WATERY
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A A He es me nd DA EAR
"as I came out.
BELATED BLOOM.
Thouxh late Spring like a miser kept
much wealth of bloom,
And hoarded half her treasures up
In Winter's tomb, =
Yet ‘neath the sway
Of queenly May
Earth seems the richer for delay.
Spring has grown bountiful at last, -
Her penitence was wrought
In raindrops ringed with fragiie gold,—
The tears that April brought;
With reformation sweet,
In vernal grace complete,
Bhe lays her gifts at Summer's feet.
— William H. Hayne, in Cosmopolitan
THE ENDING OF A FEUD.
SX 9 THERE are you going,
Letitia?” demands
Miss Banbridge, se-
verely, gazing at the
trembling Letitia
over a pair of good-
rimmed glasses.
stJust out for a
little waik, auntie.
The day is so de-
gE licious,” says Le-
a, with her most engaging smile. She
is thinking what an awful thing it will
be if auntie forbids her to go out to-day,
of all days, and Jack waiting for her at
the top of the meadow.
«Now, once for all, Lettiia, let this
be understood between us,” says Miss
Banbridge; ‘‘there is to be no inter-
course between this house and that of the
Court. You may think I am too old to
hear things, but there you are wrong. 1
have heard a goud deal lately about
young Hardinge, who has returned to
the Court after his father’s death; heard,
too, with deep regret, Letitia, that you
so far forgot yourself as to dance with
him a fortnight ago at the Mainwarings’s
little—"
*Hop,” suggested Letitia, who is too
frightened by her aunt’s allusion to the
young master of the Court to remember
her society manners.
s“Hop! How dare you use such a
word?” cried Miss Banbridge. ¢‘Good
heavens! The manners of the present
day! Now, Letitia, hear me. It seems
you did dance with this objectionable
young man at the Mainwarings’ ball.
Perhaps you could not help that. But
knowing, as you do, of the feud that
has lasted for fifty years between their
house and ours, I trust you have too
much respect for me—for your name—
to recognize a Hardinge anywhere.”
ssBut what has he—er’’—nervously,
stwhat have they all done?” asks ‘Le-
titia, her eyes on the marble pavement
of the hall, her heart at the top of the
meadow.
Good grcious, if auntie only knew
that she bad been meeting Jack every
day. for the past lortnight—ever since
that long dance, indeed, when—when—
well, he wouldn’t danse with anyone
but ber. And it is all such nonsense,
too. A rubbishy old story about a right
of way that happened fifty years ago,
and Jack the dearest, dearest fellow!
«I refuse to go into it,” says Miss
Banbridge, with dignity. ¢Ic suffices
to say that this young man’s grandfather
once behaved in the grossest fashion to
your grandfather—my,” with a sigh,
‘ssainted father. If you are going out
I trust that if you meet the present own-
er of the Court, you will not so much as
acknowledge his presence.”
¢‘{ gshan't bow to him, auntie,” says
Letitia, in a very small voice.
Detestation of herself and her duplie-
ity is still raging 1n her heart when she
meets Jack Hardingein the old trysting
place. She had certainly promished her
aunt not to bow to him. Well, she
doesn’t; she only flings herself into his
arms—glad young arms, that close fondly
round her.
+¢Oh, Jack, she’s getting worse than
ever. . She was simply raging about you
I really thought she was
going to forbid me to come atall. She
says you're an objectionable young man!”
*¢Oh, I say,” said Hardinge. ¢‘What
have I done to be called names like
that?”
“Nothing, nothing!” cried Letitia,
flinging her arms about in despairing
protest, ‘‘except that your grandfather
once punched my grandfather's nose.”
¢“Well, I'm awfully sorry,” said Har-
dinge, and they both laugn. ¢‘Would
it do any good, do you think, if I were
to go down now and apologize for my
exceedingly rude old forbear?”
«+I shouldn't advise you to try it,” says
Letitia.
«But what are we to do then?” says
Jack, his arm around her.
They are sitting on the grass, safely
hidden behind a clump of young trees.
The sun is shining mad!y on their beads;
the birds are singing on every branch,
It is May—delightfu! May, the lover's
month—and the hottest May that bas
been known for years.
«t] don’t know,” says Letitia, with
deep despondency.
¢:It’s such beastly folly,” says Hardinge
presently, in an impatient toe. “If I
were a fool cr a poor man or a reprobate;
but I am not—am I, now?”
Ch, no!” says Letitia. She creeps
closer to him and encircles his waist with
her arm, or, at all events, tries bravely
to do so. It doesn’t go half way round,
but that doesn’t matter. She grasps a
bit of his coat and holds on to him so.
«Do you know what you are, Jack? The
dearest old boy on earth.”
¢¢And you—do you know what you
are?’ says Hardinge, pressing her fingers
to his lips. :
¢‘No,” says she.
t:Well, I can’t tell you,” says he, ‘‘be-
cause there is nothing on earth fit to
compare you with. You are you, and
that's all!”
«What a lovely speech! No wonder
mission for anything. We would have
to run away, and that would break her
heart. I am all she has in the world,
and, though she scolds me a good deal,
1 love her. I wouldn't desert her,
Jack.”
*“You could come back again,” says
he.
«Of course, I know that. But then
she would always feel disappointed in me
and hurt and— No, no, I shall never
do that. She trusts me so.”
“Then I don’t know what's going to
be the end of it,” says he.
$‘We must only wait,” says Letitia,
despondingly. ¢‘And now, Jack, you
had better go. She is sure to come up
‘| here presently, to see how the men are
getting on with that fence. You know
what an excellent woman of business she
is. If she caught vou here—"
«There would be wigs on the green,”
says Jock, laughing. *‘Well, good-by—
for awhile. Isuppose if I come back
this evening I shall find you here?”
¢‘Yes—ob, yes! Jack, do take care;
the men will see you.”
“Not they,” says Jack, kissing her
again. ‘‘And you—what are you going
to do while I am away?”
¢“Think of you,” with a little saucy
glance at him from.uader her long lashes.
“By the bye, have you got a match about
you?"
What on earth do you want it for?"
says he, giving her some wax lights out
of a little silver box as he speaks. ¢‘Go-
ing to have a cigarette?”
¢*Nonsense! I feel as if I wanted to
set fire to some of those dry little
bunches of grass; fairy tufts we used to
call them long ago. ‘They would bure
beautafully to-day, the sun 1s so hot.”
«Well, don’t set fire to yourself, what-
ever you do,” says he, thoughtlessly.
Once again they kiss, and this time
really part.
Letitia stands watching him till he is
out of sight, standing on tiptoe as he
gets over the wall to blow a last kiss to
bim. Then coming out of the shelter of
her trysting-place, she walks into the
old meadow, now beaten down save
where the tall, course tufts of grass are
growing. Lighting one of her matches
she kneels down and sets fire to the tuft
nearest her. It used to be an amuse-
ment of hers in her childhood, and she
is not yet so far removed from those
days as to have lost all childish fancies.
Sitting down on the side of a tiny hillock
at a distance ste watches the dancing
flames—so small, so flickering, so harm-
less.
She leans back against the bank he-
hind her and crosses her white arms be-
hind her head. What a day it is!—
most heavenly, sweet—quite a drowsy
day. Most lovely that light smoke is
climbing slowly uphill ard fading away
among the young beach trees above.
And the flames, like fairies dancing.
Perhaps they are fairies who dwell in
these old, dry tufts. No wonder they
are dancing—with rage. evidently. Their
stronghold are seized, destroyed by the
tyrant man! No—woman this time.
Ah, ah! In this case woman has come
to the front, at all events. She bas
been reading about the emancipation of
woman last night, and had laughed over
it. After all, she didn’t want to be
emancipated ; she only wanted Jack to
iove her always—nothing more. Per-
haps the other queer women only meant
that, too, only they hadn’t found their
Jazks yet. Pouf! How warm it isl
Gradually her head sinks Lack upon
her arms, her eyelids droop over the
soft, clear eves. How delicious it is
here! How cosy! Again the eyes open,
but very lazily this time. See how the
little insects run to and fro over her
white frock, hither and thither, all in
search of the great want—food. A pass-
ing thought makes her laugh indolently.
She hopes they will not make food of
her. And then the the eyelids close
resolutely; she leans back. Sleep has
caught her.
So sound, indeed, is her slumber, that
she does not know that now tae little
black insects are rushing over her, not in
search of food, but of safety—safety
from the tiny hot flames that are creep-
ing every moment closer to the thin
white frock. Now they have touched her
(oot, and have so far penetrated the thin
slipper as to make her unplesantly warm,
but not enough to waken her. She only
turns a little and sighs; but now!
Now she springs to her feet with an
affrig{ ted scream. Smoke! Smoke
everywhere! And what is this creep-
ing up the front of her gown? A thread
of fire. It blows upon her face. She
recoils from it, but it follows her. Madly
she lifts her hands and tries to beat 1t
buck. The men! The men at the
fence! Where are they! Alas, they
have all gone to dinner. Once again a
frantic cry bursts from her lips.
It is answered. At this moment Har-
dinge reaches her, and flinging off his
coat, he catches her in it. Folding it
around her, Le holds her as if in a vise.
What brought him back (beyond the
mercy of God) he never knew, except
that those last words of his, ‘Don’t set
fire to yourself, at all events,” had
scemed to haunt him after he left her.
A foolish fear about the words had
touched his lover's heart, and compelled
him to mount a wall and look back. In
a moment he had seen.
He quenched the flames in a miracu-
lously short time. Letitia 13 able to
stand up and answer faintly his passion-
ate questions as to her safety, when sud-
denly a voice strikes upon them that
renders both dumb.
It is the voice of Mss Bainbridge.
She has been toiling up the hill. She
locks almost distraught.
¢:0h, sir,” cries she, catching Letitia
in her arms, ‘I saw all. I thought I
should have died. Oh, my girl—my
darling child?” (She spends her whole
time in tormenting Letitia, but Letitia
I love you,” says Letitia, naively; ‘‘but,”
collapsing into gloom, ‘what's the good
of it all? Auntie will never let you
marry me.”
«+We could marry without her pe
mission,” says he slowly.
«No, we couldn't,” says Letitia, with
decision. She looks at him earnestly.
+¢, wouldn't marry you without her per- |
for all that is the apple of her eys.) Oh,
| sir, how can I thank you? The gratitude
| of my life is yours—the preserver of my
wetty child.” Then the old lady burs:
wt crying. Half an hour ago she would
ave died rather thad tell Letitia she was
pretty, but now she lays many offerings
| at her feet. Poor feet. They right
more service to the immeasurable one
you have already done me,” says she,
softly, *‘you will help me to get my poor
child back to the house.”
¢But,” begins Hardinge. It seem»
wrong to him, even at this supreme mo-
ment, to deceive the old lady—to go into
the house under false pretenses. If she
knew his name.
A little pressure from the hand of
Letitia decides him. How can he have
scruples when she is so. ill—so fright.
ened?
Silently he passes his arm around her,
and with her aunt takes her back to the
house. They lay her on a sofa. Miss
Banbridge flings a rug over her burnt
dress.
¢«:3he must rest here a little before go-
ing upstairs,” says she.
‘Miss Banbridge,” says the young
man, now turning with determination
towards her, *‘I—I wish to say”—
¢«:8ir, it is what I have to say,” says
Miss Banbridge, with emotion. ¢‘I have
pot half thanked you. How can I? If
there is anything I can do—any way in
which I car show my gratitude to you—
pray, name it. In the mean time, pray
tell me the name of the brave man who
has delivered my niece from the very
jaws ot death.”
¢+Hardinge,” says he, shortly.
¢¢What!” Miss Banbridge has fallen
back in her chair, staring at him with
wild eyes.
‘Yes, Hardinge,” says the young man
steadily, if sorrowfully. He pauses.
«¢After all,” says he, ‘I can’t help my
name.”
There is a pause; Letitia draws her
breath sharply. ¢‘I'nat is true,” says
Miss Banbridfie, at last, in a severe uan-
dertone.
“I can't help having had a grand-
father, either,” says Hardinge, taking
another step.
*¢No; I suppose not,” most reluctantly.
«Most fellows have grandfathers!’
«I cannot contradict you, sir.”
“Miss Banbridge,” says Hardinge,
going closer to her, and gazing at her
with all his heart in his eyes, ‘‘you asked
me just now if there was any way in
which you could show your gratitude tn
me—about—about this thing. I want
no gratitude. I would have gladly died
to save your niece a pang. But—but
you have given me the opportunity to
tell you that I want—her! I love her.
She loves me. Give her to me.”
¢‘Letitia!” says Miss Banbridge in a
strange voice.
*Oh, yes! Itis true,” says Letitia,
bursting into tears. *‘I do love him, I
loved him that night at the Mainwarings
—and I have loved him better and bet—
ter every day since.” Here her sobs in-
creasing, ‘he used to come to see me in
the meadows, where——where I was nearly
burned!”
Whether this allusion to the late catas-
trophe, that might have ended in a
tragedy, stills Miss Banbridge's wrath, or
whether her old heart has beea softened
by Hardinge's plain acknowledgment of
his love for her niece, no one can tell.
She turns to Hardinge, with a pale face,
but not wholly unkindly air.
«I must have time to think,” saysshe.
She hesitates and then says: ¢‘This is
very painful to me, Mr.—Hardinge.” It
seems certainly painful to her to pso-
nounce his name—the name so long
tabooed in her household. ¢‘I must have
time—time.” She grows silent. The
bearts of the lovers sink. Suddenly she
looks up again.
+‘Perhaps you will do me the honor to
dine with me to-morrow night?” says
she. Her tone is icy, but the two listen-
ing to her feel their cause is won. To
ask Mr. Hardinge to dine—to aceept
hospitality at her hands! Oh, sureiy the
old feud is at an end.
A little sound escapes from Letitia.
¢You are cold,” says Miss Banbridce
anxiously, who had thought the sound a
shiver.
iA little,” says Letitia, who, indeed,
is shivering from her late fear of what
her aunt might say.
« shall fetch another rug,” cried the
old lady, running out of the room.
¢:An opportunity once lost is never to
be regained,” says the ancient copy-
books. Hardinge and Letitia make bp
their minds not to lose theirs. Hisarms
are round her in an instant, her cheek 1s
pressed against his.
«It is all right. She will give in. I
feel as if I loved her,” says Hardinge.
«¢Oh! Jack," says Letitia; *‘wasn’t it
a good thing I was nearly burned to
death?”
¢:Oh! hush, darling—hush. Letty! I
can’t bear to think of this day.”
“Well, I can,” says she, laughing
feebly. ¢I shall think of it always. It
has given us to each other forever.''—
Philadelphia Times.
The Eaves Swallow.
The cliff swallow, or eaves swallow is
irregularly distributed over the United
States, breeding abundantiy in many lo-
calities where suitable nesting sites are
found, and being rare in other districts.
They fly over upland meadows and pas-
tures, often skimming along the suiface
of the ground to catch the numerous
leaf-hoppers and other insects that are
there. A single specimen that was
shot by Professor King while the bird
was skimming over a wheat field con-
tained twelve leaf-hoppers, seven two-
winged flies (including one large crane-
fly), six small beetles and two medium
sized ichneumon flies. This bird has
been reported to catch numbers of
small grasshoppers; and six specimens
taken in Nebraska after Western locusts
had begun to fly had eaten 229 of these
| these insects—an average of thirty=-
| eight to each bird. Five specimens
studied by Professor Forbes had eaten
ants, wasps, inchneumon flies, ground-
beetles, fungus beetles, curculios, leaf-
beetles, two-winged flies acd certain
bugs. The benefits derived from this
bird appear to be much greater than any
OUR HOME RELIGION
enemas
TALMAGE ON FAMILY PEAYERS,
eee.
Domestic Devotion Is Not a Thing to
Hide From Your Company.
ptf,
TEXT: “Astor me and my house, we will
serve the Lord.” —Joshua a. 5.
Absurd, Joshua! You will have no time
for family religion; vou are a military
character, and your time will be taken up
with affairs connected with the army; vou
are a statesman, and your time will be
taken up with public affairs; you are the
Washington, the Wellington, the McMahon
of the Israelitish host; you will have a great
many questions to sattle; yon will have no
time tor religion. But “Joshua, with the
same voice with which he commanded the
sun and moon to halt and stack arms of
liam on Aus parade ground OL the heavens,
or me and m i
serve the Lord.” 7, Bouse, wa wil
Before we adopt the resotution of this old
soidier we want to be certain it is a wise
resolution. If religion is going to put my
piano out of tune, and clog the fest of the
children racing through the hall, and sour
the bread, and put crape on the doorbell, I
donot want it in my house. I once gave $6
to hear Jenny Lind warble. I have never
given a cent to hear any one groan. Will
this religion spoken of in. my text do any-
thing for the dining hall, for the nursery,
for the parlor, for the sleeping apartment?
It is a great deal easier to invite a dis
agreeable guest than to get rid of him. If
you do not want religion, you had better not
ask it to come, for after coming 1t may sta
a great while. Isaac Watts went to visit
St. Thomas and Lady Abney at their place
in Theobald and was to stay a week and staid
thirty-five years, and if religion once gets
into your household the probability is it will
stay there forever.
Now, the question I want to discuss is,
What will retigion do for the household?
Question the first: What did it do for your
father’s house if you ware broughtup in a
Jbristian home?
That whole scene has vanished, but it
comes back to-day. The hour for morning
prayers came. You were invited in, Some-
what fidgety, you sat and listened. Your
father made no pretention to rhetorical
reading, and be just went through the chap-
ter in a plain, straightforward way. Then
you ali knelt. It was about the same prayer
morning by morning and night by night,
for he had the same sins to ask pardon ior,
and he had the same blessings, for which to
be grateful day after day and year after
ear,
Theprayer was longer than you would
like to have had it, for the game at ball was
waiting, or the skates were lying under the
shed, or the schoolbooks needed one or two
more looking at the lessons. Your parents,
somewhat rheumatic and stiffened with age,
found it difficult to rise from their kneeling.
The chair at which they knelt is gone, the
Bible out of which they read has perhaps
failen to pieces, the parents are gone, the
children scattered north, east, south and
west, but that whole scene flashes upon your
memory to-day.
Was that morning and evening exzreiss in
Jour father’s housa debasing or elevating?
it not an:ong the most sacred reminis-
cences? You were not as devotional as some
of the older members of your father's house
who were kneeling with you at the time, and
you did not bow your head as closely as they
did, and you looked around and you saw
Just the ture your father and mother
assumed while they were kneeling on the
floor. The whole scene is so photographed
on your memory that if you were an artist
you could draw it now just as they knelt,
For how much would you have that scene
obliterated from your memory? It all comes
back to-day, and you are in the homestead
ain. Father is there, mother is there, all
of you children are ther2, it is the sams old
prayer, opening with the same petition,
closing with the same thanksgiving. The
family prayers of 1840-50 as fresh in your
memory as though they were uttered yester-
day. ‘Lhe tear that starts from your eye
melts all that scene, Gone, is it? Why,
many a time it has held you steady in the
struggle of life. You once started for a
place, and that memory jerked you back,
and you could not enter. :
The broken prayer of your father has hed
more effect on you than all you ever read in
Shakespeare aud Milton and Tennyson and
Dante. You have gone over mountains and
across seas. You never for a moment got
out of sight of that domestic altar, Oh, my
friends, is it your opinion this morning that
the 10 or 15 minutes substracted from
each day for family devotion was an econ-
omy or a waste of time in your father's
houszhecld? I think some of us are coming
to the conclusion that the religion which
was in our father’s hous: would be a very
appropriate religion for our homes. Iffam-
ily prayers did not damage that houszhold,
thers is no probability that they will damage
our household,
“Is God dead?” said a child to her father.
“No,” he replied. *“Why do you ask that?”
“Well,” she said, ‘when mother was living,
we used to have prayers, but sincs her death
we haven't had family prayers, and I didn’t
know but that Goi was dead too.” A family
that is launched in the morning with family
prayers is well launched. Breakfast over,
the family scatter, some to scnoo', some to
household duties, some to business. During
the day there will be a thousand perils
abroad——perils of the street car, of the scaf-
folding, of the ungoverned horse, of the mis-
step, of the aroused temper, of multitudin
ous temptations fo do wrong.
Somewhere between 7 o'clock in the morn-
ing and 10 o'clock at night thers may bea
moment when you will be in urgent need ot
God. Besides that, family prayers will ba a
secular advantage. A father went into the
war to serve his counfry. His children
stayed and cultivated the farm. His wife
prayed. One of the sons said afterward,
“Father is fighting, and we are digging, and
mother is praying.” ‘‘Ab,” said some one,
“praying and digging and fighting will
bring us out of our national troubles.
‘We may pray in the morning, “Give us
this day our daily bread,” and sit down in
idleness and starve to death; bub prayer
and hard work will give a iwveiihood to any
family, Family religion pays for both
worlds. Letus have an altar in each one of
pur households, You may not be able to
formulate a prayer. Then there are Philip
Henry's prayers, aad there are McDuff’'s
prayers, and there are Philip Doddridge's
prayers, and there are the Episcopal church
prayers, and there are scores of books with
supplications just suited to the domestic
circie.
“Oh,” says some man, *‘I don’t feel com-
etent to lead my houszhold in prayer.”
ell, I do not know that it is your duty to
lead. I think perhaps it is sometimes better
for the mother of the housshold togead. She
knows better the wants of the household.
She can read the Scriptures with a more
tender enunciation. She ows more of
God. I will put it plainly and say she pravs
better. Oh, these mothers decide almost
everything! Nero's mother was a murder-
ess. Lord Byron's mother was haughty aad
impious. You might have guessed that from
their children.
Walter Scott’s mother was fond of poetry.
Washington's mother was patriotic. Saruel
Bedget’s mother was a thorough Christian.
St. Bernard's mother was noble minded.
So you might have guessed from their chil-
dren. Good menalways have good mothers.
There may once in ten or twenty years be
an exception to the rule, but it is only an
exception. Benjamin West's mother kissed
injury it may do in eating predaceous
or parasitic insects.—New York Voice.
mses TE smn
The Earl of Dunmore has arrived in
Constantinople cn horseback from the
Pamirs, which he left 10 February, 18 92,
have been burved, ¢If you will add one
He rode the whole distance.
him after she bad seen his first wonderful
sketch with the pencil. Benjamin West
afterward said, ‘That kise made me a
painter.”
A. young man received a furlough fo re-
turn from the army to his father’s house.
Afterward he took the furlough back to the
officer, saying, ‘*‘I would like to postpone my
visit for two weeks.” At the end of the
| two weeks he came and got the furlough.
He was asked why he waited. ‘‘Well,” he
replied. **When 1 left home I told my mother
|
I would be a Christian in ths army, and I
was resolved not to go Loma until [ could
answer her first question.” Oa, the almost
omuipotent power o: the mother! But if
both the father and the mother be right,
then the children are almost sura to be
right. The voung people may make a wide
curve from the straight path, but they ara
almost sure to come back to the right road.
It may not bs until th2 death of one of the
parents.
How often it is that wa heir some one
‘say, “Ob, he was a wild young man, but
since his father's death he has besn differe
ent!” The fact is that the father’s coffia or
or the mother’s coffin is often the altar of
repentance for the child. O04, that was a
stupendous day, the day of father's burial.
It was not the officiating clergyman wao
made the chief impression, nor the sympa-
thizing mourners. It was the father asleep
in the casket.
The hands that had toiled for that house-
hold so long, folded. Tha brain coolel off
after twenty or forty years of anxiety about
how to put that family in right position.
The lips closed after so many years of good
advice. There are more tears failing in
-mother’s grave than in father's grave, out
over the father’s tomb I think there is a kind
oft awe. ‘It is at that marble pillar many a
youug man has been revolutionized.
Ob, young man with caeek flushed with
dissipation! how long is it since you have
been out to your father’s grave? Will you
not go this week? Perhaps the stormsotthe
last tew days may have bent the headstone
until it leans far over. You had better go
out and see whether the lettering has been
defaczd. You had batter go out and see
whether the gate of the lot is closad. You
had better go and see if you cannot find a
sermon in tho springing grass. Oa, young
mav, go out this week Is see your father’s
grave!
Raligion did so much for our Christian an-
cestry, are we not ready this morninz to be
willing to receiveit into our own houszholds?
If we do recive it, let it come tarouzh the
front door, not tarough the back door. Ia
other words, do not let us smuggle it in.
There are a great many families who want
to be religious, but they do not wani any-
body outside to know it. They wouli be
mortified to death if you canght thom at
their family prayers. I'mey would not sing
in the worship for fear the neighbors would
hear them. They donot have prayers when
they have company.
‘I'hey donot know much about the nobility
of the western trapper. A traveler going
along was overtaken by nizht and a storm,
and he entered a cabin. There were firearms
bung up around the cabin. He was alarmed.
Hos had a large amount of money with him,
but he did not dare to venture on into the
night in the storm. He did not like the looks
of the household. After awhile tne fataer,
the western trapper, camo in, gun on
shoulder, and waeu toe traveler loosed at
him he was st.) more affrizhted.
After awhile the family were whispering
together in one corner of ¢cbe room, ani tha
traveler thought to himself: ‘On! now my
time bas come; wish I was out in
the storm andl in the night rather
than here.” But the swarthy man came up
to him and said: ‘‘3Sir, we are a rough peo-
ple; we get our living by bunting, ani weare
very tired when the nigat comes; bué before
oing to bed we always havea habit of read-
mg a little out of ths Bible and having
prayers, aod I think we will have our usual
custom to-nigat, and if you don’t believe in
that kind of thing if you will just step out-
side the door for a little while 1 will be much
obliged to you.”
Oh! there are many Christian parents
who have not half the courage of thav
western trapper. Tney de not waat their
religion projecting too conspicuously. Thay
would like to have it near by so as to call on
it In case of a §uneral, but as to having it
dominaut in the household from the 1st of
January, 7 o’clocs a. m., to the 31st of De-
camber, 10 o'clock p. m., they do not want
1t. They would ravher die ani have taeir
families perisn wita them than to cry out in
the bold words of the soldier in my tex,
*As for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord.”
T'nere was, in my ancestral line, an inci-
dent so stranzely impressive that it seems
more like romance than reality. It has
sometimes been so inaccurately put forth that
I now give you the true incideat. My grand-
father and grandmother, living at Somer-
ville, N. J., went t5> Baskinridge to witness
a revival uader the ministry of the Rev. Dr.
Finley. They came nome s5 impressed with
what they bad sesn that they resolved oa
the salvation of their childran.
‘The youug people of the housis wera to go
off for an eveniug party, ani my grand-
mother said:
“Now, when you are all ready for the
party, come to my room, for I have some-
thing very important to teil you.” All
ready for departure, they cams to her room,
an! she said to them, ‘Now, I want you to
remember, while you are away tois even-
ingg, that L am all the time in this room
praying for your salvation, and 1 shall not
case praying until you get back.” The
youag people went to the party, but amid
the loudest hilarities of ths night they could
not forzet that their moter was praying
1or them. The evening passed, and the nigas
passed.
The next day my grandparents heard an
outery in an adjoininz room, and they wens
in and founi their daughter imploring the
salvation of the gosp2l. Ths daugater told
them that her brothers wers at the barn
and at the wagon house under powerful con-
viction of sin. They went to the barn,
They found my Uncie Jeaiah, woo after-
ward became a minister of the gospsl, cry-
ing to God for mercy. They went to tae
wagon house. They ound their soa David,
who atterwird became my father, implor-
ing God’s pardon and mercy. Bafore a great
while the whole family were saved, and
David went and told the story to a young
woman to whom he was afflaacel, who as a
result of the story became a Chriscian, and
from her own lips—my motuer’s—I havare-
ceived the incident.
The story of that converted housshold
ran through all the neighborhood from
family to family uutil the whole rezion was
whelmed with religious awakening, and at
the next commuaioa in the village church
at Somerville over 200 souls stood up to pro-
1ess the faith of the gospel. My mother,
carrying the memory of this scene from
early womanhood into further life, in after
years was rasolved udon the salvation of ber
children, and for many years every week
she met three other Caristian motaers to
pray for the salvation of their families. I
think that all the members of thoss families
wera saved —myvself, the youngest and last,
There were 12 of us children, I trace the
whole line of mercy back to that hour when
my Christian grandmother sat in her room
imploring the blessing of God upon her
children. Nine of her descendants becams
preachers of the gospel. Many of her de-
scendants are in neaven, many of them still
in the Caristian conflict. Did it pay for her
to spend the whole evapidz, im prayer for
her household? Ask her before tae throne
of God, surrounded by her children. Ia the
presznce of the Christian caurch to-day [
make this record of auncestral piety. On,
there is a beauty, and a tenderness, and a
suolimity in family religion!
Thera are but four or five pictures in the
old family Bible that [ inherited, but Dore
never illustrated a Bible as that book is il-
lustrated to my eyes. Tarough it I can ses
into marriages and burials, joys and sor-
rows, meetings and partings, Thanksgiving
days and Christian festivals, cradles and
deathbeds. Old old book, speak out and tell
of the sorraws comforted and of the dying
hours irradiated. Old, old book, the hands
that held thee are ashes, the eyes that per-
sued thee are closed. What a pillar thou
wouldst make for a dying head. I salute
all the memories of the past when I press it
to my heart and when I press it to my lirs.
Oh, that family Bible! The New Testa-
ment in small type is not worthy of Leing
called by that name. Have a whole Billein
large type, with the family record of mar-
riages and births and deaths. What if the
curious should turn ovar the leaves to see
how-old you are? You are younger now
than you will ever be again.
will tind out from those with whom you
are. Have a family Bible. It will g> dowy
from generation to generation, full of holy
memories. A hundred years alter you art
dea it will be a benediction to those wha
come after you. Othar books, worn out or
fallen apart, will be flung to the garrat or
tha cellar, but this will be inviolate, and it
will bs your protest for centuries againsi
iniquity and in behalf of righteousness,
Ob, when we see what family relizion did
for our father’s housshold, do we not wang
it to come into the dining-room to break the
bread, into the nursery to bless the young,
into the parlor to purify the socialities, into
the library to control the readinz, into the
bedroom to hallow the slumber, into the hall
to watca our going out and our coming in?
Ave, there ara hundreds of voices in this
There are two arms to this subject. The
one arm puts its hand on all parents. It
says to them: “Don’t interiere with your
children’s welfare, don’t interfere with their
eternal happiness, don’t.you by anything
you do nut out your foot and trip them into
ruin. Start them under the shelter, the in-
surance, the everlasting heip of Christian
parentaze. Catechisms will not have th
though catechisms are good. The rod will
not save them, though the ro.l may be neces-
sary. Lessons of virtue will not save them,
though they are very important. Becoming]
a throuzh and through, up aud down, out
and out Christian yourself wiil make them
Christians.”
The other arm of this subject puts its
hand upon those wao had a pious bringiog
up, but who as yet have disappointed the
expectations excited in regard to them.
said that children brougat up in Christian
households, thouzh they might mase a
wide curve, were very apt to come back to
the straight path. Have you been
curving out long enough, and is it not moss
time for you to begin to curve in?
Oh,” you say, ‘they were too rigid.”
Weil now, my brother, I think you have a
pretty good character considering what you
say your parents wera. D> not boast too
much about the style in which your parents
brought you up. Might it not be possible
that you would be an exception to the gen-
eral rule laid down, and that you might
spend your eternity in a diffrent world
from that in which your parents are spend=
ing theirs?
I feel anxious about you; you feel anxious
about yourself. Oa, cross over into the right
path. If your parents prayed for you twice
a day,eaca of them twice a day for 20 years,
thati would make 29,000 prayers for you.
Think of them!
By the memory of the cradle in which
wvour childhood was rocked with the foot
that long ago ceased to move, by the crib in
which your own children siumbar nizht by
night under God's protecting care, by the
two graves in whica sleep those two old
hearts that beat with love so long for your
welfare, and by the two graves in which
you, now the living father and mother, will
tind your last repose, I urge you to the dis-
caarge o: your duty.
Though parents may in covenant be
And have their heaven in view,
Taey are not happy till they sec
Their-children hippy 00.
Oh, yeu departed Christian ancastry,
fathers and mothers in glory, bend from tha
skies to-day and give new emphasis to waat
you told us on earth with many tears aad
anxieties! Kzep a place for us by your
blissiul side,’ for to-iay, in the presencs of
earth and heaven and hell, aud by the help
of tie cross and amid overwheiminz and
gracious mamories, wo resolve, each one for
himself, **As for me and my house we will
serve the Lord.”
Civilization Brings Short Sight.
The subject of shortsightedness in
animals was under consideration at a
meeting of the Paris Academy of Medi-
cine, wien M. Motals, of Angers, main-
tained that this defect in vision is one of
the products of civilization. An unex-
pected proot of this view was found in
the condition of wild beasts, as tigers,
lions, etc. M. Motals, having examined
their eyes by means of the ophthalmo-
after the age of six or eight mecnths re-
tained the long sight natural to them,
but that those made captives before that
age, and those born in a state of captiv-
ity, were short-sighted. Some time
since a case was published of a horse im
this country that wears spectacles.
farmer who owned him, having come to
the conclusion from various symptoms
that the horse was shortsighted, got an
oculist to take the necessary measure-
ments, and had a pair of spectacles man-
ufactured for him.
fasten firmly into the headstall, so that
they did not shake out of place. At first
the horse appeared startled by this addi-
tion to his harness, but he soon got
used to the glasses and liked them.
*¢If fact,” said the owner to a Brook-
Iyn Eagle man, ‘‘when 1 turned him out
to pasture he telt uneasy and uncomfort-
able without his goggles, and one Sun-
day he hung around the barn and
headstall and goggles on him, and he
was so glad that he rubbed my shoulder
with his nose.” It is thougat that the
vice of shying, whica spoils so many
otherwise valuable horses, 18 induced by
shortsightedness. The animals cannot
see some particular object sufficiently
plainly to feel sure that it is of a harm-
less nature, and so shies away from it.
Owners of dogs may often prove that
their pets suffer from short sight, and i6
will often be found that a dog is unable
to recognize people with whose appear-
ance it is most intimate when they are a
little way off, whiie another dog at the
same distance has no difficulty whatever
in recognizing them. Dogs have been
provided with spectacles in the same
way as the farmer's horse alluded to, and
have been conclusively shown to have
derived great benefits from them. —New
Orleans Picayune.
Why He Didn't Tell Him.
George Butler, Canon of Winchester
Cathedral, was the son of Doctor But-
ler, the head master of Harrow. The
boy grew up to be a dignified and
serious man, a power in philanthropy
and the church, but that he had a de-
mure sense of humor is shown by one
anecdote of his earliest years.
Doctor Butler wore a fine suit of
black, with knee breeches and cloth
gaiters, and with his powdered hair was
a figure calculated to move any school-
boy to admiration and awe. One morning
little George watched him as he set out
for school, and observed that his father
wore only one gaiter. When Doctor
Butler returned he said to the lad:
“You were here, Geo:ge, when [ went
away this morning. Dida’c you see that
I had only one gaiter?”
‘“Yes, papa.”
*‘Then why didn’t you tell me?”
‘*Because,” answered George, inno-
cently, *‘I thought it would amuse the
The curious |
have piayed in your childhood how old you |
boys.”—Philadelphia Record.
Nero was fond of music and attained
reat proficiency in the art.
house ready to cry out; “Yes! Yes! As
for =a and my house, we will serve the
The |
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whinnied so plaintively that I put the |
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