KINDNESS. 
Kf;MEMBER, thou Indeed art treading 
A wild and troubled way, 
Jf, o’er thy path kind deeds arc shedding 
No cheerful, loving ray. 
The fair, glad earth reams dark and dreary 
To those who ntmleas live, 
And back to self they turn, so weary, 
With nothing good to give. 
But, gentle acts are ever yielding 
A dearer meed than gold. 
And, with their radiant Joy arc shielding 
The heart from growing old. 
Then seek that gem of rarest beauty, 
The pearl of charity, 
And find by every path of duty 
A rich reward for tlieo. 
So, Joy shall crown thy pure endeavor 
To render Earth more blest, 
And bending low, some angel ever 
Shall guard thy spirit'« rest. 
Now see the glorious sunlight gleaming 
Where all wn* dark before. 
Since love nod sympathy are beaming 
From out thy cottage door. b. 
THE WIFE’S CONFESSION, 
BY LAURA SOUTHGATE. 
The short winter day was closing in earlier 
than usual, and a few flukes of snow were be¬ 
ginning to fall. Mattie Ghicknkield glanced 
out. the window and sighed, n 1 hing she was not 
much accustomed to do. A sense of the dreari¬ 
ness and solitude of her life depressed her for a 
moment,, and a look of sadness clouded her 
usually cheerful face. There she was tit thirty- 
four, quite alone in the world. Old acquaint¬ 
ances wore married and gone; even dear friends 
had found new interests, and now the deat h of 
her mother, three weeks before, hod left her 
utterly alone. Anil Mattie sight'd, and tears 
started in her blue eyes as she thought of the 
happy years that were past. 
Ten years. Jt was twelve years that very 
night since the sleighing party to Hound Bridge, 
and she had gone with Ellison Huntley ; 
and David Millard- Mattie smiled as she 
remembered It—had whispered, as they were 
dancing, that Ellison would, get paid off for 
cutting him out. 
All the villngc thought at. the time ft was a 
settled thing between David and herself; but 
David, It appeared, had preferred Sarah Rob. 
EATS, and six weeks after the sleighing party 
he had married her. 
“Poor Sakaii,’’ said Mattie to herself; 
“with everything to make life happy, now she 
must die, and leave it all.” 
Scarcely had this thought left her mind when 
a little figure in a cloak and hood appeared, 
bobbing along outside the paling in front of her 
house. 
“Why, little Bessie! how strange that I was 
thinking of her mother that very moment I" 
M attik quickly brought the child in to the 
lire. 
“Why, you are half frozen, Bessie dear, are 
you not. V” sins said, warming the little, red, 
fat hands In her own. “ And how is your 
mother to-day?” 
“ Mother is pretty well—1 mean, mother said 
she wasn't so well, and will you please come 
over and sec her?" 
“Dear child !** Mattie's quick sympathies 
were Stirred for the little girl so soon to bo left 
motherless. “Yes, 1 will come,” she said; “and 
would she like to have me stay all night ?” 
“ I don't know.” 
“ Well, I will stay if she would like to have 
me.” 
“ Mother said it was particular—something 
particular." 
“ Well, I will come right away. I will walk 
home with you." 
For some reason, the intimacy between Mat- 
tie and Sahaii Willard had seemed to drop 
off since Sarah's marriage; still they were 
friends, and being sent for, was scarce a matter 
of surprise. 
Sarah was dying of consumption; and each 
visit thai Mattie had made for some time she 
had t hought might be the last. She put on her 
things, and giving a few words of household in¬ 
struction to JANE, her companion and servant, 
she went with the child. 
A pleasant, edieerf ul home it was where Sarah 
was closing her life. “You are very good to 
come,” she said, extending her thin hand as 
Mattie entered the sick room. “I wanted to 
seo you because—because I cannot live much 
longer, and—” she fixed her eyes earnestly on 
Mattie's face, and became agitated. A lit of 
coughing followed. 
"Never mind to talk," said Mattie; “I will 
stay a while with you.” 
“ I wanted to say something; but pretty soon 
—I cannot now." 
“Don’t try to talk; it makes you cough.” 
“Pretty soon." An unnatural brightness 
shone in the eyes of the sick woman ; the nurse 
said a nervous chill was corning on, and she ad¬ 
ministered a quieting powder. 
“Don't go away,” Sarah feebly said. “I 
will try to talk soon soon.” 
The thought that her old friend might have 
something particular to say to her, did not 
really startle Mattie, but. she sat down by the 
fire in the sitting parlor, and soon David came 
] 
GOBI’S BUBAL MEW-VOBKEB 
AY 
in. He began to replenish the Are, and seemed 
pleased t hat she had come to see bis wife. He 
seemed pleased, too, when Bessie onino and 
laid her head on Mattie'S shoulder; and then 
the tea table was spread, and Da vid looked as 
though he expected her to pour out his cup of 
tea. He said he hoped a little sleep would do 
ids wife good, she had seemed so nervous all 
day. Then they fell to talking of the weather 
and the depth of the snow. 
“ Let's see; how long is it since that sleighing 
party to Bound Bridge?” he said, as they draw 
up to the fire again, after the tea was over. 
“Just such a cold time as this, f remember; 
and such a fall of snow." David looked in the 
Are a good five minutes. 
“What now lias become of Ellison?” he 
asked at length, casting a sidelong glance at 
Mattie. 
“I don’t know, r am sure;” and the color, 
without reason, mounted to Mattie's face. 
“ He was a good fellow," David went on, 
“ and—well"—and he began to smile—“ bygones 
might as well be bygones." Ha gave nnotlior 
quick sidelong glance, and hesitated, as though 
he were touching on delicate ground; “well, 
Whatever socret you may have, or whatever of 
preference! you had then, it is not, I suppose, 
for me to Inquire Into.” 
“I liked Ellison,” Mattie remarked, “but 
perhaps no better than the others.” 
David’s look said, plainly, that women were 
not expected to speak sincerely on such topics 
as preferences, or love-making, 
Mattie made no reply ; was it not he himself 
who had suddenly forsaken her, when words of 
love had passed between them? And was not 
she, who was once the merriest-hearted girl in 
the village, now alone, and solitary In her life? 
But the talk went on of old times and old ac¬ 
quaintance, till David lit his lump and went 
up to bed. 
The nurse was asleep, and Mattie sat down 
by the sick bed. Far in the night Sarah 
awoke. “ Oh, you did not go away, did you ? 1 
am glad." she said. " I wanted to speak to 
you t o toll you something—but it is so hard to 
say it. It would, perhaps, make no difference 
witli you—or with him- if I never tell this—the 
wrong I did you—but I think I shall feel better 
to acknowledge it all.” 
“What is it?” said Mattie, believing Sarah 
was a little flighty. 
“ It. happened so long ago—r thought so much 
of David, or i should not have done it—have, J 
mean, said what 1 did.” 
“ Raid what ? But never mind, dear, you need 
not toll me; I am sure It was nothing wrong." 
“Oh, it was—It was 1 and you will hate me 
when ! tell you ; but when one is going to die, 
they w&nt to make things right, you know. I 
shall feel better to tell you what, it was that I 
did. Oh, dear me! I loved David, Iiut I’m 
sure at that time lie meant to marry’ you, and 1 
made him think you liked Ellison Huntdicy 
bett er t han you did him—and that you promised 
to marry him.” 
“ What made you think 1 liked Ellison?” 
Sakaii turned her head impatiently on her 
pillow. Could not Mattie perceive? 
“Oh, I told a story,” she went on, feebly. “ T 
made David think that you had told me that 
you were engaged to Ellison. David felt bad 
when 1 told him; and J was jealous because he 
did.” 
“You need not have told me this if you did 
not waul, to," said MATTES. 
“No; but 1 determined to tell you. Some 
people have said he slighted you; and—when I 
am gone, if he asks you to marry him. then you 
would know, and foci towards me as I deserve. 
I would like to make it, right now; but I have 
done you a wrong. Oh. Mattie, what ran I 
say! I don’t, expect you will forgive me, but— 
you will be kind to my dear little Bessie, won’t 
you?” 
“I will always be kind to Bessie, whoever 
may have the care of her,” said M attik. “ Go 
to sleep now, and don't feel worried about any¬ 
thing." 
With ttao dawning light Mattie returned 
home. Jane had kept the house w arm, and an 
arm-chair ready for her by the Are. Tho day 
before she had sat there, and t he remembrance 
of the sleighing party had brought back the 
happy days of her girlhood: and she had 
thought of David always choosing her, always 
seeking her, until abruptly and suddenly he had 
left her and married Sarah. The mystery was 
cleared. “It. is all for tho best," she said, and 
tried to think so. 
A week from that time Sarah Millard was 
laid In her grave. 
David had become accustomed to a lonely 
Areside; but now that ids wife had gone from 
the home—gone utterly from his life—a terrible 
sense of dreariness foil upon him. It was in¬ 
supportable; and he deliberately said to him¬ 
self that lie must get another wife. All the 
village would have been shocked had they 
known /imo soon he said this. And was ho un¬ 
faithful to the memory of his dead wife ? Had 
not she made married life happy to him? He 
had truly loved her. and now she could not 
come back to him. Del h ought of Mattie. It 
was true, he reflected, that she had preferred 
Ellison to bi mself years ago. For some reason 
or other, she had not married him. 
“Let bygones be bygones,”he satd. at his Arst 
visit to Mattie; and as for Ellison, he guessed 
he might as well forgive him. He said this with 
a sly glance, which Mattie, holding the key 
to the mystery’, understood. She smiled, and 
looked kindly, but explained nothing. 
David and Mattie were married ; and soon 
after the wedding, as life was setting into cheer¬ 
ful routine, it happened Elltson Huntley re¬ 
turned to the village for a few days. 
David met him with a hearty welcome, and 
then followed a little bantering talk; and from 
this was elicited the surprised remark that no 
engagement had ever taken place or been pro¬ 
posed between Mattie and himself. “How¬ 
ever much I might have wished such a happi¬ 
ness,” he added, gallantly. 
David reflected. The wife ho had first mar¬ 
ried had deceived him! “But she must have 
loved me; this shows it—proves it;” he said, 
fondly to himself. 
He turned and met Mattie's blue eyes with 
a pleasant smile; and he loved her with all his 
heart. 
-----— 
WASHINGTON MEMORIES. 
This scene from the I lights is a fascinating 
one for the day-dreamer. Everything is in har¬ 
mony with the pa si character of the capital. 
Everything is misty, vast, uncertain, grand and 
ill-defined. One does not see clearly the boun¬ 
daries—the city and country arc one. Every 
street we trace in the distance, almost every 
building, almost every foot of ground, has gath¬ 
ered something of tradition from the lives of 
the statesmen, generals, jurists, diplomats, who 
have lived and wrought here three-quarters of 
a century. The visions that passed before the 
eyes of Washington as he stood on tho Observ¬ 
atory Hill t here, a subaltern under Braddoek, 
contemplating the wilderness about him and 
imagining the future; the pictures that Ailed 
the fancy of the intractable L'Enfant, as ho 
defined the great mail and thought of the gar¬ 
dens between the Tullerles and the Chamber of 
Deputies; Andrew J. Downing giving his last 
days to such an arrangement of the trees and 
grass as would lie worthy of the design; Presi¬ 
dent, Madison and his cabinet, with a useless 
army at their heels, flying In despair from yon¬ 
der bloody hill-side; Admiral Coekburn de¬ 
risively riding an old mare up Pennsylvania 
Avenue; the burning Capitol and White House 
lighting up the gloom of thnt hideous night; 
Stephen Decatur shot to death just round the 
bend of the Armeostia there; the conflicts by 
tongue and pen t hat have again and again gone 
on here t il) the whole country swayed; Gamal¬ 
iel Bailey silencing a mob at his door; t he his¬ 
tories that lie burled under the 30,000 head- 
boards that gleam like an army of ghosts 
among the trees of Arlington; Abraham Lin¬ 
coln gasping ins life away in that little Tenth 
street house; his assassin dashing in darkness 
across the bridge at our feet over which we 
have Just passed, and spurring almost into the 
shadow of the parapet where wo stand ; all 
these things, and a hundred mure as tempting 
totbe dreamer, come crowding on the mind at 
every glance. Yet who stops to call Washing¬ 
ton a romantic city? When the Whit# House, 
Just visible from there tree tops, shall have 
ceased, as it soon must do, to be the homo of 
the chief magistrate, what future magician 
shall summon down those cheerless stairways 
the ghostly procession of dead Presidents, as 
our first literary necromancer marshalled the 
shades of royal governors across the threshold 
of the Province House 7—LippfncoWs. 
SPARKS AND SPLINTERS. 
If Congress were but kinder, 
’Twould banish from onr ground 
The Italian organ-grinder 
Who carries the monkey round. 
For it makes me feel quite funky 
When you think, If Darwin’s true, 
That you might have been the monkey— 
And the monkey might have been you 1 
A spirit level—Whisky. 
The controller-general—Cupid. 
Drink for Irishmen—Celt-zer water. 
Flowery speech—** Good as wheat.” 
Coming to the surface for a blow—Dust. 
A handsome thing in shawls—A pretty girl. 
Egypt is not a Nile land; it is part of a con¬ 
tinent. 
The cup that neither cheers nor inebriates— 
Hiccup. 
The worst kind of education—To be brought 
up by a policeman. 
A Kangaroo is a curious chap; when it’s 
wide awake it's leaping. 
There is one thing which can always be 
found, and that is—fault. 
What prevents the running river running 
away? Why, It's tide up. 
“ You don't do that again,” said the pig to the 
boy who cut his tail off. 
Why is a lovely young lady like a hinge ? Be¬ 
cause she is somet hing to a-dore. 
A gentleman says the older his daughters 
become the * dearer’ they are to him. 
Which is the most warlike nation ? Vaccina¬ 
tion. Why ? Because it is always in arms. 
If a man has a “ bent of mind ” does it neces¬ 
sarily follow that he has a crooked intellect ? 
Why would a tax on tarts be objectionable at 
sea? Because it would be encouraging pie-rates. 
The latest problem for civil engineers is to 
make one of the keys of a piano At the lock of 
a canal. 
Why should Ireland be the richest country 
in the world? Because its capital is always 
Dublin. 
RESIGNATION. 
BY rtOSK GERANIUM. 
Father ! if it be wrong to love the earth, 
Or if in loving her I slight Thy worth, 
O, break each silken tie that fetters tne. 
And rob me of her bliss—but leave mo Thee. 
If there are things which stand ’twlxt me and 
Heaven, 
Or thoughts which should to her be freely given, 
O, by thine awful voice command them flee, 
Take every idol hence—hut leave me Thee. 
•-♦♦♦- 
SPIRITUAL RELIEF FOR THE MINING 
DISTRICTS OF SCOTLAND. 
A movement la on foot in Scotland, to supply 
the great spiritual destitution in the mining 
districts of Moorland. At a conference of Free 
Church Ministers and elders, held a few days 
since in Edinburgh, it was stated that about 
300,000 persons—one-tenth of the people of Scot¬ 
land—live by its mines or mineral works. 
J Among those are many exemplary Christians, 
1 but the means of grace are lamentably deficient, 
and as the miners, as a class, do not feel the 
need of them, no present, help can he Jookod 
for from the mining districts. The Home Mis¬ 
sion Committee propose the raising of £30,000 
during tho ensuing five years, with a view to 
expending £0,000 annually in building up inter¬ 
n'd* among these people, in the hope that by 
that time permanent, self-supporting congrega¬ 
tions may be formed. Before the dose of the 
conference, the need of such a fund was unani¬ 
mously agreed to. and a collector appointed to 
receive subscriptions. 
THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT. 
There Is but a breath of air and a beat of the 
heart bet wixt this world and the next. And in 
the brief Interval of painful and awful suspense, 
while we feel t hat death is present with us, and 
we are powerless and ho nil-powerful, and the 
last pulsation hero, is but the prelude of endless 
lito hereafter; we feel In the midst of stunning 
calamity about to befall us, the earth lias no 
compensating good to mitigate the severity of 
our loss. But there is no grief without some 
beneficent provision to soften its intenseness. 
When the good ami lovely die, the memory of 
their deeds, like the moonbeams of the stormy 
sea, light, our darkened hearts, and lend to tho 
Burroundfug gloom a beauty so sari, so sweet, 
that we would not, if we could, dispel the dark¬ 
ness that environs it.— Prentice, 
THE SOUL’S GARDEN. 
HOW hard it is to feel that the power of life is 
to he found inside, mil. outride; in the heart 
and [thoughts, not In the visible actions and 
sho «-; in the living seed, not in the plant which 
h as no root! How often do men cultivate the 
garden of thelrsoula Just the ot her way! How 
often do we try and persevere in trying to make 
a sort of neat show of outer good qualities, 
without anything within to correspond, just 
like children who plant blossoms without any 
roots In the ground, to make a pretty show for 
the hour! We find fault, in our lives and we cut 
off tho Weed, hut we do not root it up; we find 
something wanting in ourselves, and we supply 
it not by sowing the divine seed of heavenly 
principle, but by copying the deeds that the 
principle ought to produce.— Tetnpk. 
FIFTEEN GOOD HABITS. 
1. Abstinence from tobacco and intoxicants. 
2. Temperance at meals. 
3. Daily attention to all the conditions of 
health. 
4. Constant occupation. 
5. Doing at once whatever is required. 
(5. Having u time and place for everything. 
7. Fidelity to all appointments and duties. 
8. Paying for everything in advance. 
9. Giving as well as receiving. 
10. Aiming at harmony in conversation. 
11. Looking always on the bright side. 
13. Associating witli some favorite minister 
and society. 
13. Talking nn edifying subjects. 
14. Acting always in the right spirit. 
15. Realizing the presence of God at all times. 
—-- 
SANDS OF GOLD. 
They who presume most in prosperity, are 
soonest subject to despair in adversity. 
The praises of others may be of use, in teach¬ 
ing us not what we arc, but what we ought to be. 
Submission, courage, exertion, when practi¬ 
cable—these seem to be the weapons with 
which we must light life’s long battle. 
Great souls attract sorrows, as mountains do 
storms. But the thunder-clouds break them 
and they thus form a shelter for the plains 
around. 
Time appears very short, eternity near, and a 
great name, either in or after Jife, together 
with ail earthly pleasures and profits, but an 
empty bubble, a deluding dream. 
Esjor the blessings of this day, if God feends 
them, and the evils bear patiently and sweetly. 
For this day only is ours: we are dea q to yester¬ 
day, and we are not born for to-morrow. 
f 
