VOICES OF THE TRUE HEARTED. No. 3. BY LILIAS GRIEVE. PROFESSOR WILSON. There was fear and melancholy in all the glens and valleys that lay stretching around, or down upon St. Mary's Loch, for it was the time of religious persecution. Many a sweet cottage stood untenanted on the hill side and in the hollow; some had felt the fire, and been consumed, and violent hands had torn off the turf roof from the green shealing of the shepherd. In the wide and deep silence and solitariness of the mountains, it seemed as if human life was nearly extinct. Caverns and clefts in which the fox had kenneled, were now the shelter of Christian souls-and when a lonely figure crept stealingly from one hiding place to another, on a visit of love to some hunted brother in faith, the crows would hover over him, and the hawk shriek at human steps, now rare in the desert. When the babe was born, there might be none near to baptize it; or the minister, driven from his kirk, perhaps poured the sacramental water upon its face from some pool in the glen, whose rocks guarded the persecuted family from the oppressor. Bridals now were unfrequent, and in the solemn sadness of love many died before their time, of minds sunken, and of broken hearts. White hair was on heads long before they were old; and the silver locks of ancient men were often ruefully soiled in the dust, and stained with their martyred blood. But this is the dark side of the picture. For even in their caves were these people happy. Their children were with them, even like the wild flowers that blossomed all about the entrances of their dens. And when the voice of psalms rose up from the profound silence of the solitary place of rocks, the ear of God was open, and they knew that their prayers and praises were heard in heaven. If a child was born, it belonged unto the faithful; if an old man | died, it was in the religion of his forefathers. The hidden powers of their souls were brought forth into the light, and they knew the strength that was in them for these days of trial. The thoughtless became sedate the wild were tamed-the unfeeling were made compassionate-hard hearts were softened, and the wicked saw the error of their ways. All deep passion purifies and strengthens the soul, and so it was now. Now was shown and put to the proof, the stern, austere, impenetrable strength of men, that would neither bend nor break-the calm, serene determination of matrons, who, with meek eyes, and unblanched cheeks, met the scowl of the murderer-the silent beauty of maidens, who, with smiles, received their death-and the mysterious courage of children, who, in the inspiration of innocence and spotless nature, kneeled down among the dew-drops on the green sward, and died fearlesly by their parents' sides. Arrested were they at their work, or in their play, and with no other bandage over their eyes, but haply some clustering ringlets of their sunny hair, did many a sweet creature of twelve summers, ask just to be allowed to say her prayers, and then go, unappalled, from her cottagedoor to the breast of her Redeemer. In those days had old Samuel Grieve and his spouse suffered sorely for their faith. But they left not their own house, willing to die there, or to be slaughtered whenever God should so appoint. They were now childless; but a little grand-daughter, about ten years old, lived with them, and she was an orphan. The thought of death was so familiar to her, that although sometimes it gave a slight quaking throb to her heart in its glee, yet it scarcely impaired the natural joyfulness of her girlhood, and often, unconsciously, after the gravest or the sadest talk with her old parents, would she glide off with a lightsome step, a blithe face, and a voice humming sweetly some cheerful tune. The old people looked often upon her in her happiness, till their dim eyes filled with tears-while the grandmother said, "If this nest were to be destroyed at last, and our heads in the mould, who would feed this young bird in the wild, and where would she find shelter in whieh to fauld her bonnie wings?" Lilias Grieve was the shepherdess of a small flock, among the green pastures at the head of St. Mary's Loch, and up the hill-side, and over into some of the little neighboring glens. Sometimes she sat in that beautiful church-yard, with her sheep lying scattered around her upon the quiet graveswhere, on still, sunny days, she could see their shadows in the water of the Loch, and herself sitting close to the low walls of the house of God. She had no one to speak to, but her Bible to read-and day after day the rising sun beheld her in growing beauty, and innocence that could not fade, happy and silent as a fairy upon the knowe, with the blue heavens over her head, and the blue lake smiling at her feet. “My Fairy,” was the name she bore by the cottage fire, where the old people were gladdened by her glee, and turned away from all melancholy thoughts. And it was a name that suited sweet Li- | net, and then down into a coral cave in a jiffey to lias well-for she was clothed in a garb of green, their mermans-for mermaid, fairy, or mere flesh and often, in her joy, the green graceful plants that and blood women, they are all the same in that regrew among the hills were wreathed round her hair. spect-take my word for it." So was she dressed on Sabbath-day, watching her The fallen ruffian now rose, somewhat humbled, flock at a considerable distance from home, and sing- and sullenly sat down among the rest. Why," ing to herself a psalm in the solitary moor-when quoth Allan Sleigh-I wager you a week's pay, in a moment a party of soldiers were upon a mount you don't venture fifty yards, without your musket, on the opposite side of a narrow dell. Lilias was in- down yonder shingle where the fairy disappeared;" visible as a green linnet upon the grass-but her and the wager being accepted, the half-drunken felsweet voice had betrayed her-and then one of the low rushed on toward the head of the glen, and was soldiers caught the wild gleam of her eyes, and as heard crushing away through the shrubs. In a few she sprung frightened to her feet, he called out, "A minutes he returned, declaring, with an oath, that roe-a roe-see how she bounds along the bent!" he had seen her at the mouth of a cave, where no and the ruffian took aim at the child with his mus- human foot could reach, standing with her hair all ket, half in sport, half in ferocity. Lilias kept ap-on fire, and an angry countenance, and that he had pearing and disappearing, while she flew as on tumbled backward into the burn, and been nearly wings, across a piece of black heathery moss, full of drowned. "Drowned!" cried Allan Sleigh. Ay, pits and hollows--and still the soldier kept his mus- drowned-why not? a hundred yards down that bit ket at its aim. His comrades called to him to hold glen the pools are as black as pitch, and deep as his hand, and not shoot a poor little innoceut child- hell-and the water roars like thunder-drownedbut he at length fired-and the bullet was heard to why not, you English son of a deer stealer?" "Why whiz past her fern-crowned head, and to strike a not because who was ever drowned that was born bank which she was about to ascend. The child paused for a moment, and looked back, and then bounded away over the smooth turf-till, like a cushat, she dropt into a little birchen glen, and disap. peared. Not a sound of her feet was heard-she seemed to have sunk into the ground-and the soldier stood, without any effort to follow her, gazing through the smoke toward the spot where she had vanished. to be hanged?" Aud that jest caused universal laughter-as it is always sure to do, often as it may be repeated in a company of ruffians, such is felt to be its perfect truth and unanswerable simplicity. After an hour's quarrelling, and gibing, and mutiny, this disorderly band of soldiers proceeded on their way down into the head of Yarrow, and there saw, in the solitude, the house of Samuel Grieve. Thither they proceeded to get some refreshment, and ripe for any outrage that any occasion might suggest. The old man and his wife hearing a tumult of many voices and many feet, came out, and were immediately saluted with many opprobrious epithets. The hut was soon rifled of any small articles of wearing apparel, and Samuel, without emotion, set before them whatever provisions he had-butter, cheese, bread, and milk-and hoped they would not be too hard upon old people, who were desirous of dying, as they had lived, in peace. Thankful were they, among the hills-and the old man trusted, that if she returned before the soldiers were gone, she would see from some distance their muskets on the green before the door, and hide herself among the brakens. A sudden superstition assailed the hearts of the party, as they sat down together upon a ledge of stone. "Saw you her face, Riddle, as my ball went whizzing past her ear-curse me, if she be not one of those hill-fairies, else she had been as dead as a herring-but I believe the bullet glanced off her yellow hair, as against a buckler." "By St. George, it was the act of a gallows-rogue to fire upon the creature, fairy or not fairy—and you deserve the weight of this hand-the hand of an Englishman, you brute, for your cruelty!"—and uprose the speak-in their parental hearts, that their little Lilias was er to put his threat into execution, when the other retreated some distance, and began to load his musket-but the Englishman ran upon him, and with a Cumberland gripe and trip, laid him upon the hard ground with a force that drove the breath out of his body, and left him stunned and almost insensible. "That serves him right, Allan Sleigh-shiver my timbers, if I would fire upon a petticoat. As to fairies, why, look ye, 'tis a likely place enow for such creatures—if this be one, it is the first I ever saw, but as to your mermaids, I have seen a score of them, at different times, when I was at sea. As to shooting them, no-no-we never tried that, or the ship would have gone to the bottom. There have I seen them sitting on a rock, with a looking-glass, combing their hair, that wrapped round them like a The soldiers devoured their repast with many oaths, and much hideous and obscene language, which it was sore against the old man's soul to hear in his own hut; but he said nothing, for that would have been wilfully to sacrifice his life. At last one of the party ordered him to return thanks in words impious and full of blasphemy, which Samuel calmly refused to do, beseeching them, at the same time, for the sake of their own souls, not so to offend their great and bountiful Preserver. "Confound the old canting covenanter-I will prick him with my bayonet if he won't say grace;" and the blood trickled down the old man's cheek, from a slight wound on fed folks. With hair floating in sunny light, and his forehead. The sight of it seemed to awaken seemingly wreathed with flowers of heavenly azure, the dormant blood-thirstiness in the tiger-heart of with eyes beaming lustre, and yet streaming tears, the soldier, who now swore that if the old man did with white arms extending in their beauty, and monot instantly repeat the words after him, he would tion gentle and gliding as the sunshine when a cloud shoot him dead. And, as if cruelty were contagi- is rolled away, came on over the meadow before the ous, almost the whole party agreed that the demand hut, the same green-robed creature that had startled was but reasonable, and the old hypocritical knave the soldiers with her singing on the moor, and crying must preach or perish. "Damn him," cried one of loudly but still sweetly, "God sent me hither to them, in a fury, here is the Word of God, a great save their lives." She fell down beside them as musty Bible, stinking of greasy black leather, worse they knelt together; and then, lifting up her head than a whole tanyard. If he won't speak, I will gag from the turf, fixed her beautiful face, instinct with him with a vengeance. Here, old Mr. Peden the pro- fear, love, hope, and the spirit of prayer, upon the phet, let me cram a few chapters of St. Luke down eyes of the men about to shed that innocent blood. your maw. St. Luke was a physician, I believe. Well, here is a dose of him. Open your jaws." And with these words, he tore a handful of leaves out of the Bible, and advanced towards the old man, from whose face his terrified wife was now wiping off the blood. They all stood heart-stricken, and the executioners flung down their muskets upon the green-sward. "God bless you, kind, good soldier, for this," exclaimed the child, now weeping and sobbing with joy; "ay-ay, you will be all happy to-night, when you lie down to sleep. If you have any little daughters or sisters like me, God will love them for your mercy to us, and nothing, till you return home, will hurt a hair of their heads. Oh! I see now that soldiers are not so cruel as we say!" Lilias, your Samuel Grieve was nearly fourscore; but his sinews were not yet relaxed, and in his younger days he had been a man of great strength. When, therefore, the soldier grasped him by the neck, the sense of receiving an indignity from such a slave, made grandfather speaks unto you;- his last words arehis blood boil, and, as if his youth had been renew-leave us-leave us-for they are going to put us to ed, the gray-haired man, with one blow, felled the death. Soldiers, kill not this little child, or the waruffian to the floor ters of the loch will rise up and drown the sons of perdition. Lilias, give us each a kiss-and then go into the house." That blow sealed his doom. There was a fierce tumult and yelling of wrathful voices, and Samuel Grieve was led out to die. He had witnessed such The soldiers conversed together for a few minutes, butchery of others-and felt that the hour of his and seemed now like men themselves condemned to martyrdom was come. "As thou didst reprove die. Shame and remorse for their coward cruelty, Simon Peter in the garden, when he smote the High smote them to the core-and they bade them that Priest's servant, and saidst, The cup which my were still kneeling to rise up and go their ways--Father hath given me, shall I not drink it!' So, then, forming themselves into regular order, one now, oh, my Redeemer, do thou pardon me, thy frail gave the word of commaud, and, marching off, they and erring follower, and enable me to drink this soon disappeared. The old man, his wife, and little cup!" With these words the old man knelt down, Lilias, continued for some time on their knees in unbidden; and, after one solemn look to Heaven, prayer, and then all three went into their hut-the closed his eyes, and folded his hands across his child between them-and a withered hand of each breast. laid upon its beautiful and its fearless head. THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BARRETT. His wife now came forward, and knelt down beside the old man. "Let us die together, Samuel; but, oh! what will become of our dear Lilias?" "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said her husband, opening not his eyes, but taking her hand into his, "Sarah-be not afraid." "Oh! Sam- The following was inspired by the facts elicited uel, I remember at this moment, these words of by investigating the condition of the children emJesus, which you this morning read- Forgive ployed in the mines, factories, &c. of Great Britain. them, Father, they know not what they do.' "We are all sinners together," said Samuel, with a loud Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers! voice-we, two old gray-headed people, on our knees, and about to die, both forgive you all, as we hope ourselves to be forgiven. We are ready-be merciful, and do not mangle us. Sarah, be not afraid." It seemed that an angel was sent down from Heaven to save the lives of these two old gray-head Ere the sorrow comes with years? The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young flowers are blowing from the West; But the young, young children, O my brothers! They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the play-time of the others, In the country of the free. Leave us quiet in the dark of our coal-shadows From your pleasures fair and fine. "For, oh!" say the children, "we are weary, And we cannot run or leap: Do you question the young children in their sorrow, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely Why their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his to-morrow, Which is lost in long ago, The old tree is leafless in the forest, The old year is ending in the frost, The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest, The old hope is hardest to be lost! They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For the Man's grief untimely draws and presses "Your old Earth," they say, "is very dreary! Our young feet," they say, "are very weak! Few paces have we taken, yet are weary Our grave-rest is very far to seek! Ask the old why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewild'ring, And the graves are for the old. "True," say the children, it may happen That we may die before our time! Little Alice died last year,-the grave is shapen We looked into the pit prepared to take her, Was no room for any work in the close clay! From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, Crying-" -Get up, little Alice, it is day!" If you listen by that grave in sun and shower, With your ear down, little Alice never cries; Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her, For the new smile which has grown within her eyes. For merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud, by the kirk chime! "It is good when it happens," say the children, "That we die before our time !" Alas, the young children! they are seeking They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, Go out, children, from the mine and from the city, Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do! Pluck your handfulls of the meadow cowslips pretty, Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through! But the children say, " Are cowslips of the meadows Like the weeds anear the mine? To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall on our face trying to go; And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow; For all day, we drag our burden tiring, All day long the wheels are droning, turning, Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places! Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling, Turns the long light that droopeth down the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning all the day, and we with all ! All day long, the iron wheels are droning, And sometimes we could pray, "O, ye wheels, (breaking off in a mad moaning,) Stop! be silent for to-day!" Ay, be silent let them hear each other breathing, For a moment, mouth to mouth; Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing, Of their tender human youth; Let them feel that this cold metallic motion, Let them prove their inward souls against the notion Is not all the life God giveth them to feel; That they live in you, or under you, O wheel! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, As if fate in each were stark! And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the weary children, O my brothers! For the blessed One who blesseth all the others, They answer-Who is God, that He should hear us, Pass unhearing-at least, answer not a word; And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God with angels singing round Him, Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; Our Father! looking upward in our chamber, We say softly for a charm. We say no other words except Our Father! INSTINCT OF CHILDHOOD. BY JOHN NEAL. And we think that, in some pause of angel's song. He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather. And hold both in his right hand, which is strong.ing branches of a prodigious elm-the largest and Our Father! If He heard us, He would surely (For they call him good and mild) Answer, (smiling down the steep world very purely,) Come and rest with me, my child.'" "But no," say the children. weeping faster, And they tell us of His image is the master "Go to," say the children; " up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find! Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving, We look up to Him, but tears have made us blind!" Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye teach? A beautiful child stood near a large open window. The window was completely overshadowed by wild grape and blossoming honey-suckle, and the droophandsomest you ever saw. The child was leaning forward with half-open mouth and thoughtful eyes, looking into the firmament of green leaves forever at play, that appeared to overhang the whole neighborhood; and her loose, bright hair, as it broke away in the cheerful morning wind, glittered like stray sunshine among the branches and blossoms. Just underneath her feet, and almost within reach of her little hand, swung a large and prettily covered bird cage, all open to the sky! The broad plentiful grape leaves lay upon it in heaps--the morning wind blew pleasantly through it, making the very music that birds and children love best-and the delicate branches of the drooping elm swept over it-and the glow of blossoming herbage round about fell with a sort of shadowy lustre upon the For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, basin of bright water, and the floor of glittering And the children doubt of each! And well may the children weep before ye, They are weary ere they run! They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun! They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom, They sink in their despair, with hope at calm, Are slaves without liberty in Christdom, Are martyrs by the pang, without the palm! Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly- They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, For you think you see their angels in their places, "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation! Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart? Trample down with mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants! And your purple shows your path, But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence, Than the strong man in his wrath!" *The report of the commissioners present repeated instances of children, whose religious devotion is confined to the repetition of the two first words of the Lord's Prayer. "A spirit of pure and intense humanity, a spirit of love and kindness, to which nothing is too large, for which nothing is too small, will always be its own "exceeding great reward." sand within the cage. Well, if ever!" said the child; and then she stooped and pulled away the trailing branches and looked into the cage; and then her lips began to tremble, and her soft eyes filled with tears. Within the cage was the mother bird, fluttering and whistling-not cheerfully, but mournfully-and beating herself to death against the delicate wires; and three little bits of birds watching her, openmouthed, and trying to follow her from perch to perch, as she opened and shut her golden wings, like sudden flashes of sunshine, and darted hither and thither, as if hunted by some invisible thing-or a a cat foraging in the shrubbery. There, now there you go again! you foolish thing, you! Why what is the matter? I should be ashamed of myself! I should so! Hav'nt we bought the prettiest cage in the world for you? Hav'nt you had enough to eat, and the best that could be had for love or money-sponge cake-loaf sugar, and all sorts of seeds? Didn't father put up a nest with his own hands; and havn't I watched over you? you ungrateful little thing! till the eggs they put there had all turned to birds, no bigger than grasshoppers, and so noisy-ah, you can't think! Just look at the beautiful clear wa ter there and the clean white sand-where do you think you could find such water as that, or such a pretty glass dish, or such beautiful bright sand, if we were to take you at your word, and let you out, with that little nest full of young ones, to shift for yourselves, hey ?" The door opened, and a tall benevolent looking man stepped up to her side. |