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Locked in his melancholy lodging, sits
And meditates, or walks the room by fits,
And writes his everlasting sad farewells
To those he loves, until the Christmas bells
Peal joyously upon the stormy air-

Peal sweet and clear, and through the tumult bear

The golden tidings of the reign of Peace.
"For Love is born: let wrong and sorrow cease!
Sorrow no more! hope evermore !" they ring;
"Hope evermore! love evermore !" they sing,
To all the world; and all the world is blest:
To all the world but one, for whom no rest,
No respite from despair and anguish, save
A shameful death and a dishonored grave.
And after death? He will not pause to think:
Resolved to leap, why falter on the brink?
Folded his letters, with a strangely steady,
Cold hand he seals them, and now all is ready.
He reaches for the vial at his breast,
And finds instead, forgotten in his vest,
The little book placed there some hours ago.
The leaves fall open in his hand, and, lo!
Before him, like a flaming sword that turns
All ways, once more the fiery sentence burns.

Turn back, turn back; it is not yet too late:
Turn back, O youth! nor seek to expiate
Bad deeds by worse, and save the hand from shame
By plunging all thy soul into the flame!

He started to his feet, dashed down the book,
And to and fro across the chamber took
Quick frenzied strides; then hurriedly prepared
The deadly draught, and in the mirror glared
At his own spectre, ghastly pale and grim,
With glass uplifted, coldly mocking him.
""Tis but a shadow, and what more am I?
Come, Nothingness! and, World and Life, good-
by!"

He raised the glass-the shadow did the same;
He closed his eyes, and suddenly, like flame,
Leaped forth the warning to his inner sight,
In living letters read by their own light:

Turn back, turn back; it is not yet too late.
Be it Charles Masters, Providence, or Fate,
Something has stayed his hand. From off the
floor

He takes the little book and reads once more.

When all is lost, one refuge yet remains,
One sacred solace, after all our pains;
Go lay thy head and weep thy tears, O youth!
Upon the dear maternal breast of Truth.
Still as he reads, the Christmas bells he hears,

And in their frozen sources start his tears.

Dismiss the evil counsels of Deceit,
Fling off the mask, and downward to thy feet
Let the false vesture of concealment fall,"
And, owning all thy wrongs, atone for all.
At every word he feels the searching steel
That probes the quivering heart, but probes to
heal.

Every false path, though fair and long it seem,
Leads some pit; and happy thou may'st deem
Thy wayward youth, whose lesson comes not late-
O fortunate, when most unfortunate!

So Allanburn, with soul absorbed, intent,
Reads on; and each prophetic word seems

meant

For his own heart; such broad bright wisdom shines,

Such swift conviction lightens in the lines. And all the while the holy bells are ringing, The spirits of the Christmas bells are singing, Filling the stormy world with hymns of peace. "For Love is born: let wrong and sorrow Sorrow no more! hope evermore!" they ring; cease!

Hope evermore! love evermore!" they sing. And all the rock of self is cleft and shaken; And deep within, sweet blessed springs awaken Of comfort and new courage, not to die This coward's death, and like a traitor fly The demons he has conjured, but to live, Strong in the strength which only truth can give.

II.-CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

And Maurice lived. And as a traveler-lost
By night upon some trackless prairie, crossed
By wind-driven, leaping flames, while ever nigher
Sweeps the red-maned wild hurricane of fire
With hoof of thunder and devouring breath,
And all the air is lit with lurid death-
Kindles before his feet the crisp dry grass,
And burns the path where he will safely pass;
And the flames die behind him, and the morn
Beholds him far on blackened plains forlorn:
But life is left, and hope; so Allanburn,
By frank avowal of his guilt and stern
Self-condemnation, quelled the rage of men,
Forestalled his foes, and won his friends again,
As 'twere, before he lost them.

Desolate

Fallen fortune and lost honor to restore;
And long the labor seemed, to re-instate
He kept the little volume by his side-
But will and heart were strong, and evermore
His savior once, and now his secret guide
And solace in the long ennobling strife,
Incarnating its wisdom in his life.

To lose with high endeavor is to win;
And they but fail who build success on sin,
Whose gilded walls of happiness shall stand
As baseless palaces on sea-washed sand.
Each day's experience taught him to construe
Its old dry truths with meanings fresh and new.
Be then thy conscience as the eternal rock,
Wave-buffeted, unmoved by every shock
Of roaring condemnation, hate, and wrong:
Set thou thereon thy pharos high and strong.
Thus as he played his arduous daily part,
He learned its lofty precepts all by heart.
Let two allied and equal laws control
Thy being-law for body and law for soul;
As the steam-chariot, with obedient wheel,
Flies safely on its parallels of steel.
Nor prudent virtues only; rising thence,
It taught him faith and wise beneficence.
Religion is no leaf of faded green,
Or flower of vanished fragrance, pressed between
The pages of a Bible; but from seeds
Of love it springeth, watered by good deeds.

So passed the whirling years, some nine or ten; | There waits the partner of his home and life,
And now the Christmas-time brings round again
Its innocent revels, and draws near its close,
When homeward through the city Maurice goes.
Tired Nature lets her starry eyelid down,
A wintry quiet falls on all the town,
A tingling frost is in the silent air,
His own breath whitens on his beard and hair,
As Allanburn, with homeward-hasting feet,
Awakes the echoes of the icy street.

The shops, on Christmas-eve ablaze with light,
Are closed and dark on this cold Christmas night.
But in the homes about him, Maurice knows

Their mother and (ecstatic thought!) his wife,
The ever-faithful Laura. Fondly there
His own good mother from her easy-chair
Watches the baby Maurice on the floor,
Upbuilding still, to see it fall once more,
His toppling house of blocks; or turns to smile
On little Laura by her side the while,
Bending in the warm light her glowing head,
Hushing her doll and putting it to bed.

The last house falls in ruins; in the box
Are packed at last the bright new Christmas
blocks;

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HIS OWN GOOD MOTHER FROM HER EASY-CHAIR WATCHES THE BABY MAURICE ON THE FLOOR."

What pleasure sparkles and what comfort glows:
The dance, the song and story, told or sung;
Smiles from the elders, laughter from the young;
Enraptured childhood with its pictured page;
The homely games, uniting youth and age-
Scenes which the curtained windows scarce
conceal:

And all the joys which friends and kindred feel
In that glad time-with sympathizing heart,
He seems to see and hear and take a part
In all; and now his eager fancy runs
Before to his own home and little ones.

The doll's asleep, the cradle put away;
And so the happy children end their play.
And in imagination now he sees
Two cherubs in white night-gowns on their
knees,

Mingling their curls before the mother's
chair,

Lisping with dewy lips their evening prayer.
How sweet the picture! Suddenly the past
Rises to dash it; and he starts aghast,
Seeing his own pale spectral image stand
Within a mocking mirror, glass in hand.

While thus amid his blessings he must think
Of perils passed, and shudder at the brink
Of one black gulf, the dark remembrance makes
What is seem brighter; as he sometimes wakes
At midnight from the hideous dream, to press
More closely his dear present happiness.

He hurries on with eased and thankful heart;
And of a sudden sees before him start
From a by-street the figure of a child,
A wretched girl in rags, who puts up wild
Entreating hands, and cries out piteously,
"Oh, Sir! who is there-who will come and see
My father? He is very sick! I fear-"
"My child, I will go with you. Is it near?"

And, comprehending what she scarce can say,
He follows where she quickly leads the way.
Down the by-street where red-eyed rum-shops
glare,

And with hot breath defile the evening air,

For know you who I am?-Sir, a lost soul !
Hear overhead Jehovah's thunder roll!
It mutters-do you mark it? Woe! woe!
woe!'"

Maurice replied: "I do not hear it so.

It says you shall be saved. For Christ is here:
In me He comes to bring you help and cheer,
For you and for your child."

"For her indeed!
And, Sir, I thank you; she has woful need.
But I am driven about the desert world
By my own burning; hither and thither whirled
Forever, a wailing, wandering ghost of sin,
Through regions where Lord Christ has never
been.

And yet I was a master once, and taught
Divine Philosophy; preached, wrote, and brought
Refreshment to some hearts, I verily think.
Now I am perishing for a little drink;

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Where pines pale Poverty, while Vice and Crime | And if you bear a charitable mind,
With lurid orgies vex the hallowed time;
Across a court and upward through the gloom
Of creaking stairs, she leads to a cold room,
Ill-odored with foul drugs and misery,
Where from his couch a man starts up to see
A stranger come.

"Art thou the Christ?" he cries;
And in the wan white face and wondrous eyes,
Where now the awful fires of fever burn,
Is something which recalls to Allanburn
Old Richard's book-shop and one long ago
White Christmas-eve. "Art thou the Christ or

no ?"

"Not I," said Maurice, as amazed he stood,
"But in His name I come to do you good."

"Idle your labor, if you be not He.
No Christ at second-hand will do for me.

As I must deem-for in your face I find
A certain eloquence-give me some gin.
You'll tell me that has been my special sin:
Not so: it was the world-consuming thirst
For fresher power and larger life which first
Fevered my soul; then, in the sacred name
Of Inspiration, sovereign Opium came.
In gorgeous dreams he stalks, the Lord of Pain:
Gin is a little page that bears his train.
In pomp before us to the feast he goes,
But ever, at the pageant's sorrowful close,
Puts off his robes of fantasy and dream,
And in his naked death's-head grins supreme.
"You're right: that little hunchback last held

rum ;

That other bottle smells of laudanum.
To purchase that my little girl was sent
Starved through the street, and our last coin
was spent.

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"Unhappy man! think you that I have come
With judgment to condemn you? What am I?"
Says Maurice, as he puts the bottles by,
And takes the sick man's hot dry hand in his.
"A fellow-man, to whom all miseries
Through his own sin and suffering are made
known;

Who censures no man's folly but his own."
"And have you kissed Temptation? in the cup
Of madness drunk all hope and manhood up?
I am more guilty; yet I am the same
Who once, and with some reason, bore the name
Of Genius; for my spirit, in my youth,
Explored all knowledge and conceived all truth.
And let me whisper it-I had a wife
Won from a pleasant home and gentle life:
A violet just opened in the air

Of the sweet May is not so sweet and fair.
And we were happy, and I loved her well;
And hers was greater love; and when I fell,
She strove with me, strove for me, and forgave

me,

And would have saved, if mighty love could save me,

"I dreamed just now that it was Christmasday;

And I saw troops of children at their play,
And you among them, and your little brother-
He had not died of hunger. And your mother,
All hope and happy smiles, was at my side.
And with unutterable love and pride
We watched and kept you ever in our sight,
And all was happiness and warmth and light.
You were not cold or hungry any more;

You were like other children. Then the roar
Of laughing fiends awoke me, and I saw
But do not mind. When I am gone, for you,
My darling shivering on her bed of straw.
My poor Fidele, the vision may come true.
I am too weak and ill. Now let me sleep.""
Then you'll forgive your father. Do not weep.
So saying, he sank back upon his bed.
And Maurice drew the child aside, and said,
"Have you no friends, no kindred, who should
know,

Nor other home to which you two can go?"
"My mother's friends; but they are far away.
They would have had me go to them and stay-
Forsake my father!" weeping, she replied.
"But mother left him to me when she died.
'Be good to him; be always good and true.'

Pleading with Heaven and men and me my That was her charge, and so what could I do?

cause.

They call him wicked. Oh, it is not so! But, good or wicked, this is all I know: He is my father, and has need of me."

But all my resolutions were as straws
That bind a sleeping lion when he wakes.
Why, Sir, for her and our dear children's sakes
To prudence I a thousand times was pledged;"And you do well," cries Maurice, cheerily.
And with that venom-thought the tooth is edged
Which gnaws me here. But now her sleep is
sound,

Under the buttercups, in the cool ground,

While I am burning. Where are you, my girl?

Fidelia! child! my brain is all a-whirl.
I can not see you well."

She nestles near: "Oh, father! don't you know me? I am here."

With feeble hand he takes her thin wan shoulder,

And for an eager moment seems to hold her
In his soul's steadfast gaze: he sees the sad
And patient little face which never had
Its share of smiles; small features, which should
be

All freshness, pinched with early penury.
And eyes-still like her mother's, tender blue,
Through every trial heavenly deep and true
In their affection-at this moment dim
With piteous tears, not for herself, but him.
He held her there, and fondly gazed, and smiled
With mournful pathos: "My poor orphan child!
You've had no parent since your mother died."
"Oh, father! I have you." But he replied,
"Your own good father died some years ago.
I was that father; but this man of woe,
Who chides, neglects you, makes your dear heart
bleed,

I pray you think it is not I indeed.

A father should have cherished this frail flower,
And nourished it in gentle sun and shower,
And kept it, with a father's manifold
Fond troubles, from rude winds and wintry cold.

"Your little heart is very brave and strong.
Now watch till I return; 'twill not be long."
Five minutes takes him to a coach; ten more,
And he alights in haste at his own door.
There busy hands in ample baskets pack
Fuel and food, and he is whirling back;
Finds a physician by the way;, and, lo!
Into that dismal chamber steals a glow
Of comfort. Kindlings crackle in the grate
The table beams with bounty, where of late
Only the rank-breathed empty bottles stood;
While in the child the sense of gratitude
For gifts that seem by Heavenly Mercy sent

Is lost in wonder and bewilderment.

"Eat, child!" But now beside the patient's bed
The doctor sits; and ere she touches bread,
Though from long fasting weak in every limb,
She trembling waits for words of hope from him.
As when an infant gone astray has climbed
Some dizzy height, and any act ill-timed
Of rescuing friends may cause its hold to miss,
And dash it down the dreadful precipice,
But slowly, step by step, with toil and pain,
The way it climbed must it descend again:
So this strayed soul has groped along the ledge
Of life-o'er-death, till at the very edge
He swoons, suspended in the giddy air;
And only tender love and utmost care
And all the skill which ever science gave
Can save him, if indeed even such can save.
The wise physician, seated at his task-
His kindly features moulded to a mask
Of calm grave thought, through which no faintest

ray

To kindle expectation finds it way

Counts pulse, and ponders symptoms, and pre- | The sick man groaned. "Talk not of books to

pares

The patient's powders, while the patient glares
Delirious; then takes leave; but at the door,
Seeing the child's eyes question and implore,
Puts off the doctor and resumes the man,
And speaks what comfortable words he can.
And now Fidele is pacified and fed.
She sleeps, and Maurice watches in her stead
Through weary hours; till, just as morning breaks,
The patient from a fitful slumber wakes,
But can not move for utter weariness.
"Fidele!" he whines, in querulous distress;
Sees the strange watcher there, and at the sight
Gropes feebly in his memories of the night
To find again the half-remembered face.
"Let the child rest; command me in her place,"
Says Maurice, pillowing the patient's head.
"Something I do recall," the sick man said.
"But solve me now the riddle if you can:
You are, I deem, a prosperous gentleman;
I, the forlorn self-ruined wretch you see,
Not worth your thought; and yet you waste on me
Your time and thought. We've met, I think,

before?

Nay, speak, or I shall only talk the more." "You are a man-enough for me to know I can relieve a fellow-mortal's woe.

But you are more to me than common men.
Once, twice, indeed, we've met ;" and how and
when

(To soothe his patient) Allanburn relates.
"That night the subtle circles of our fates
Appeared to touch; so that in memory
I've seen you still, and wondered what might be
Your fortunes since. Dark as they were that
night,

me!

If they could save, be sure I should not be
This burnt-out wick; but a lamp glorified,
Set in the windows of the Lord, to guide
Benighted souls, to cheer the tempest-tossed,
And show the Way of Life, which I have lost."
Quoth Allanburn: "All that you say, and more,
My author in his book has said before.
"Good books are pearl and gold; yet not of them
Is builded bright the New Jerusalem:
Hear thou thyself the Voice the prophets heard,
And shape in thine own life the shining Word.
"But now, we talk too much, and you must
rest."

In the pale face a vivid gleam expressed
Surprise, hope, doubt. "I had well-nigh forgot
That such a book was written. Is it not
Right Thinking and Right Living?"

Maurice cried,
"You know it!" And a look almost of pride
And joy into the strange bright visage stole.
"Thank Heaven, if it has helped a single soul!
Enough, O friend! But you are here to gain
A deeper lesson than its leaves contain;
Since he whose words can save, himself may be
Among the lost."

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Cries Allanburn, "at last to find you here?
My own were in a far more evil plight.
My benefactor! 'Tis not yet too late!
And I was saved-almost by chance it seemed-All that I have, life, happiness, estate,
So mere a chance that often I have dreamed
It was your path of life, not mine, it crossed,
And you were saved instead, and I was lost."
The other sighed, "No chance! Our destiny,
With its heaven-reaching branches, is a tree
Which grows from little seeds in our own hearts;
The elements strengthen, bend, or rend the parts,
And we are sound or flawed. My will was weak,
The very pith and root of all. But speak!"
"What was my chance or providence? A book,
Which from the counter carelessly I took-
A little faded volume, thumbed and old,
But to my life and need a BOOK OF GOLD."

I owe to you; and, help me, Heaven! I yet
Will pay some portion of the precious debt
In love and service to your child and you."
"I am repaid," Charles Masters said, and drew
A long deep sigh of peace. "You bring me
And almost make me feel that I am blessed.
rest,
Cherish my child-she has a heart of gold.
But all your prayers and patience can not hold
This bruised reed up, and make it grow again.
Seek not to keep my memory among men,
But set these warning words above my grave:
'OTHERS HE SAVED, HIMSELF HE COULD NOT SAVE.""

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