testifying their approval, had given without stint, and when the chequered handkerchief was tremblingly unfolded to receive the contents of the hat, the old man stood speechless with surprise and joy. Then he gasped :— bring out those bass-notes of yours; I'll fresco entertainment and merely bent upon take the baritone part, and you, Gustave, my brave tenor, give us some more of your angel's strains. The heavens will open and the larks drop ready-roasted into the old man's mouth. Let us have the trio from 'Guillaume Tell' to finish up with; and, mind, we are singing for the honor of the Conservatoire as well as for a charitable purpose." There was no need of the reminder, the artistic spirit of the young fellows had been aroused already, and though the attendant circumstances of their performance were strange some might have said humiliating-they sang and played as probably they never sang and played in after life, when the most critical of Euro. pean audiences hung upon their lips and instrument; they sang and played so as to galvanize into life the old man himself, who in the beginning had remained seated on the steps, but who now grasped his stick and led the trio with an authoritative gesture that bespoke the practised musician. He stood perfectly erect, the eyes so dull and listless but half an hour ago, flashed with intense excitement, he looked transformed, and the executants them selves felt that they were obeying a mas ter. 66 The performance was at an end, the crowd slowly dispersed not without comments. They are not street players," said some," their voices are too fresh for that." "Street players," replied others, "of course they are not, they have done this for a wager, or perhaps they were hard up, and wanted a good lump sum for their Christmas supper." "Well, they have got it," said a third section, "that hat contains a great deal more money than we think. I saw two different gentlemen throw in a gold piece." . It was true; the hat contained a comparatively large sum; the well-to-do and critical among the andience, not stopping to enquire the hidden motives of the al "Your names; give me your names, that I may bless them on my death-bed; that my daughter may remember them in her prayers.' 66 My name is Faith," said the first young man. 66 My name is Hope," said the second. "My name is Charity," said the third, who had looked to the financial success of the undertaking. 66 “And you do not even know mine," sobbed the old man. 'I might have been the merest impostor. My name is Chapner; I am an Alsatian, and for ten years I directed the orchestra of the opera at Strassburg. It is there I had the honor to mount Guillaume Tell.' Since I left my native country, misfortune has pursued me. You have saved mine and my daughter's life, for, thanks to you, we'll be able to go back. My daughter will recover her health in her native air, and among those I know there will be found a place for me, to teach what I can no longer perform. But I tell you, you shall be great among the greatest, when I am gone.' "Amen," said the three young fellows as they led the old musician gently into the street and shook hands with him for the last time. But in spite of their attempted disguise, they had been recognized by one of the crowd, who told the tale. The name of the young violinist was Adolphe Hermann; that of the tenor was Gustave Roger, and the originator of the entertainment and collector still answers to that of Charles Gounod. The old man's prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter. ALBERT D. VANDAM. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and moncy-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. A LONDON LANDSCAPE. BEFORE me lies no purple distance wide, With faint horizon hills to bound my view. Tall houses close me in on every side, Pierced here and there by meagre slits of blue. 'Tis not for me to watch the slow dawn come But I can see one gracious growing thing: And when at eve the fires of sunset flare, And like bold beacon-lights, flash here and there The dingy warehouse windows manifold, The little leaves upon my poplar-tree All in the wondrous glory shake and shake, Transmuted by the sunset alchemy Each one into a burnished golden flake. Then by and by, from some dim realm afar, The dark comes down, and blots the world from sight, And 'twixt the trembling poplar-leaves, a star But 'mid the many flowers that were But ah! what matter now; the grace The walks, the lawns, the rustling trees, But these are ours until life's slope Dips down into the darkened dale; And 'tis by these the dead avail To help us still, as still we grope Toward their high, accomplished hope. Chambers' Journal. KATE CARTER. A MOTHER'S GARDEN. I SEE her in the dear, dead years, I catch some sweet or humorous phrase; A minute, and she comes again, And loiters where she loitered oft She loved the phlox on swaying stem, And many a fragrant flower that yet At eve, or after summer rain; PARIS SPARROWS. 'TWAS long ago in my student days, When I was wild and gay, I lived in a room in the old "Boul. Mich." On a couple of francs a day, And I used to watch the small brown birds And spared them a part of every meal, Across the cour was another room, I caught a glimpse of a pale sweet face She too was away from home and friends, From The Nineteenth Century. ULSTER AND HOME RULE. 1. ON the morrow of the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill the English public were too busy wondering what would happen next at Westminster to think of anything else. Had they been at leisure, however, to fix their attention upon the city of Belfast, they would have been witnesses of a spectacle well worth their consideration. The rejection of the bill of 1886 was the signal for rejoicings of a kind to which the modern world is little accustomed, though the manner of these rejoicings was eminently characteristic of the last of the Puritan cities. Belfast remained awake to hear the result of the division, and when the news that saved Ulster flashed across the wires the whole city "fraternized." Strangers, as they passed each other in the streets, stopped to shake hands and to express their thankfulness and delight, for a common peril and a common relief made all men acquainted. But the enthusiasm was not confined to the streets. Bands of working men went through the suburb roads, knocking at the doors of houses "to pass the word," knowing that even at that hour of the night they would be sure of a welcome. All this might perhaps have happened in other towns under similar circumstances, but in Belfast a touch was added that showed the special temper of the people. After a band of men engaged in spreading the good tidings had given their message to the household in some villa on the outskirts of the town, they would fall on their knees in the garden and join in prayer and thanksgiving for the mercy vouchsafed to Ulster. Such acts strike the moral key-note of Belfast. We may sneer at its inhabitants as religious bigots and as belated upholders of fanaticism, but we cannot ignore facts like these. Whether we like or dislike the circumstance, there is alive in the Belfast of to-day the old Puritan spirit the spirit which overthrew Charles, and raised in his stead the reign of the saints. This is the spirit, these the people, which the Gladstonians expect to see submit to the rule of a Dublin Parliament without a struggle. I have no desire to write a word which may encourage the people of Belfast and Ulster to resist the application to them of a Home-Rule act. There are circumstances, no doubt, under which the right of resistance accrues, but it is the men of Ul. ster alone who can decide whether those circumstances have arisen. On them falls the terrible responsibility of the decision, and no English Unionist who does not share that responsibility has any right to interfere. The less the Unionists of Great Britain have to do with the resolves of the northern Protestants the better. But though I have no intention of saying anything to stimulate the movement which is now taking place in Ulster, I am anxious to do what I can to help the English electorate to understand the facts with which they are dealing, and to make them realize the temper of the people who at the beginning of this month are to meet in convention at Belfast. Before the people of Great Britain determine that they will not listen to the demand of the northern counties to remain under the Parliament at Westminster, and attempt to force them under the domination of the south, they ought to face the Ulster problem as a whole. Now undoubtedly the most important factor in that problem is the question, Will the Protestant north really resist the execution of powers of legislation and administration conferred upon a Dublin Parliament? Whether they ought to resist is another matter. The question is, Will they resist? and if they do, Will their resistance be of a kind that will cancel the advantages sought to be obtained from Home Rule? How, in a word, will the resistance of the north affect the profit and loss account of Home Rule? The admitted object of Home Rule is to content and pacify Ireland. How will the resistance of Ulster affect that object? The matters, then, that I desire to discuss here are: (1) the genuineness or lack of genuineness of the threatened resistance of the north; (2) the character that such resistance is likely to assume; (3) the results that the attempt to suppress resistance are likely to produce. It may seem presumptuous for an Englishman with but a slight personal acquaintance with the north of Ireland to attempt to deal with these problems. I can only plead in defence that lookers-on often see the best of the game, that I have endeavored to the best of my ability to study and understand the temper of the Ulster people, and that I have always felt a special sympathy for what before 1886 might have been called the Nonconformist attitude in politics - the attitude of the Independents in the seventeenth century, and of Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden in modern times an attitude, though with variations, characteristic of the Ulster of to-day. II. vention. "Ah! but," the Gladstonians will say, even admitting its spontaneity, the convention does not matter. We have seen plenty of similar movements in Ul. ster, but they have never come to anything. Did not the Ulstermen threaten to kick the queen's crown into the Boyne if the Irish Church Bill was passed, and yet when the act was put into operation there was not the slightest difficulty." No doubt that is very true. The Orangemen in 1869 and 1870 talked a great deal of nonsense and did nothing; but that does not show that when, in 1892, men who are not Orangemen say quietly that they will not acknowledge the laws passed by a Dublin THAT the movement which has resulted Parliament, they are also talking nonsense. in the summoning of the convention which The Orangemen who gasconaded in 1869 will consider the best methods of resisting represented only a portion of the ProtesHome Rule was spontaneous there can be tant population — those belonging to the no sort of doubt. The Gladstonians, lay. Established Church. The rest of the ing hold of some unguarded remarks Protestants were as anxious for disestabby Lord Salisbury remarks which had lishment as the Catholics. The Liberal much better not have fallen from the Protestants of Ulster were then in politics mouth of a prime minister - have at working hand in hand with the Catholics, tempted to represent the convention as a and they would not only have given no mere piece of party tactics, a great public support to, but would have actively opmeeting ordered from London, and no posed resistance to, the Irish Church Act. more worth attending to than the New-Things are very different now. The castle Conference or the grand council of threat of Home Rule has brought the the Primrose League. Nothing in reality whole of the Protestants into line, and could be further from the truth. The Protestant Liberals, and Protestant Tosummoning of the convention was a purely spontaneous act — the result of the double determination not to be caught unprepared if Home Rule should pass, and to address to the electors of Great Britain a collective appeal on behalf of the Protestants of the north. A group of Belfast merchants and men of business of Liberal Unionist views (it would be more correct to say merely Liberal merchants, since in Belfast the whole Liberal party and organization remained Unionist in 1886, rendering the descriptive adjective unnecessary), considering that the time had arrived for organizing a body that could speak in the name of Ulster Protestantism, agreed to take steps for convoking a gathering of representa tive Ulstermen. Accordingly, a deputation crossed to England and pressed their scheme upon the Ulster members of Parliament. The result was the Downshire House meeting and the calling of the con ries, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, once so bitterly opposed in Ulster, have found a common standpoint in a common danger. People in England may find it difficult to realize fully what this means, for they are apt to talk as if the Protestants in Ulster had always been united against the Catholics. This is by no means the case. A very large number of Ulster Protestants, before the growth of Parnellism made co-operation impossible, habitually worked with the Catholics on Liberal lines. The Liberals of Ulster were brought up to hate two things equally-Orangeism and Ribbonism; and when the surrender of 1886 took the world by surprise, the Protestant Liberals and the Protestant Tories of the north found themselves, for the first time in their lives, with a common policy. Strange as it may seem, the convention will even now be the first occasion on which many of the Orange and |
