11. Rap, rap, rap, rap, the knocker went again, And neither of them was a very light rap;

Thump, thump, against the door went Ezekiel's cane,
And that once more brought Deacon Stokes's night-cap.

12. "Very cold weather, Deacon Stokes, to-night!” "Begone, you vile, insolent dog, or I'll Give you a warming that shall serve you right; You villain, it is time to end the hoax!"

"Why bless your soul and body, Deacon Stokes,

Do n't be so cross when I've come here, in this severe
Night, which is cold enough to kill a horse,

For your advice upon a very difficult and nice
Question. Now, bless you, do make haste and dress you."

13. "Well, well, out with it, if it must be so;

Be quick about it, I'm very cold.”

66

'Well, Deacon, I do n't doubt it,

In a few words the matter can be told.

Dacon, the case is this; I want to know

J this cold weather lasts all summer here,—

What time will green peas come along next year?"

THOMAS QUILP.

CCLII THE DRUNKARD'S RESOLUTION.

1. TOUCH thee? No, viper of vengeance! Didst thoa not promise to make me strong? aye, strong as Sampson; and rich, rich as Croesus? But instead of this, villain! you have stripped me of my flocks; left my pockets empty; robbed me of my senses; made me wretched; made me miserable; and then laid me in the ditch. Touch thee? No! I will slay thee, rather.

2. But one embrace before thou diest. I always thought 't was best to give the devil his due; and (tasting), devil, thou hast a pleasant face, a sparkling eye, a ruby lip, and thy breath (tasting) is sweeter than the breath of roses. My honey (tasting), thou shalt not die. I'll stand by thee, day and night; I'll fight for thec; I'll teach (hic) others a little wisdom; I'll live (tasting) on milk and (hie) honey, and (tasting) be the happiest man on earth.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CCLIII. THE OLD ARM CHAIR.

J. I LOVE it! I love it! and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm chair?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,

I've bedewed it with tears and embalmed it with sighs; 'T is bound by a thousand bands to my heart,

Not a tie will break, not a link will start;
Would you know the spell? a mother sat there!
And a sacred thing is that old arm chair.

2. In childhood's hour I lingered near

That hallowed seat with a listening ear,

To the gentle words that mother would give,
To fit me to die and teach me to live;

She told me shame would never betide,

With truth for my creed, and God for my guide;
She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer,
As I knelt beside that old arm chair.

3. I sat and watched her many a day

When her eye grew dim, and her locks were gray,
And I almost worshiped her when she smiled
And turned from her Bible to bless her child:
Years rolled on, but the last one sped,
My idol was shattered, my earth-star fled!

I felt how much the heart can bear,
When I saw her die in that old arm chair.

4. 'Tis past! 't is past! but I gaze on it now With quivering lip and throbbing brow;

'T was there she nursed me, 't was there she died, And memory still flows with lava tide.

Say it is folly, and deem me weak,

As the scalding drops start down my cheek;
But I love it! I love it! and can not tear
My soul from my mother's old arm chair!

ELIZA COOK.

CCLIV. POLITICAL INTEGRITY.

1. THIS immaculate, invincible uprightness in public station, is no dream of visionaries. We can not dismiss it as a glory of the past, impracticable and fabulous at present. This is infidelity to Providence, to history, to the ever living heart of Christ. Besides, the instances stand forth, illustrious and imperial, in every Christian nation—the honor of statesmanship, the defense of governments, the strength of their age against all partisan or selfish conspiracies.

2. Look, for a single example of that power, into the last generation, and the legislative halls of England. Trained in the best refinement and learning of his time, coming forth from the midst of London fashions and palaces, where the frowns of the world are most formidable, and its flatteries most seductive, familiar from his childhood with the luxuries of fortune and the policies of a false expediency, yet with his vision quickened by Christian. faith, and his whole nature lightened and invigorated by the lessons of Olivet and Calvary, Wilberforce enters Parliament. Many a hard test tries his steadfastness. Erect, and yet courteous, he never swerves. He sees straight through every moral sophistry, and no chicanery can cheat him into one doubtful compliance. Hardest of all, Melville is impeached. Friendship, favor, interest, social alliance, popularity, all importune this Christian statesman to take up the cause of the accused.

3. There was the eloquent countenance, and the trumpet tongue of Pitt pleading the same way. But there was one voice on the other side, stiller, grander, the voice of a righteous sincerity, and from that he was accustomed to take no appeal. He knew Melville was wrong, the accusa

tion just. Not an instant's hesitation. He stood up to

speak for Right, stripped bare of all enchantments, and he knew that, speaking for that, he spoke for man, for his country, for God; because he who obeys a law higher than that of states, obeys a law in which alone any state is safe. Proud and powerful men looked on with disappointment,

not to say with wrath. Every sentence was like hacking away old and precious bonds of fellowship.

4. Melville was condemned, and how? Let the words of another's history answer: "It was felt that in a question of simple integrity, where casuistry had to be eluded, and plausibility swept aside, this religious tongue was the last authority in England. In the British senate, in the nineteenth century, when a point of morality was to be settled, it was not to the man of dueling honor, it was not to the philosophic moralist, that men looked for a decision; it was to the Christian senator whose code was the Bible," kneeling every morning before the All-seeing Eye, going up to his seat from his closet, through all the perplexities of his place, saying ever secretly to his God, "Lead me only by Thy light."

PROF. HUNTINGTON.

CCLV.-WHO SHALL JUDGE MAN?

1. Who shall judge a man from nature?
Who shall know him by his dress?
Paupers may be fit for princes,
Princes fit for something less.
Crumpled shirt and dirty jacket
May beclothe the golden ore
Of the deepest thought and feeling—
Satin vest could do no more.

2. There are springs of crystal nectar
Ever swelling out of stone;
There are purple buds and golden,

Hidden, crushed, and overgrown.
God, who counts by souls, not dresses,
Loves and prospers you and me;
While He values thrones the highest
But as pebbles in the sea.

3. Man, upraised above his fellows
Oft forgets his fellows then;
Masters-rulers-lords, remember,
That your meanest hands are men!
Men of labor, men of feeling,
Men by thought and men by fame,

KIDD.-39

Claiming equal rights to sunshine
In a man's ennobling name.

4. There are foam-embroidered oceans,
There are little weed-clad rills,
There are feeble, inch-high saplings,
There are cedars on the hills;
God, who counts by souls, not stations,
Loves and prospers you and me:
For to him all vain distinctions
Are as pebbles in the sea.

5. Toiling hands alone are builders
Of a nation's wealth and fame;
Titled laziness is pensioned,

Fed, and fattened on the same;
By the sweat of other's foreheads,
Living only to rejɔice,

While the poor man's outraged freedom
Vainly lifteth up its voice.

6. Truth and justice are eternal,
Born with loveliness and light;
Secret wrong shall never prosper
While there is a starry night.
God, whose world-heard voice is singing
Boundless love to you and me,
Sinks oppression with its titles,
As the pebbles in the sea.

CCLVI.-HIGHLAND MARY.

1. YE banks and braes and streams around The castle of Montgom❜ry;

Green be your woods and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie.

There summer first unfolds his robes,

And there they longest tarry;
For there I took my last farewell
Of my sweet Highland Mary.

2. How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom;
As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom.