distance; it would have been certain death to have committed themselves to the

waves.

Frederic Wilmer rose again; and Charles Stevens saw that wild, white uplifted face-the face that had beamed up along his path from boy into manhoodand his heart stood still for pity.

A moment more, and he had thrown down the oar, and sprung into the waves. He clutched the young merchant by his long hair, and beat out for the shore. It was a terrible struggle for life. Frederic was completely exhausted, and soon little more than a dead weight upon his friend; but courage and skill triumphed at last, and, thoroughly exhausted himself, Charles Stevens drew his friend upon the shore. "My husband! my husband! Is he drowned ?"

White as the dead were Marion Wilmer's lips as they asked this question, while she stood upon the wet sand, with the rain beating through her long, unbound hair.

The storm had roused her from her sleep, and she had rushed out on the piazza, straining her eyes for the large vessel, which was not in sight, and in which she fully believed her husband had sailed with the party. She observed the smaller boat, and thought it was filled by a company of fishermen, who would understand managing it well enough. But her eyes were bent in another direction, and it was not until the swimmers nearly reached the shore, that they attracted her attention.

Suddenly a change came over her face. She grasped the railing of the piazza, and gazed with distended eyes and quivering lips on the two heads that one moment rose, and the next were buried under the spray.

It was some distance to the shore, and the young men reached it before she did, though she rushed almost like a spirit over the sharp rocks and wet sands.

"No, he'll revive soon; don't be alarmed!" said Charles Stevens to the frightened wife, and then fell down on the ground, overcome by his long struggle with the waves.

There was help at hand, and the two young men were conveyed to the hotel, and, in a short time, both were restored to consciousness, to learn that the storm had abated, and that both the boats had, after imminent peril, reached the shore.

It was evening, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilmer, with Charles Stevens, sat together in one of the chambers of the hotel.

"Charles, my dear old fellow, to think I owe my life to you!" said the young merchant, lifting up his pale face from the hand that rested on the arm of his chair, for he had not yet regained his strength. "There are debts too great for a man ever to cancel; there is a gratitude too deep for words. Charlie, what shall I say to you?"

"Nothing at all, Fred. It is enough of reward to me to think that I saved you."

"And to-night, if it were not for you, Charles"- she had never called him Charles before-" instead of sitting here by Fred's side, a happy, happy wife, I should have been "

The lady could not finish the sentence, for the tears that sprung up from her heart into her eyes-those eyes that bent down on the young man, from their blue depths, a glance of gratitude that he thought repaid him fully for all he had done. He smiled lightly.

"You would have made a charming widow, certainly, Mrs. Wilmer; but, notwithstanding, I had rather see you a loving wife."

And then the memory of their recent neglect of Charles Stevens smote the heart of both husband and wife; but Marion felt it far more keenly of the two. She was an impulsive little woman, and, in her gratitude for the life more precious than her own, which he had saved, her pride entirely vanished, and she determined to confess the wrong she had done the preserver of her husband.

"I am very much ashamed of it, but I can't keep it back now," she said, turning round her tearful face, and flashing up through it her smiles on the young man ; "but I was really jealous of you, Charles, and-and when I gave my last party, I just didn't invite you, because I thought my husband would care less for me, if he loved you so much. It was very, very wicked, and God has punished me for this feeling; but still, if you knew what a young wife's tenderness is for her husband, you would not find it so hard to-to do what, with these tears of penitence and shame, I ask you now to do- forgive

little hand Marion Wilmer had presented to him to his lips. "We will never speak of it any more."

And then Frederic Wilmer rose up and stepped toward them. He took the hand of his wife and the hand of Charles Stevens, and clasped them both together. "We have been brothers all our lives, Charles," he said, "and it is right now I should bring you a sister. It is the best, the only reward that I can bring you." And Charles Stevens drew his arm around Marion Wilmer.

or wide awake hackmen, drove by on the pavements. The sky was clear, and the stars were bright. The air was keen, making one conscious of the comfort of a well-provided home, and giving the poor forebodings of the cold, starving winter, which was now rapidly coming upon them. It was near ten o'clock when I laid down my pen and threw myself into an easy arm-chair with the evening newspaper in hand. Glancing over the editorial columns, my eye rested on the following article:

"MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN

MAKES COUNTLESS MILLIONS MOURN.' "DIED yesterday, in a small, unfinished attic room, 144 street, J. B. L. This unfortunate man, who was once one of our most respectable merchants, literally starved to death!

me off."

Mrs. Wilmer clapped her hands in her own dainty, graceful fashion, and laughed a laugh, so full, and sweet, and frolicsome, that both the listeners could not choose but join in it.

But Marion's bright face grew sober again as she said, "I shall never forget the lesson which the last three weeks have taught me."

he lost all his property and was reduced to bankruptcy. At that time he had a most excellent wife and two lovely daughters, one nine, the other eleven years of age. He made numer ous efforts to retrieve his fortunes; but he found his credit was gone, and no one seemed disposed to lend him a helping hand. Stripped of everything, he took apartments in a house occupied by a number of families. Mrs. L., aided by her to the work, and the prices being so low, the daughters, sewed for the shops. Unaccustomed sum realized from that source was very small.

"Time passed on, business became more prosperous, and Mr. L. saw an opportunity to the height of his prosperity he set up a young improve his circumstances. When he was in man in business. That young man has now become the senior partner in one of our largest

we withhold-Mr. L. applied for a little assistance to enable him to enter into this opening. He applied in vain: the man that owed to him so much of position and wealth treated him

IT

CLERGYMAN.

PAPER I.-THE LONGWORTHS.

T was Saturday night, and the coolest evening of the fall season yet experienced. I was seated at the table in my study, finishing the pulpit preparations for the approaching Sabbath. A wood fire on the hearth made the temperature of my room warm and genial. The children, having taken their Saturday evening bath, were snug in bed. In accordance with an established rule in my house, all work was laid aside, and the adult members of my family were reading such selections from the library as suited their taste. Stillness reigned in the parsonage. The rumbling of wheels was heard, ever and anon, as youthful pleasure seekers, weary carmen,

friends with similar results. He had been unfortunate, and men of means were afraid to trust him. Greatly disheartened, and almost ready to despair, he returned to his changed homehow changed from what it was in former times! arrival. His poor wife had been taken ill, very -where his family were anxiously awaiting his ill, during the day, and was now lying upon her bed in a corner of the room. Her disease, which proved to be the small-pox, soon accomplished its fatal work, and she sank into

the grave. The younger daughter took the same disease, and, in a few days, followed her mother to the land of spirits. These sore bereavements, in connection with Mr. L.'s embarrassments and the coldness of the world, were full. In less than a year after he had buried overwhelming. His cup, however, was not yet his wife and daughter, his other daughter, who had kept house for him since her mother's death,

and who was a beautiful, lovely girl, in her sixteenth year, strangely disappeared. About four weeks since Mr. L. left home at half past seven o'clock in the morning and returned about one.

Everything remained in his rooms much as they were when he left, only Ellen was not there! The scanty marketing of the morning was still in the market basket. What could it all mean? Where was Ellen? No trace of her could be found. At last he was informed, by the inmates of another aparment of the house, that between nine and ten o'clock a genteelly-dressed man and a short, dashy woman came to the door in a carriage, and that Ellen went away with them. Acquainted with city habits and city corruption,

the truth at once flashed across the mind of the distracted father. Ellen had, without doubt, been decoyed by a couple of those execrated characters that infest our city and entrap the unwary. Such persons, when caught by these kidnappers of virtue, are forcibly detained until, disgraced in the eyes of men, degraded in their own estimation, and robbed of virtue, they shun the society of friends and home from which they were stolen.

"Mr. L. made diligent search for his lost daughter. He searched, however, in vain. The wretches who seduced her away had so completely covered their retreat, and secured their victim, that no knowledge of them, or of her, whatever, could be obtained. The father in despair was forced to give up his child as lost. Happy then would he have been to know that, in innocence and purity, she was sleeping in the grave with her sister and mother. Disgusted with the world, he no longer asked of it either justice or mercy. He no longer sought employment or friends. Shutting himself up in his room, deprived mostly of air and food, he speedily became a prey to disease. Finding that he was about to die, he crawled into his little attic chamber, and there, alone and unseen, except by the all-seeing One, he gave up the ghost.

"What a chapter is this on 'man's inhumanity to man.' Let those rich men, who could give Mr. L. no assistance in the day of his adversity, ponder it well. A small portion of the money squandered in a foolish display would have saved a reputable business man from poverty and death; would have saved, in all probability, a wife and daughter from a premature grave; would have saved a lovely girl, just entering into womanhood, from a condition more dreadful than any other to which human beings can be reduced in this life. Selfishness is bound up in the hearts of the rich, and the destruction of the poor is their poverty. The rich care not for the poor."

The wrongs and sufferings of this family, thus briefly but graphically portrayed, excited my emotions and harrowed up my feelings. The scene of all these sufferings was my own city, probably but a few blocks from my house, and might be in the very street on which I reside. Here, in this city of Bibles, and churches, and Christians, and Christian institutions, and ministers of Christ, and men of princely fortunes, a reputable man is doomed to poverty and death. He is so doomed, not because he is intemperate, not because he is indolent, not because he

is dishonest; but because, by the misfortunes or rascality of others, he loses his worldly possessions. Here his wife and daughter, unaccustomed to the privations and hardships of their forced circumstances, occupying small, ill-ventilated apartments, in a house, the nominal abode of twice or thrice the number of human beings that ought to dwell there, sicken and die of a loathsome disease. Here, in open day, a virtuous young woman is stolen, actually stolen, from her father's house, and confined in a prison of moral death. This is done, too, by men and women that are known to the officers of the city. In all probability some of these officers know the very house and room in which Ellen Longworth is confined. On the side of her captors and seducers, backed and employed by men of fashion and pleasure, is money. On the side of the victim is poverty. The father goes down to the grave in bitterness of soul, and the daughter, ignorant of his melancholy end, suffers on in her prisonhouse of moral pollution, while these officers, cognizant of the whole, riot with the money given them to close their eyes and seal their lips!

Great God! I exclaimed; are these things so, really so, in this Christian city? Unquestionably they are. And the sufferings and wrongs of the Longworth family are only the sufferings and wrongs, varying in unimportant circumstances, of hundreds of families in this community.

The question immediately rose in my mind whether, as the pastor of a congregation, and as a minister of Christ's Gospel, I had done all that Christ required of me, and all that the interests of humanity demanded at my hands to stay those corruptions and correct these and all other evils? I had preached well-studied and orthodox sermons. I had endeavored to instruct my people in the doctrines of the Bible.

These sermons I knew had been well received, had been complimented; indeed, some of them had been eulogized by the newspaper press, as both learned and eloquent. But, after all, the question forced itself upon me: Do my sermons make my hearers feel dissatisfied with themselves? Am I, I inquired, lifting up my voice against the injustice, the oppression, the hard heartedness of the world as Christ and the apostles did? Am I doing all in my power, in the pulpit as well as privately, to root out the abominations

in the midst of us? Am 1, in season and out of season, and as earnestly as I ought to, insisting upon that practical religion which shows itself in “doing” to others as we would they should do to us? My heart told me I was not.

The sermon which I had prepared for the approaching morning was on what is commonly called "Apostolical Succession." It contained a careful examination of the Jewish economy and the synagogue order and service. This involved a labored criticism on certain Hebrew roots, terms, and phrases. I then passed on to the institution of the Christian Church. The difference between the New Testament and classic Greek was pointed out. The peculiarities of the New Testament Greek were dwelt upon at length, and a precise definition was given of the terms 66 deacon,' ‚”“ elder,” and “bishop." Next followed an examination of the Fathers. I had drawn largely from these, and a portion of the extracts was in Latin and Greek. Ecclesia, episcopos, and other similar terms, rounded many a period. I then came down to more modern authors and times. The views of Owen and Burnet were considered, and some of the positions of the Irenicum were reviewed.

Then, in a deprecatory manner, regarding myself and my Church as orthodox, and, in the controversy on this great subject, the assailed party, assailed, too, by those who claim to be the Church of God, I quoted, in conclusion, from the Greek apologue, giving first the Greek and then the following translation:

"The eagle saw her breast was wounded sore, She stood and weepèd much, but grievèd more; But when she saw the dart was feather'd, said,

Woe's me, for my own kind hath me destroy'd."

The sermon cost me a great amount of study and research, and I fancied, as I made the last interlineations, that it would sustain at least, if not add to, the reputation I had already gained as an able controversialist and a sound theologian. It was this sermon I had just finished before taking up the paper containing the account of the Longworth family.

I now asked myself seriously, What good, practical good, will that sermon accomplish? Will it feed one starving man? Will it clothe one naked orphan? Will it open the purses of the rich? Will it not rather quiet their consciences by magni

fying into importance what, at best, is non-essential and comparatively unimportant? Will it lift the heel of the tyrant from the neck of the downtrodden and oppressed? Will it, in the least, arrest the progress of intemperance and turn back the waves of licentiousness and corruption? Will it search out and expose to the gaze of the world the lurking-places of vice? Will it protect virtue? Is there Christ in it? Will it make my hearers feel for others' woe? Does it teach man his duty to his God, to his neighbor, and to himself? Is it a sermon that will make those who hear it turn from a vain and profligate course of life; that will lead them to resolve to be better members of society; to be men, and act their part as men? My convictions were that it could not. I resolved, therefore, to lay it aside, and, on the morrow morning, by the help of God, try to preach, not a mere moral essay, not merely a philosophical disquisition, not a dead and dry discourse on a dead and dry subject, not a time-serving sermon, but a sermon for the times!

CHILDHOOD AND ITS VISITORS. ONCE on a time, when sunny May

Was kissing up the April showers, I saw fair childhood hard at play

Before a bank of blushing flowers, Happy-he knew nor whence nor how;

And smiling-who could choose but love him? For not more glad than childhood's brow Was the gay heaven that laugh'd above him. Old Time came hobbling in his wrath,

And that green valley's calm invaded; The brooks grew dry beneath his path, The birds were mute, the lilies faded; A Grecian tomb stood full in sight,

And that old Time began to batter, But Childhood watch'd his paper kite, Nor heeded he, one whit, the matter.

With curling lip, and eye askance,

Guilt gazed upon the scene a minute;
But Childhood's archly simple glance
Had such a holy spell within it,
That the dark demon to the air
Again spread forth his baffled pinion,
And hid his envy and despair,

Self-tortured, in his own dominion.

Then stepp'd a gloomy phantom up,
Pale, cypress-crown'd, night's woeful daughter,
And proffer'd him a fearful cup,

Full to the brim of bitter water;

Says Childhood, "Madam, what's your name?" And when the beldame utter'd, "Sorrow," Then cried, "Don't interrupt my game,

I prithee call again to-morrow."

The muse of Pindus thither came,

And woo'd him with the softest numbers That ever scatter'd wealth and fame

Upon a youthful poet's slumbers.
Though sweet the lyre and sweet the lay,
To Childhood it was all a riddle;
"Good gracious !" cried he," send away
That noisy woman with a fiddle !"

Then wisdom stole his bat and ball,

And taught him, with most sage endeavor, Why bubbles rise and acorns fall,

And why no joy may last forever; She talk'd of all the wondrous laws

Which Nature's open book discloses;
But Childhood, when he made a pause,
Was fast asleep among the roses.

Sleep on, sleep on! Pale manhood's dreams
Are all of earthly pain or pleasure,
Of glory's toils, ambition's schemes,

Of cherish'd love, or hoarded treasure;
But to the couch where childhood lies
A pure, unmingled trance is given,
Lit up by rays from seraph's eyes,
And glimpses of remember'd heaven!

OUR COUSIN FROM THE CITY.

A FAMILY REMINISCENCE.

"How

OW tiresome, how extremely disagreeable!" complained my brother Arthur, as he tossed on the table Miss Ponsonby's note, containing her acceptance of my father's invitation to her to come and spend a few weeks with his family in their quiet country home.

We all looked spitefully enough at the innocent little sheet of paper, with its delicate hand-writing, and its neatly sealed and faintly perfumed envelope. We were a family of rough, unpolished, motherless boys and girls. We girls, indeed, were even less civilized than our brothers; for while we had run wild under the quasi control of a weak-minded governess whom we entirely ruled, they had been duly sent to a public school, where some degree of discipline had been flogged and knocked into them by their tutors and schoolfellows. Arthur, especially, the eldest, the cleverest, the handsomest, and the dearest, was just returned from his first term at college, and we were all proud of his improvement in appearance, and charmed by his gentlemanlike courtesy and ease of manners, though we scarcely understood it. We only knew he was very different from Hugh and Stephen, and that already those wild, reckless fellows were becoming a thought less wild, under the influence of their elder brother's precepts and example.

But even Arthur disliked the idea of Miss Ponsonby's visit, and we, sanctioned by his opinion, scrupled not to express our feelings unreservedly.

"A regular bore-a nuisance!" cried Hugh, savagely cutting away at the stick he was carving, and sending the chips right and left as he did so; "what on earth are we to do with a fine city lady?"

"We shall have to be proper and‘ 'ladylike,' as Miss Fisher says," said Lydia, in dismay; "and how-O there now, Hugh, one of your abominable chips has flown into my eye. You've no business to hack away at that stick in the drawing-room. Arthur, has he? I'll slap your face if you make faces at me, sir."

This last, of course, to Hugh, who was too vividly expressing his feelings by contortions of his features. Arthur, as usual, had to exert his influence to prevent a quarrel, and when that was achieved we began to grumble again.

66

'We were going to have such fun!" sighed I, "now Arthur is here, and all. We should have been so happy this autumn. Brother!"

"I'll tell you what we'll do!" exclaimed Stephen, in sudden glee, "we'll sicken her of being here. We'll send her off of her own accord, the second day. We'll make the place too hot to hold her, and she'll beat a retreat."

"Hurrah!” cried Hugh, "I'll do my part. I'll take her through bramble-bushes that shall tear her smart frocks, and spoil her grand fashionable bonnets. I'll let her accidentally slip into ditches which shall ruin her satin shoes, and frighten her out of her fine-ladyish senses besides. O, I promise I'll lead her a pretty life while she is here."

66

Hush, boys!" remonstrated Arthur, looking up from his book, "you must remember this lady is to be our guest, and has claims to all courtesy and consideration from us. It's no use to talk in that wild way. We are gentlemen-don't forget that.”

This final argument was always irresistible to the two boys, rude and savage as they seemed. With Lydia and myself he employed other reasoning.

"Though we don't like this visitor, girls," said he, "we are not such Goths as to let her see it. You will, of course, jointly do the honors, and I have no doubt you will acquit yourselves admirably.