THE POOR. "Slight not the one of honest worth, Scorn not the poor! for poor was He Around His path her thin hands spread. No gold is theirs in shining heaps; No thieves break through their cots to steal; No gems to guard, the poor man sleeps, While Toil's brown hands his eyelids seal. His gold is in the sunset skies, The yellow leaves that Nature paints; The glittering sands where ocean lies, No cook with epicurean skill Stuffs, seasons, garnishes with care; His appetite o'er field and hill Is borne upon the morning air. No dressed-up puppets round the streets Roam through the fields, roll on the sod. From no decayed, ancestral stock Or sturdy oak the hills among. Yet poverty, though no disgrace, And shrinks from the contemptuous air. Scorn not the poor ! for poor was He The heir of heaven, yet Poverty Around His path her thin hands spread. LINES ON THE FAVORED SCHOLAR. The tale once told in Eden, here again How many times—and yet forever new As when the first dove from the heart's Ark flew. As told in Eden! Earth grows old and gray, Yet flowers repeat it still beside the way, "Trees twine their arms and kiss from hill to hill," Sees touched by fairy wand the dark school-room, And books, slates, charts and forms together fadeAnd Earth, old Earth, once more an Eden made! ABOU BEN BANKRUPT. Abou Ben Bankrupt (may his tribe decrease!) How he might save his houses, horses, wealth, You'll have to sell them to my wife again. I And if I give them that it can't be wrong." As wiping dust from off his knees he springs. I shall need seventy-five, I'm getting old! If some among my creditors are poor— Abou Ben Bankrupt's name leads all the rest. TEARS. Gems in the azure eye Of Childhood, melting at its first found grief; Their stay as brief! Pledge, in the Sinner's eye, Within the heart one tender spot is found; Token of thrilling joy When the full heart must vent itself in thee; Life's sad purifiers, Cleansing the soul with sorrow day by day. THE FROZEN BRAKEMAN. FROZEN TO DEATH.-Two brakemen of the Oil Creek Railroad were frozen to death the other night, one of whom rolled off the car, and the other was found at his post, his hand frozen to the brake wheel! Do not these brief words express a story of heroism and devotion to duty as noble as many that have nerved our hearts as we read them in Roman chronicles?-Pittsburg Chronicle, Dec. 15th. Cold was the night and bitter was the blast, Holding their breath in silence lake and river; The mighty forest moaning like a child, Flung out its helpless arms with wail and shiver. Swiftly the cars through storm and darkness flew, As though man's will, the outward strife defying, |