He brought it down upon the blackened earth
Until it quaked again. A second time

He called upon the fiend, and yet once more
The horrid echoes rang among the pines.
Then sitting down, his back against a tree,
He slept. At midnight came the One he called,
Black as the night, and riding on a steed
Moulded of night and fire. Full gaily joined
The twain together, and went forth to seek
Adventure.

Well great Offerus pleased

His master, well the fiend the man.

But so it chanced, upon a certain day,

That on the high road they three crosses spied.

The Devil shrank and trembled. "Come, my friend,' Quoth he to Offerus, "Come, let us take

This little by-path, and so pass round;"

But the strong giant, knowing naught of fear,

Drew at full length his bow and straightway shot

A yard-long arrow through the centre cross.

"

How!" quoth the fiend, "know you not, bold man, That yonder Mary's Son hath power great To save or to destroy?" "If that be so," Replied the giant, "here I quit thy side: I serve the strongest only." With a laugh Of mocking rage, the Devil fled. On rode The giant, asking every one he met For Christ, the Son of Mary. But, alas! The answer came from young and aged lips"We know him not: seek further."

So he sought
Still patiently, until a hermit came,

A holy man of God, and he with voice
Trembling with age but full of heavenly love,
Expounded to the giant Christian faith.

Low bowed he to the hermit, filled with awe,
For he at last had found the perfect strength

He had so blindly worshiped. "Good my lord,”—
He spake right humbly-"tell me what to do
To gain this Heaven and find this mighty King
Who conquered Death and Hell. Him will I serve,
No other.' "Go then and pray, my son;
Fast, weep, wear sackcloth; so shalt thou attain
Unto this favor." Sad the giant sighed,
"I cannot do it. Sir, I know no prayers;
I soon should lose my mighty strength in fasts;
If there's no other way to serve this Christ
And gain yon Heaven, I needs must lose it all."
"Then, foolish man!" replied the hermit, "yet
There is one other way. Go, give thyself

To do with all thy heart some holy work.
Behold yon river! Deep the flood, and wide,
Without or bridge or ford. Go, thou art strong
Bear weary pilgrims o'er from bank to bank;
So shalt thou serve the Master." At the word
Up rose good Offerus in his giant strength.
Good: that shall be my labor; willingly
I'll please the Saviour thus."

So Offerus

Built for himself upon the sedgy bank
A hut of rushes. Year by year he bore
Patiently pilgrims, like some mighty beast
Of burden. But if any traveler wished

To give him money-"Nay, my friend," he said,
"No earthly gold care I to take for wage;

་་

I labor for eternal life!"

When weary years
Had passed, and on the aged giant's head
Rested but snow-white locks, and few of those,
What time the winter blast drove snow and ice
Before it, and the raging, swollen flood
Roared past his humble dwelling, Offerus
Heard in the night a little, plaintive voice,
Call from the other side: "Oh, good, tall Offerus,
Come, carry me across!" So forth he went,
Though wearied with his toil, and wading through
He reached the other side, but none was there
That needed. Then, thinking he must have dreamt,
He slept again; but once more came the voice,
So sad and touching: "Come, good Offerus,
Dear, good, great Offerus, take me across!"
With a strong effort casting sleep aside
He crossed again, but still no pilgrim saw.
His errand bootless, he lay down and slept,
But heard again the voice-imploring, sad-
"Good giant Offerus, carry me across!"
The patient giant thought upon his Lord,
Who did so much to save a thankless world,
And, without one low murmur, grasping fast
His pine-tree staff, he plunged into the flood.
There, on the other brink, there stood a child,
A sweet, fair boy, with bowing golden curls,
In his left hand the standard of the Lamb,
And in his right a globe. Right easily
The giant placed him on his shoulder, but
Once entered in the river, that fair child

Weighed on him strangely. Fiercer grew the storm,
The ice-cold water chilled him to the heart,
And ever heavier grew the wondrous child.
Great drops of sweat stood on the giant's brow
When on the shore he gently placed the boy,

And, panting with his labor, "Little Lord,"
He said, "I pray thee come not thus again,
For hardly have I struggled for our lives."
But then the little one so sweet and fair,
Dipping with one hand in the brimming flood,
Baptized the giant. "Fear not thou, good soul,
Nor marvel at the trembling of thy limbs.
Rather rejoice, for thou hast borne across
The Saviour of the world. Thou art forgiven
For all thy sins, and Offerus no more

Shalt thou be called, but Christopher. Now plant
Close by the stream thy pine-tree staff, so long
Withered and lifeless; it shall put forth leaves,
And bud and blossom. Such shall be the sign."
The Christ-child vanished in a beaming light;
But the old giant, folding each on each

His massive hands, lifted his eyes and prayed:
"My Master, Christ! I feel my end draws nigh.
My limbs are weak, my strength is gone, but Thou
Hast washed me clean-my blessed Lord and God!"
So, on the morrow from the pine-tree staff

Burst leaves and flowers and almonds. The third day,
Around that hut upon the sedgy bank,

Legions of angels stood with folded wings
And holy, loving eyes. With songs of joy
They bore good Christopher away, to meet
His Lord in Paradise.

Those patient souls,

Who, with no boast of famous words or deeds,
Have sought no higher office than to aid

With comfortable words and loving deeds

Poor, weary pilgrims, find, as did this saint,

They bore their Master, and their names shall shine
In golden letters in the Book of Life.

48.-PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

JAMES G. BLAINE.

Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet June morning James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave.

Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death;—and he did not quail. Not alone for one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell? what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties !

Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys, not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons, just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day, and every day rewarding a father's love and care; and in his heart eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken.

His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his sufferings. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet, he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation be bowed to the Divine decree.

As the end drew near, his early cravings for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices.

With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing

wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars.

Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us be lieve that in the silence of the receding world, he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.

49.-NATIONAL SONGS.

COLUMBIA, THE GEM OF THE OCEAN.

Oh, Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine of each patriot's devotion,
A world offers homage to thee.
Thy mandates make heroes assemble,
When Liberty's form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble,
When borne by the red, white, and blue.
When war winged its wide desolation,
And threatened the land to deform,
The ark, then, of freedom's foundation,
Columbia, rode safe thro' the storm:
With her garlands of vict'ry around her,
When so proudly she bore her brave crew,
With her flag proudly floating before her,
The boast of the red, white, and blue.

The star-spangled banner bring hither,
O'er Columbia's true sons let it wave;
May the wreaths they have won never wither,
Nor its stars cease to shine on the brave.
May the service united ne'er sever,

But they still to their colors prove true.

The army and navy forever,

Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

1882.

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?