He i^Ekes’ ifloral iVuimufi imi 3 ftctariwl 
F 
ome &amp^fl£aiu 
A tiny cross 
Of soft wood moss, 
And that is all! 
And yet it hath a voice and speaks to me, 
Of patient faith and holy victory— 
Faith that could triumph in Gethsemane, 
And for our sins a sinless sufferer be, 
Upon the Cross. 
A shadowy cross 
Of soft gray moss, 
And that is all! 
But when from sinful thoughts I fain would flee, 
This little cross reproaches silently, 
As if it said : “CansT thou ungrateful be, 
When Christ, to cleanse from sin hath died for thee, 
Nailed to the Cross? 11 
A little cross 
Of velvet moss, 
And that is all! 
Yet when Fve left my darlings with the dead, 
And storms of sorrow have swept o’er my head, 
I've seen this beacon cross through tears, and said, 
What grief he bore! I will be comforted, 
And bear my cross. 
Oh! tiny cross 
Of forest moss, 
That.is not all! 
I’ll have thee for my daily guard and guide, 
And learn of thee to conquer sin and pride; 
Thou shalt speak oft of Jesus crucified, 
And all the burden of lifers woes I’ll hide, 
Beneath His cross. 
QUEER, MARRIAGES. 
The “most married” woman of which there is any 
record, was undoubtedly the Harlem woman spoken 
of by Evelyn in His diary, whose propensity for re¬ 
marrying had finally to be checked by law. She mar¬ 
ried her twenty-fifth husband, and being now a widow, 
was prohibited to marry in future. 
Many years ago, a man in Hartsville, New York, 
became attached to a young and beautiful damsel, 
who died before their intended marriage could be con¬ 
summated. He then married the mother of the deceas¬ 
ed, who was some twenty years his senior, but with 
whom he lived quite happily until she was eighty and 
he sixty years of age. As the wife had by this time 
become quite decrepit, they adopted a maid of some 
thirty summers, who lived with them a year and a 
half, when the old lady died. Before the time ap¬ 
pointed for the funeral, the man himself was taken 
sick, on which account the funeral services were post¬ 
poned four weeks. But in less than two weeks he 
sent for a justice of the peace, and was married to the 
maid he had adopted. The next day the couple ap¬ 
plied to the town for support, and a week later the 
man himself died, his funeral being attended before 
that of his first wife, and the woman he had so recent¬ 
ly married being the only mourner. Human folly is 
“vast and illimitable.” 
When Socrates was asked whether it were better 
for a man to get married or live single, he replied: 
“Let him do either and he will repent it.” 
With due respect to Socrates we must object to the 
above. We once knew a fortune-hunting young man, 
who married a maiden lady on the wintry side of fifty. 
She was worth about $100,000, and died in less than 
a month after the celebration of the nuptial ceremonies. 
He inherited her property, and he npver vepented his 
marriage. 
Among the ancient Germans, it was death for any 
woman to marry before she was twenty years old. By 
the laws of Lycurgus, the most special attention was 
paid to the physical education, and no delicate or sick 
women were allowed to marry. 
In the Royal Library of Paris, is a written contract, 
drawn up in 1297, between two persons of noble birth 
in Armagnse. The document bound husband and wife 
to faithful wedlock for seven years. It stipulated that 
the parties should have the right to renew the tie at 
that time if they mutually agreed, but if not, the cliil- j 
dren were to be equally divided if the number should 
chance to be even; they were to draw lots for the odd one. 
In Borneo, marriages, which generally succeed a 
lengthened routine of enigmatical courtship peculiar 
to these people, are celebrated with great pomp and 
considerable originality. The bride and bridegroom 
are conducted from the opposite ends of the village, to 
the spot where the ceremony is performed. They are 
seated on two bars of iron, symbolical of the vigorous 
and lasting blessings in store for them. A cigar and 
bethel leaf carefully prepared with an areca nut, are 
put into the hands of each. One of the officiating 
priests advances, and waves two fowls over the heads 
of the betrothed, and in a long address to the Supreme 
Being, and a short one to the couple, calls down eter¬ 
nal blessings on them, implores that peace and hap¬ 
piness attend the union, and gives some temporal 
advice, sometimes of a character more medical than 
saintly. The spiritual part being thus concluded, the 
material succeeds. The heads of the affirmed are 
knocked together four times ; then the bridegroom puts 
his bethel leaf and cigar into the mouth of the bride; 
and thus they are acknowledged a wedded couple, 
with the sanction of their religion. At a later period 
on the nuptial evening, fowls are killed, the blood 
caught in two cups, and from its color the priest fore¬ 
tells the happiness or misery of the newly married. 
The ceremony is closed by a feast, much dancing and 
noisy music. 
NEWLY-MARRIED YOUNG PEOPLE. 
Few will admit that they need any advice in the 
honeymoon; fewer still will take it. Most young 
persons think, “Well, it is hard if we may not be left 
to ourselves at such a season ! ” And yet, perhaps, if 
we took the experience of many on this subject, they 
would admit that the honeymoon has been the time of 
all others when they have been the least able to help 
themselves. Is it too much to say that during those 
two months, the happiness or misery of two young 
lives is very nearly settled ? . Well, perhaps, that is 
too much to say, for errors and misconceptions may bo 
lived down, and habits may be formed or broken after 
honeymoon in the course of years. But still much is 
often decided, we will not say in the first few months, 
but even the first few days. Little things are decided 
in little ways, and neither understand that it is the 
little rift within the lover’s lute that has begun to 
show even on the first day. Annabel is eighteen, but 
she has been brought up in a bottle, knows nothing of 
the world, is about as ignorant and prejudiced and 
pretty a little creature as you will. Annabel dislikes 
smoking, not because the smell of tobacco makes her 
ill, but because her mamma taught her that smoking 
was a bad habit. Ralph, who had lived rather a free 
life, but is reformed, loves Annabel dearly, and is on 
his marriage trip, and longs for a cigar as they speed 
hour after hour toward Edinburgh. Annabel frowns 
for the first time. The next day the same scene 
recurs, but this time Ralph is a little impatient; but 
he still yields with a kiss in excellent taste. But 
when the train stops for twenty minutes, he gets out 
alone. I watch him, I can see something has gone 
wrong. He is thinking, “Ah, horrid bore not to be 
able to have a smoke. Never knew how fond I was 
of smoking. By Jove, I will smoke!” Patience, 
patience, on both sides, but especially on the man’s 
side, for he is the strong vessel and knows life. At the 
bottom of her heart his young wife wants to please 
him, but she cannot bear him out of her sight, ho 
must account for every movement. His ways are in¬ 
comprehensible ? Why does he want to go out for 
ten minutes after dinner for a stroll? Why does he 
prefer spending an hour or two down stairs with an 
old friend at night, to going up to the drawing room ? 
Why does he want to see the papers at the club, in¬ 
stead of going out, after a hard day in the city, for a 
little afternoon shopping ? Man is a mystery to many 
a young girl for the first few months after marriage. 
She has not learned that a man’s interests are and 
must be various. How should she suppose that a 
husband had any other desires than to make money 
and dance attendance upon his wife ? She has never 
cared for anything but love and bonnets. She cannot 
understand that dress and even matrimony are only 
episodes in a man’s life, although they compose the 
sum total of many a woman’s. Newly-married women 
are, no doubt, very trying sometimes to their husbands; 
but it is the fault more of their social training and 
their want of education than anything else. Men 
should remember how much a girl has to learn, and 
how much, alas! most men have to unlearn, when 
they first begin married life. We venture to say that 
if all newly married couples were to make a contract 
not to quarrel for six months, they would seldom have 
any serious quarrels in after life.— Cassel’s Magazine. 
A TEN-THOUSAND DOLLAR GIRL. 
On a certain day, on a Pennsylvania railroad, a 
belle of a thriving Pennsylvania town, the daughter 
of a wealthy lumber merchant, was traveling in the 
same train with a shrewd old citizen of her native 
town and an agreeable youug gentleman from the 
West, who tells the story. 
The latter had been talking to the belle; but, as night 
drew on, and the young lady grew drowsy, he gave his 
seat to her and placed himself beside the somewhat 
cynical Pennsylvauian. The later began the conver¬ 
sation by pointing to a ,high mountain past which they 
were whirling, and said: 
“You see that mountain ? Six or eight years ago it 
was covered with as fine a forest as ever grew, and 
was worth ten thousand dollars and upward. Now, 
without a tree, covered with stumps, the land is 
scarcely worth a continental. The net produce of 
that mountain is over there in that seat,” and he 
pointed to the recumbent belle. “That is my calcula¬ 
tion. It has just absorbed all of that lumber, which 
her father owned, to raise and educate the girl, to pay 
for her clothes and jewelry, bring her out in society, 
and maintain her there. Some of you young men, if 
you were given your choice of the mountain yonder as 
it now stands, and the net produce on that seat, would 
take the net produce; but, as for me, give me the 
stumps! ” 
A Paradise of Widows and Spinsters. —A corres¬ 
pondent writing from Bath, England, says: It is 
rather slow, I judge, for vigorous men. One afternoon 
my friends took me to a “kettle-drum” (an afternoon 
tea) at the house of the only daughter of Matthews. 
The room was full of ladies standing about and talk¬ 
ing, and among them were three or four young men. 
The men looked like interlopers, and I thought they 
must be strangers visiting friends, who had brought 
them as I had been brought, simply to amuse them for 
the time, and I felt sorry for the disadvantages they 
seemed to be under in this crowd of women, but I was 
told it was a fairly proportioned party for Bath ; that 
they could seldom get more than one man to six women. 
V 
