and when the man returns to his desolated

home, this is but the beginning of sorrows.

Any other affliction she would have shared with him. Had the victim selected by death been that little girl, the image of her mother, or that little boy, the picture of his father (both, alas! now motherless), then, side by side, she had accompanied him to lay away the little dust in the grave; side by side, she had knelt with him around the family altar, and responded with him to the bitter affliction, "The Lord gave; the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord;" side by side, they had resumed their pilgrimage toward heaven. There had still remained a sanctuary where his grief would have been no intrusion; one who could understand the peculiarity of his sorrows.

But the bitterness of this loss is for him to endure alone. After all that his many comforters can say, he turns away from them with the feeling that this sorrow cannot be shared; that this cup of bitterness he must drink alone: for the only heart to which he could unbosom his sorrow has ceased to beat; the only lips that could reach it are sealed in death.

Rankin.

SLE

SLEEP.

LEEP, pretty bairn! and never know
Who grudged and who transgressed.
Thee to retain I was full fain :

But God he knoweth best;
And his peace upon thy brow lies plain
As the sunshine on thy breast.

Jean Ingelow.

0

THE AGED MOTHER.

HAPPY child! to have an aged, infirm mother on whom you can expend that filial love and patience which are so amiable in the sight of men, well pleasing to God, and followed with such consolation and joy.

Nehemiah Adams.

XI.

THE MAGNET.

PERSUASION.

The loadstone peace to wrangling couples grants,
And mutual love in wedded hearts implants :
It gives the power to argue and to teach,
Grace to the tongue, persuasion to the speech.

THE MAGNET.

A PERSONIFICATION.

CHARITY suffereth long, and is kind; char

ity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

The Scriptures.

SHE

TRIBUTE TO A WIFE.

HE gently reclaimed me from dissipation ; she propped my weak and irresolute nature; she urged my indolence to all the exertions that have been useful or creditable to me; and she was perpetually at hand to admonish my heedlessness and improvidence. To her I owe whatever I am; to her, whatever I shall be. In her