axial 
topics. 
VIA DOLOROSA. 
Still tortured by fever, life's fever accurst 
E’en Death is too cruel to bless rae; 
Refusing that pitiful refuge the worst 
Of God's creatures may claim! White they press 
me 
On every side here, such a horrible baud 
Whose rest in the grave is unquiet, 
That turning from heaven, earth, and hades I stand 
In unite despair; savo when the riot 
And rush of remembrance breaks in un my brain, 
Then I fall und cry out In my sorrow, 
•• Nepenthe. O ChristI.et me never again 
Behold the sad dawn of a morrow!” 
1 lean frnm my dreary and death-haunted room. 
Where the phantoms are gathering grimly, 
And peer through the deepening, desolate gloom 
At the street-lamps, flickering dimly. 
I list to the moaning, shivering blast, 
That rushes so recklessly O’er mo, 
And hear but the wail at my storm-darkened past. 
Whose hopeless wild night lies before me. 
Each gust, with its freightage of icy-cold rain. 
My pallid face beat* Into burning; 
While horror and hunger and torturing pain 
My spirit to madnesM are turning. 
Down, down from my attic, through foulnoss and 
filth, 
Through many an alley and by-way,— 
No creature so pitiful, flying from guilt. 
Ever crept through the night, to the highway. 
Far down the long street where the people I meet 
Draw closer t-hoir mantles in warning 
Of vileness like mine j and my footsteps grow fleet 
While despair follows close on their scorning. 
J clutch at their garments and shriek, as they turn, 
** Have mercy, my brothers! I perish I” 
No help,—but a horrlhle stare; and I learn 
The pity Christ's followers cherish. 
So deep is my sin ! Yet I once, with the rest, 
Wore the stainless white pearls of existence, 
Though I know not their worth, held them Arm as 
the best, 
In the clutch of my woman’s resistance. 
As they stole tho white gems, how they flattered 
and smiled! 
They crowned me with thorns like their Saviour; 
And witii toilings and tears, and with hunger grown 
wild, 
I was swept to this evil behavior! 
Then down the black tide io tho voMox of hell 
I swiftly and hopelessly glided, 
While all that Could help me my own soul as well— 
Booked scornfully on, und derided ! 
I know where a river runs turbid and swift,— 
Jts curronts flow under (rod's curses ; 
So many have perished there, missing the rift 
in the cloud that shows others His mercies. 
My spirit gro.i wilder and swifter and strong— 
l leap, I fly on through the gloaming; 
i know that Impurity, hunger and wrong 
Will be speedily lost in its foaming, 
i stand by Its waters, so deep and so black,— 
Its fury brings, calm to my spirit; 
I kneel on tho bridge and look back o’er my track 
And on to my omi. Do I fear It? 
I think of tin; home that was sunny and sweet, 
I think of the loving and losing, 
Of friends that were treacherous, wealth that was 
fleet, 
And pleasures that, perished in using. 
5 see the lone graves of my heart-broken dead: 
I wall O’er my hopeless defilement. 
Earth scorns ttiy repentance. God's mercy has fled 
From tho tv reck of Bulimic bugui lenient. 
Tho waters roll sullenly. Life I* a curse. 
Who listens? Who sees? Christ forsakes me. 
A plunge, then a struggle,—death cunnot be worse 
Than destruction,—oblivion o'ertakeg me. 
[Map Whitney , in Ladies ’ Repository . 
BE TOLERANT. 
BY JOHNNIE. 
“ Every heart knoweth its own bitterness.” 
Deep down in every heart there is a 
secret chamber, over whose threshold none 
may pass unbidden; of whose very exist¬ 
ence the world, perchance, knows not, so 
carefully do we keep it locked and scaled. 
And we do well; for if “ the stranger jnter- 
meddleth not” with the heart’s joy, how 
much less should he, with the heart’s secret 
bitterness! a bitterness often, in comparison 
With which the waters of Marah were 
sweet. Truly, every heart knoweth its own 
but too well. If it knew one-half as well 
the bitterness of every oilier heart, charity, 
I think, would no longer he a “ rare tiling 
under the sunfor where we now so 
thoughtlessly censure, so unfeelingly con¬ 
demn, we should then perhaps, pity—with 
that pity which is so near akin to love. But 
as it is, wc know not, we care not to think 
there is an undercurrent beneath the surface; 
so wo call yonder girl frivolous and flippant, 
not knowing that unshed tears give such 
unwonted brilliancy to her eye; that her 
light laugh too often dies away in a smoth¬ 
ered sigh; for her womanly pride forbids 
that the world should know her heart is 
breaking. 
We turn away with a feeling of aversion 
from that “ cold, cynical man.” How little 
do wc know, though, of the cruel wrongs 
that have wrought such a transformation in 
his once ardent, loving nature; of that 
crushing blow which showed him, at once, 
the friend he had trusted a traitor, the wo¬ 
man he had loved as false as she was fair. 
In our prosperous abundance we call that 
man “slothful and inefficient,” But what 
do we know of his constant struggles, his 
earnest endeavors to turn to account talents 
far superior to our own, rewarded on every 
side only by failure and disappointment, 
until he is tempted almost to cry out:— 
“ Hath God forgotten to be gracious ?” 
We raise our hands in holy horror at 
“ that dissipated young man,” it is to be 
feared, too often in the spirit which prompts 
men to say :—“ Stand aside, I am holier than 
thou 1” But could we have one glance into 
the secret room, our hearts might soften to 
behold a weak youth, with everything to 
tempt him, and no one to pity or to pray for 
him, vainly striving to deaden the pangs of 
remorse, or to drown the voice of conscience 
in the intoxicating cup. 
Ah, that secret heart bitterness! Mani¬ 
fold and varied are its forms as the hearts to 
which it is known ; and known in some form 
it is, lo every human heart. Some, it may 
be, are mourning in secret over dear ones 
wilfully going astray. Some have their 
whole lives embittered through the evil tem¬ 
per of those to whom the closest, tics have 
bound Ilium. Some have the hitter lesson 
to learn, how “ sharper than a serpent’s 
tooth it is to have a thankless child.’' One 
peculiar sensitive nature goes through life 
with an almost agonizing longing for the 
sympathy it, never finds, ever thrown back 
upon itself, never appreciated, never under¬ 
stood. 
Shall wc not, then, pause awhile, when in 
future tempted to censure or condemn, and 
recall to our minds the sail fact that every 
heart, knoweth its own bitterness? If we 
will but do so, tender-eyed Pity will softly 
stool into our hearts, aud so plead with us 
that, we cannot, but open wide the door to 
her sweet sister, Charity. 
-- 
COURTING AMONG THE COSSACKS. 
Among the Cossacks of the Ukraine, leap- 
year is eternal. When a young woman feels 
a l ender passion for a young man, she-seeks 
him at the residence of his parents, and ad¬ 
dresses him as follows:—“The goodness I 
see written in your countenance is a sufficient 
assurance to me that you arc capable of rul¬ 
ing and loving a wife, and your excellent 
qualities encourage me to hope that you will 
make a good husband. It is in this belief 
that I have taken the resolution to come, and 
beg you, with all due humility, to accept me 
for your spouse.” She then addresses the 
father and mother, and solicits their consent 
to the marriage. Tf she meets wit h a refusal, 
she declines to leave the house, and such con¬ 
duct is usually crowned with success. The 
parents of the young man never put the 
young maidens away, if they still persist in 
their stay, believing that by doing so they 
would living down the vengeance, of heaven 
upon their heads. 
-- 
HEIRESSES AND CHILDREN. 
Mr. Gat-ton, in his work relating to hered¬ 
itary ability, states that intermarriage with 
heiresses is a notable agent, in the extinction 
of families. An exhaustive search among 
records of extant, and extinct peerages shows 
that one-iifth of the heiresses have no male 
children at all; a full third have not more 
than one child; three-fifths have not more 
than two. It hns been the salvation of many 
families that the husband outlived the heir¬ 
ess, whom lie first married, and was able lo 
leave issue by a second wife. There arc 
several most notable instances of the truth of 
this statement in English society at tho pres¬ 
ent, time, Mrs. Lloyd Lindsay, only child of 
Lord Overaton—formerly head of the cele¬ 
brated hanking house of Jones, Lloyd & Co., 
who is said lo live upon the interest of her 
interest, is childless; and so is Lady Holmes- 
dale, who inherited from her father, and tho 
last Earl Cornwallis, £30,000 a year. 
-- 
SOCIAL CURIOSITIES. 
Why do thieves lead a comfortable life ? 
Because they take things easy. 
When a fish is wounded, the other fishes 
fall upon and devour him. There is some 
human nature in fishes. 
A young lady, being asked by a rich old 
bachelor, “ If not yourself, who would you 
rather be?” replied sweetly and modestly, 
“ Yours truly.” 
A young lady, upon one occasion, re¬ 
quested her lover that he should define love. 
“ Well,” said lie, “ it is to me an inexpressi- 
bility and an outward-all-overishness.” 
A certain fop, who was arguing with a 
bluff clergyman on the immortality of the 
soul, asked him: — “Now where do you 
think 1 shall go after death ?” “ Wherever 
your tailor goes,” was the calm reply. 
Asa proof of the fact that, girls are useful 
articles, and 1 hat, the world could not very 
well get along without them, a late writer 
States it, ns a fact that if all the girls were 
driven out of the world in one generation, 
the boys would all go out after them. 
A gallant was lately sitting beside his 
beloved, aud being unable to think of any¬ 
thing to say, asked her why she was like 
a tailor. “ I don’t know,” said she, with a 
pouting lip, “ unless it’s because I’m sitting 
beside a goose.” 
Not so very far out of the way was an 
English sailor at Brussels, who emptied his 
pockets, containing two hundred and fifty 
francs, into the apron of a woman with half 
a dozen starving children. The sailor re¬ 
marked to the astounded natives who wit¬ 
nessed llm act:—“lain a good fellow, and 
never drink when I have nothing to drink 
with.” A good many young men might he 
safer to “ go and do likewise.” 
THAT HAPPY TIME. 
That happy time! I feel Its thrill, 
Through alt the year* that intervene; 
Its tuneful voices charm me, still, 
To-day’s discordant sounds between; 
Its songs of hope were pleasant things, 
Its songs of love e’en sweeter were, 
And joy lent nil tho moment* wings 
Till past they flew with gladsome stir, 
And days were short as summer nights, 
Each rhythmic with divine delights. 
That happy time! I sit alone— 
Vet not alone, for they are hero 
Who made its tender grace their own. 
And vanished with the vanished year; 
Who to my seeming over dwell 
That radiant, happy time within; 
Who, wooed by its delightsome spell, 
Went gladly out, In turn to win 
Fruition sweeter than their dreams 
Beside the silver-flowing streams! 
They gather round me asof old; 
They press mo, us they pressed mo thon. 
In tender nearness, and they hold 
Me to their breasts in love again. 
Heart peats to heart, in youthful flow, 
Arul age unheeded slips away; 
That hgppy time of long ago 
Is once again t he glad to-day. 
And all this weariness of years 
In dimmest distance disappears 1 
A sweet Vn Capo ’ti3,1 feel, 
In this sad song of life I sing, 
Ami sweeter that the loved and leal 
Its echoing music backward fling. 
But will they to tho ttmvl end 
Thus add their notes so softly sweet. 
And to my Broken singing lend 
The harmony to make complete? 
Or will they into silence die 
And echo but my waking sigh ? 
Begone, O asking, wretched doubt! 
The joyous, happy time Is mine ! 
Its forms of love ure round about; 
I'll brook no haunting gliosis of tliino! 
Though good or III to morrow see, 
No ill shall now abiding know, 
While one by one there comes to mo 
The pleasure* of the long ago. 
My soul has found it* summer cliino 
Within that radiant, happy time I 
- - 
SELFISHNESS. 
BV J. W. QUINBY. 
We admire and applaud generosity ; we 
detest, and condemn selfishness. This is 
true of Immunity, and the verdict it implies 
is final. The voice of the conscience of man 
is the voice of Him who made man. 
And yet selfishness lords it over the world 
as does no other power this side ol Heaven. 
See tire palaces it builds, the thrones, and all 
the instruments of power. See how navies 
sweep the seas and armies the lands to do it 
service. Nature, obedient to him who learns 
the secret of obedience to her, drives the 
huge machinery of the commercial world 
in the interest of selfishness. That, a few 
may sit in splendor, wear purple, wield 
their collective influence, nor are we ever 
brought into contact with an individual as a 
historical personage. 
No doubt, in modern hooks, persons of 
celebrity in the ancient world are said to 
have been Druids, but this is because their 
authors have concluded that, they must have 
belonged to that order, not because they are 
so called by any contemporary writer. A 
Druid is, indeed, a being rarely individual¬ 
ized in fhe literature of the latter empire, 
and it has rather tended to confute the re¬ 
ceived notions of the hierachy, that some, 
perhaps the greatest number, of those indi¬ 
vidually mentioned arc female Druids. 
The most, distinct accounts Indeed, that 
we possess of Druids coming forward in the 
flesh, and transacting business with human 
beings, ore in some anecdotes told by Vo- 
piseus, one of 
Augustine historians, 
about certain Druids of the feminine gender. 
One of these, whom Diocletian met in a 
tavern in Germany, predicted to him that 
ho should bo Emperor after he had slain the 
Aper. Though he slew many an “Aper” 
or boar, without the predicted result, it 
came when he had stabbed Arriua Aper, 
whom he accused of murdering the Emperor 
Numerlan. Again, Voplseus tells how 
Claudius Aurelianus consulted some Druid¬ 
esses OH the chances of the Empire continu¬ 
ing in its prosperity, and got some assur¬ 
ances about the luster of the name of Clau¬ 
dius, which were fulfilled, but in a shape 
which made the answer appear equivocal. 
♦ »■» - 
BLUE SKY SOMEWHERE. 
Children are eloquent teachers. Many 
a lesson which has done our heart good 
have we learned from their lisping lips. It 
was but the other day another took root in 
memory. We were going to a picnic, and 
of course the little ones had been in ecstasies 
for several days. But the appointed morn¬ 
ing broke with no glad sunshine, no song of 
birds, no peals of mirth. There was every 
prospect of rain; even Hope hid her face 
and wept. 
“Shan’t, we go, mother?” exclaimed a 
child of five, with passionate emphasis. 
“ If H clears off.” 
“ But how shall we know ? ” 
“ O, look out for the blue sky I ” 
And so lie did, poor little fellow, but never 
a hit of blue sky gladdened his eyes. 
“ Well, L don’t care, mother,” said he, 
when the tedious day had at length num¬ 
bered all its hours, “ if I haven’t it, I know 
there is blue sky somewhere.” 
Tim next morning there was blue sky, a 
whole heaven full of it—clear, glorious blue 
sky, such as only greets us after a weary 
storm. 
“There, mother, didn’t I tell you so?” 
GO 
[ablmtlj ilcubing* 
THE HIDDEN LORD. 
BY A. E. H. 
“ Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud.”— La¬ 
mentations, III, 44. 
Out of the depths, Oh Lord I 
Of n stricken heart we cry ; 
Weary, and faint, and worn, 
Lo, at Thy feet we lie. 
Gone are the glmiaome hours. 
And t he Joys our spirit* knew— 
" Thou hast oovered Thyself with a cloud, 
That our prayers should uot pass through.” 
Dark und tone i* tho way. 
And heavy haa been the cross, 
Where we sought for gem* of worth, 
Wo have found but mire and dross. 
oh. when on hope’* fading flowers. 
Wilt Thou send refreshing dow ? 
" Thou bast covered Thyself with a cloud, 
That our prayers should not pass through.” 
Vainly In earthly hopes, 
And earthly love wc trust. 
The fairest forma we Clasp 
Hut crumble away to dust. 
Then why these phantoms still 
Should our weary feet pursue? 
" Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud. 
That, our prayers should uot pass through,” 
Vain is the breath of fame; 
Vain Is the victor’s wreath ; 
Aud the cup that pleasure holds 
Doth luro ns on to death. 
Thon hearken to our cry. 
Our fainting soul* renew ; 
Nor Cover Thyself with a cloud. 
That our prayers nniy not pass through! 
Porter, 1870. 
power, the millions sit in want, and rags, and cried a joyous voice; “ there is blue sky.” 
weakness. Or, that a few may enjoy art.,— 
music, painting, scenic display, and selfishly 
drain the cap of the most refined aud fas¬ 
tidious pleasures; for selfishness is quite 
compatible with the last material refine¬ 
ments,—the many must still be content with 
a place low down, witii no time and oppor¬ 
tunity, and soon with no capacity for the 
making of thoughts and feelings, above the 
low level to which they have been con¬ 
demned. That there is thus sometimes no 
consciousness of what is lost, — of what 
ought to be,—may afford a thought of relief, 
hut true Humanity weeps over it, and the 
tears flow faster to think that insensibility, 
this most lamentable of the results of injus¬ 
tice, should come so soon. 
So selfishness rules the world, and the 
world,—the Christian world, the world that 
builds churches, supports missionaries, and 
prays to God to hasten the time when 
Righteousness shall reign on earth as well as 
in Heaven,—condemns it. Is that condem¬ 
nation honest? How willing is the spirit 
that prompts it to sell all that it possesses 
and give to the. poor? Nay,—for that, is by 
no means all,—how far will it go os brother 
to brother and sister to sister, with swift foot 
and ready hand, kind look and helping word 
to those who have been sitting all these ages 
in the fearful shadow of this black selfish 
ness, and lay not merely money on the altar 
of their good, but the sweet blessing of Chris¬ 
tian presence, sympathy and encourage¬ 
ment? It is a great tiling to feel tho joy of 
an unselfish heart for ourselves ; is it not a 
greater to lift many others where the possi¬ 
bility of this great joy shall come to them? 
-*-*-•*- 
THE DRUIDS. 
The history >f Europe from Coesar’s time 
to the reign of Constantine is sufficiently full 
of events, but we find no Druids concerned 
in them. Occasionally in rhetoric prose or 
in poetry, they are brought up to give plc- 
turesqueness to the scene; as where Tacitus, 
in his narrative of the capture of Mona, de¬ 
scribes the shrieking women and the band 
of Druids invoking the gods; and Lucan, 
when enumerating the evils that befell un¬ 
happy Gaul when Ctesar crossed the Rubi¬ 
con on liis way back, makes the Druids re¬ 
sume their mysterious orgies. But we never 
meet witii any distinct political result of 
Then the little head dropped for a mo¬ 
ment in silent thought. 
“ Mother,” exclaimed the child, when he 
again looked up, “ there must have been 
bine sky all day yesterday, though I never 
saw a bit of it, coz you see there ain’t no 
place where it could have gone to—God only 
covered it up with clouds, didn’t he ? ” 
-- 
USING THE HEART. 
A CniNESE teacher, when speaking in 
commendation of a work in thy Chinese lan¬ 
guage, by Rev. Reuben Lowrie, a missionary, 
who died at Shanghai in April, 1800, said; 
“ Mr Lowrie in all things used his heart.” 
That is the literal rendering of the Chinese 
sentence, by which the teacher meant to ex¬ 
press the fact that Mr. Lowrie applied his 
mind with great diligence to every subject 
which claimed his attention. Some men use 
only tlieir hands, or, at most, only their hands 
and their heads. They do not labor with 
deep, heart-felt interest to attain their object. 
Those who succeed arc those who use tlieir 
hearts in all things. 
- 4 ~*_*- 
SANDWICHES. 
Economy is the easy chair of old age. 
Envy is the saw of the soul. 
Humility gains more than pride. 
It is better to carve your name on hearts 
than marble. 
Lucv Stone likens boys to vinegar—the 
more “ mother” in them the sharper they are. 
Life is like a mountain—after climbing 
up one side and sliding down the other, put 
up the sled. 
“ Why do you call me birdie, my dear?” 
“ Because you are always associated in my 
mind with a hill.” 
“ My boy, wliat does your mother do for a 
living?” was asked of a little barefooted 
urchin. “ She eats cold victuals, sir.” 
“ I have a great lovo for old hymns,” said 
a pretty girl to her masculine friend. “ I 
am much fonder,” he replied, “ of the young 
hers.” 
An urchin being sent for five cents’ worth 
of maccaboy snuff, forgot tho name of the 
article, and aBked for five cents’ worth of 
make-a-boy-sneeze. 
AFTER ALL. 
It would be a sad thing, <) unbelieving 
ones I if it should transpire that you are 
mistaken, after all,—if in the end you should 
face death with tho painful consciousness of 
something more than you had counted upon 
beyond. Ami unless ynur faith in unbelief 
is stronger than that of mauy another, this 
may happen. The chances arc very great 
indeed that happen it will, any way. 
Unbelief is rarely stronger than belief,— 
never so strong when strength is most need¬ 
ed. Unbelief may be, in the estimation of 
certain philosophers, more philosophical 
than belief, hut thousands can testify, have 
testified, that It is not the half so comforting. 
Philosophy is good, but al certain times 
comfort is better, and it Is always more 
sweet. Philosophy may help a man to die 
like a stoic, but belief makes it his glorious 
privilege to put aside his earthliness like a 
saint. 
Then, what does one lose, believing ? 
Nothing, surely. But what may lie not lose, 
clinging ever to his doubt! It is this possi¬ 
bility of loss that ought to he more carefully 
considered. Did possible loss attach to both 
sides of the question of accepting Christ, 
the skeptic would seem more reasonable in 
his skepticism. But such is not the fact. 
Accepting Him as the Saviour, of a race 
entails no loss whatever, unless to give up 
some injurious pleasures count as losing; 
whereas rejecting him may result in the 
greatest loss possible to any. 
After all your want of faith, there may 
come uu eternity of regrets. After all your 
unbelieving smiles at the foolish faith of 
some whom you now choose to denomiivi-e 
simple-minded, you may come to see that m 
all their foolishness and simple-mindedness 
there was the truest wisdom. Others have 
known a like experience. Are you wiser 
than all who have gone before ? 
-♦♦♦- 
CONFORMING TO THE WORLD. 
“ Present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God.” “ Be not. con¬ 
formed to this world, but be ye transformed 
by the renewing of your minds.” “ Make 
not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts 
thereof.” In view of the instructions just 
quoted, and some others wc may yet refer 
to, we confess an entire inability to reconcile 
them with some of the teachings and much 
of the practice of the present day. The 
doctrine is current that we are not to he pe¬ 
culiar; that it is desirable to conform to 
worldly fashions in order that we may not 
shock our neighbors; that we recommend 
religion by yielding to the customs of so¬ 
ciety, abstaining only from crime—“ having 
a form of godliness, hut denying the power 
thereof.” Alas! “ While they promise them 
liberty, they themselves are the servants of 
corruption; for of whom a man is over¬ 
come, of the same is he brought into bond- 
He that knows the heart can l’ecognize 
the tuasyllabled thanksgiving and the peni¬ 
tence that expresses itself neither by sigh 
nor by tear. There are moods of the soul 
in which we prefer silence. But, ordinarily, 
expression, utterance, is most natural. Even 
when none but God is near, it helps us to 
assume a reverent attitude and give audible 
expression to the feelings of our hearts. 
Men’s lives should he like the day, more 
beautiful in the evening; or, like the sum¬ 
mer, aglow with promise; and the autumn, 
rich with the golden sheaves, where good 
work and deeds have ripened on the field. 
