APRIL 6 
THE WHISPER OF SPRING 
Who henrn the voice of death 
in the tones of nenliil Spring; 
In the sigh of the south wind’s breath. 
So merrily whispering 1 
Who does not welcome life 
In each budding tlower and leaf 
With hope and beauty rife, 
Reckless of care or grief? 
O who can dream of death, 
When merrily up there swells. 
Grey turrets underneath. 
The chime of Easter bells? 
Christmas mirth may wane 
At sight of u vacant place; 
But the loved ones live again 
In the Spriugtldo’8 laughing face. 
For Eart h Is never dead ; 
Though Winter's somber wing 
Wave her to sleep In snowy bed, 
She wakes again in Spring. 
And happiness lives on, 
And Joy succeeds to grief. 
As surely as wint er snows are gone. 
When bursts yon emerald leaf. 
So up. and Join the song 
Ye sang rntd Yule-tide dearth, 
Raise It loud and long 
In midst of Springtime's mirth. 
April passe* away: 
His showers ure like our tears. 
Giving place to golden May, 
As in all the by-past years. 
1 Ttrislrp's Muqazi tir. 
LOVE AMONG THE SHAKERS. 
Tiie day of confession came at last, and 
with it most, unlooked-for and terrible dis¬ 
closures. To the horrified amazement of 
the assembled eldressos, and amid our chok¬ 
ing tears, Sister Minerva went down “ into 
the valley of humiliation.” With a bitter 
struggle for composure, her dark eyes dila¬ 
ting, her beautiful face white and set, she 
confessed that the “ baneful poison of natu¬ 
ral love ” had crept, with insidious but giant 
strides, into her heart. What must have 
been her conviction of sin when, with the 
courage of despair, she admitted that Broth¬ 
er Ernest had absorbed all her thoughts for 
many months! She had borrowed his books, 
learned his language, talked to him, until, 
suddenly awakened and alarmed at the 
sympathy, congeniality and admiration 
which she felt with and for him, she would 
have fled from the pleadings of her own 
heart, if she hail had strength left to do so. 
Then, deathly pale and panting heavily, she 
took from hev bosom a packet of letters 
written to her by Brother Ernest, If they 
had been the price of innocent blood, Miner¬ 
va could not have cast them down with more 
vehemence before the ministry. 
With solemn emphasis the senior eldress 
spoke: “Let repentance have its perfect 
work. Read the letters aloud. Whom are 
they from?” 
Minerva had spoken so hurriedly and in¬ 
coherently that her lover’s name was not 
yet known. With quivering lips she was 
forced to repeat it. A beseeching look at 
Eldress Oraugia told her that the poor 
young sister prayed to bo spa red this ordeal 
of reading the letters; but not an iota of 
the cross could the eldress remove. She 
could only sadly whisper, “ Nay, you must 
comply.” 
And the whole correspondence was read 
and the answers confessed, word by word, 
as well as the sinning sister could remem¬ 
ber. One letter, written in German, she 
begged to have burned without reading. 
The eldresses, of course, were ignorant of 
the language, and looked undecided. 
“I will burn it here, right before your 
eyes,” entreated Minerva; and she took 
from a work-basket belonging to Eldress 
Philomel an old tinder-box and flint, a pre¬ 
cious relio once belonging to Mother Ann. 
With feverish haste she struck Are, and the 
next moment Brother Ernest's words of 
love were converted into the white ashes of 
her sacrifice. Think what a sacrifice, when 
there were pages of rhapsody such as this; 
“ My heart goes out to thee, my soul cries 
out to thee in yearning, passionate might! 
Life has become a dream! How can I think 
it a reality? 1 was once surrounded, in my 
fatherland, with beautiful, high-born wo¬ 
men, who had no power over my heart, and 
here I have yielded it wholly to thee, my 
enchantress—nay, my pure saint! 
“Oh, how vainly I strive against my pas¬ 
sion! Love at its wildest was never so un¬ 
tamed as the love of my undisciplined 
heurt; and yet it is pure, for I would not 
touch the hem of thy garment, nor raise 
mine eyes to meet the heavenly-pure bright¬ 
ness of thine, unbidden by thee!” Pages 
and pages like this, writton by a Shaker 
brother to a Shaker sister, in Wisdom’s 
Valley! Truly, the “natural affections” 
were a hydra-headed monster in that af¬ 
flicted vale about those times.— Galaxy. 
WTIyVT ONE WOlYIvYlSr DID 
BY I)E FORREST P. GUMMERSON, 
CHAPTER 1. 
“ It’s no use, Nettie ! I may as well give 
it up first as last. My strength is not equal 
to the work 1 have to do. 1 don't want, to 
complain, or make you feel sad, my dear; 
but when 1 look back and see what a great 
strong fellow I was when I asked you to be 
my wife, and then at, the wreck I am now, 
and how all the golden plans t hat we then 
made have come to naught, it does make the 
bitter crowd out the sweet of life and leave 
me completely stranded. If it were not, for 
you, my darling, and Birdie, 1 think I 
should be certain to yield some morning to 
the temptation of seeking rest in the 
smooth-flowing river which 1 cross each day 
on my way to and from business.” 
The speaker was Edward Sterling. 
Nettie was his wife. As he said, his 
strength was not equal to his work. Early 
in the previous winter he had been danger¬ 
ously ill with hemorrhage of the lungs, lie 
had partly recovered from this illness, but 
tho return to even partial health had been 
of necessity slow. lie should not think of 
returning to his business, the doctor had 
said—at least for some months to come. lie 
must return at once; the needs of his loved 
ones demanded it, and this ruled him. But 
the days dragged bo wearily on, and his 
strength was so inadequate to the self-im¬ 
posed task, that at last, when he really felt 
ho could stand it no longer, he had let fall 
the words with which our story opened. 
It was no use. It needed no words from 
his lips to convince t he most casual observer 
of tho man of this fact. Every nerve in his 
over-taxed body had been strained to its 
utmost—for this man had an iron will—but 
even iron wills are sometimes broken, and 
then what is there left but to yield, bitter 
though it be? He bad one dream that seem¬ 
ed to him brighter than all the rest. It was 
of a home in some quiet country town, 
where, far away from the noise and bustle 
of city life, he might regain his health and 
win back some of the old and happy feelings 
of the past. 
It was a fair picture that his imagination 
painted. Nettie, sitting at the close of a 
June day upon the porch watching him at 
his Work among the flowers, and in the gar¬ 
den.— and laughing, bright-eyed Birdie, 
chasing through clover-tops, fragrant with 
perfume, some doomed butterfly. Then, 
when the evening oauie, a quiet little home 
circle in whioh all hearts would be happy 
and no care would come creeping, or dread 
of the morrow's busy throng in the city. 
It was a bright picture. You who have 
had perchance the same experience, know 
how, after some severe illness, a terrible 
dread came over you of the life of conten¬ 
tion, and whirl, and excitement, that you 
had lived in before. And then, as the 
vision of green fields, and running brooks, 
and the soft melody of the singing of birds, 
like the Syren’s song of old that lured the 
mariuer on to destruction— so these songs 
and the vision seem to lure you on to a life 
of future happiness, and rest In fields 
ely si an. 
TAHITI GrIRL GATHERING ORANGES 
on itself; and when the beasts of burden 
are perished, and in the case of the Eelyats 
the flocks and herds also, on which they 
depend for food, there is little left but for 
them to sit. down in the Mohammedan resig¬ 
nation of fatalism, and live on short allow¬ 
ance till either relief or death comes. There 
are this winter tens of thousands of the 
Eelyats of Persia, with their horses, dead, 
their cattle and sheep largely so, with no 
accumulated wealth with which to procure 
bread, and no place where bread can be 
bought if they had the means. 
The grass may arrive with the coraiug 
spring, but it will bo three years at least 
before the flocks and herds can bo renewed, 
and one year at least before there can be a 
harvest to supply the people with bread. 
Tlius Sir Henry Rawltnbon, who knows 
Persia well, speaks of it as a “ doomed 
country.” Certainly many of these pasto¬ 
ral tribes are “ doomed ” unless help shall 
reach them. Their own resources are ex¬ 
hausted, and their isolation is such, and the 
means of communication so destroyed, that, 
practically, they might as well be on a bar¬ 
ren island in a sea whitened by no sail, as 
in their dried-up valleys. 
ison. Many of our readers in Maine and 
Canada are, no doubt, familiar with the elk 
and its habits. 
TAHITI GIRL GATHERING ORANGES 
The flue representation of a “Tahiti Girl 
Gathering Oranges,” given on this page, is 
from a water-col or painting in the collection 
of the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke, as 
many of our readers are aware, luis. in his 
Bailor capacity, been all over the world, and 
during his travels obtained a large collection 
of curiositieij—the best and rarest of every- 
thingwithin his reach. On his second cruise 
he was accompanied by Mr. Nicholas (hi j<:- 
valier, an excellent artist, who made nu¬ 
merous drawings and paintings of curious 
incidents and scenes; and one of these 
paintings was the original of the above 
beautiful illustration. 
JEAN INGELOW 
Mrs. Bullard, in the Golden Age, thus 
describes JBAN Ingelow : 
Miss Ingelow herself is a buxom, fine- 
looking woman, somewhere near her forties. 
She has an abundance of soft, brown hair, 
whioh she winds in a graceful fashion of her 
own about her well shaped head; bright 
dark eyes, and a lovely changing color which 
comes and goes in her cheeks at the slight¬ 
est provocation. 3he is shy, delicate and 
reserved, and has a true English aversion to 
being looked at and a still greater horror of 
being written about. Miss Ingelow is a 
thorough conservative in ideas as well as in 
tastes. 
ELK, MOOSE, OR MOOSE DEER 
On our last page, we give an original 
sketch of a gigantic animal, known as the 
Elk, Moose, or Moose Deer (Aloes Malchis , 
or Ccrous aloes). This is the largest exist¬ 
ing species of the deer family, and is a na¬ 
tive of the northern parts of Europe, Asia, 
and America, It grows to be six feet high, 
and 1,200 pounds in weight. The neck is 
short and thick, to sustain the great weight 
of the head and horns. A single antler has 
been known to weigh sixty pounds. The 
eyes are small, the limbs are long and grace¬ 
ful, the tail is only four inches long, and the 
body is covered with coarse hair. The hoofs 
are made to part widely, so the animal can 
walk on soft ground or snow. In running, 
the moose throws its horns back, so as not 
to have them caught by branches of the 
trees. Its oolor is a brownish black. They 
are sometimes seen in herds, but more often 
singly. They are very rare now in Europe 
and this country. Once they extended as 
far south as the Ohio River. They love the 
woods and marshy places, and live off of the 
branches of trees, being unable to eat grass, 
unless they get upon their knoos. They are 
very timid, but a single stroke from an elk’s 
forefoot will kill a dog. This animal is ex¬ 
tremely wary, and not easily approached by 
the hunter. The elk is easily domesticated, 
and its flesh is esteemed a good kind of ven- 
THE FAMINE IN PERSIA 
Rev. J. H. Shedd thus writes to one of 
our religious papere about the awful famino 
now raging in Persia: 
The famine is not only one of cereals, but 
of forage as well. The prophet of old ex¬ 
claims, “Alas! for the day! how do the 
beasts groan! The herds of cattle are per¬ 
plexed because they have no pasture; yea 
the flocks of sheep are made desolate.” 
These pastoral tribes have been fighting for 
two years past with the drought, and as the 
pastures have dried up their stock has per¬ 
ished. The most melanoholy result is the 
death of the animals in such a land as Per¬ 
sia. There are no rivers, no railways, no 
canals, no roads for wheeled vehicles, and 
so when the animals die there is no means 
for transportation except on the backs of 
men. In this fact is one of the aggravations 
of the present famine. 
A proper system of roads, and two or 
three railways, with some systematic pro¬ 
vision for such a crisis, would make a fam¬ 
ine like the present one impossible. But 
when all communication is by caravan, over 
paths not highways, provinces two hundred 
miles apart are practically of no service to 
each other. Each province must depend 
By Hook or Crook. —There appears to 
be no want of an origin for this proverb. 
In the great fire of London many boundary 
marks were destroyed. This in consequcnco 
of many disputes as to the sites of different 
properties, had a tendency to hinder the re¬ 
building of the city. In order o escape 
from the delay, it was decided to 'ppoint 
two arbitrators, whose decision sho ild lie 
final in all cases. Tho surveyers appointed 
were a Mr. Hook and Mr. Crook, who gave 
so much satisfaction in their decisions that 
the building proceeded rapidly. From this 
circumstance comes the saying, “By hook 
or by crook.” 
Under the civil-service regulations, the 
femalo clerks in the Treasury Department, 
at Washington, are hereafter to receive such 
positions as their deserts merit, and take 
their chances of promotion with the men in 
tho department. 
