if you thought I didn't know what I was saying; but I do, and I mean it too. Mother told me that I could run away, and from her. It was like this: I wanted to go up to uncle's, and play with my little cousins; but mother said, "No." I teased till I found it would do no good; and then, to console myself for my disappointment, I went out, and made my way to what was called "The Gulf." It was just across one of uncle's fields, to the left, and a place of great interest to me.

There was a very steep bank on one side, a very steep bank on the other side, and a very small stream at the bottom, which came out of the ground in the meadow just above. This little stream was a very modest one, and as it was not permitted to run under ground any longer, it seemed determined to get as nearly out of sight as possible; and with the rocks that jutted over it, and the bushes that bathed their feet therein, it was so nearly hidden that one had barely an occasional chance to say to it "Peek-a-boo." Well, as I have said, it was a place of great interest to me, and if I did not always find, I was sure to be looking for something wonderful whenever I went there. My first astonishment in this catalogue of wonders was a bush of beautiful wild honeysuckle, the first I had ever seen; and there, too, were spikenard berries, hazelnuts, grapes, and chestnuts, in the season for them; and sassafras bushes, upon which I so often spent all the strength I could summon in pulling up by the roots, that I might have the bark as an article of luxury; and cunning little birds' nests, equally cunning whether filled with eggs or young. Indeed, there was no end to the attractions of the Gulf; so you see it was just the place for a disappointed child to go and forget trouble.

When I had sufficiently recovered my equanimity, I returned to the house, and mother asked me where I had been. I told her. She looked at me sharply for a moment, and then said, "If I do find that you have been up to your uncle's, you'll catch it." What a revelation was here! I had never dreamed it possible that I could go where mother said I mustn't; but I could, and mother knew it, for she was threatening me with punishment to prevent my doing so. And that was how I learned that I could run away.

"Lois, I am here. O, Lois, could you only see me as I am! I am still your friend. G——."

Thus wrote a soul-brother to me from the angel-land, controlling the hand of a medium for the purpose; and this, after he had said, through the lips of one entranced, "O, what happiness—what happiness to meet you thus, and to have you know that it is me!"

Life and immortality brought to light. The title deeds of our future existence signed, sealed, and delivered to us by those who, walking on the blue sea of Eternity, turn, and placing one foot upon the shore of Time, lift their hands, and swear by Him who liveth evermore, that these things are so; while rolling thunders echo their voices in wondering confirmation of that which is, as yet, sealed to many hearts and eyes. But the lightnings of inspiration are dispelling the dark clouds that cover the full-orbed sun, and soon shall all see clearly, and in the light of this glorious truth shall their souls grow strong to enter the kingdom.

"Could you only see me as I am!" I shall see him, but not now; for the work that my Father has assigned me is not finished. The cup he hath given me I must drain to the dregs. "Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight."

"What happiness to meet you thus!" Inseparable, inseparable: the links of God's love-chain too tenacious to be broken, the family on earth and in the spirit-realms still one, joying in our joy, sorrowing in our sorrow, coming to us for happiness, and giving ecstatic bliss in return, rejoicing in the blossoming of the soul-buds of consciousness, even as we rejoice in the opening faculties of our children.

"And to have you know that it is me." With what throbbing joy the mother presses her first-born to her heart; but it is as nought compared with that felt when it learns to know her from all others—when it learns that the eye beaming so fondly upon it is Mother's.

Yes, I know that it was him; and then my mother comes also, giving me sweet messages of love. O, ye who behold but the crown of thorns! ye will some day know that I am blest, so blest that even my sorrows bring me richest joy.

Once "she prayed that life's poor token, Canker-eaten, might be broken, Setting free the chafing spirit, beating 'gainst its prison-door;" But she prayeth thus no longer, For her soul is growing stronger, Daily stronger as she saileth Life's eventful ocean o'er. Paddling now her own canoe, Captain she, and she the crew, She will safely pass the hurlgate, where the raging billows roar. Putting by the vale translucent, She will land her bark triumphant— Land it with a song of triumph, on that bright eternal shore. Brother, on that sunset heather, Though we should not kneel together, We shall surely fill our mission— Death for us now nor never—is not now nor nevermore!

Beauty is one of the many manifestations that God makes of himself to his creatures, in order to win their love.

The love of beauty,—an inherent principle in the human heart,—which, carried to its ultimate, would lead us into all truth.

The love of being beautiful,—the first step towards such ultimation,—the first-born child of Beauty and its Love. A child that has but to realize that true beauty is spiritual and eternal; that truth is the soul of such beauty, and it will seek after it till the enlightened and harmonized spirit will cause the most homely features to become lovely, through the transcendently beautiful soul which they reflect; a soul which, when freed from the body, will not need a new one to make it fit for the companionship of angels, for it will already be clothed in garments sufficiently glorious.

"Mrs. Ball's Jane has left her; she says Jane's mother tells her that it is always so; she never will stay long at a time."

"Jane's mother! Why, when she first came to Mrs. Ball's, the story was that her mother always took her away as soon as she got clothed up a little. When did she go?"

"On Tuesday."

"Tuesday! That was the day she was here to borrow the churn; the day before the picnic. She wanted to go very much, but had no money to pay her fare on the cars."

"Wouldn't Mrs. Ball let her have it?"

"No. Jane said she had asked Mrs. Ball, and she told her that she should give her no twenty cents. She wanted me to let her have it, but I had no change by me; then she wanted me to ask you for it, but I thought she had better ask you herself."

"She did not come to me, or she should have had it. I think Mrs. Ball might have let her have that trifle."

"She said something about trying to get it of her aunt. That was what she went for then; she asked to go and see her aunt, and Mrs. Ball told her that she might, after the churning was done, if she would be back in time to get the dinner; but she did not come at all."

"Have they not seen her since?"

"Mr. Ball saw her the next day, and she said she wanted to come back; but he told her that his wife said she wouldn't have her any more; she had gone, and she might stay."

"What reason did she give for not coming back at the time specified?"

"I don't know as any. Mrs. Ball thinks that she staid longer than she intended, and then was afraid to come lest she should get punished. She says Jane had been quite a good girl for the last two weeks; had been learning to sew, and succeeded well for a beginner; that she would have been quite a help to her in time, had she staid."

The foregoing remarks were made in my hearing not long since; and now let us examine the matter fairly, and see who was most to blame, Jane or her mistress.

Jane's mother was a worthless woman; only a curse to those she should have protected; and poor Jane, though but a child, was left to care for herself; to find a home wherever she could; and Mrs. Ball had taken her from the street, one cold day the winter before, just at night, and thinly clad. The woman with whom she had been staying had turned her out, for some cause, and the child was crying bitterly, not knowing where to find shelter for the night.

Mrs. Ball was lame, and could not, on that account, get around very well to do her work, and her husband's income was too small to warrant their hiring it done. She had hitherto depended upon a sister, who made her home with them; but this sister was soon to be married, thus leaving her entirely alone. Jane was large enough to wash dishes, set tables, run of errands, and the like; consequently just such help as the circumstances demanded.

The lady talked loudly of the wrongs the poor child had endured, how she had been neglected, &c., and said that if Jane would stay with her, and try to be a good girl, she should not want for a home, but should be clothed up, and made comfortable. "To be sure, she must have faults;" that was to be expected; she had been so neglected, it could not be otherwise; but some one must care for the child, and why not her as well as another? So Jane was duly installed in her new home, and Mrs. Ball just as duly congratulated herself upon the good she was doing.

Months passed. The blush of spring began to fade before the brighter hues of summer. The time of picnics had come. Circle after circle of happy children had gone forth from the city's dusty walls to revel a while in the garden's nature. The class with whom. Jane was connected was soon to take their turn. She could not go to school, but the teacher had kindly agreed to let her go to the picnic, if she would furnish her share of the funds necessary to pay the expenses. But where was she to get the money?

O, she would be very good, and perhaps Mrs. Ball would let her have it. This, doubtless, was the secret of her behaving so much better than usual the last two weeks of her stay. O, how her heart had throbbed between hope and fear; how she had tried, by every art in her power, to win the good will of her mistress; how she had calculated the chances of success, and shrank from the thought of failure. She wouldn't miss going for anything! They were going a good many miles on the cars; were to have speeches and music! It would be a new era in her existence.

But the time draws near; there is but one day left; she timidly asks for the twenty cents, and is refused. She turns away with a sinking heart, but will not give it up so; she may get it of some one yet. She gets permission to go out, with the understanding that she is to return in time to get the dinner. This she readily promises, and intends to perform; but, in her anxiety to accomplish her object, she forgets the flight of time, and, ere she is aware, the hour for her return has passed, and then she dares not go. Poor child! disappointed all around, and all for the paltry sum of twenty cents.

Mrs. Ball could well afford to keep her for a waiter; let her eat at the side table, and make over old clothes for her to wear; but she could not afford to pay out money for her. Not she! But had any one dared to tell her that she was not doing well by the child, the charge would have been indignantly repelled. Why, she had taken her from the street! had given her a home! How much would they have her do?

Stop a moment, my good woman. Let us look at this thing a little. Suppose your James or your George had wanted the same, or even twice the amount, for a similar purpose. Suppose their mates had all been going out for a holiday, could you not have found the means for them to go? But they have always rejoiced in a father's care, and a fond mother's love, and would not need it half as much as did this poor neglected one. Could you not spare twenty cents to purchase a ray of sunshine to illumine her darkened path?

And "you wished to make her a good girl," you said. Well, what better way could you have taken, than to have shown her that you appreciated her efforts to please you, by saying, "Yes, Jane, I guess I must let you go; you have been a pretty good girl of late, and you deserve a holiday. Go and enjoy yourself; but be careful to do what is right and proper, and when you return, I shall expect you to keep doing better all the time. I know it is hard breaking up bad habits, but you will conquer if you persevere."

Suppose you had taken such a course, instead of the one you did, would you not have been repaid in more ways than one? You may think you did just right; but while you are exclaiming against the ingratitude of other people's children in general, and of this one in particular, others may form a very different opinion.

How deeply is the love of home implanted in the human heart! It is ever prompting us to seek some place to which we can turn and be at rest; that place to be dearer to us than all the world beside. The associations of home tend to strengthen the noblest feelings of the soul; it is one of the loves which elevate and refine. But will it endure? Will it pass with us into the future?

I believe it will, for does God create only that he may destroy? nourish all the days of our mortal life that which cannot pass with us through the gates of death? And who does not know that the love of home is stronger at three score than at fifteen? And so, says one, is the love of life. Yes, thank God; and we shall take life, the life of immortality with us, as we shall the love of home. This cannot die, for it is a part of our selves, and being such, shall be gratified in accordance with the divinest wisdom. Yes, we shall have a home in heaven.

We often hear people speaking of heaven as a home; but to how few has the idea come of a home in heaven, a specific dwelling-place appointed unto us, a mansion where we can collect and arrange our treasures according to our individual tastes? Heaven our home! What would some poor earth wanderer say, if you should attempt to comfort him by telling him that the world was his home? He would tell you at once that that was just what he complained of; his home was too large; he could not appropriate it; that such general proprietorship suited neither his wishes nor his needs.

Alas! of how many may it be said, "the world is their home," "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head?" "The world is my home." It is rather an expression of desolation than of rest; and would it be less so if it were true of the world to come? Is heaven so much less capacious than earth? or do we expect that our spirits will become so enlarged, upon leaving the body, that we can fill and appropriate its boundless realms? Believe it not. We shall have a home in heaven—an actual residence, fitted up in accordance with our individual characteristics; a living expression of our inner selves.

"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven," is an injunction of true wisdom, and, as is our obedience thereto, so will be the beauty and richness of that home. How many, who look upon it as a great misfortune to be poor here, forget the possibility of comparative poverty there. They busy themselves in collecting this world's goods, not one particle of which they can carry with them; but are exceedingly moderate in their aspirations for a future life. If they can only be admitted inside of heaven's gate, they deem it sufficient. But it seems to me that it will not be so pleasant a thing, after all, to be saved, as by fire, while the treasures we have accumulated are burned up, because we have not selected those of a durable stamp.

Such people show that they have no true idea of what heaven is. To them it is no living reality; a something to be wrought out for themselves. The command, to work out their own salvation, has no meaning which they can enter into and understand; but they seem to expect that it will be given to them, something as one receives a piece of property by bequest. They have no realizing sense that our heaven is, and ever must be, in accordance with our receptivity; that it must flow into, and be elaborated through us into garments of beauty, precious jewels, and glorious mansions, and that only so far as they are thus elaborated can they be ours.

"Those who sow to the flesh shall, of the flesh, reap corruption, and those who sow to the spirit shall, of the spirit, reap life everlasting," while "those who sow sparingly, shall reap sparingly," in one case as well as in the other; and thus shall our home there be just what we please to make it, or rather, a true representation of what we please to make ourselves. The insignia of our moral rank, be it high or low, will be stamped upon all that pertains to us, and wherever we go we shall be known for just what we are. But there is one advantage that those homes will have over the homes of earth. Our mansions will never become old or weather-beaten, nor our furniture covered with dust and cob webs, if not subject to constant supervision; our fruits will not mildew, nor our flowers wither, because of a worm at the root.

We may go forth through the realms of the infinite, on voyages of discovery, or missions of benevolence, and when we return, all will be as bright and beautiful as ever; meanwhile, we may be permitted, from time to time, to transfer from the garden of our God some transparent evergreen, some flower of perennial loneliness, thus adding to the beauty of that home which shall continue to grow fairer through the endless ages of eternity.

O, glorious hope! Well might the apostle exhort us to run with patience the race that is set before us!

Gone from the earth-life to the spirit-land—gone to join her who has been waiting for thee for almost a quarter of a century—the companion of thy youth, the mother of thy children. O, what a change! What a change from the toilsome unrest of the suffering life from which father, mother, sister, brother, and wife dropped away, one by one, leaving thee to "put tired to tired, and at it again," in thy struggle with disappointment, poverty, and disease. My father, I am sad when I remember that I shall see thy bowed form no more in the life that now is, and glad that the sunlight of eternity has risen upon thine enfranchised soul—has risen, not to call thee from thy couch to wearisome toil, but from toil and suffering to soul-invigorating rest.

Father, mother, and the little sister who has now grown to womanhood, in the spirit-land, beautiful womanhood, under the immediate eye of our mother! Father, Mother, Sister,—a triune band, to watch over the six that remain!

My mother, my father, I know that the Infinite Principle governing all things is wise and good. I cannot, I dare not believe otherwise; if I did, I should go mad with despair! And yet, yet there comes a pang of agony when I remember the poverty of your earthly lives—poverty in all that which develops the soul, as well as makes the body comfortable. My mother, O, my mother! my soul quivers with anguish when I think of the accursed gripe of the "Beldame Sprite," holding thy fine, spiritual nature in abeyance, violating thy tastes, sending thy proud soul back into itself, unappreciated and misunderstood, counted as of little worth by those whose valuation of woman consisted in the amount of physical labor she could perform, and the readiness with which she could enter into the gossip and scandal of the neighborhood; suffering thus, while the wealth that was daily wasted upon the proud fools of society would have developed into sparkling lustre the bright jewels of thine inner life. And, father, when I remember in those years that she was with us, and after she had flitted to brighter climes, when I remember the continuous toil, the coarse fare, and poor attire that was thine, in order that thy children might have bread, and that, while others grew richer for thy toil,—when I think of all this, my soul cries out, "Where is Justice, and where the habitation of her throne?"

Hush! hush! Turn thine eyes away from beholding the past, lest the sympathetic chain, which binds in one, should lead them back to the valley of shadows. They have travelled it once; and is not that enough, without having its image constantly reflected to their view from the heart of their child? Away, away, corroding thoughts! If I can look upon the darkest shades in the past of my own life, and thank Heaven for each trial, believing that

shall I think of them as looking from the eternal shores with regretful longing that they suffered here? Nay, nay, it cannot be! And thus the sweet dove of peace comes brooding o'er the troubled waters with her whispered "All is well." Peace, did I say? Shall I be at peace because My father and mother have passed safely over? Are not others suffering still from the wrong of injustice, from the selfish cupidity of their fellows? Nay, give me no selfish rest, but gird me anew for the conflict, ye angel hosts, and

not

but the principles which lead to those joys, that I may teach others the way of eternal life.

Young mother, while you're gazing upon some tiny cloud, Doth e'er its snowy whiteness remind you of the shroud In which they wrapped your darling, and bore it from your sight, Your soul as cheerless leaving, as winter's starless night? Dost ever think its spirit may be as near to thee, As is that beauteous emblem, from every stain as free?

That cloud was once a dew-drop, and rested on a rose, A mirror for the beauty its blushing sweets disclose; But when the sun had risen, and saw his image there, He took it up to heaven, for earth it was too fair; He took it, lest defilement its purity should stain, And make it all unworthy to mingle in his train.

Then, mother, while you're gazing upon some tiny cloud, And thinking of the dear one they covered with a shroud, Remember that the dew-drop, on which you loved to gaze, Has been attracted upward; is sparkling in the blaze Of heaven's eternal sunlight; is dwelling in a home Where sin can never reach it, and sorrow never come.

Yes, then, just as I found the home of my fifth summer. Mother used to say that "partnership was a poor ship to sail in," and father found it true in his case, when forced to leave our pine woods' home and start anew in the poor man's struggle for the possession of God's free gift to man—the soil. This time he pitched his tent on East Hill, and went to work, with hands made hard by honest toil, for which, if ever he has received his reward, it is now, for it was not here.

Does the future give compensation to those who are too honest to succeed here? If not, then justice is but a name. Little did I then know, however, of a parent's care. The air was chill, but the sun had sent the snow rippling down the streams in the form of water, and it was not too cold for a curious child to wander forth in search of the unknown. The first discovery that I made, of sufficient importance to be remembered, was some wintergreens, at the big end of a very large log, out in the old chopping; the next was a small pine, growing so slanting that I could walk right up it, and swing from the top to the ground on the opposite side of the stream, on the bank of which it stood.

This was enough for one day; but it was not long before we, sister and I, found the "hoary old rock," out in "the old pasture field," on which we used to hammer for hours, trying to secure some of the shining particles which sparkled upon its surface. But somehow, when separated from the rock, we always found that the shine was all gone, and to console ourselves for our disappointment, we would gather up the sand and take it to the house for mother to scour the floor with. The warmth of spring soon brought the flowers, the first of which I gathered from beneath branches of

Presently the big meadow was covered with yellow blossoms,—daisies, I called them,—then strawberries blossomed and ripened, and blueberries did the same. Lady-slippers, with their pink and white flowers, shaped so like a shoe, were discovered in the woods by the school-house, and sister ran away to go to school, the first day, only three years old at that, went nearly a mile alone, and got punished for it in the bargain. Thus on till the summer passed away, and the winter too, making one more of the five years that we tarried ere we were away to the West complete; five years more of my life, ere we went to live on the shore of Lake Erie.

Away, but the heart was left behind. O, the heartsickness of the homesick child! The busy scenes of the day may hold the tried spirit, but when slumber comes, it returns to the dear, familiar haunts, to wander there till the dawn of the morning brings it back to life,—better say death and disappointment.

Who has not exclaimed "How beautiful!" when looking at a mass of sunset clouds. Beautiful indeed; and yet, were we to go thither and attempt to analyze the particles of which they are composed, we should not for a moment imagine that they contained the receptive power for the reflection of such beautiful hues. How illustrative of the manner in which the greatest minds of earth are often judged by those who are brought into daily contact with them. Looking only on the present, and the fruitions of the present, they discover nothing remarkable in the results of the every-day routine of toil and rest; yea, according to their measurement, often only failure, consequently they pass such by without notice, if not with contempt; do this, little dreaming that they are thus scorning those who are destined, through the reflected light of heaven, to become the morning stars of succeeding generations.

"Yes, that's forever the cry! Patience, patience! I want to witness results sometimes; I am tired of seeing those who started in life with me distancing me, one after another, and with but half the effort that I am making; whilst I do not seem one whit nearer the accomplishment of my desires. I sometimes feel as if there must be a wrong, an injustice somewhere."

"You are not very happy to-day, my friend. Let us walk abroad and look upon the face of nature; perhaps we can find something to dispel this cloud. Beautiful, isn't it, the variety which everywhere meets the eye? Streams, forests, rocks, and hills; little flowers and lofty oaks; plants which perfect themselves in a season, and trees which require ages to come to maturity."

What would you think of one who should find fault because the willow had not the strength of the oak, or that the apple was longer in maturing its fruits than the cherry? And yet it would be just as reasonable as for you to find fault because some of your companions mature like flowers or early fruit, while you must wait, like the oak or the elm, for the perfection of your nature, the realization of your desires.

The fairest flowers cast their shadows. God grant when the flowers of life have departed, that their shadows may not be left upon our hearts.

Yes, twenty years had passed; twenty years, during which I had become motherless, a wife, mother, and widow; and now I was to stand again upon the same old place, and what a whirl of contending emotions filled my soul! Uncle's home was near the school-house, and just by the old path that led across the hills to what had once been my home; the same path I had travelled so often, and hurried up the little ones when they lagged, by saying that bears lived in the woods, and would catch them if they didn't hurry; and now I was to travel that path again—travel it to the same terminus, and what should I find? Not my mother, for she had gone to the land of the hereafter; not my father, my brother, and my sisters, for they were scattered and far away. I had purposely prevented the friend to whose house I was going from coming for me, because it was "so little way across" that I could walk it as well as not; but when the hour for starting arrived, aunt was very much afraid that my satchel was too heavy for me; she would go and help me carry it. O, dear! must I be disappointed now, after all my planning!

This matter of fact, practical, good soul could never be made to comprehend that her presence, even, and much more the sound of her voice, would be sacrilege in that hour. No, no, she must not go with me; but how should I prevent it? She was so intensely kind and conscientious, that if she permitted me to go without her assistance, and I should get sick by the means, she would never forgive herself. I was just on the point of giving up in despair, when she concluded that if I went very slowly, perhaps it might not hurt me. With a great deal of alacrity, I assured her that I should go very slowly indeed, and hurried out, in order to get away before she should change her mind.

How familiar everything looked, and yet how strange! The freshness that I had carried in my heart all these years, was not reflected back upon me from tree, bush, nor hillside; and even the pebbles in the pathway stared at me as if I was a stranger. And I was! I went away a child; I had come back a woman and how could they be expected to recognize me? I felt, but did not stop to analyze the why of all this, as I hurried on, wooing the warmth that did not come. Surely, when I reached the meadow, the orchard, the spring, and the rock, I should be at home then. Alas! even here they had known only the child. A stranger still; I sat me down and wept.

Here, right here, stood the log cot, that was to me "a cottage fair." It was gone; but not the surroundings,—the hills were the same; the fields and forests nearly so,—but sleeping away in the autumn sunlight, nor waking once to welcome me. Here was the grassy spot where once I laid me down, and tried to count the stars. Here it was still, and as green as ever, but somehow its beauty for me was gone. Yonder stood the old log barn, where I used to go to pray to the God they told me of, who didn't like bad girls; but he didn't seem inclined to answer my prayers by making me good, for, judging by the standard of those about me, I grew no better all the time. It, too, was gone! all gone, together with the fence, beside which I used to hunt for the hens that stole their own nests—strange stealing that; if every one came as honestly by what they have as did those hens by their nests, we should be a very honest people.

The meadow was there, the same as in the past, but I didn't feel a bit like going around it on the top of the rail fence, as I had done twenty years before; and the "hoary old rock" loomed up into sight just across the creek, but I was too sad even to go to it.

O, dear! O, dear! Well, I had carried this landscape in my heart for twenty years—carried it there hidden from sight, as one of the precious things of earth; and now, as I brought it forth, it crumbled—crumbled to dust, leaving me but the ashes of the dead past with which to enrich the living present. Yes, it had gone—gone from me as my childhood had. They belonged together, and what God had joined I could not separate. The first pang of disappointment softened, and I began to question. Is it not well, I ask, that this is so? If the sunshine, the freshness of the past could remain to us, should we not lose very much of the present, and of the future also, from the too frequent turning of our eyes backward?

Ay, we should; and it is well that we are not permitted to overload ourselves with that which blooms in our pathway, Gone from the external life, both our childhood and its surroundings; but, upon the walls of memory's crystal palace, they are stamped in colors of imperishable brightness, and knowing this, we are content.

Why must my body hang, a leaden weight, upon my over-burdened soul? No, not over-burdened, else 'twould drop its load; 'twould sink and die, and thus escape the torturing weight; but burdened, even to the last point of bearing. Hungry and faint, I stagger on, not falling quite, but reeling sometimes, till my eyes grow blind with dizziness. Hungry, and yet I see and feel the bread of life, in all the rich profusion of abundance, all about; so rich and so abundant, while I feebly grasp but broken fragments that but half appease. Thirsty, and still the living waters lave my feet. I hear the soothing music of their rippling sound, but O, they do not rise unto my lips, nor have I power to bring them there.

I feel like a young eagle, that, caged from birth, has never known of mountain height, or crag-topped eyrie, nor of the clear blue vault of bracing air beyond; yet Nature's intuition's true; it beats impatient wing against its bars from morn till night. Caged, when I look upon the distant hills, and feel there is a beauty there I cannot fathom. Caged, when I gaze on fields and flowers, and find a veil between me and their loveliness. Caged, when the surging sea of human life comes rolling by in mighty waves, for lo! I cannot grasp the chain that binds them to each other; I cannot get into the stream of their magnetic life.

Yet I have held some hands in mine, have looked into some eyes, and pressed some lips, to drink the current of electric wine, till my whole being seemed filled to its fulness full, and still I turned away and thirsted still. O God! is there no fountain that will satisfy, or being such, must my caged soul be shut from it for ever! Cease! cease! I'll rest a while; I'll sleep; perhaps I thus may gain new strength to batter down these walls, and then I shall be free.

Twenty-five years ago Cleveland was not as large as now. True; but it was large enough to contain the rich and the poor, the oppressor and the oppressed, the virtuous and the vicious, the time-server, and those who sacrifice all for the Right.

One of this latter class had just finished a day of toil, and was preparing for the evening walk, that, when circumstances permitted, she always took at the close of a day's confinement to the long rows of figures in the merchant's ledger, for even then—twenty-five years ago—this woman was fearless enough to fill what was called a man's position, and through the favor of one who knew her worth, and what she had sacrificed for principle, she held the place and received the wages of an accountant in a store.

Ten years before, Marion Tracy, then but eighteen years of age, and the petted child of wealth, became the bride of Lorain Reid, head clerk in her father's store. Her parents opposed their union; he was poor, and what was worse, had imbibed the "pernicious doctrines" of the Garrisonian school. In short, he was an abolitionist; he believed the black man had rights as well as the white man; that slavery was not a divine institution. This heresy so incensed Mr. Tracy, that, but for the efficiency of young Reid, he would have dismissed him from his employ at once.

The daughter, however, did not feel as did the father. Marion listened to the eloquent words of her lover, as he painted the wrongs of the black man, till her soul became fired with the desire to do something towards breaking their chains, and when, in opposition to her father's wishes,—yea, commands,—she married the "young fanatic," as he was called, and was banished from her paternal roof, she went forth courageously, believing that the right would triumph.

The young couple found a home in the south part of the State, went to work hopefully, cheerfully. In due time two lovely children, two bright-eyed girls, were born unto them. But the black man still groaned in chains, or fled at night through the land of boasting, towards the land of freedom, and Mr. Reid's home became an underground railroad depot, and himself one of the principal conductors, till at length he so exposed his health, in making extra exertions to save a company of fugitives from the human bloodhounds. that were close upon their track, that he sickened and died. Their property was not wholly clear from incumbrance, and the vampires of the law swooped down upon it, used it in litigation, while the widow and the fatherless were left destitute.

"I guess Mrs. Reid has had enough of abolitionism by this time," said those who hated, while forced to admire her intrepid spirit. "Guess she'll have enough to do to take care of herself and children, without minding other people's business, now." "Before I'd expose my life to save a lot of niggers!"

But Marion, while these cruel remarks were being made, was watching over the sick bed of her youngest darling, for her cup of grief was not yet full; or may we not rather say that the husband, whose heart was so knit to hers, still willed to share her burdens by calling one little one to himself? So at least it seemed to the stricken mother, for when, with outstretched arms and a glad smile little Nellie called, "Papa! papa!" and ceased to breathe, Marion murmured, "It is right that papa should have one with him; he can care for thee, darling, better than I can." So she wiped her tears, buried her dead from sight, and people said that she had no feeling for any body but a "nigger."

But Marion failed not when they looked for her to fail. Their shafts fell harmless at her feet as she gathered herself anew for the conflict; and those who called her unfeeling because she wept not her strength away, and unwomanly because she sat not down in helpless dependence, knew not what they said,—knew not the soul of her whom they maligned.

But it was not of Marion Reid's trials and victories that I sat down to write; she is not the heroine of my story; but even in her case we may see the lack of "charity;" that charity, without which the great Apostle to the Gentiles said he was nothing; we can see even in her case how prone we are to misjudge the motives of others. I say we; for who among us is guiltless in this respect?

"Mrs. Reid," said Mr. Whitney, her employer, as Marion prepared to leave the store one evening, some three months after she came to the Forest City, and found employment therein sufficiently remunerative to support herself and child comfortably,—"Mrs. Reid, do you walk to-night?"

"I think I shall. It bids fair to be a beautiful sunset—just clouds enough to make old Sol look grand as he dips into Lake Erie."

"Could you not forego your sunset view and make a call?"

"Where?"

"There is a family living in one of Simpson's houses, a mother and three daughters, that I would like to know something about, but I cannot visit them."

"Why not?"

"Because I am a man, and the charitable ones have got it into their heads that they are not what they should be."

Marion looked at the merchant with a curious smile.

"No, it is not that, Mrs. Reid. I am not a coward; but it injures them. The eldest daughter is very, very beautiful; and having imbibed the idea that she is not virtuous, people seem to think that she is irresistible, and the larger the number they imagine she brings into her toils the greater the indignation against her; therefore, for me to seek the acquaintance of the family would only be to their disadvantage; but if the observation and experience of my life so far—and I count myself a close observer—if my past experience is worth any thing, those women—they count the mother in with the daughter—are innocent."

"You spoke of three daughters."

"True; but the second one is only fourteen, a cripple, and, they say, sweet and pure as an angel; while the other is but a child yet."

"If the mother and oldest daughter are what you believe them, why are they so talked about, and why do they think the second one any better than the other?"

"That is what I wish to find out. No one seems to know anything of them positively, only that the lame one—she cannot walk without a crutch—goes frequently to church, while the others do not; and they say that her very look is heavenly, and that she cannot be long for this world, and the church of which she is a member say they pray God to take her home to himself, that she may thus escape the contaminations of her surroundings."

"She belongs to the church, then?"

"Yes, she was gathered in during the recent revival."

"Are you alone in your opinion of these people?"

"No; I have heard several gentlemen express the same; but the verdict of the female portion of the community seems unanimously against them."

"And so you, a man, knowing how much a woman's character is worth, and how easily tarnished, would advise me, a woman, to seek out these people and form their acquaintance."

"Fie! fie! Mrs. Reid; you know there are some characters that fire cannot scorch, nor water drown. You are one of those that could walk in the midst of pitch and not defile your garments. You surely are not afraid to take the step I propose?"

"No, not afraid. If a sister woman is suffering injustice, I have sacrificed too much for the right, to be afraid; but it seems to me that those gentlemen you speak of, in connection with yourself, might do more for them than one woman, single-handed, can."

"I tell you we can do nothing; the son of one of my old friends, William Holden, became acquainted with this girl, believed in her innocence, and, thinking to vindicate her, took her to a party, and when she entered the ball-room, every lady left it, and William has been sent away by his father, ostensibly because his business needed some one interested therein to take charge of it in New York, but really that he might be beyond her fascinations. William told me, with tears in his eyes, the day after taking her to the ball, that he did not believe there was a purer girl in the city than Helen Merrill."

"The name is Merrill, then?"

"That is the name of the two eldest daughters; but the woman's name is Taylor; she has been twice married, I understand."

"You seem to know something about them, after all."

"Nothing more than I have told you, further than that they lived awhile in another part of the city, in a house belonging to a noted libertine, but a wealthy man, and as near as I can learn, most of the stories have originated with him."

"And you really believe them innocent?"

"Do you think I would ask you to call there if I did not?"

"Why not?"

"Why not!"

"Yes, why not? If I possess the power you attribute to me, might I not possibly be a benefit to them, even if guilty? Might I not, by showing that all hearts are not shut against them, lead them back to the path of virtue? Surely the mother and sister of such a one as you have described the lame one to be cannot be wholly depraved. If they are innocent, they deserve friends, and if guilty, need them; and I shall most certainly make their acquaintance."

"But how will you manage it? Judging from their appearance, I should not think them very approachable; and the proud reserve they manifest is one thing that leads me to believe them innocent."

"That's just like a man; set a woman to do what they dare not undertake themselves, and then, when she accepts the challenge, begin to suggest difficulties."

"Well, well, don't laugh at me, and I will leave the case wholly in your hands."

"Not till you have told me where to find them."

"O, I forgot that. They live in the pretty white cottage on C—— Street, No. ——, I think it is; you will know it by its standing back from the road all alone, and by the elm in front."

"What! that little bird's nest? I have often noticed it. Just the place for innocence to nestle in. I should as soon think of associating heaven and hell, as guilt with that place; but how came Simpson to build such a residence for a tenant house? It doesn't seem a bit like him."

"He did not. It belonged to a poor widow who was unfortunate enough to become indebted to him, and report says that he took it from her unfairly. The poor woman grieved so at having to give up her home that she did not live long afterwards, and report further says that since her death she has haunted the house. It is certain that those who went there did not stay long, till at length no one would live there. Simpson had not been able to find a tenant for nearly a year, before these people came, and he has tried in vain to sell it; so, if he did come by it unjustly, it seems to be doing him but little good."

"Glad of it; I wish every one who obtains property unjustly might get as little good of it."

"But you do not believe in the superstitious notion of haunted houses, Mrs. Reid?"

"Why not? God has more ways than one to make the wickedness of the wicked return on their own heads. But if I am to form the acquaintance of these people, I must commence at once. You have interested me in them, and I shall now pursue the investigation for my own sake. I shall walk in that direction, find some excuse for calling, and trust me if I don't get at the bottom of this matter."

"Trust a woman for anything she undertakes."

"A truce to all such compliments, and good night. I must work as well as talk."

"Good night, and God grant you success," murmured the merchant, as he looked after her retreating form, then turned again to his desk.

The next morning Marion was at her place as usual.

"Well, what success?" said Mr. Whitney, as soon as he found opportunity to approach her on the subject of the previous day's conversation, unheard by others.

"Good," was the reply.

"You called, then?"

"Did I not tell you I should?"

"I know you did; but saying and doing are so often two things, that I thought—"

"That I was a woman of words and not of deeds."

"Not that, but feared that you might procrastinate; you know we are apt to put off disagreeable things."

"This was not disagreeable to me in the least. You aroused my interest in those people; I thought it a pity and shame that in a city like this, where there are so many professed Christians, that there should be none to defend them if innocent, or to care for their souls if guilty. Circumstances opened the way for my calling there, without any effort on my part, and not only that, but gave me access to their hearts, and I mean to make the best of the opportunity thus afforded me. It seemed as if the hand of Providence was in it."

"How? In what?"

"Why, the little girl, the half sister that you spoke of, had been sent by her mother to some place of an errand. The child, a sweet girl of seven years, had by some means become bewildered, and could not find her way back. She was crying when I first saw her, and upon inquiry, she told me that she was Mrs. Taylor's girl, and lived in C—— Street, in the little house with a big tree by the gate, but that she could not find it. I remembered the name and the description of the place that you gave me, and concluded this to be the child of the woman I was seeking, and so it proved; so you see that when we wish to do good, the angels open the way."

"It would seem so; I wish, Mrs. Reid, I could feel as you do. Your trusting faith is beautiful; but I find nothing to build a like one upon. The world, and even the church, is so full of suspicion—there is so much injustice and so little charity, that I feel sometimes as if there was no God, no heaven; indeed, not anything worth trusting in or living for."

"Is there not goodness, justice, and charity also?"

"I suppose there is, though I find so little of it. But what do you think of those people?"

"I have not made up my 'think' yet. I am an investigating committee at present, and will report when I have obtained sufficient evidence for such a proceeding."

"And I, meanwhile, must wait?"

"Certainly."

"Well, as I cannot help myself, I shall abide by your decision."

One Sunday morning in December, 1835, the following notice was read from the desk, occupied by the Rev. Mr. Schoolcraft:—

"The members of this church are requested to meet in the vestry on Tuesday evening next, in order to devise some means by which religious reading may be circulated through every portion of the city."

"And now, friends," continued the reverend gentleman, still holding the notice in his hand, "and now, friends, nay, more than friends, brothers in the cause of Christ, and sisters beloved, I beseech you that there be a full attendance. Think of the importance of the work to be performed—nothing less than to furnish religious reading to this great and growing city. While the enemy of souls is going about seeking whom he may devour—while his emissaries are actively engaged in leading souls astray—while the theatre draws its victims—while the gambler watches for his prey—while yellow-covered novels, filled with corruption, find their way into the hands of our young people—while the rumseller sends his customer staggering home to his innocent wife and babes—and while the wiles of her whose 'steps take hold on hell' are constantly leading our young men into the path of destruction—while these, all these things are being done under our very eyes, what are we doing to stem the tide of corruption? Nothing, comparatively nothing. To be sure, we pray, and profess our faith in the saving efficacy of the precious blood of Christ, but what are prayers and faith without works! And of what avail will our professions be, if we do not practice! I tell you, friends, that there is something more at stake in this thing than merely the interests of others; momentous as these may be, they are not all, for our own eternal safety is involved therein. Not that I would teach reliance upon works; far be it from me; I know that salvation comes through faith in Christ; but, friends, it must be a living faith. We must have the spirit that was in Christ, the love divine that constraineth us to labor for others. And besides, look at the exceeding great reward! 'He that converteth a soul from the error of his ways, hideth a multitude of sins.' Poor miserable sinners that we all are, who is there that does not need such a covering! What are a few paltry dollars, and a little time spent in this cause, if even one soul can be saved? I propose, brethren, to take up a collection for this purpose just now, while the subject is fresh in our minds. Brother Wilkins and Brother Smith, please go through the congregation, and receive what the friends are willing to bestow in so worthy a cause. Remember, it is to furnish religious food to send into the highways and hedges—not the food that perisheth, but that which gives eternal life; not that which is to sustain these vile bodies, but that which feeds the immortal soul; and remember also, that 'there is he that scattereth and yet increaseth, and he that withholdeth more than is meet, and tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat.' The choir will sing while the collection is being taken, and then I will address you from these words, found in First Corinthians, xiii. 13: 'And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.' And may the God of all grace help us to practise the charity we preach."

Many were the comments made, during that and the two following days, upon the piety and zeal of the new pastor. "Surely the cause would prosper in such hands." The collection was good, and the meeting on Tuesday evening well attended. After due deliberation, it was decided that the city should be divided into districts, and the sisters, going two by two, should, as far as possible, visit every house and every family, and leave such religious tracts as appearances indicated were needed. Another meeting was agreed upon for the sisters to arrange their committees, and appoint their fields of labor. In the mean time, the brothers were to furnish funds, purchase tracts, and give such information as they thought beneficial in advancing the cause.

The minister was in earnest. Naturally of an active temperament, with warm, strong feelings, and being religiously educated, those feelings of course found vent in that direction. He was full of zeal, and, like the prophet of old, could not hold his peace; he thus became a focus, a sort of central sun for the minds he came into more immediate contact with, sending forth his warm, magnetic life into theirs, quickening them to action, till soon the church was all aglow with life. The city, even to the very outskirts, was canvassed, pages containing words of counsel, warning, or entreaty were left with every family, reports were brought in, and the time set for another general visit of the same nature, Mr. Schoolcraft counselling in the mean time a series of prayer meetings. "We have sown the seed," said he, "but God only can give the increase; let us meet and pray for

that our labors may not be in vain."

And so tri-weekly prayer meetings were appointed, the circle of magnetic life deepened and broadened till the rooms overflowed with anxious inquirers, even till scores were added to the church, and amongst the number Eloise Merrill, the cripple, and sister of the beautiful Helen we have before spoken of.

The child—for she was but a child as yet—had been induced to go at first by a neighbor's daughter, and becoming interested, the mother or Helen sometimes accompanied her. But while Eloise was always greeted with kindness and warmth, there was something in the atmosphere that so chilled Mrs. Taylor and Helen that they soon ceased entirely to attend; though loath to deny their darling aught that could add to her happiness, they still permitted Eloise to go, till in time she was baptized, and became an accepted member of the society. Sweet Eloise, innocent as an angel, she dreamed not, as yet, of the dark suspicions that hung around her mother and sister, and wondered why they did not love to attend church as well as she did.

The time set for another exploration of the city had expired, and again the tract distributors brought in their reports. Some brought in goodly accounts of success, and some said there were giant evils in the place that could not be overcome. Some were hopeful, and some were desponding; but we have principally to do with the minister's mother, Mrs. Schoolcraft, who resided at the parsonage, her son being unmarried, and a maiden lady of some forty summers by the name of Prudence Crowell.

These ladies had labored together, and, after giving in their testimony on other points, Mrs. Schoolcraft said, "Now, ladies, I have something very sad to tell you," while Miss Prudence put her handkerchief to her eyes as if to hide the tears she wished to shed. The ladies looked up inquiringly, and Mrs. Schoolcraft continued:—

"You know that sweet lamb of our flock, Eloise Merrill, and the dark suspicions that hang about the conduct of her mother and sister. It is one of the mysteries that such a lamb should dwell in the very den of the wolf; still no one can look upon her pure, spiritual face without feeling that she is one of God's elect, and he will doubtless take care of her. But perhaps you have not generally known why we believe this woman and her eldest daughter vile; and, lest you may think us mistaken, or lacking in charity, I will tell you: Spending much of my time, as you know, among the sick, last October I learned that a poor woman was occupying an uncomfortable room on B—— Street, with a sick child, and, further, that she was a stranger in the city; therefore I felt it my duty to call on her. I there found this same Mrs. Taylor, with scarcely the comforts of life about her, and our Eloise quite sick. I made some inquiries into her circumstances, asked if I could be of any assistance to her, &c., &c., all of which she received quite coolly, thanked me for my kindness with a manner as proud as a queen, but thought she could get along without aid at present. I then turned to the little one, and she looked so sick that I really thought she could not live, and I began to talk to her of Jesus, when the mother interrupted me by saying that the child was weak, and she did not wish her to be disturbed or to have her mind excited on any subject. 'But, madam,' said I, 'this child may die, and without the salvation that Jesus gives she is lost; she is not too young to understand the story of the cross in its simplest form, and if you will not yourself accept the pearl of great price, do not withhold it from your child.' And what do you suppose was her reply?"

Here Miss Prudence gave a sob, and Mrs. Schoolcraft, after pausing a moment to mark the effect of her words, continued:—

"It was this: 'I hope I have found the pearl of common sense, and I tell you I will not have my child disturbed.' I have no words, ladies, to paint my feelings as I looked upon that apparently dying child and upon that heartless mother. I left the house, praying that God would have mercy upon them all."

"And it seems that God heard you in behalf of the child at least," said Mrs. Deacon Barnes. "Surely we should take courage when we remember her providential restoration to a state of health that would admit of her coming where she could hear the works of salvation."

"That we should," replied Mrs. Schoolcraft; "but to go on with my story: In December, when we were first appointed for the blessed work in which we are now engaged, where do you suppose we found this woman? In a pretty cottage owned by Stanford, one of the most noted libertines in the city, and it was well furnished with all that was needed to make one comfortable, and Stanford himself had just left the house. Now, my sisters, what could we infer from this change? For my part there was but one conclusion that I could come to, and I tell you it made my heart ache; but I felt that I must do my duty, so, nerving myself for the task, I uttered such words of warning against sin as I could command at the moment; told them that God's love and mercy extended to each and all; that no sin was so great but, if repented of, would find forgiveness. But I might just as well have talked to stones, for all the impression I could make; and were it not for the story of Mary Magdalene, and the words of Jesus in reference to the woman taken in adultery, I should think that there was no hope for such creatures. But I have not told all yet: I left some tracts upon the table, and as we passed through the gate I heard Mrs. Taylor say, 'Don't do that, Helen.' Sister Crowell here looked back. The door was standing open, and she saw Helen putting the tracts into the stove; so you see that the daughter is even more hardened that the mother."

"It seems to me," said Miss Prudence, "that I could put a stop to such doings had I the law-making power. Why, I would shut up every woman that wouldn't behave herself; they should be kept in close confinement, and not permitted to lead our sons and brothers astray. It's a burning shame in a Christian land."

"And that brings me to another point," said Mrs. Schoolcraft, "and no doubt it is the thought of what I am now about to relate that drew the last remark from sister Crowell. It seems that by some means the only son of one of our most respectable citizens, though not a member of this church, became acquainted with this Helen Merrill, and was actually so infatuated with her that he attempted to take her into company in spite of her reputation. It almost broke the hearts of his parents. Their remonstrances only made him angry, he declaring his belief in her purity! Purity! when Stanwood boasts indirectly of his success. True, he calls no names, but he intimates plainly enough who is intended. Finding that William would not hear to reason, Mrs. Holden wrote to a brother in New York city, and they managed between them to find a situation for him, in a business in which his father has some interest, in order to get him away from this girl's influence. Well, to-day, as we were walking along C—— Street, a well-dressed young lady came out of a cottage just ahead of us, and just a few steps from the gate she dropped a letter. Miss Crowell picked it up, calling after her at the same instant to inform her of her loss. She turned just as we glanced at the direction. It was Helen Merrill, and the letter was directed to William Holden, New York city. We were too astonished to act promptly, and, ere we had time to think, she had reached her hand and taken it. No one was to blame, it was all so sudden; but that letter should have been kept and handed to his father."

"I felt so shocked," said Miss Prudence, "at the thought of the disgrace of being seen speaking to such a creature on the street, that I forgot what duty was; and all we can do now is to inform Mr. Holden of what we have discovered. I don't know as it is Christian-like, but if it was my brother that she was trying her deceitful arts upon, I really believe I should feel like taking her life."

"God help us to leave vengeance in his hands," responded Mrs. Barnes; "but it is indeed a hard duty to keep up a feeling of Christian meekness and resignation under all circumstances. Still we must not be disheartened; the work goes bravely on. Our church was never in so prosperous a condition as now. Let us continue to pray in faith, and who knows but God may convert even these wretched women."

Here a little meek-faced woman, who had not hitherto spoken, said that she could not understand why it was that so much indignation should be expressed against outcast women, and so little against the men who make them so. "We talk of the outcast leading our sons astray, and forget that somebody's sons first led her astray. Now, ladies, I think that the virtuous women of society are as much to blame for this state of things as any one. You may think it a strange assertion, but I believe it to be true."

"Pray explain yourself, Mrs. Blackman," said Mrs. Schoolcraft, with dignity. "I am not aware of encouraging vice in any form, and as to yourself, why you ought to know as to that; the world is full of wickedness."

"Yes, and self-deception too," said the little woman, with more spirit than usual, "and it becomes us to pull the beam out of our own eyes, that we may see clearly to pull the mote out of the eye of another. Now what I mean is just this: we all of us look upon a man who is guilty of sin in this respect with more leniency than upon a woman. In the case under consideration, that of William Holden's trying to take Helen Merrill into society. He waited upon her to a dance not long since, and every lady left the room, so I am told, and it was looked upon as evidence of their purity, of their hatred of sin; but was it?"

"Certainly it was!"

"Do you think that I would stay in the room with such a creature?" exclaimed Miss Betsy Jones and Miss Prudence in the same breath.

"I suppose not; but my informant tells me that some two weeks afterwards another ball was held at the same place, and nearly the same company present. Henry Stanwood, this same libertine you have spoken of, was there, however, and not a lady left the room, or even refused to dance with him. What had become of their horror of vice?"

"These people were not Christians, Mrs. Blackman; and I hardly think it fair to cite them as evidence of our being at fault," said Mrs. Barnes.

"But the question is, do we not act upon the same principle? Do we not shrink from these poor creatures as from contamination, while we have scarcely a frown for their companions in vice? Which of us would refuse, suppose you, to treat Henry Stanwood with common politeness?"

"Common politeness is due to every one, Mrs. Blackman."

"But do we accord it to the outcast, Mrs. Schoolcraft?"

"While we are in the world we cannot wholly ignore its customs," was that lady's reply; and then, to put a stop to further remark of the kind, added, "we wish nothing introduced here to disturb the harmony of feeling which should prevail in order to successful effort, and I think such discussions unprofitable. Will the secretary please read the minutes of the last meeting?"

This, of course, prevented further conversation, except the whispered asides; but Miss Betsy Jones was heard to say, as she glanced towards Mrs. Blackman, "Poor thing! she is no doubt thinking of her sister; no wonder she feels badly. It was a sad case. Susan Smith was a pretty girl, and we all thought a good one; no one supposed that she would turn out as she did."

"What, Mrs. Blackman's sister?"

"Why, yes; did you never hear of it? I supposed everybody knew it. She was promised in marriage to one of the first young men in the country, when a gentleman from the East somewhere, I forget where, came into the place, and, attracted by Susan's beauty, paid her particular attention. This caused trouble between her and Winslow, she taking part with the new lover. The stranger bringing forged references, as it was afterwards ascertained, deceived her into a false marriage, lived with her a few weeks, and then deserted her. The poor girl became reckless, left her friends, and, they say, is now a woman of the town."

"Well, she should have been true to her vows. What right had she to be flirting with another? I should have considered myself as much bound as though I had been married; for my part I see no necessity for such mistakes, nor do I believe there is any."

"Neither do I," said Miss Betsy; "but somehow I always felt sorry for Susan."

The business of the meeting was soon finished; the laborers chosen, and their field of operations for the month assigned them, and each returned to her respective home. Meanwhile let us look in upon another scene. It is the Sabbath. Mrs. Reid has so far won upon Mrs. Taylor's confidence as to draw from her a promise of her history; "but not now," said she; "I cannot tell you all in the presence of Eloise. I cannot burden her young mind with the knowledge of what her mother and sister have been accused of. I should have left this place before now, and gone among friends, but she has been too delicate to bear the fatigue of the journey; the least excitement would prove fatal to her. I have not the time to tell you now, for she has only gone for a short walk with Helen, and will be back soon. If you will come next Sunday I can talk with you, for Eloise will be at church, and after church she stays for Sabbath school. Poor child! she is not really strong enough to go, but she enjoys it so much that I cannot deny her."

And so, on Sunday, the very one after the meeting of the tract distributors last referred to, we find Mrs. Reid at the house of Mrs. Taylor instead of at church.

Very wicked, no doubt, to forsake the sanctuary for the society of one whom the world has rejected; but so it was. Let us look in upon that home for a moment. Helen is weeping; and Mrs. Taylor can hardly keep back the tears that her proud spirit will not permit to flow.

We will reserve the history for another chapter, only giving here some of the conversation that followed it.

"I think, Mrs. Taylor, I may speak plainly to you; you will not be offended?" said Mrs. Reid.

"Certainly not. I feel that you are a friend; no Pharisaical idea of superiority, no feeling that it was your mission to seek and convert the sinner, has led you here time after time. You have shown none of this, but only that genuine sympathy which one can accept from another without a sense of degradation."

"I honor you, Mrs. Taylor, for your self-respect; but still we must adapt ourselves to conditions, to things as we find them; and do you not think if you had been a little more yielding, not quite so proudly reserved in reference to your own affairs, that it would have been better?"

"Perhaps it might; but what right had they to intrude themselves upon me in the way that they did? It was not the fact of their calling, but their manner that offended me. Their every look and movement said as plainly as words could have said it, 'You are a poor, needy creature, that we, out of the abundance of our goodness, have come to assist, and you should recognize this fact, and be particularly grateful to us, and subservient to our superior wisdom.' Bah! I understand such Christianity as that. Surrender all you have into its keeping,—give up your own judgment, self-respect, and all, and then they will make you the objects of their peculiar care, because, doing so, ministers to their self-righteousness; but dare to be yourself—to keep your own counsel, use your own judgment instead of theirs,—and you might as well be in a den of tigers."

"What you say has too much truth in it; but it only confirms me in my position, Mrs. Taylor. If you really were in a den of tigers, you certainly would not let them rend you and yours if you could prevent it by studying and adapting yourself to their natures. Now it seems to me that if you could have so far conquered your pride—for I must call it pride—as to have made some explanation of your circumstances to those people, it seems to me that you would have had their sympathy and protection."

"Yes, every shepherd watches over his own sheep, and every merchant over his own goods; and had I permitted them to own me, they would doubtless have cared for me. No, I will be a free woman, and suffer the consequences."

"And I," said Helen, "will sustain my mother and suffer with her. I should scorn to see her receiving the sympathy of people who have insulted her as they did the second time they called on us. Why, had she been the keeper of a brothel, they could not have been more rude to her; and then the tracts they left—those written for the vilest of sinners. I felt like putting them out of doors, and I did put their tracts into the stove as soon as they left."

"Do you know the names of those who visited you?" asked Mrs. Reid.

"I have since learned that one of them is the minister's mother, and the other a Miss somebody—an old maid, one of the prudish, sanctimonious ones; I should think from her appearance that a man was her especial horror."

"Don't reflect on old maids, Helen," said Mrs. Reid, laughing; "you may be one yourself yet."

"And if I am I will not cry 'sour grapes,' " was the quick retort.

"But in reference to those tract distributors," continued Mrs. Reid, "they are not all the church; neither are all like them. There are good people there—those who would gladly be your friends if they knew how to reach you. But the way has been hedged up; appearances are against you; their minds have been poisoned, and it was a duty you owed to yourself to explain the unfortunate circumstances which have caused you to be suspicioned. You have not done this; you have not done yourself justice, and still you blame others for injustice. Are you consistent?"

"Perhaps not; I have never looked upon the subject in that light," was the reply. "I know I am proud, but I am not haughty or insulting; and I cannot accept such treatment from others in a spirit of meekness, I assure you."

"Eloise finds friends and kind treatment."

"I know she does, Mrs. Reid; but a demon right from hell could not do otherwise than treat her kindly. If there is an angel anywhere in the universe, she is one; but I see her coming, and we must say nothing further on this subject now. I feel that I shall not keep her long, and I must protect her from sorrow as far as possible."

Eloise came wearily up the walk. Helen met her at the door, and took her in her arms.

"Are you tired, darling?"

"A little, Nellie, sister; but we had such a good time, I wish that you could have been there. The minister told us of Jesus taking children in his arms and blessing them, and saying, 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven;' and while he was talking, little Mary Gray, who died before we left Rochester, came to me. She did, mother. I saw her plainly, and she was so beautiful; I saw her but a moment, but it made me so happy, and I have felt ever since as if God and angels were all about me."

Helen and her mother exchanged glances, and the mother said, "It must have been beautiful, darling. But here is Mrs. Reid; you have not spoken to her yet."

"O, Mrs. Reid, I am so glad to see you; but what do you suppose it means?"

"It means that God loves you, dear; but you are weary now; would you not like to be quiet, and let me soothe you to sleep?"

"Yes, I should like it so much; your hands are so soft, and they make my head feel so good."

"Well, lie down here and close your eyes then, for I must go soon."

The child was soon fast to sleep under the magnetic touch of her friend's fingers, and then Mrs. Reid took her leave.

But few words were spoken, for a holy awe seemed to have fallen upon each, even as if they were in the presence of the angels that Eloise had spoken of. Yes, they parted, and to meet very soon under circumstances that they little dreamed of, while those who remained pondered upon the words the child had uttered, and she that left doing the same.

"I was the youngest child of rich parents. There were five of us, three sons and two daughters. My father owned one of the largest farms in —— County, in the old Empire State, besides some city property. I was the pet and darling of the household, and my days passed like a summer dream. At twenty I married the man of my choice, for some years a clerk, and afterwards partner in the store of my mother's brother, in the city of New York.

"We went to housekeeping in a pleasant cottage, that has since been torn down to make way for the advancing tide of business, and a splendid block of stores now stands in its place. In about fifteen months my Helen, here, was born. She grew finely; and I doubt if there were many happier homes anywhere than ours was. But, alas! our sunshine did not last. True, the clouds at first were not dark enough to obscure our heart happiness, still they were clouds, and heavy ones.

"George had gone largely into business, depending upon father to help him if he should get into a close place. Indeed, father had encouraged him to do this; but just as he was about to avail himself of the offer, word came that through some unfortunate speculations, together with a heavy indorsement for a friend who had failed, and left the debt for him to pay, my father had lost his splendid property, and had become a poor man. One of my brothers came forward and saved a small remnant of what had been so ample, but the other two were still at home, and what little they had saved went in the general wreck. The shock was too great for one who had never known aught of poverty, and poor father sank under it. Mother went to reside with the brother before spoken of, but she tarried not long. The loss of property, I believe, she could have borne, for she was a woman of great fortitude, but of a deep, strong, affectional nature; and when father left, and soon after brother Henry was accidentally killed, under circumstances that were particularly painful, she sank under the accumulation of grief. It was more than her frame, already weakened by disease and years, could bear.

"I thought I should go wild with grief; but I saw that something troubled George, and I strove to be as cheerful as possible on his account. Finally he came to me one day and said, 'Amy, darling, I might as well tell you all. I must bring my business to a close. I can go on no longer. I may possibly save a few hundreds, but that will be all, and we shall have to leave here with comparatively nothing, go into some new place, and start anew.' 'I can bear it,' said I; 'anything, if you and the children are left me.' Eloise was then about six months old; Helen five years. George had struggled on two years after father's death, and he could struggle no longer. I said that the clouds at first were not dark enough to obscure our hearts' happiness. They were light compared with what followed. I loved my parents, I loved my brother; but the love I felt for them was as nothing compared to that I bore my husband; and looking back, all clouds seem light compared with the one that overshadowed my life when he was taken from me; but I anticipate.

"Mr. Merrill made a statement of his business to his creditors, and told them that if they would leave things in his hands, so that he could dispose of them without sacrifice, they should lose nothing, or next to nothing; but if not, there would be loss, and he could not prevent it.

"They trusted to his honor, and left him to dispose of his goods at the best advantage he could. Every creditor was satisfied, every debt was paid, and we saved just one thousand dollars. With this money we moved to Rochester, bought us a little home, and my husband went to clerking again; and I tell you, Mrs. Reid, I never was prouder of him in my life than then; for had he not been honorable?—had he not come forth like gold tried in the fire, with not only name but conscience untarnished?

"We were happy in our new home, for I cared not for wealth, so that my husband and children were with me; so you see that the clouds had not even yet obscured the sunlight of our hearts. A year sped away a year of blissful content, and then the thunderbolt fell, and the lightning reached my heart. My husband sickened and died, and the light went out of my life. I would have gone too, but my children held me—my children, his children, and for his sake I must live and care for them . There were no debts, and George, when he bought our little home, had it deeded to me; consequently there was no court or law to step in and interfere with me. It was mine, and no one could take it from me.

"So you see I had a home, but what should I do for a living? How should I support myself and children? I would sooner have died than part with them. I had no resources but my own hands and brain, and I set to work. I commenced taking boarders. I had some nice things that we brought from New York, which I sold, and bought plain, substantial ones to put in their places. I sold my gold watch, my best jewelry, and two of my best dresses, and also Mr. Merrill's clothes, for I knew that if he could see me and know what I was doing, nothing could please him better than to have all that belonged to him used for the benefit of his family. With the money thus obtained, together with a hundred and twenty-five dollars that was due to him from his employer, I put up an addition to my house, giving me more rooms, and soon I was in a condition to take ten boarders, and make them comfortable.

"Helen was in her seventh year, and Eloise about two years old, and with the help of a small girl to wash the dishes, and a woman to wash and do what else she could one day in a week, I did the work for ten boarders for six months. Then, finding that I should break down if I did not, and that I could afford it, I hired a good strong girl to take my place, and took care of the children, and did my sewing myself. And this I kept up six years. I then married Mr. Taylor, the father of my little Mary. I had been acquainted with him about a year, he boarding with me a part of the time. He was not willing that I should continue to toil as I had done, so I gave up my boarders for a while, and he supported us with labor. I say labor, for he had not means, only his salary as head clerk. Having been out of health a great portion of his life, he had never married, and never accumulated property.

"We lived very happily together for about three years. He was very kind, and his love and sympathy were far better than living alone; but my trials were not ended. At the end of that time his old disease,—that with which he had suffered so many years, and had finally believed cured,—came back upon him with redoubled force. He was taken with bleeding at the lungs, and after six months of suffering he went hence, and I was again a widow.

"I went back to my old business of taking boarders, and kept it up till some seven months since, and then, as some of my old neighbors were going to Cincinnati to make themselves a home, I sold my place and started to go with them. I came as far as Cleveland, when Eloise was taken sick, the journey proving too much for her. I stored my things in a warehouse, renting a single room for a month, and, taking such things as would make her comfortable, moved into it, intending to go on as soon as she got fully rested and able to travel. But she became very sick; and when she was at the worst, and so weak that I knew the least excitement might carry her off, these tract distributors came to see me. They were not distributing tracts then; but some one had told them of my child's sickness, and they came, seeming fully impressed that I was an object of charity, and would be thankful for whatever crumbs they chose to offer.

"I was full of anxiety for my darling; my heart was sore with grief lest I should lose her; and their manner was so patronizing, it seemed to me insulting, so I don't suppose that I was very gracious; and besides, I never did believe in their hell-fire religion, my parents being Universalists. They took it for granted that I was a hardened wretch, who rejected God's mercy, and seeing the condition Eloise was in, seemed to think it their duty to save her if they could do nothing for me, so they began to talk to her about dying, asking her about Jesus, and other things of the kind, and I had absolutely to forbid them saying anything to her, to tell them I would not have it, ere they would desist; and then they left, filling my ears with warnings of the wrath to come. Eloise became so excited from the scene that I feared for her life; but by giving her as strong an opiate as I dared to, I at length got her quiet.

"And this was my first experience with those who are now distributing religious reading through your city, and they have been the bane of my life since."

"How so?" asked Mrs. Reid. "I do not see why they should wilfully injure you."

"Well, wilfully or not, they have injured me by their mean, suspicious, and slanderous tongues, till I feel sometimes that I cannot forgive them, even if God does."

"Forgive us, as we forgive those that trespass against us."

"True; but one cannot always feel that. I am not like you, Mrs. Reid—I wish I was. You are the only woman that has treated me as a Christian should since I have been in the city. Do you believe in their three Gods, their election, and their hell-fire?"

"I cannot say that I do; at least, not as these things are generally understood."

"I thought not."

"I know many good people who do."

"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Taylor; while Helen asked, "Do you not think that such a belief has a tendency to make people hard and unfeeling towards those who differ from them?"

"It may," said Mrs. Reid. "I never have thought much upon that point; and still it must be so, for how else can I account for the cruelty of this professedly Christian nation towards the black race?"

"What else could you expect from those who believe that God from all eternity elected some to salvation and left others for damnation? What else could you expect but cruelty, not only to the black race, but to all who do not come within the pale of their sanctified circle? But to continue my story. Eloise gained but slowly, and I saw that she was not going to be able for some time to stand a journey of three hundred miles by the slow process of canal travel, so I rented a cottage on —— Street, took my things from the warehouse, and concluded to make myself as comfortable as I could there.

"I had been there about six weeks, when those women came again, and this time they were distributing tracts. Stanford, the owner of the house, had just been there, and his manner had been such that we were exceedingly annoyed thereby, so much so that I resolved to leave as soon as the month was up. They seemed surprised to find me there, and, feeling bitter, no doubt, as they remembered my want of submission to them on their previous call, came immediately to the very worst conclusion they could possibly arrive at.

" 'You seem much improved in your condition since we last met,' said the elder lady, glancing about the room.

" 'My child is some better,' I replied.

" 'Glad to hear it; but I was not thinking of that particularly. You seemed to be needy before, and that was what induced us to call; we think it a Christian duty to see that the poor do not suffer, especially when sick. Now, however, you are well situated, with all the comforts of life about you. To what shall we attribute the change?'

" 'To what you please,' said I, for I was vexed at their impudence. Their manner said more than their words; still I did not dream of what they were insinuating. I had passed through much, but my character had remained untouched, and I never once imagined that aught could be brought up against me in that direction.

" 'To what we please!' she repeated. 'We should be very sorry to think anything wrong.' They had already told their business, and seemed to be selecting such tracts as they thought would suit my case. 'We should be sorry to think anything wrong, but circumstances are against you.'

" 'What do you mean?' I exclaimed.

" 'It is plain enough what we mean. Your beautiful daughter, and your changed circumstances, changed from that poor, scantily furnished room to this beautiful, well-furnished cottage, belonging to one of the worst libertines in the city, and he leaving here just as we came in, and with the air of one who belonged here.'

"I was dumb with astonishment. I do not believe I could have spoken to save my life."

"And yet, a few words of explanation right here would have saved you much trouble," said Mrs. Reid. "We need to be wise as serpents, as well as harmless as doves. Had you quietly told them of the mistake they had made that you had just learned the character of your landlord and wished to find another house, asking them to assist you in the matter, you would have turned the tide in your favor. Ah, Mrs. Taylor, with all your independence of character, I find you do not understand human nature."

"Not the nature of wolves in sheep's clothing, I confess, Mrs. Reid, and I do think that these extra religious ones are the most impudent people upon earth; and as to doing what you speak of, I could as easily have died as to stop to make explanations, and ask the assistance of those who had so grossly insulted me. As I was saying, I was struck dumb with astonishment. They took my silence as evidence of guilt, and proceeded to warn me of the terrible consequences of sin, and to tell of the mercy of God that would be extended to those who turned from the error of their ways. They were proceeding to say more, but something in my look must have startled them, for they broke off abruptly and left. I don't know what I should have done if they had not."

"They didn't forget to leave their tracts, though; but I made short work of them," said Helen.

"Yes, Helen put them into the fire before the women were fairly out of the house. I tried to check her, but she was too excited to listen. I should like to have looked at them, just for the sake of knowing what selections the Pharisaical hypocrites had made."

"Ah, Mrs. Taylor," said Mrs. Reid, with a smile, "you will never be happy so long as you entertain such feelings. Bitterness of spirit is incompatible with true peace of mind. Why not pity their weakness and self-conceit, and let them go at that?"

"That we may do, Mrs. Reid, when not affected thereby; but when we are so situated that they can sting us to the soul, it is quite a different thing. I know that there are not many like you, but I doubt if even you could have borne it with perfect equanimity."

"Perhaps not. I have borne much, however, in my time."

"Let me see this was on Monday," continued Mrs. Taylor; "and the next evening a young man by the name of Holden came and invited Helen to go to a party with him the following night. She went, and was treated in such a manner that he was obliged to bring her home again."

"Where did Helen become acquainted with this young man?" asked Mrs. Reid.

"O, he was one of Eloise's friends; she always attracts every one to her. He had been to Albany on business, and came in the packet with us from Rochester to Buffalo, and there we took the same steamer for Cleveland. Well, the attraction between him and Eloise was mutual; she thought there was no one like him, and when taken sick she could not bear to have him out of her sight for a moment. I expected to go to Cincinnati, as I told you, and still intended to go on when we parted with Mr. Holden at the landing. I thought the child would be better off on the lake; but she grew worse instead, and I was obliged to remain. Soon after we moved into Stanford's house, Eloise, having so far recovered that she could go out a little, the girls met their, or rather her, old friend—for Helen had barely spoken to him on the boat on the street, and Eloise was so delighted that, child-like, nothing would do but that he must go and see where we lived; thus the acquaintance was renewed. We found that we were near neighbors. The young man brought his sister to see us, promised that his mother would call, and things were going on very pleasantly till those women came around. From that time everything was changed. The young man went to New York city soon after, and with the exception of an occasional letter to Helen, the acquaintance was entirely broken off."

"Yes, mother," said Helen, "and the last letter I wrote him, telling him that I was not willing to keep up a correspondence, with his family feeling as they do—it was last week, you know—well, I had it in my hand, with two or three other letters, on my way to the office, when I dropped it. I should not have known it, only some one who was walking behind me saw it fall, and called to me. Upon turning about, I found myself face to face with these very women."

"Did they read the address, think you?" asked Mrs. Taylor.

"I think they did; indeed, I am certain they did; and had they known who it was that dropped it, I don't think they would have called to me at all. I believe, from their looks, they would have kept it as it was, had they had time to think before I took it."

"I wish they had kept it, and given it to William's father, for then they would have known that you are not seeking to entrap their son. Yes, I wish they had; it would have been much better than now, for those saints will be sure to inform the Holdens, and it will make trouble; you see if it don't, now."

"You say," said Mrs. Reid, "that from the day these women called at your house last, the pleasant relations between your family and the Holdens ceased. What reason have you for thinking that they had anything to do with it? You have been complaining of them for drawing conclusions without a proper understanding of the facts in the case. Are you sure that you are not running into the same error?"

"Helen, my daughter, are you willing that Mrs. Reid should see the first letter Mr. Holden wrote you after he left the city?"

"Certainly, mother; I will go and get it."

The letter was brought, and put into Mrs. Reid's hands. There was nothing in it but what one friend might write to another; but the portion that most particularly interests us was as follows:—

"I can never forgive myself for subjecting you to the insult you received on that never-to-be-forgotten evening. Strong in my consciousness of your innocence, I thought I could protect you, and make others see as I did; but you see how miserably I failed. But I am most vexed when I think how the reports against your fair fame originated. I always did hate those long-faced, sanctimonious people, who are always talking of man's depravity and God's mercy and goodness. As for the mercy and goodness, I can't see it, if their doctrines are true. As I was saying, I always did hate that class of people, for if you fail to accord to them the certain degree of deference that they demand of you in virtue of their saintship, they are as cruel and vindictive as they represent God to be to the finally impenitent. Well, my folks seemed well pleased with you till these tract distributors came around and filled mother's ears with a long story of charitable conclusions drawn from certain facts, put together to suit themselves, to wit: that Stanford—the old sinner—had boasted of his 'pretty bird,' and that they had found you in a miserable room, with scarcely any furniture, the first time they saw you, and the next time you were in that nice cottage, with everything comfortable about you, and Stanford just leaving the house. Now mother does not pretend to be a Christian; but she always accords those who do a certain amount of respect that keeps her in favor with them, and she is particularly sensitive in regard to the honor of her family; so when I came home she began to upbraid me with keeping such company, and above all for taking my innocent sister there. This made me angry, for I had seen enough of the world to know that you were as innocent as beautiful. Would to Heaven you were less beautiful, for then you would not excite the envy of cross old maids and ministers' mothers! Perhaps it is not just according to etiquette for me to tell you this, and I would not did I not know that you and your good mother have been cruelly wronged, and I believe the most of it has been caused because you would not kiss the Pope's great toe, in the form of modern Protestantism. Yes, I became angry, and in a spirit of defiance invited you to that party; but Heaven knows that I would sooner have cut my right hand off than to have taken you there had I supposed it possible that you could be so cruelly insulted. One thing is sure, however: I shall never see a tract distributor without hating him."

This was all that had any bearing upon the subject in hand, so I make no further quotation.

Mrs. Reid handed back the letter without a word of comment, while a look of triumph from Mrs. Taylor said as plainly as words could have spoken it, "You see that I have evidence in the case."

After a moment's silence, Mrs. Taylor resumed: "I thought my poor girl's heart was broken. She wept incessantly for two days; but she had not borne enough yet. On Saturday of the same week Stanford came back. This time he did not stop at hints, but came out boldly with his infamous proposition; offered a price for my child; and when rejected, with indignation, said that her character was gone now, and she might as well be his in deed as in name; and when peremptorily ordered from the house, left vowing vengeance. This was on Saturday evening, and on Monday morning, just as I was preparing to go out to look for another house, a gentleman called and asked to look at the place, saying he understood it was for sale. He looked over the house and yard, talked with Eloise of the book she was reading, asked what books she liked, and managed in one way and another to prolong his stay, till I began to be impatient for him to leave; still he was so gentlemanly and respectful that I could find no excuse for dismissing him. I noticed, however, that he was one of that class of persons who have their eyes open; keeping boarders so long made me somewhat observant, and I saw that he was studying us without seeming to do so. I saw also that he had not made known the real object of his call. At length he said to me, 'Madam, I hope you will not consider me intruding, but do you know the character of the man to whom this house belongs?'

" 'I have recently become aware of it,' I replied.

" 'How?'

" 'In a manner that leaves no possible room for doubt.'

" 'Pardon me,' said he; 'I should not have asked you that question, but if you will permit me to be frank with you, I will acknowledge that my excuse for calling here this morning was a feigned one. I am bad enough, Heaven knows, but I have never yet been guilty of betraying innocence; and my advice to you is to leave this house as soon as possible. Reports are in circulation prejudicial to you; but they don't deceive Ben Wilson. I have seen enough of the world to be a good judge of character, and I know that you do not deserve the name they give you. I called for the purpose of learning for myself whether these things were so. I am satisfied that they are not; but Stanford is utterly destitute of principle. I know him of old. He is not only a libertine, but a malicious, vengeful one. He seems to have an especial spite towards those he takes a fancy to, if they hold out against him. I have known of more than one poor girl who has been made desperate, and at last fallen into his power, through reports that he first set in circulation against her. I tell you he will stop at nothing; therefore I advise you to leave this house as quickly and as quietly as possible.'

" 'Thank you, sir,' said I, 'for your advice, but it is uncalled for. I was just preparing to go out on that very errand.'

"He seemed confused at the promptness and quietness of my reply, but rallying therefrom said, 'Madam, I know I am a villain for intruding myself upon you, and especially as I acknowledge the motive was not a good one; but when I learned my mistake, I desired to make all the recompense in my power for ever daring to think ill of you; and now I most humbly ask your pardon, and hope, for the sake of that sweet child,—turning to Eloise, who had been absent during the latter part of the conversation, and now re-entered the room,—I hope, for the sake of this child, that you will permit me to be your friend, for I feel that I can learn lessons of virtue from her innocent face.'

" 'The past is forgotten,' I replied, touched by the earnestness of his manner, 'and the future depends upon yourself.'

" 'Thanks, a thousand thanks, madam; I will see that you have no cause of complaint,' said he, bowing himself out. I then started on my tour of house hunting, and succeeded in finding this little cottage, where I have since lived in peace.

"It being near the church, Eloise can go to Sabbath school, and sometimes to church once a day. Helen and I do not go, for, as I was saying, the minister's mother is one of those who made me so much trouble, though they say he is a good man. As warm weather comes on, Eloise seems better, and I hope after a little to be able to leave the place. Warm weather always seemed to agree with her better than cold, and that is one reason why I left Rochester last autumn. I knew that the climate was milder in Cincinnati than there; but, poor child, she was not strong enough to go through, and so I was obliged to remain here. Could I have known how it would be, I should have staid where I was."

"Do you ever hear anything from the gentleman you last spoke of,—the one who advised you to leave Stanford's house?" asked Mrs. Reid.

"He calls occasionally, and brings Eloise books to read. He seems kind-hearted and respectful; but I do not encourage him, and so he comes but seldom. I should not permit him to come at all but for her sake. But the child is lonely; she has not been used to so retired a life, and she hails his visits with delight. Then he always brings her something to read, and his selections are excellent."

And here comes in the conversation related in the last chapter, when the return of Eloise puts a stop thereto, and Mrs. Reid, after having soothed her to sleep, returns home.

Mrs. Reid had been trying to induce Helen and her mother to go to church with her, and at length succeeded in obtaining a promise that they would go on the Wednesday evening following the Sunday that she had spent at their house. Eloise was so much better than usual that for the first time she was permitted to go out at night, and together they entered the well-filled church and listened to a fine discourse from the Rev. Mr. Schoolcraft, given especially to the young, and more particularly to the young converts who had recently been gathered into the fold.

He painted in glowing colors the snares that beset the feet of the young, and especially the young men of our large cities. "Daughters," said he, "are more particularly under the eye of the mother; but our young men go forth to breast the storms of life, and the seductions of vice meet them on every side; bright eyes and sparkling wine, and all the allurements that appeal to the senses; and while all need the grace of God, surely our young men need it in an especial manner, if they would keep their feet from falling and their souls from sin."

William Holden's mother and sister were there, but they brushed by our little company in haughty silence; and Mrs. Reid noticed that whenever the minister spoke of the temptations that beset young men, scores of eyes were directed towards where they sat.

"I never realized," said she, to Mr. Whitney, the next day, "what it was to be under the ban before. It made me sick and faint. I do not wonder that the outcast is seldom, if ever, reclaimed; the manner in which society meets them is enough to sink them to the lowest hell of degradation. Why, I would not go through another such ordeal as that of last night for anything; that is, nothing but a sense of duty or the hope of doing good could induce me thereto. It is worse than working for the slave."

"You believe them innocent, do you not?" he asked.

"I do."

"And you yourself was acting under a sense of duty, or rather a desire to do good?"

"Most certainly I was."

"Then you have not half estimated the difficulties under which the outcast lies; for instead of conscious innocence and a noble purpose to sustain them, they have the added load of guilt to bear."

"Yes; and God help them, for man will not."

"Rather say, woman will not; for if ever so innocent, and they get the reputation of being otherwise, the more a man tries to do for them the more it injures them."

"But woman does not pull them down; she only puts her foot on them after they are down, or are supposed to be," replied Mrs. Reid, with some spirit.

"Woman is sometimes man's most efficient aid in dragging woman down, Mrs. Reid," answered Mr. Whitney.

"Not till she has herself been first degraded by him. I know that woman is cowardly, and sometimes cruel to her own sex; but her reputation is her all, and she knows it. Were she treated as leniently as man is, even by your sex, it would be different; but with the man is power; he controls the whole machinery of society; can do about as he pleases, consequently can afford to be generous. When your sex pleads superiority over us in that respect, it makes me think of the generosity of the southern chivalry, compared to that of the northern laborer. One is called whole-souled and generous, because another earns his money for him, and he hardly knows how he gets it; the other, close and small in his dealings, because having every dollar to earn by the sweat of his own brow, he knows just how it comes. Reputation, virtue, as the world styles virtue, is cheap to you, but to us it is not. The old adage expresses it correctly; I remember reading it in the old-fashioned spelling-book, so long ago as when I first learned to read: 'Man tarnishes his character and brightens it again, but if woman chance to swerve from the strictest rules of virtue,

With this state of things to contend with, I think it hardly fair for man to boast of his lenity, when compared with that of woman. Why, the highest men in the nation, many of them, are guilty of that which, had a woman been guilty of the same, she would have been sent to Five Points instead of Congress."

"Hold, hold, Mrs. Reid, and I will give up beat!" said Mr. Whitney, laughing. "Your arguments are just, and I only wish there were thousands like you, to advocate the cause of your sex."

When Mrs. Reid returned home at night, she found the minister's mother, Mrs. Schoolcraft, waiting for her; and after the usual salutations were over, the lady began:—

"I called, Mrs. Reid, to see what your idea was in coming to church last night with those women?"

"What my idea was? Why, I supposed you held your meetings on purpose for people to attend; and I think it the duty of a Christian woman to ask her neighbors to go with her to the house of God."

"And so it is our duty to encourage the humble penitent, wherever found; but there is a limit to all things. There comes a time, the Bible says, when even the Spirit, God's Holy Spirit, ceases to strive with the rebellious."

"Have we a right, Mrs. Schoolcraft, even if this be true, to decide when it has taken place?"

"Perhaps not; still we have our reason, and must judge something from appearances; and these women seem perfectly hardened; their conduct is shameless, and it is a disgrace for any decent woman to be seen in their company."

"Had you seen them weep, as I have, you would hardly call them hardened; and what have they done, Mrs. Schoolcraft, to merit the appellation of shameless?"

"What have they done! Why, isn't it well known that Stanford, one of the worst libertines in the city, kept them for a while, and then becoming offended with him, or he with them, I don't know which, they took up with Ben Wilson, a man of the same stamp, only he has no family to be disgraced thereby! They stole away from the cottage that Stanford provided for them the very next day after Ben first visited them, and have kept themselves so sly that he never knew where they were till yesterday."

"How did you learn that?"

"Mrs. Holden told me last evening. Stanford told her husband so yesterday."

"And how did he happen to learn where they were at last?"

"Why, you see, Holden's folks have a son, who is perfectly infatuated with this girl; she has made him believe that she is purity itself; she evidently designed to entrap him into marriage. They sent him to Mrs. Holden's brother's in New York city, in order to break up their acquaintance; and now it is ascertained that they are corresponding."

"How did they learn this?"

"Well, you see, sister Crowell and myself were out distributing tracts last week, and we saw a lady just ahead of us drop a letter. We called to her, to let her know of her loss; picking up the letter at the same moment, we found that it was addressed to William Holden, and as the person turned to take it, we saw that it was this very Helen Merrill. It seemed providential, for now Holden's people will be on their guard."

"And so you told Holden's people?"

"Certainly; I thought it my duty."

"Would it not have been more providential had you kept the letter and given it to them? They would then have known just what the girl was writing."

"I should have done so had I thought quick enough; but as it was, I could only inform them what I had discovered."

"And where they lived," continued Mrs. Reid, with an imperturbable coolness that somewhat disconcerted her visitor, in spite of herself.

"Yes, I told them where I saw Helen go in soon after."

"And was that the way that Stanford found out?"

"Through the Holdens? Yes. Holden himself is a rough, good-natured sort of man, and meeting Stanford yesterday—he says he loves to tease the old scamp—well, meeting him yesterday, he says to him, 'Hello, Stanf, have you found your women yet?' 'What women do you mean?' he replied. Now this is what Holden told his wife, and she told me last night. She would not have thought of it, probably, had she not seen them at church. 'What women do I mean? Now only hear the man,' said Holden; 'he has so many he don't know who I mean. Why, the pretty widow, with her still prettier daughter, who slipped away so quietly.' 'What! the one your William was after? Ha ha! it was a rich joke to hear the boy rave about her innocence. No, I have not found them, neither do I care to; I have had all of their company I want.' 'What, both mother and daughter?' said Holden. 'Yes, both,' replied Stanford; 'I don't want anything more of them; but where has Ben stowed them away? I understand he has them now.' There, Mrs. Reid, what do you think of that? Isn't it horrible to have such characters around?"

"If you mean such men as Stanford, I say yes. I think it horrible that such men should be allowed to run at large, and more especially that a Christian woman should take aught that such a wretch can say as evidence against any one."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Reid? Do you intend that as a reflection on me?"

"I mean just what I say. I am astonished at hearing a Christian woman repeat the slurs of so vile a wretch in evidence against one of her own sex, and as for Mrs. Taylor and her daughter, I believe them pure, so far as what they are accused of is concerned, notwithstanding all that has been said against them."

"Why, Mrs. Reid!"

"I do, Mrs. Schoolcraft, and am prepared to give my reasons; but first let me give you a little of my own experience as to the maliciousness of unprincipled men. You know that I am rather independent in my nature, advocate what I think is right, whether others think so or not."

"I know that you have suffered and sacrificed much in the cause of the poor slave, and I honor you for it. Would to Heaven that all our women were as earnest in this matter; the curse of slavery would soon be swept from our land."

"That is true, Mrs. Schoolcraft; were all the women in our land to unite in any one cause, they could make their influence so felt as to accomplish the desired object. But there are other slaveries than that of the black man. Woman is herself a slave, and if she dare to go contrary to the established usages of society, no matter how innocent and praiseworthy her object may be, she is soon made to feel her chains. Soon after Mr. Reid's death, I accepted an agency that required me to travel. I was poor. He had devoted his life to the cause of the oppressed, and we were left without means. Woman's employments are anything but remunerative, and I felt it my duty and privilege, if I could, to do something by means of which I could earn enough to support and educate my remaining child comfortably, so I took a step somewhat, or I might say entirely out of the ordinary track in which woman is accustomed to travel. I said I accepted an agency; I should have said solicited, and with difficulty obtained the position. Stopping to canvass a little village in the central part of the State, I boarded a few days at the public house, and one night at the table the anti-slavery question was introduced, I, of course, defending the abolitionist. The landlord also kept a store in a small way, and it so happened that the man whose business it was to furnish the country merchants with ready-made men's wear, from a wholesale clothing establishment in the city, was there that night. He was very warm in his opposition to me, and became somewhat excited when some of his arguments were too readily answered to suit him. Some three months afterwards he chanced to come to another village where I was stopping, and learning that I was there, he took occasion to have his petty revenge. 'Mrs. Reid?' said he, with a contemptuous sneer; 'I know all about that Mrs. Reid that I wish to.' The conclusion of those who heard him was that I was a vile woman, and the report went through the village like wildfire; and had I kept a proud silence, as Mrs. Taylor has done, I have no doubt that I should have been driven from the place; but a little prompt action, and the forcing of the gentleman to an explanation of what he meant, by the means of the strong arm of the law, soon put a different aspect to affairs."

"And were you really strong enough to face such an accusation and defend yourself?" asked the minister's mother, in astonishment.

"To be sure I was. Why should I not defend myself as well as another? I should stand by another to the last, if I thought them wronged; and for my child's sake, if not for my own, it was my duty to do myself justice. Besides, it taught that man and that community a lesson, and should another woman go there, intent upon her own honest business, they will be a little more careful how they listen to or circulate reports against her. So you see that I not only defended myself, but left my footprints there,—

" 'I know all about that Mrs. Reid I wish to.' These were the words the man used, and the community pays him just the compliment he wishes them to, to wit; that he is a sensual man, and therefore the only interpretation that can be put upon such an expression is that the person alluded to is vile. I have no doubt that many a vile man can say of a virtuous woman that he knows all about her he wishes to, simply because of her being virtuous, and consequently of no use to him."

"Mrs. Reid, you ought to have been a preacher."

"Perhaps so; and yet it would be contrary to Paul's instructions."

"Well, a lawyer, then."

"I think the day will come when women will preach and plead law too; but let me give you a little more of my experience. I went to one place where people seemed quite shy of me at first, but after a while I gained their confidence, and things worked so pleasantly that I staid several weeks. One day my landlady said to me, 'Mrs. Reid, were you acquainted with a family of Johnsons when you came here?'

" 'In this place, do you mean?' I asked.

" 'Yes.'

" 'No, ma'am; I know no one here but Mr. Peircy. I met him at his brother's, in Monktown, and it was through his influence that I came; but I have met a Johnson somewhere in this place, and I cannot recollect where. O, I know now; it was at Mr. Warner's, the other evening.'

" 'That is not the one I mean,' she replied; 'he is Mr. Warner's brother-in-law, and a very fine man; but there is a family of Johnsons living opposite to where the old tavern was kept. They are very low people, the woman especially; and when you first came here it was reported that you met him on the corner near Burke's store, and talked with him half an hour, and the conclusion was that you were old acquaintances; but as I have seen nothing to find fault with in you, I concluded it must be a mistake.' And now, Mrs. Schoolcraft, what do you suppose that story was started from?"

"I am sure I cannot tell. Some of your eccentricities, I suppose; something like your going with those women to church last night."

"Well, all I could ever find it started from, was this: The first day I went into the place, after getting a little warm, I went to the post-office for my letters, as I had ordered some directed there. The directions were given me where to go, but I got a little confused, turned the wrong corner, and stopped at the place the lady named, that is, by Burke's store, and inquired the way of some one who stood there. He stepped just around the corner, and pointed out the place I sought. I did not then know, and perhaps never should have known who he was, had not the landlady's question, and the story she told me in reference to it, led me to make some inquiries, and I learned that that man was the Johnson referred to. I might tell you several more incidents, Mrs. Schoolcraft, to illustrate the question in point, to wit, the unreliability of these flying reports; but these will be sufficient, and such experiences have taught me a valuable lesson; consequently I never judge till I have heard both sides of the story—particularly where a woman's reputation is concerned. What would you think, madam, of a judge who should listen to the evidence against a prisoner, and then remand him for punishment without hearing the defence?"

"I should call him a very unjust judge, Mrs. Reid; but I see what you are aiming at, and I think it hardly fair for you to make me condemn myself. You think I have judged Mrs. Taylor and her daughter without hearing the other side of the question."

"Well, have you not?"

"Perhaps I have; but I have not intended to be unjust, and where was I to go for evidence? A woman as vile as circumstances compel me to believe that she is, would hardly stop at a falsehood when necessary."

"Suppose we dissect some of those circumstances, and then see if you will feel compelled to believe as you have done. In the first place, you found her with a sick child, in a poorly furnished room, and you concluded from that circumstance that she was very destitute."

"Who told you this?"

"She told me herself."

"How did she learn what my inferences were?"

"From a letter that William Holden wrote Helen."

"Did you read the letter?"

"I did; and he accuses you of being the first one to make trouble between his family and them."

"Me!"

"Yes; he says that you and Miss Crowell came and poisoned the minds of his parents and sister by the inferences that you drew from circumstances, and he feels very bitter towards you for it."

"Better feel bitter towards me than to be drawn into a snare—to take a step that he would always regret."

"Well, as I was saying, you inferred from what you saw that she was poor, and she tells me that she sold her house in Rochester for fifteen hundred dollars, besides some money that she got for extra furniture, such as she did not wish to bring with her. She started to go to Cincinnati, but the sickness of Eloise prevented her going on with her friends, but as she hoped to proceed in a few days, she did not wish to bring all of her things from the warehouse. It became too cold for her to travel ere the child became better; she then rented a house, and decided to stay till spring, and then she, of course, had her furniture brought up and put into it. The fact of her leasing a house of a bad man was simply her misfortune, not her fault."

"And do you believe the story she tells?"

"Why not?"

"It may be true, Mrs. Reid—I hope it is. I am sorry to believe evil of any one; but people think that she has told this to cover her conduct."

"I know it to be true so far as the furniture is concerned, for I have been to the warehouse, examined the books, and find names and dates just as she told me; find that she did leave her things there for a time, and that she took them away just when she told me she did."

"Well, you are a wonderful woman, I must say. Who but you would have thought of taking such a course?"

"I am sure any one ought, before taking upon hearsay that which, if true, destroys the reputation of a fellow creature; and true or false, the effects are the same, so long as believed to be true."

"But why did she not tell us this when we called? We would have been glad to assist her, but she repelled us."

"Mrs. Taylor is a proud woman, naturally reserved, and does not give her confidence readily; and the very fact of your believing her destitute made your offers of assistance offensive, in that your manner touched her pride."

"Yes, pride is pretty sure to bring trouble. I consider it one of the deadly sins."

"And yet, Mrs. Schoolcraft, we are none of us free from it."

"I know we are all miserable sinners before God, and so much the more need that we should be humble; for my part, I can't see why our offers of assistance should offend the woman."

"It ought not to have done so, but it did; some people are very sensitive on this point, and nothing touches them quicker than being considered objects of charity. I presume we all have our weak points. Besides, her child was very sick, and her anxiety a mother's anxiety—might well be pardoned for forgetting to be as social as at another time."

"Yes, the child was very sick, poor lamb! I feared she would never be any better; but God has willed it otherwise; but when I attempted to talk to her of Jesus and heaven, the mother peremptorily forbade it; and how could I believe her other than a wicked woman?"

"She did this because she feared that if the child was excited it would make her worse; and besides, she has been brought up a Universalist, and does not see these things as you do. She had no fears for the child's future, and did not wish her disturbed."

"Yes, and that is enough to condemn her; a person who believes in no future punishment, thinks that the sinner goes to heaven as well as the saint—how can we expect such to be good? For my part, I think those who teach such doctrines should be indicted as destroyers of the public morals, and kept in confinement."

"And doubtless they would, were all of your opinion; but we live in a country of religious freedom, and such things are not allowed."

"Why, you don't believe such teachings right, Mrs. Reid?"

"I do not believe the sinner goes unpunished; but I have had some acquaintance with the Universalists, and I do not find them so much worse than other people. My grandfather, on my mother's side, was a Universalist, and an excellent man."

"Well, it may be so; but for my part, I can't see how any one can believe such a doctrine and be good. I can't believe, after all you have said, that these women are good; we cannot all have been so mistaken."

"They must have grown bad very suddenly then; they were considered good people when they left Rochester."

"How do you know that?"

"I have written and ascertained. I received two letters from there this morning, and they corroborate what Mrs. Taylor and Helen have told me at different times, and speak of the family in terms of the highest respect."

Mrs. Schoolcraft was confounded. She looked at Mrs. Reid as if she had no power to utter another word. She managed at length, however, to ask,—

"Does Mrs. Taylor know of this?"

"She does not; neither does she know that I went to the warehouse and ascertained the facts in reference to that; but I intend next Sabbath to have these letters read in church, as an especial piece of good news, and I have no doubt that you will all hasten to undo the wrong that has been unwittingly done to this family."

"Why, Mrs. Reid, you will not do that!"

"Why not? The wrong has been a public one, and why not make restitution publicly?"

"Perhaps you are right; but I must go home, it is getting late. Good night, Mrs. Reid," and the lady left, evidently more chagrined at being found mistaken, than rejoiced at learning that a sister woman was innocent of the great crimes imputed to her.

Eloise had never seemed better since they left Rochester. Mrs. Taylor and Helen were joyful in their anticipation of soon leaving the place that had been to them the scene of such bitter experiences. The month was up the following Monday, and then they would start for the city of their original destination.

'Twas thus they talked and planned on that very evening in which the conversation above related had occurred at the house of Mrs. Reid. 'Twas thus they talked and planned, but they saw not the storm that was approaching. They had lived so quietly, minded their own business so thoroughly, that their immediate neighbors scarcely knew of their existence. Good Mr. Whitney had accidentally learned their place of abode, after leaving Stanford's cottage, but had said nothing further than what we have already related of his conversation with Mrs. Reid, and had it not been for those women with their tracts, they could have left the city in peace.

These charitable souls, however, were so filled with righteous indignation that they could not restrain their tongues from utterance, and so they horrified the good people of the place with the information that they had a vile woman, or rather two of them, in their midst.

The story of young Holden was repeated with variations, till every mother looked upon her son as devoted to certain ruin if these creatures remained in the place.

Husbands and sons laughed at their fears, but this only exasperated them the more. Groups were seen conversing here and there, anxiously asking what should be done. They supposed there were such women down in the heart of the city, but that they should come into the suburbs, and settle down among decent people, was altogether too much to be borne.

Stanford, who had panted for revenge ever since he was so summarily dismissed from their presence, sent one of his female friends up into the neighborhood, in order to spy out and report. On returning to him with an account of the excitement people were in, he hired her to go back and represent herself as a great sufferer on account of Mrs. Taylor and her daughter; they having decoyed both her husband and son by their snares. And this woman, once virtuous and good, but who had fallen a victim to Stanford's too well-laid plans, and, losing all self-respect, had since become the agent of his will, actually performed the part assigned her so well, that a company of quiet, well-to-do wives and mothers were raised to that pitch of excitement that they went to Mrs. Taylor's house and pelted it with stones and rotten eggs.

And while the inmates were trembling with fear, Eloise having fainted from terror, the police descended upon them and took the whole family to the station house, to answer to the charge of disturbing the peace. It was too late that night to investigate the matter, consequently they must remain in custody till morning.

"This is the work of those Christian women who have followed us with their persecutions ever since we came to the city; and may God reward them accordingly," said Mrs. Taylor, in the bitterness of her spirit. Helen was silent, and the wretched mother continued: "Yes, may God reward them accordingly; they are murderers! they have killed my child. Eloise will never recover from this."

"O, mother, don't say that," fairly shrieked Helen, while sobs shook her entire frame.

"Don't cry, sister," murmured Eloise, faintly; "I shall soon be better."

Every sign of emotion was suppressed almost instantly. They could do anything for her dear sake. They had believed her unconscious, and finding that she was not, they grew calm in a moment, while Helen, stooping and kissing her, replied, with a smile, "Yes, darling, you will soon be better."

"Thank you, sister; now don't cry any more; God and the angels will make it all right. Kiss me, mother; I am tired and want to sleep;" and with her head pillowed upon her mother's breast, she sank away into a condition of unconsciousness, that seemed more like death than sleep. Little Mary lay in one corner of the room on a temporary bed that had been prepared for her. She had cried bitterly at first because she could not have her own bed; but childhood soon forgets, and now she was sleeping soundly.

But there was no sleep for Helen or her mother. All night long they watched over the pale sufferer, and when morning dawned, the mother knew that it would soon be over. The mother knew this, but Helen could not, would not admit the terrible truth; she could not give up her darling sister.

When the hour arrived for the keepers of the peace to look into the cause of the previous night's disturbance, not an accuser was there; but Stanford was on hand, and with a hypocritical smile, stepped forward and offered to go security for the ladies, and pay all costs if they could be set at liberty.

"I have no doubt," said he, with an insulting look towards them, "that they have their friends; but I have never found them inclined to make trouble, and I think the excitement of last night was wholly uncalled for."

"Hold, wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Taylor, with flashing eyes; "wretch! hypocrite! You have caused this, and you know it; and you think by this means to accomplish what you have failed to do otherwise. I will not accept your offer. I would rather rot in prison than to fall into your power."

"Come, come, now!" he replied, with the same smooth smile, "it isn't worth while to hold anger; perhaps I have neglected you, but I am willing to make all right, and I can't bear to see you here."

"Great Heaven," murmured the wretched woman, "will no one protect me from these insults?"

"Here comes one who will protect you, no doubt," said Stanford, with a sneer, as Ben Wilson appeared on the scene.

"Yes, I will protect them with my life if necessary," he replied. "Sir," he continued, turning to the officer in charge, "I demand the instant release of this family; there are not two better, purer ladies in the whole city."

"Very devoted lover," sneered Stanford.

"Silence, or I will wring your worthless neck for you," thundered Wilson; then, turning to the justice, he added, "Ben Wilson is bad enough, God knows; but he has never been guilty of circulating false reports of a woman, out of revenge, because she resisted him, as that miserable puppy has done in this case."

"You must be careful how you conduct yourself, Mr. Wilson, or we shall have to commit you for contempt of court," said the justice.

"Will you permit me to be sworn?" was that gentleman's prompt reply.

"Certainly."

The oath was taken. "Now, sir, I shall recollect that I am under oath, and must speak nothing but the truth."

"Nothing but the truth," responded the justice.

"Well, then, gentlemen, some four months ago I became acquainted with these ladies. Through the insinuations thrown out by Stanford, and from remarks that were made by a couple of women whose business it was to go through the city and find out what they could of other people's business,—pardon me, sir, I did not intend to say that,—whose business it was to go through the city and find out the religious condition thereof, and to distribute tracts to both saint and sinner; through these two sources I inferred these ladies to be of a very different character from what I found them to be. I made an excuse to call on them; motives none of the best, it is true; but, your honor, I found such an atmosphere of purity there that I could just as soon have approached an angel right out of heaven with anything like disrespectful familiarity. They never encouraged my visits; still, I have called occasionally, for I felt a better man in their presence: and particularly was I attracted to that sweet child who lies there so still and pale, so much like the angel that she is, that one forgets even the thoughts of sin in her presence."

The sound of his voice had aroused Eloise, and when he said this, she fixed her eyes upon him with a bright smile, and said, "I shall be with the angels soon."

Tears rushed to the strong man's eyes, as she said this, and bowing hastily, with "I am done, sir," he left the stand.

Two other parties now appeared upon the scene in the persons of Mrs. Reid and Mr. Whitney. After pressing the hand of Helen and her mother, and kissing the lips of Eloise and little Mary, Mrs. Reid requested permission to say a few words. She then gave a short history of her acquaintance with the family, and of the circumstances which had prejudiced people against them; stating further what she had done to remove these suspicions and the result. When she spoke of going to the warehouse books to confirm that part of Mrs. Taylor's story, the stony look of despair which had settled upon the poor woman's face began to give way, and when Mrs. Reid referred to the letters she had received from Rochester, and at the same time producing them, both mother and daughter wept such tears as are a relief to the overcharged heart.

Wilson listened with a countenance expressive of so much joy that one expected momentarily to hear him burst out with "Hail Columbia," or "Hallelujah;" but Stanford slunk away like a whipped cur.

A carriage was provided, and the wronged family were taken back to their home; but it was evident that its most loved member would soon be beyond the reach of earthly troubles. Indeed, she seemed beyond them already, so calm and happy was her frame of mind. Her perfect trust in the Infinite was beautiful to behold.

"God and the angels will make it all right," was her only reply to all that had occurred. "They were with me last night, mother, the beautiful angels, and they made the prison a palace."

Towards evening she asked to see the minister, and he quickly responded, his mother coming with him. Mrs. Schoolcraft had thought much since her conversation with Mrs. Reid on the previous evening, and as much as she desired to justify herself in the part she had acted towards Mrs. Taylor, when she compared her course with that taken by Mrs. Reid, she could not fail to see the difference. But what she felt most keenly was the fact that she was the minister's mother, and, as such, should have been first in defending the innocent, instead of being found among the maligners. What would people say when they learned the facts in the case? She found herself in an awkward position, and was glad to lay hold of anything that would help her out of it, so when Eloise sent for her son, she offered to go with him.

When Mrs. Taylor saw her coming, a spasm of agony passed over her face. "O, I cannot have that woman here," she murmured.

"Yes, mother, let her come," said Eloise.

The child did not ask who; she seemed to know instinctively. Mrs. Taylor had not intended the words for her ear; but it was impossible to keep anything from her; her quickened senses took in all.

"Yes, mother, let her come, I want her," and so the mother schooled herself to bear for the sake of her child.

Eloise extended a hand to both, greeting them with a smile. "I am most home," said she. "I wanted to see you both before I went, and I am glad you have come. Mother and sister tried to keep everything from me that they thought would make me unhappy; but I have known more of things than they supposed. It would have troubled me to have my good mother and sister misunderstood so cruelly; but something kept saying to me, 'God and the angels will make it all right.' "

"Taught of God," murmured the minister reverently, while Eloise continued:—

"You have wronged my mother, Mrs. Schoolcraft, and my sister, too; but you were always kind to me. I feel that you did not intend to wrong them, so I am sure they will forgive you."

The proud woman was completely broken down, and, as the tears streamed from her eyes, she extended her hand to the stricken mother. Mrs. Taylor shrank from taking it, but the eyes of her child were upon her, and she could not refuse.

A satisfied smile played over the features of the dying. The whole company were in tears.

"O, Miss Eloise," sobbed Wilson, "when you get to heaven, tell my sister Mary that her brother Ben will try to meet her in peace."

Eloise cast her blue orbs, radiant with the light of that heaven he was speaking of, full upon him. "O, yes, you must come; we could not do without you." Then, turning to her minister, she said: "I wanted to thank you for all the beautiful things you have taught me, but the angels are coming and I must go. Mother, sisters, friends, they have come for me. I shall wait for you all. Good by." And without a struggle the beautiful eyes were closed forever.

The funeral was held in the little church where Eloise was in the habit of attending. Mrs. Taylor at first objected; but Mr. Schoolcraft said, "We ask it as a favor, madam. You and yours have been cruelly wronged, and do not deny us the privilege of making all the reparation in our power, by thus publicly testifying our respect," and so she consented that it should be as they desired.

The tide that had so long set against this unfortunate family had now turned, and it rose as high in the opposite direction. The church was filled to the overflowing, and again the minister spoke from the words, "And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these three is charity;" and this time the seed fell not among thorns, for the fallow ground had been completely broken up. There was not a dry eye in the house, and Mr. Schoolcraft, in parting with Mrs. Taylor, said,—

"Madam, what you have suffered here—the wrongs that have been called upon to bear— has made a deeper impression upon the minds of this people, will be productive of more lasting good, than all of my preaching for a year past."

The body of Eloise was not laid in the Cleveland cemetery, but in an air-tight coffin, and packed in ice, and on the following morning, instead of starting for Cincinnati, as she had hoped, the bereaved mother went with the beloved dead and her remaining loved ones on board a steamer on her way back to Rochester, where the dear remains were deposited beside those already resting there: and now we will bid them farewell.