thrilling ideas cluster around such words; they are poetry itself and responsive to them, music,-mellow, pensive strains or sad perchance-spring up within--the unbidden impulse of the heart.

THE DOOR IN THE HEART.

BY MISS V. F. TOWNSEND.

"SHE was a stern, hard woman! But far away, up a great many pairs of winding stairs in her heart, was a door, easily passed by, and on that door was written-WOMAN.'"-Boz.

“And so it is with the drunkard. Far away, up a great many pair of winding stairs in his heart, is a knock at that door once, twice-yea, seventy times seven-that it may open unto us."-JOHN B. GOUGH

door and on that door is written-MAN;' and we must

I pity the man who has no home. An uprooted tree-an erratic rock—a wandering star-ah! these are tame pleasant ideas in comparison. That mau, like some fated cottage parted from its native garden by the mad inroads of the swollen river, drifts down the stream of time: through the night and the storm, without mast or rudder, anchor or cable, he drives on,-the sport of every blast—the plaything of fortune, and finally the victim of chagrin, vexation and despair. But this world's homes cannot always re-visage were not the autograph that Time's main such. Did you ever revisit the scenes of your childhood after years of absence from its sacred scenes? How different did it appear! Broad acres secmed contracted into mere garden spots. High steeps dwindled down to almost ant-hills. Though you could recognize prominent interesting points, yet every thing how changed.

When you came in sight the once familiar scene seemed to look upon you only with the cold distant air of an old friend who had now entirely forgotten you. You look from place to place, but all is strange.

No kindly sound echoes a welcome at your approach. Alas! this is the end of all earthly homes. We come and go, day after day, and almost imagine they will always be ours, but how soon the places that know us now will know us no more forever.

But there is a home that never becomes estranged from the happy dwellers there. The ties that bind its kindred spirits never sunder. The light that beams in the eye of its friendships never grows dim.

That home is the better Land whither Jesus,

He was an old man. Not so old, either; for the wrinkles that marred his cadaverous

fingers had laid there; and the hand that placed upon the low table the well-drained glass, did not tremble so with the weakness that age induces. Yet very old and very wretched looked the sole occupant of that narrow room, with its red curtains and floor stained with tobacco juice, and an atmosphere abundantly seasoned by the bar-room, into which it opened. A hat (it must have been intended for one) half concealed the owner's uncombed locks, and unmistakable evidence of a familiar acquaintance with

brickbats and the gutter," did that same hat produce. Then there was a coat, out of whose sleeves peeped a pair of elbows, in "could afrejoicing consciousness that they ford to be out." Add to these a shabby pair of faded pants, and you have, reader, the tout ensemble of the wretched being who had just commenced his daily potations in the only grog-shop he was allowed to frequent. And yet the wretched, friendless creature that sat there, half stupefied with the effects of his morning dram, had a heart; and far up a great many pairs of winding stairs in that heart was a door, easily passed

Our forerunner, the great Friend of friends, is gone by, and on that door, covered with cob

Dreams cannot picture a world so fair,

Sorrow and death may not enter there,

Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom,

Far beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb.

webs and dust, of Time and Sin, was written, "MAN!" But nobody dreamed of this, and when the "temperance men" had

REMEMBER that the beginnings of the sub-gone to him with the pledge, and promised

lime sciences are often so simple as to seem worthless.

him employment and respectability if he would sign it; and others, well-meaning

Ah! the lady did not know, as perhaps

men, too, had rated him soundly for his evil ways, and he had turned a deaf car to all the angels did, that she had mounted the these things, and gone back with blind per-stairs, and was softly feeling for that unseen tinacity to his cups again, everybody said door, so she went on. old Billy Strong's case was a hopeless one. Ah! none of these had patiently groped their way up the heart's winding stairs and read the inscription on the hidden door there But while the unhappy man sat by the pine table that morning, the bar-keeper suddenly entered, followed by a lady with a pale, high brow, mild, hazel eyes, and a strangely wining expression on her pensive face. The old man looked up with a vacant stare of astonishment, as the bar-keeper offered the lady a chair, and pointed to the occupant of the other, saying:

"That's Billy Strong, ma'am;" and with a lingering glance of curiosity, left that gentlewoman alone with the astonished and now thoroughly sobered man.

The soft eyes of the lady wandered, with a sad, pitying expression, over old Bill's features, and then in a low, sweet voice, she asked:

"I almost feel as if I could see the old spot upon which your homestead stood, Mr. Strong. I have heard my father describe it so often. The hill, with its crown of old oaks, at the back of your house, and the field of golden harvest grain, that waved in front. Then there was the green grass-plat before the front-door, and the huge old apple tree that threw its shadows across it, and the great, old-fashioned portico, and the grape-vine that crept around the pillars, and the rosebush that looked in at the bed-room window, and the spring that went shining and singing through the bed of mint at the side of the house."

Old Bill moved uneasily in his chair, and the muscles around his mouth twitched occasionally; but, unmindful of this, in the same low, melting tones, the lady kept on: "Many and many were the hours,' so father would say, Willie and I used to pass

"Am I rightly informed? Do I address under the shadow of that old apple tree;Mr. William Strong?"

Ah! with those words, the lady had got further up the winding stairs, nearer the hidden door, than all who had gone before

her.

Yes, that is my name, maʼam," said old Bill, and he glanced down at his shabby attire, and actually tried to hide the elbow which was peeping out farthest, for it was a long time since he had been addressed by that name, and somehow it sounded very pleasant to him.

"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Strong," said the lady. "I have heard my father speak of you so often, and of the days when you and he were boys together, that I almost feel as if we were old acquaintances. You surely cannot have forgotten Charles

playing at hide-and-seek, or lolling on the grass, telling each other the wonders we would achieve when we became men; and, when the sunset laid its crown of gold on the top of the oaks on the hill, I can see Willie's mother standing in the front-door, with her white cap and check apron, and the pleasant smile that always lay around her lips, and hear her cheerful voice calling, "Come, boys, come to supper."

One after another the big, warm, blessed tears came rolling down old Bill's pale cheeks. Ah! the lady had found the door, then.

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"I was always at home at Willie's,' father would say, and used to have my bowl of fresh milk, and bread, too; and when these had disappeared, Willie would draw his stool to his mother's feet, lay his head on her lap, and she would tell us some pleasant story, it might be of Joseph or David, or of some good child who afterward became a great man, and then she would part Willie's brown curls from his forehead, and

made very bright by watchful affection, and of the dark-eyed boy, and of the fair-haired girl, who came, after a while, to gladden it; and then, you know, he removed to the West, and lost sight of you, Mr. Strong."

in a voice I can never forget, say, "Promise | tect and to cherish the gentle being at his me, Willie, when you go out from your side; and I know he thought as he looked home into the world and its temptations, and down fondly at her, that the very winds of your mother has laid down with her gray heaven should not visit her face too roughly. hairs to sleep in the church-yard, yonder, | And then, my father would tell us of a home promise, my child, that the memory of her prayers and counsels shall keep you from all evil ways?" And Willie would raise his head, lift his blue eyes proudly to his mother, and answer, "I promise you, I will make a first-rate man, mother." And after he had said his evening prayer, we would go, happy as the birds that nestled in the branches of the apple tree, to rest; and then, just as we were sinking to sleep, we would hear a well-known footfall on the stairs, and a loving face would bend over us to see if we were nicely tucked up. It is a long time, father would say, after a pause, since I have heard from Willie-but sure I am, that he has never fallen into any evil ways. The memory of his mother would keep him from

that."

Once, again, the lady paused, for the agony of the strong man before her was fearful to behold; and when she spoke again, it was in a lower and more mournfal tone:

I promised my father, previous to his death, that, if I ever visited his native state, I would seek out his old friend. But when I inquired for you, they unfolded a terrible story to me, Mr. Strong: they told me of a broken and desolate household; of a darkeyed boy who left his home in disgust and despair, for one on the homeless seas; of the gentle and uncomplaining wife who went Rap, rap, rap! went the words of the lady down, with a prayer on her lips for her erat the door in that old man's heart. Creak, ring husband, broken-hearted, to the grave; creak, creak, went the door on its rusty hin- of the fair-haired girl they placed by her ges (angels of God, held ye not your breaths side in a little while. O, it is a sad, sad to listen)! The lady could only see the sub-story, I have heard of my father's old dued man bury his face in his hands, and while his whole frame shook like an aspen leaf, she heard him murmur, amid childlike sobs:

"My mother, O, my mother!"

friend!"

"It was I! it was I that did it all! I killed them!" said old Bill, in a voice hoarse with emotion, as he lifted his head from his clasped hands and looked upon the lady,

And she knew the tears, that were wash-every feature wearing such a look of agonising those wrinkled cheeks, were washing ing remorse and helpless despair, that sh shuddered to behold it.

out, also, many a dark page in the record of

old Bill's past life, that stood against him.— So, with a silent prayer of thankfulness, she resumed:

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|

Wide, wide open, stood the door, then, and the lady hastened to pass in. A small, fair hand was laid gently npon old Bill's arm, and a sweet voice murmured:

But there was one scene my father loved to talk of better than all the rest. It was of the morning you were married, Mr. Strong. It was enough to do one's eyes good,' he would say, 'to look at them, as they walked up to the old church aisle-he, with his proud, manly tread, and she, a deli-will you sign the pledge?" cate, fragile creature, fair as the orange blossoms that trembled in her hair. I remember how clear and firm his voice echoed through the old church, as he promised to love, pro

Even for all this there is redemption, and you well know in what manner. In the name of the mother that loved you, in the name of your dying wife, and of the child that sleeps beside her, I ask you,

'I will," said old Bill, and he brought down his hand with such force on the pine table, that its rheumatic limbs with difficulty maintained their equilibrium, and then

eagerly seized the pen and pledge the lady she speedily betook to the cleaning operation likewise. And very soon the whole house was, as it were, trausformed and made tidy and comfortable, simply by the cleaning of one ragged school-boy.

placed before him, and when he returned them to her, the name of William Strong lay in broad, legible characters upon the paper.

There was an expression, ludicrous from its intensity of curiosity, on the bar-keeper's physiognomy, as the lady passed quietly through the "shop," after her long interview with old Bill; and the expression was in no degree lessened, when, a few moments after, old Bill followed her without stopping, as usual, to take a "second glass"-and he never passed over the threshold again.”

Reader of mine, if you are of those whose true, carnest souls bear ever about them one great desire to benefit their fellow men, if your heart is yearning over some erring brother man, whom you would gladly raise from the depths of degradation and misery, and point to the highway of peace and virtue, remember that somewhere in his heart must be a door, which, when rightly applied to, will open unto you. See to it that ye find it.Arthur's Home Gazette.

BENEFITS OF A CLEAN FACE.

The successive stages of this interesting outward metamorphosis, are impressively described in a late speech of Joseph Paine, Esq., of London.

MATERNITY.

Woman's charms are certainly many and powerful. The expanding rose just bursting into beauty has an irresistible bewitchingness; the blooming bride, led triumphantly to the hymeneal altar, awakens admiration and interest, and the blush of her cheek fills with delight; but the charm of maternity is more sublime than these. Heaven has im

printed on the mother's face something beyond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies-the angelic smilę the tender look, the waking, watchful eye which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe.

These are objects which neither the pencil nor the chisel can touch, which poetry fails to exalt, which the most eloquent tongue in vain would eulogize, and to por tray which all description becomes ineffective. In the heart of man lies the lovely picture; it lives in his sympathies, it reigns in his affections; his eyes look round in vain for such another object on earth.

round our heart that it must cease to throb Maternity-ecstatic sound! so twined ere we forget! 'Tis our first love. 'Tis part of our religion! Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood, we almost worship it in old age. He who can enter an apartment, and behold the tender babe feeding upon its mother's beauty, nourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins, without a panting bosom and a grateful eye, is no man but a monster. He who can approach the cradle of sleeping innocence without thinking "of such is the kingdom of heaven," or view the fond parent bending over its beauties, and half re

A boy once went to a ragged school and bad his face washed; and when he went bome his neighbors looked at him with astonishment. They said "that looks like Tom Rogers, and yet it can't be, for he is clean." Presently his mother looked at him, finding his face so clean, she fancied her face dirty, and forthwith washed it. The father soon came home, and seeing his wife so clean, thought his face very dirty, and soon followed their example. Father, mother and son, all being clean, the mother began to think the room looked dirty, and down she went on her knees and scrubbed that clean. There was a female lodger in the house, who seeing such a change in her neighbors, tho't her face and her room were very dirty, and' tain her breath lest she should break its

churches, are prolific sources of evil and suffering.

As a general rule, the proper temperature of the human body ought to be preserved by food and exercise, rather than by clothing and fuel.

This matter of temperature is one of much higher moment than is generally supposed. "Since heat, magnetism, electricity, light, and nervous energy, are proved to be intimately related to each other, we need no longer wonder that the sun should appear to be the fountain of all animation to this earth. The consideration of the effects of light on the human being. involves also that of the influences which light seems to call into action; the chief of which, as regards its manifest operation on vital development, is caloric, or that which causes the sensation of heat. The Almighty regulates all nature by the combination of opposing forces; and as attraction gives origin to form and deusity, so heat, acting as the divellent force, imparts to bodies a tendency to expand. It is therefore essential to fluidity and motion, which sufficiently demonstrates its importance in every thing appertaining to life.

This general condition, therefore, ought to be borne constantly in mind, in selecting the material and fixing upon the quantity of clothing. The general practice of our times is to wear such superabundance of clothing, that the body is kept in a temperature so high as to be highly prejudicial to health.— Knowing the nature of our dependence The untold folds of cotton batting in which on the state of the brain and of the blood, we wrap ourselves round and round; the soft, we might determiue the locality most favorwarm feather beds we so commonly immerse able to mental and moral development, and or bury ourselves, are all fruitful sources of no one could doubt the probability of finddebility and disease, and parents and teach-ing, what we find in fact, that in the temers ought to take the initiative in introduc-perate zones man would appear in the highing a general correction of these com- est state of moral and intellectual cultivamon and great errors. The general adoption | tion."

of light. loose, and porous clothing, clean
straw beds and husk matresses, would great-
ly augment the general comfort, health, and
happiness.

BEGIN RIGHT.

THE first stone of an edifice, which is to The temperature of rooms artificially constitute the foundation of the whole, warmed is almost invariable above the should be well laid, or the building cannot state most conducive to health. Not be- be sustained, and in the formation of charlow seventy, nor above seventy-five de-acter it is equally essential that the first grees, ought to be the general rule. Too principles instilled into the mind, should high temperature will very generally be comport with truth and night. An error in found in school-rooms and churches, and the beginning may lead into hundreds of his joined with the impure atmosphere others, as one lie requires an after series to almost invariably found in both schools and sustain it. The first step in any enterprise