Gordon and Fanny Wilber's home-with the little boy now, that should have been to it a charm of harmony-had only glimpses of clear sky between clouds of continual storm. Fanny would thoughtlessly say some taunting thing, and Gordon's impetuous nature, growing daily more uncontrollable, would thoughtlessly rise to resent it; bitter words would follow; and long days of sullenness would succeed, terminated at last by his acknowledgment, in words or actions, that he had done wrong.

Thus the suit of selfishness was prosecuted, and plaintiff and defendant became less and less reconcilable as the suit went on. She never doubted that he was blamable, because he generally confessed it; and he deemed her so, because she never confessed. How soon this state of affairs might have severed the ties of home, and estranged man and wife forever, had it not been for the simple prattle of a little child!

"Mamma," said little Frank Wilber one morning to his mother, after she and Gordon had quarreled, and the latter had gone out, "don't you love papa?"

his; and she saw how a little disinterested love might have prevented all their inharmony and unhappiness, and how it yet might bring back peace to their home. To see all this, with so affectionate and truly good a heart as Fanny Wilber's, was to resolve to be better and do better. Fanny brushed away her tears, and looked glad, as she formed the resolution. Then, with the sweet resolve in her heart, she bathed her face, and cheerfully set about her household duties.

When, at a late hour, Gordon returned for dinner, far from mollified from the mood of the morning by the unpropitious business transactions of the forenoon, Fanny and little Frank were at dinner, as it was nearly the hour for him to go back to school. Gordon's selfishness came uppermost, and this, added to the memory of the morning, fired him instantly.

"After the first table have done, I suppose I may be permitted to eat my dinner," he began. "I can wait. Vulgar people who marry above their condition in life must learn to labor and to wait,' I presume Longfellow meant. I have labored, and I have waited; but I am used worse and worse every day; and, Mrs. Wilber, if you imagine I will put up with this state of things

"Because he says ugly words to me, my child," answered Fanny, filling up with a strange emotion. "But he never says them to me, mamma; and I am sure he couldn't; for I love him so well that I should keep kissing him when he tried to; and then he wouldn't say any thing but 'My own little boy,' and kiss me back again, you know, mamma.”

Fanny took the pretty child to her bosom, and almost smothered him with kisses, and wet his face with her tears, weeping all the while aloud. | Poor child, he cried, too; but he did not know for what; and if he had asked his mother twenty times more earnestly than he did, she could not have told him. At length, with the great drops chasing down her cheeks, she fixed him for school, kissed him again and again, and sent him away. Then, shutting herself in her room, through all her blinding tears she saw herself as she really was; she saw her husband irritable and violent, but generous and yielding; she saw how all the concessions had come from him, and how selfishly she had forgiven him when she herself had most needed forgiveness; she saw how almost all the provocations had proceeded from herself, trivial though they were, yet enough to rouse so impulsive a temperament as

under a grand mistake. My patience is about exhausted. I don't intend to endure your pettishness and insulting behavior any more. Now, hold your tongue, woman! I don't want to hear one word from your lips, and I won't!"

pour

While Gordon, leaning forward in his chair, with burning face and flashing eyes, was thus ing out his passion as rapidly as his breath would permit, Fanny felt the hot blood rush up once and throb in her checks; but the sweet, imploring look of her boy, whose eyes were swimming in tears, bade it back; and then she sat as meek as her little child, and waited till her husband would let her speak. He, fresh from his excitement, and sullen with the aversion he felt toward his wife, had no disposition to eat; and he turned his chair to the window, and sat gazing out in silent bitterness. Now Fanny rose and noiselessly glided to where he sat with his back turned toward her. Without giving him any other warning of her presence, she softly stole round to his side, and, putting her arm gently round his neck before he knew she was there, laid her soft cheek against his, and murmured, in a tremulous, broken voice,

"Dear husband, won't you forgive your poor little Fanny, and love her as you used to do?"

The man, whose heart but an instant before

had been cold iron giving out sparks to flinty selfishness, turned to his wife with a look of speechless astonishment, and then, leaning his head against her bosom, gave way to a loud and uncontrollable burst of anguish. His spirit was subdued to the tenderness of a babe's; she could lead him now to the end of life with a thread of air. "O, my dear little Fanny, how could I be so cruel!" was all he could speak for a very long while. The defendant was utterly lost; both were plaintiffs now; not plaintiffs of each other any more; plaintiffs of self now.

When they could find voice again, with little Frank between them on the sofa-glad little Frank, who had now learned what he and his mother were crying about in the morningGordon and Fanny Wilber told each other all how willful, how wicked, and how unhappy MYSELF had been; and resolved all how forgiving, how harmonious, and how peaceful ourself should be; and repeated, and could not stop repeating, all how they loved each other now more fondly than before, how each would live for the other always thereafter, and how selfishness should be banished from their hearts forever. And so now there is not a better husband, a better wife, a happier family in all the land, than you may find at the pleasant home of Gordon and Fanny Wilber.

TALK WITH THE SEA.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

I SAID, with a moan, as I roam'd alone,
By the side of the solemn sea,

"O, cast at my feet, which thy billows meet,
Some token to comfort me!

Mid thy surges cold, a ring of gold

I have lost, with an amethyst bright;
Thou hast kept it so long in thy casket strong
That the rust must have quenched its light.

Send a gift, I pray, on thy sheeted spray,
To solace my drooping mind;

For I'm sad and grieve, and must shortly leave
This rolling globe behind."

Then the Sea answered, "Spoils are mine

From many an argosy,

And pearl-drops sleep in my bosom deep,

But nothing have I for thee."

"When I mused before on thy rock-bound shore,

The beautiful walked with me

She hath gone to her rest in the church-yard's breast,

Since I saw thee last, thou Sea!

Restore! restore the smile she wore

When her cheek to mine was pressed;

Give back the voice of the fervent soul That could lighten the darkest blast." But the haughty Sea, in its majesty, Swept onward as before,

Though a surge in wrath, from its wrecking path,
Called out to the sounding shore,

"Thou hast asked of our King a harder thing
Than mortal e'er claimed before;
For never the wealth of a loving heart
Could Ocean or Earth restore."

THE HEART-HARP.

BY NANNIE CLARK.

HEAR'ST thou that strain of sadly wailing music,
Whose trembling notes fall gently on thy ear,
Reminding thee of some sweet minstrel singing
Between a radiant smile and trembling tear?
'Tis like the whispering of the autumn breezes,
Just floating o'er the beds of faded flowers,
And softer far than Eolia could waken

From her sweet harp, 'mid amaranthine bowers. Sweet trembling heart-harp! once thy strings did vibrate

To the clear notes of wild, impassioned bliss; And the bright angels-Hope and Joy-that tuned thee,

Made vows of love, and sealed them with a kiss. But, ah! full soon a stranger hand swept o'er thee, And gone fore'er were those gay tones of thine, And from thee broke a low and mournful wailing, And sadly sweet, yet seeming half divine. Sorrow had come; and happy, bright-eyed Joy Affrighted grew, and ceased her gladsome lay, And, bending one fond look on Hope beside her, Clapped her bright wings and lightly soared

away.

And now while Sorrow sings her saddest numbers, Bright Hope sits by with holy, upturned eyes; With Sorrow's notes her own she sweetly blendeth, And sings of Joy and bliss beyond the skies.

NEVER GIVE UP.

BY ALICE CARY.

FLY not ignobly, threatening harm,
Nor by vain courage be misled,
Trusting the serpent's power to charm
Ere that your heel be on his head.
But in the hour of evil chance-

And hours of evil chance will fallStrike, though with but a broken lance! Strike, though you have no lance at all! No matter what the odds may be,

The utmost strength you have, assume; Life's barest possibility

Is brighter than the bravest tomb.

THE

LIGHT AT HOME.

HE heart that answers not gushingly to the following description of an Eden-home must be depraved, indeed:

Where congenial creations meet here in a true holy relation, the children thus born are the flowerings of Eden, as John Neal has said, "the cryptogamia of the sky." Lovingly the heavens brood over the roof-tree. Earliest in the morning, Hesperus beams in golden bright through the lattice, and aslant his rays glide down the fingers of angels, each sliding with lute-like melody to bless the morning dream. More gladsome and more powerful angels use the sharp, warm rays of the sun, courser-like, and they enter in and move here and there with a great joy, making glad every thing within the precincts, magnetizing all within into happiness, so that the discords and turmoils of the world without are forgotten or unknown.

All day they come and go-they move in what men call sunshine athwart the carpet, they dance like a golden ball through a crevice in the cornice, and adown the garden walk they march in bright battalions. They stir at the curtain; they press the bud, and it blooms; they kiss the fountain, and it is a rainbow; they even touch the strings of the harp, and it gives out one note so heavenly sweet that you turn round, and look and wonder whence it came; then the pendants of the chandelier click, and the birds give out melody, and the baby smiles in the cradle, all because of the loving angels who come to the household, just as they go to any heaven where love is.

Ah! the garments wax not old there; the moth and rust of discontent mar no line of beauty there; birds and blossoms cluster there; white doves coo from the eave-tops, and the trees lean away from the roof lest their great branches shut out the sunshine, and the blue sky, and the loving stars that brood over. Fair children creep to the threshold, and look out wondering, yet gladsome, as if they looked first out into the great world from the heaven of home-they shrink inward again, but at length they bound over the door-sill away, leaving the sunlight upon the door, and stealing inward, inward, to where lies the Bible upon the table, and a mother's pure brow lifted in prayer.

Onward, onward, casting but few and transient glances backward, they go; but at length sickness comes, and they long for the dear old home; sorrow comes, and they see the sunshine streaming as of old through the open door, and falling

upon the sacred word. But the mother is an angel now, and they long to return to the dear old home. Then passion, and change, and tumult, shake the man mightily, and he rests not day nor night till he, too, sets up the altar of home, and calls the angels to enter the tabernacle he has built. Woman, thou art the angel of home. Go, look not into thy gilded glass, but look down into the clear, bright fountain which gave back thy face in childhood. Art thou an angel of light, causing sunshine over the sill? or of darkness, brooding like a raven wing over the family altar?

DARK AT HOME.

N contrast to the above, the following is set

you wish, reader, ever to see your home the reflection of it?

The morning star sends down his angels into the abode, but it is already filled. Discord is knotting the cruel nerve, and making deep the harsh wrinkle. Wiry, mischief-loving spirits prompt the blow-loving hand, and whisper and gibber malicious, envious, and jealous dreams into the sleeping ear. The sun glides jubilant into the window; but he is repelled by damp, noisome images lurking within. Snake-like creatures keep ward and watch. Moles, and bats, and moths, and reptiles silently destroy. Dark vines darken the lattice. The raven and the night-owl have usurped the roof. Obscure rappings and mysterious movements fill the space more with terror than with awe. The child in the cradle cries sharply, for his holy guardian contends with the black spirit which would force him away. Children creep to the threshold, and look into the great unknown world, but it looks less terrible than home, and they creep forth, willing to encounter the worst. They look backward, but there is no sunshine on the sill, no brooding love-angel there. Sickness comes, and the cold charity of the stranger is welcome. Sorrow comes, and the "silver cord" which binds together the great human family draws him into the circle, and owns him brother. Passion and crime pluck at the miserable man, and there are no memories of holy wisdom to say "remember;" no prayer rising like a cool incense between the scorched heart and heaven, and he battles the world alone, weak and unaided, for home was no home for the spirit. Woman, look to it. This is thy work—this blood is upon thy skirts.

I

LIFE SCENES AND LESSONS.

BY REV. J. W. WILEY, M. D. SAT a few days since by the bedside of a pious but lowly and afflicted child of God. For many months she had been confined to her bed of suffering, and had not only endured the pains of disease, but also the discomforts and anxieties of poverty. Her name in better and happier days had been entered on the registry of the Christian Church, and stood now enrolled on its poor list, and she had frequently received of its charities. Formal relief had thus been ministered to her immediate necessities as they arose, and the kindly visits and ministrations of some of her neighbors, but little raised above herself in the goods of this world, saved her from actual want. Money had been placed in her hands the tea, the sugar, the arrow-root, the sago, and the little indispensables of the sick chamber, had been provided for her; but one thing had been lacking during these months of suffering and confinement; and how much the want of even one thing will annoy the poor and suffering, and mar the enjoyment of even the comforts which are possessed! The little food that the varying appetite had craved to nourish a sinking body had always been given, but there had been provided no food for the mind; and the craving appetite of the pious soul, seeking for Christian communion, and longing for fellowship with kindred minds, had only been met by the occasional and brief visitations of those appointed over the administration of the Church's charities-visits which, like those of angels, to quote a familiar expression, were few and far between.

One kindred spirit, not on errands of charity, but of kindness and love, had found, and as frequently as possible visited this stricken child of her Master. She was blessed of the Lord as the bearer of peace and strength to this afflicted disciple, and the return of her visits was looked for by the sufferer with much more interest and anxiety than for those of the formal almoners of charity; for she brought light, and peace, and strength to an anxious and aspiring soul, while they only brought bread for a feeble appetite and sinking body. But ill health and a pressure of other duties had long prevented this messenger of peace from visiting her friend, and the lonely sufferer was left to the communion of her own thoughts, and to draw upon the resources of her own mind for encouragement and strength. No wonder her spirits drooped, and her faith began to decline; for the exercise of faith, too,

depends much upon circumstances, and is greatly aided by means.

One of those strange seasons of doubt and darkness which not unfrequently, and sometimes most inexplicably, visit the children of God, came upon this suffering disciple; and after struggling with the tempter through two dreary days and sleepless nights without receiving light or comfort, she at length sent for her friend. She came, and the communion of kindred spirits-both touched by the love of God, the one light, and free, and full of faith, but the other drooping and weighed down through manifold temptations-the interchange of thoughts and feelings, the mingling of hearts and voices in prayer, soon gave wings to the faith of the desponding sufferer, and she soared above the adversities, the pains, the mysteries of the present, and rejoiced in hope of the goodness and glory of God.

On the following day the writer sat by her bedside, and listened to the story of her lonely sufferings and tedious confinement; but was most of all interested in the manner in which she spoke of the blessed services of her friend who had ministered to her in holy things. With a voice tremulous with emotion, and tears coursing down her pale cheeks, which disease had thinned and chiseled out with a ruthless hand, she spoke of the visit of the previous day-of how the clouds broke away, of how her fears were dispelled, of her faith mounting up as on eagles' wings, as they talked and communed together of God, and the Savior, and the better world above. "O," said the sufferer, "she seemed like an angel of light—like a messenger that the Savior had sent, as he sent Ananias to Saul, to instruct and comfort me." "Do you not think," she inquired, "that God often sends his children to the poor, the suffering, and the tempted, as the instrument through whom he imparts comfort and faith?" My heart responded affirmatively, for I thought "we are laborers together with God;" and I remembered that “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep ourself unspotted from the world." And I remembered, too, that the Savior had said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." And then I thought how many a sick chamber might be made light, how many a home of poverty might be cheered and blessed, how many broken and sorrowful hearts might be bound up and healed, how many a drooping, suffering Christian might be comforted and strengthened,

Two years ago his wife sunk beneath the weight of cares that had come upon her, and was relieved of the burden of a sorrowing life.

Not many days ago there was a loud ring at the door-bell, just as we had sat down to dinner. The bell was answered, and we heard a rough voice in the hall ask if "the preacher" was in. The speaker seemed to be in a hurry, and was unwilling to wait till we had finished our meal. Our visitor was a poor drunkard, whose soiled and tattered garments, bloated countenance, and trembling hand, proved that rum had enslaved and impoverished him, and his loaded breath betrayed his recent debauch. He was accompanied by a little girl, about thirteen years of age, whose forlorn appearance needs no other description than that she was a drunkard's child. "I have come to sign the pledge," was the first word spoken by the wretched man, as he grasped our hand and burst into tears. "I am a poor, miserable creature that have been trying for four months to drown my sorrows with liquor, but find that it is only adding fuel to the fire that burns within me."

Poor fellow! he had, indeed, been a subject of affliction and a man of sorrows. Twelve years ago, with the companion of his heart and life and three pledges of their wedded love, he left England, the land of his birth, in humble circumstances, but full of hope that in the land of liberty and equality his strong arm could earn the means of support for his little family. He brought with him his credentials of membership in the Church of Christ; but, as is too often the case, even with these he found he was a stranger in a strange land, and that the reality of a life in

the new world was quite different from the golden dreams and anticipations he had of it when at home. Ten years had passed away in struggling with adverse circumstances, meeting with and enduring the many disappointments and reverses which come upon the friendless and portionless stranger, on whom we too often look with suspicion because he is unknown, and for whom our sympathies too often move slowly, because he first saw the light and breathed the air of heaven in some other land than ours. During this time, by first losing confidence in man, he lost his hope in God, and thus lost the only sure anchor to the soul that is given to the poor.

children fell, and in a few months another, and about four months since his first-born, just rising into womanhood, was removed from the scenes of a sad and dreary life, leaving him alone-0, how much alone!-with the last of his demolished household, the little girl that accompanied him. The strokes were too heavy, and he sank beneath them. He had lost the only principle that would have sustained him in these sore bereavements, and he sought to drown the remembrance of them in the drunkard's cup. Four months of almost perpetual intoxication could not stay the pinchings of want, nor drown the memory of his loved ones, nor crush the aspirations of a deathless soul.

"I have come to sign the pledge, for I find that rum only adds fuel to the fire that burns within me;" and then he added, in words that reached the heart, and that have been recurring to my thoughts again and again ever since, "Excuse me, sir, but I have come to you, because I find that no one will come to me." I heard his story; I wrote him a pledge and received his signature; I listened to his earnest prayer to God that he might be able to keep that pledge; I saw him place it-signed by his own name, and, at his request, witnessed by mine-in the hands of his little, ragged child, and heard him say, with the big tears coursing down his rough cheeks, "There, Maggy, I have done it, and I will stand to it; keep this, and if your father is ever again tempted and should fall, show him this that he may see his shame and dishonor;" but still the words that had gone before would recur to my thoughts, and have made the most vivid impression of all on my mind-"I have come to you, because I find that no one will come to me."

True, poor drunkard, no one comes to you. We do not forget you; we have temperance societies, and temperance meetings, and make temperance speeches; we labor faithfully and hard to secure prohibitory laws, and to remove temptation out of your way; but we do not come to you. We do not visit your wretched hovel; we do not sit down in your rum-blasted home; we do not take you by the hand, and administer encouragement in your adversities, comfort you in your sorrows and bereavements, affectionately urge you to abandon your homedesolating, body-paralyzing, and soul-destroying habit, and strengthen you by our countenance,