ABSENCE. 
The April sunshine, soft and fair, 
Touches the meadow*Cheerily; 
Wild violets scent the warm stilt ftlr; 
But ever through the bright spring hours. 
The sunshine and the opening Dowers, 
My spirit hungers to be fed. 
And fainta for love's dear dally bread. 
Yearning, beloved, for thee! 
The day wear* on, the ovenlng lone 
Conies up across the misty lea; 
I watch the atars as one by one 
They glimmer out: tny eyes are wet; 
My heart Is tilled with vague regret, 
Haunting it like u sad refrain ; 
I cannot still this roBtless pain, 
Thinking, beloved, of thee! 
The twilight deepens; brooding sleep 
Shadows the green earth tenderly; 
The house lies hushed in slumber deep; 
The peace of Heaven seems strangely near; 
I kneel beneath the moonbeams clear. 
And soft upon my troubled breast 
Comes down a blessed sense of rest, 
Praying, beloved, for thee I 
—Chambers’ Journal. 
- - - 
THE SUPERSTITIOUS ELEMENT. 
Op all the elements composing personal 
character, the superstitious is perhaps most 
innate. Other elements are acquired; men 
and women come by them hereditarily, or 
take them on as by accretion. This seems 
inborn in human nature, and is not a dis¬ 
tinctive hereditary trait but an integral part, 
of the mental composition. It is not promi¬ 
nently developed in many cases; hut the 
lack of prominence is owing more to a care¬ 
fully studied repression than to any other 
reason. Only a well trained, cool philoso¬ 
phy thrusts superstition aside or forever 
keeps it under. Philosophical reasoning 
may and does annul much superstitions 
fancifulness. 
It is not a slander against the fair sex to 
assert that the superstitious element is more 
largely represented in woman than in man. 
Not that we do not see thousands of men 
Who arc profoundly superstitious, but that 
in women the superstitious feeling is more 
subtle and move all-pervading. The male 
superstition is bolder and more speedily de¬ 
tected than the female. The former wears 
a more noticeable front—the latter makes it¬ 
self most enduringly felt. The one is quick 
to acknowledge itself—the other shrinks 
from exposure and lives, unless persistently 
persecuted, a quiet life, thriving in secret, 
and coloring, more than is commonly known, 
the outside picture which observers see. 
Most of the old “ signs ’’ and preflguringa 
with which we are familiar, were handed 
down to us by our grandmothers. These 
signs may thus be pronounced hereditary ; 
but they are only the expression of that 
innate superstition which alone renders a 
belief in them possible. A concern for 
omens is quite natural to womankind. It 
crops out in a hundred ways that we have 
not room to dwell upon. One can scarcely 
remember a tithe of the forebodings which 
almost any good old granddame will give 
oracular utterance to in the course of a year. 
Does she believe in them herself? Implicitly, 
often ; uncertainly, always. And her belief 
is implicit and vital, or uncertain and doubt¬ 
ing, just in proportion as she has let super¬ 
stition over-master philosophy and reason. 
Human nature is not to blame that, it con¬ 
tains a superstitious element. But any man 
or woman is blameworthy who permits this 
element to usurp worthier ones, and to place 
the whole being under bonds. Superstition 
effectually hampers one. There Js no real 
freedom where it holds active sway. Believe 
that, you must not start on a journey to¬ 
morrow because the to-morrow will bu Fri¬ 
day, and your opportunity for pleasure is I 
circumscribed. Fancy that one of your 
family is surely going to die soon, because 
you broke the looking-glass yesterday, and 
your happiness and peace of mind are sadly 
jeopardized. Have full faith that your wed¬ 
ded life is to he unpleasant, because your 
nuptial day was unluckily stormy, and your 
faith will do much toward bringing Us frui¬ 
tion. You see faith is a ready helper. It 
does more than we give it credit fordoing, 
as a rule. It cures better than any medi¬ 
cine, and works marvels which are impossi¬ 
ble to all other agencies. Belief is next of 
kin to accomplishment. 
It becometh us, then, to practice a careful 
repression of this superstitions element in 
personal character. The same element in 
social and religious character has been un¬ 
dergoing repression these many years. Ever 
since Luther turned upon the foolish dog¬ 
mas of the Romish Church has religious su¬ 
perstition been giving way. Social super¬ 
stition, more closely allied to that of a closely 
individual type, is not so restricted as yet, 
but its range is growing narrower. And the 
purely personal clement, it naturally follows, 
must he waning. Notwithstanding its in¬ 
nateness, it will be more completely smoth¬ 
ered and kept down. Things inborn can be 
crushed out. Superstition, of every form, 
should be subjected to the crushing out pro¬ 
cess. Every individual, and particularly 
every mother, owes it to community to sup¬ 
press, in so far as is possible, all superstitious 
feelings. The days of dark things are gone 
by. Youth should be fed, mentally, upon 
the sunlight. With the grandmothers of to¬ 
day should depart all the “ signs” and fore¬ 
bodings of a century gone by; for these are 
but relics of ignorance, aud there is now in¬ 
crease of knowledge. 
-- 
THE ANCIENT USE OF A KISS. 
A Roman woman in the ancient time was 
not allowed to drink wine except it were 
simple raisin wine ; and, however she might 
relish strong drinks, she could not indulge 
even by stealth; first, because she was never 
intrusted with the key of the wine cellar; 
and secondly, because she was obliged daily 
to greet with a kiss all her own as well as 
her husband’s male representatives, down 
even to second cousins; and, as she knew 
not when or where she might meet them, 
she was forced to be wary and abstain alto¬ 
gether, for had she tasted but a drop, the 
smell would have betrayed her. So strict 
were the old Romans in this respect that a 
certain Ignatius Mercuries is said to have 
slain his wife because he caught her at the 
wine cask — a punishment that was not 
deemed excessive by Romulus, who absolved 
the husband of the crime of murder. An¬ 
other Roman lady, who, under the pretence 
of taking a little wine for her stomach’s 
sake and frequent infirmities, indulged some¬ 
what too freely, was mulcted to the full 
amount of her dowry. 
-♦♦♦- 
“LOST WOMEN.” 
“ Some evidences of discontent with an 
aimless life,” says Obma Burleigh, “ have 
appeared even in Fifth Avenue. For in¬ 
stance, aL a fashionable party a few evenings 
since, a beautiful young woman turned 
sharply upon on elderly dowager who was 
prosing about the Magdalens, and the hope¬ 
lessness of doing anything for these 1 lost 
women,’ with the assertion:—‘I know a 
class more hopelessly lost than they. Wc 
fashionables, who murder time, and squander 
money, and lead women to become Magda¬ 
lena that they may dress like us. Why does 
nobody send missionaries to us?’ The hit¬ 
ter intensity of the utterance was eloquent 
of the better possibilities. No doubt there 
are more ways than one of being lost. The 
syrens are not all of one class, or confined 
to one locality.” 
- +++ - 
A Good Daughter. — There are other 
ministers of love more conspicuous than she, 
but none in which a gentler, lovelier spirit 
dwells, and none to which the heart’s warm 
requitals more joyfully respond. She is the 
steady light of her father’s house. Her Ideal 
is indissolubly connected with that of bis 
fireside. She is his morning sunlight and 
his evening star. The grace, vivacity and 
tenderness of her sex have their place in the 
mighty sway which she holds over his spirit. 
She is the pride and ornament of his hospi¬ 
tality, and the gentle nurse of his sickness. 
-<♦♦>-- 
CURRENT GOSSIP. 
Site that marries a man because he is a 
good match, must not be surprised if he 
turns out a ludfcr. 
A iiaphy father in Janesville, Wis., per¬ 
formed the nuptial ceremony for four of his 
daughters one evening not long since.' 
Why is it natural that a young lady hav¬ 
ing seven lovers should desire to add another 
to the list? Because all ladies wish to fas¬ 
ten eight (fascinate.) 
A Baltimore couple, recently married, 
appended to the announcement of the fact 
in the papers:—“Advertised for the benefit, 
of a few of our inquisitive friends.” 
A young lady in Brattle boro made a som¬ 
nambulistic excursion one night recently, of 
more than a mile in the snow, barefoot, in 
her robe de nuit , and only awoke as she 
locked the door on her return. 
Just before leaving Boston, Prince Arthur 
sent to Miss Minnie Sherman, daughter of 
General Sherman, a chaste and costly gold 
medallion, having his likeness on one side 
and that of Queen Victoria on the other. 
Accompanying the gift was a delicately 
worded note, in which the “ Prince begged 
that Miss Sherman would accept of the 
medallion as a token of his appreciation of 
the generous hospitalities lie had experienced 
at the house of her father, and as a slight 
tribute to the beauty of American women, 
of which she was so striking an exponent.” 
Once an accomplished young American 
woman had the honor to dine with the Czar 
of Russia. During the entertainment a plate 
of grapes wa9 passed. The young lady saw 
the golden knife on the basket, but as the 
fruit came to her first she had no way of 
learning its use; so she did Just as she 
would have done in America—reached out 
her dainty fingers and lifted from the dish a 
whole stem of grapes. What was her con¬ 
sternation to see the next person, as well as 
all the other guests, take the golden knife 
and sever a single grape each, and transfer 
it to their plates. 
botre .ftliscrllanij. 
THE LESSON OF THE LEAVES. 
history was oral tradition. His poems,—for 
1 hold to one Homer as I hold to one sun in 
the firmament,—were engraved on his own 
iron memory, and that of the minstrels who 
inherited aud repeated his poems in public 
assemblies. 
ubbatl) 
“SON, REMEMBER.” 
RV OKOUfitt W BUNGAY. 
Sweet buds look through the ha*e which dims 
The silent trees which listen where 
A forest lifts its battered limbs, 
Like armies standing *uil In prayer. 
How soon the songs of wild bird hymns 
Will wake the wood-flowers sleeping there! 
The tree* are toucher* that I love; 
Their leafy lesson X have read. 
Their branches point to worlds above, 
Their roots point to the world thnt's ead; 
Spring, hasten, with thy cooing dove 
And bow of promise overhead! 
Here root clasps root throughout the wood 
And branches fellow branch embrace. 
As hand Joins bund rn brotherhood. 
When trusting friends meet faco to face 
In worship with the multitude- 
invoking precious gifts of grace. 
O solemn thought! the woods so lorn 
in winter, and In spring so fair. 
Hold in their trunks for the unborn 
Cities and ships and coDlns there; 
Soon the brown branohes tempest torn 
Will wuvo green banners In the air. 
Low bushes whose soft bark Is seared 
Hold their red rosaries of beads, 
The thistle, with Its head u pica rod, 
Like genius beating noble deeds, 
Though coarsely dad anil rough Its beard, 
Will send afar Its winged seeds. 
Arise sweet, scented violet! 
Coine orchis with thy lips Of red! 
Spring beauty come, thy coverlet 
Of snow is lifted from thy head ; 
Tiie blue bird sounds his flageolet, 
The robin’s flute pipes overhead I 
-- 
INFLUENCING CHARACTER. 
BY J. W. QUINBY. 
We are tolcl tliat the human mind is like 
the genie in the fable, who was Imprisoned 
in a casket until at last a fisherman opened 
it by chance and get him free. Then upon 
the instant he expanded to amazing dimen¬ 
sions and power. Bo experience, like the 
hammer of the fisherman, comes rapping on 
the imprisoning casket of the Unman mind 
and liberates powers and knowledge as far 
transcending mere experience as the heavens 
t ran seen d the earth. These liberated powers, 
however, though so much loftier than the 
hand that freed them, still move in the di¬ 
rection in which it points. One reads a 
poem, and finding something to criticise, 
suddenly realizes the awakening of a sense 
as new to him as the work of art that called 
it forth. A painting, statue, flower, or land¬ 
scape, the peculiar objects of any science, 
the feelings of the heart, thc*smlrlen sense of 
justice, of immortality and God, as they 
come precipitated upon our consciousness, 
now by internal constitution, and now by 
external circumstance, each gives its own di¬ 
rection to the current of thought and reason, 
and the activity of the awakening and ex¬ 
panding powers. 
Tn the light of this principle it is easy to 
see that, every object of sight, in its lines, di¬ 
mensions, and colors; every object of hear¬ 
ing in its varying pitch, intensity, and other 
indescribable qualities; every object of touch 
with its differing impression on the appro¬ 
priate organ,—indeed, every object of sense 
and perception, each in its kind and degree, 
must give its peculiar direction to emotion 
aud thought. It is as if the mind were a 
vase, hermetically sealed, and each experi¬ 
ence a power to open an aperture in its own 
way and place for the flowing forth of si 
conscious intelligence. This being so, it 
certainly needs nothing more to show 
that everything with which we are fa¬ 
miliar, whether material and visible, or 
mental, moral, and social, and thus invisible, 
must most profoundly affect our minds and 
characters. If true of great things seldom 
seen, how much more true of the small 
things we are always seeing; so that we 
must admit that even the most insignificant 
lines, forms, and qualities about us—even 
the cut of a coat or the fit of a boot—are in¬ 
delibly written in the mental development 
of the wearer. 
-- 
BRYANT ON HOMER. 
When the alumni of William’s College 
held their animal re-union, recently, in New 
York city, the toast of “Letters” was very 
appropriately responded to by Willtam 
Cullen Bryant. As that distinguished 
poet has just crowned his literary labors by 
translating the “ Iliad,” it was very natural 
that he should allude to Homer, to whom he 
thus paid tribute: 
“Let me call the attention of the company 
for a moment, to the great marvel of the 
origin of the. Homeric poems, at a period be¬ 
fore letters were In general use in Greece, 
save perhaps In public inscriptions. His 
poems, when produced, could not have been 
committed to manuscript. We find nowhere 
in them any mention of the art of the scribe, 
of the pen or the papyrus, of the stylus or 
the tablet, of the graving tool or the inscribed 
rock, of the painted or the chiseled alphabet, 
or any other even remote hint of a written 
literature, though every other art of life then 
known helped to furnish forth the affluent 
imagery of his poems. He lived while all 
“ Yet iu that, remote and imperfectly civil¬ 
ized age, while all the literature that existed 
was in men’s heads and on their tongues, 
there was produced a work which, in all 
time since, and for 2,700 years, has com¬ 
manded the admiration of mankind; has oc¬ 
cupied whole troops of commentators; has 
been regarded a.s the model and unsurpassa¬ 
ble pattern of poetic excellence; has been 
studied in all nations, by scholars, in the 
original Greek, and read with avidity in 
every cultivated language, in numerous trans¬ 
lations; has been imitated by poets innumer¬ 
able, and borrowed from as an Inexhaustible 
treasure-house of poetic thought aud image¬ 
ry, and is now as much admired in what we 
call the noon-day blaze of civilization, as it 
was in its glimmering dawn.” 
ST. PETER’S CHAIR. 
St. Peter’s Chair, or the “ Chair of St. 
Peter,” hns been spoken of and known to 
Christendom since the early days after the 
establishment of the Popedom in Europe. 
The following is a description thereof: 
“ 8t. Peter’s Chair Is a yellow chaif, formed 
of four uprights, united by horizontal bars, 
two being higher than the others to form 
the hack. The four legs were evidently once 
square, but. they are much eaten by age, and 
have also had pieces cut from them. These 
time-worn portions have been strengthened 
and rendered more ornamental by pieces of 
dark acacia wood, which form the whole in¬ 
terior part of the chair, and which appear 
to have hardly suffered at all from the same 
causes which have so altered the appearance 
of the legs. The panels and the front and 
sides, and the row of arches with the tym¬ 
panum above them, which form the back, 
are also composed of this wood. 
“ But the most remarkable circumstance 
about these two different kinds of material 
is that sill the ivory ornaments which cover 
the front and back of the chair are attached 
to the acacia portions alone, and never to 
the parts composed of oak. Some of the 
ornamentation is attributed to the ago of 
Charlemagne, and some, such as the labors 
of Hercules, in the ivory panels, ai’e more 
ancient; the oak work is deemed likely to 
be as old us tradition states It to be. It is 
known that Damascus placed it in the bap¬ 
tistry of the Vatican, and considered it pro¬ 
bable that up to the period it may have been 
kept in the crypt of St. Peter’s tomb ox- 
in the basilica of Constantinople. It was 
moved from chapel to chapel of the Vatican 
before the days of Alexander VII., who en¬ 
closed it in a bronze monument.” 
--♦♦♦-- 
THE VALUE OF STYLE. 
Style, according to the London Specta¬ 
tor, means such an arrangement, of words as 
shall make the author’s meaning rise up in 
the logical order of the ideas, and thus save 
the reader all needless toil; such a choice of 
phrase and balance of clause and structural 
grace of sentence as shall satisfy the sense of 
beauty ; such a propriety, economy and har¬ 
mony of expression as shall tell the reader 
exactly what the writer means, tell it with 
a business-like brevity and artistic, beauty. 
All these qualities characterize style of the 
highest order. Style is therefore an expe¬ 
dient to make reading easy, and t o perpetuate 
the life of written thought. Of all t he badly 
written books bequeathed by post genera 
lions, none have lived but those of t ranscend¬ 
ent intellectual merit, or those to which a 
supreme historical value is lent by their pic¬ 
tures of vanished days; whereas writing of 
the secondary intellectual rank may be kept 
green by the vitality of its artistic work¬ 
manship. 
SANDWICHES. 
Wori.dly obligations—the dews of earth. 
Pickpockets dis-purse a crowd. 
Honest loss is preferable to dishonest 
gain. 
When appetite commands, the pocket 
pays. 
All time belongs to us, for all time is 
hours. 
Suitable food for estranged lovers—cold 
meats. 
Better go to bed supperless than to rise 
in debt. 
If you want cowslips in winter, turn your, 
cattle on ice. 
They must hunger in frost who will not 
work in heat. 
When are gloves unsalable ? When they 
are kept on band. 
True love is like a growing tree; the 
older it grows, the deeper it takes root. 
It is an anomaly, perhaps, when peace and 
quiet are restored in Cuba, the planters will 
begin to raise cane. 
BY MRS M. I.. SCOTT. 
If memory, through the uges never censing 
Still holds Its sway, 
No single record of lost hours releasing 
In all life’s day. 
Oh ! soul, from whom the suifitring could not borrow, 
W hut record there I 
Oh I tongue, forever Hcatterlnu strife and sorrow, 
They'll haunt thee there. 
Mem’ry will point thee to some frail life blighted 
By words unkind; 
A pathway darkened, which might have been lighted 
By acts of thine. 
Perchance some lonely one, left unattended 
To sin and die, 
Might, by thy care and sympathy befriended 
Have reached the sky. 
Perhaps some LAZARUS, wounded, faint and dying. 
Lies near the gate; 
Haste, ere his wall, blent with the night.winds 
sighing 
Moans out “ Too late." 
Oh, life so short! Oh, memory lasting ever! 
We pause with dread. 
No act of ours the hand of deuth will sever 
From us—though dead ! 
Help, Loan! that Oiled with patience, love and 
kindness, 
Our record he! 
Wo shall not full, if trustful In our blindness 
We lean on Thee. 
Footville, Ohio. 
- ■ - 
THE DUTY OF TO-DAY. 
BY EDITH MELBOURNE. 
From the Christian heart the query often 
rises, “ Lord, what jyilt Thou have me to 
do?” And he who seeks aright his work, 
will surely find it; for in the Master’s vine¬ 
yard there is space in which every child of 
God is called to labor; in tlie temple is a 
niche for each to fill. 
But is it not u mistake that we do not 
oflener add to this query the little word to¬ 
day ? Many an one who asks this question 
is impressed with the idea that lie has some 
great life-mission to perform, and in refer¬ 
ence to this only does he ask it, hoping that 
in reply some unseen door may open to him 
revealing a field of labor white for the reap¬ 
ing, forgetting that it may he his to sow to¬ 
day little seeds which might In after days he 
reaped by other hands. Such, alas! too 
often pass through life, seeking the work 
they never find, learning, too late, their fatal 
mistake, and pass away without, any evi¬ 
dence that, the world is better for tlmir low¬ 
ing lived in it. 
No day is born to us devoid of duty. Of 
to-morrow we have no assurance; to-day 
only is ours. Why, then, shall we to-day 
sit down with folded hands, idly dreaming 
of the work wo would do to-morrow or (lie 
next year, regardless of the little duties 
which now lie at our feet? Why can we 
not learn to live in each day as it passes, let¬ 
ting each to-morrow take care of the things 
of itself? To-morrow will bring its own 
duties, which, if faithfully performed, will 
leave us no time for gathering up the lost 
threads of labor belonging to other days. 
It, may be ours only to sow little seeds of 
love and kindness in some neglected corner 
of our own surroundings, or to uproot from 
our own hearts noxious weeds which may 
be thriving there; or it may he our mission 
only to 8 nffer the will of God. But if we be 
faithful in that which is least, striving in 
each little moment to know and do God’s 
will concerning It and us, ours may be a 
record of more perfect days, and we shall 
obtain an enduring crown—a crown far more 
bright and beautiful than ever rested on the 
head of any earthly monarch. 
--- 
EVERY CHRISTIAN A TEACHER. 
A Christian is an instructor. He has 
been taught, and lie becomes a teacher; be 
has found the preciousness of knowledge, 
and he seeks to impart it. He feels that 
what lie formerly needed so much was 
teaching , that what the world still needs is 
teaching , and so he becomes a teacher. Not 
as if setting up for superior powers or know¬ 
ledge, but, simply as one who lias bad a 
treasure imparted to him, and who there¬ 
fore longs to impart to bis poorer fellow 
creatures bis divine gold and silver. lie 
sees that the great need of humanity is 
teaching, true teaching, teaching in the 
things pertaining to the true God, and he 
sets himself fervently to teach an untaught 
world. He does not confine himself to a 
small inner circle, but he lias his eye on 
everybody ; not with one or two is lie con¬ 
tent. He remembers the words of commen¬ 
dation to Levi: “He walked with me in 
peace and truth, and did turn away many 
from iniquity.” 
-- 
Good Testimony. —“I envy,” says Sir 
Humphrey Davy, “ no quality of the mind 
or intellect in others; be it genius, wit, or 
fancy. But, if I could be allowed to choose 
what would be most delight ful and, 1 believe, 
most useful to me, I should prefer a firm re¬ 
ligious belief to any other blessing.” 
