calling them harp and organ, but they were the introduction of all the world's minstrelsy; and as you hear the vibration of a stringed instrument even after the fingers have been taken away from it, so all music now of lute and drum and cornet are only the long-continued strains of Jubal's harp and Jubal's organ. It seemed to be a matter of very little importance that Tubal Cain learned the use of copper and iron, but that rude foundry of ancient days has its echo in the rattle of Birmingham machinery, and the roar and bang of factories on the Merrimac. It seemed to be a matter of no importance that Luther found a Bible in a monastery; but as he opened the Bible and the brass lids fell back they jarred everything from the Vatican to the farthest corner in Germany, and the rustling of the wormed leaves was the sound of the wings of the angel of the Reformation. It seemed to be a matter of no importance that a woman, whose name has been forgotten, dropped a tract in the way of a very bad man by the name of Richard Baxter. He picked up the tract and read it, and it was the means of his salvation. In after days that man wrote a book called "The Call to the Unconverted," that was the means of bringing a multitude to God, among others, Philip Doddridge. Philip Doddridge wrote a book called "The Rise and Progress of Religion," which has brought thousands and tens of thousands into the kingdom of God, among others the great Wilberforce. Wilberforce wrote a book called "A Practical View of Christianity," which was the means of bringing a great multitude to Christ, among others Leigh Richmond. Leigh Richmond wrote a tract called "The Dairyman's Daughter," which has been the means of the salvation of unconverted multitudes. And that tide of influence started from the fact that one Christian woman dropped a Christian tract in the way of Richard Baxter-the tide of influence rolling on through Richard Baxter, through Philip Doddridge, through the great Wilberforce, through Leigh Richmond, on, on, forever.

T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

THE JEW'S GIFT.

145

THE JEW'S GIFT.

(A.D. 1200.)

THE Abbot willed it, and it was done,
They hanged him high in an iron cage
For the spiteful wind and the patient sun
To bleach him. Faith, 'twas a cruel age!
Just for no crime they hanged him there.
When one is a Jew, why, one remains
A Jew to the end, though he swing in air
From year to year in a suit of chains.

"Twas May, and the buds into blossom broke,
And the apple boughs were pink and white :
What gruesome fruit was that on the oak,
Swaying and swaying day and night!
The miller, urging his piebald mare

Over the cross-road, stopped and leered ;
But never an urchin ventured there,

For fear of the dead man's long, white beard.

A long, white beard like carded wool,
Reaching down to the very knee;
Of a proper sort with which to pull
A heretic Jew to the gallows-tree!
Piteous women-folk turned away,

Having no heart for such a thing;
But the blackbirds on the alder-spray
For very joy of it seemed to sing.

Whenever a monk went shuffling by

To the convent over against the hill,

He would lift a pitiless pious eye,

And mutter, "The Abbot but did God's will!"

And the Abbot himself slept no whit less,
But rather the more, for this his deed:
And the May moon filled, and the loveliness
Of springtide flooded upland and mead.

Then an odd thing chanced. A certain clown,
On a certain morning breaking stone
By the hillside, saw, as he glanced down,
That the heretic's long white beard was gone,
Shaved as clean and close as you choose,
As close and clean as his polished pate!
Like wildfire spread the marvellous news

From the ale-house bench to the convent gate.

And the good folk flocked from far and near, And the monks trooped down the rocky height: "Twas a miracle, that was very clear,

The devil had shaved the Israelite! Where is the Abbot? Quick, go tell!

Summons him, knaves, death! straightway! The devil hath sent his barber from hell, Perchance there will be the devil to pay!

Now a lad that had climbed an alder-tree,
The better to overlook the rest,
Suddenly gave a shout of glee

At finding a wondrous blackbird's nest,
Then suddenly flung it from his hand,
For lo! it was woven of human hair,
Plaited and braided, strand upon strand:
No marvel the heretic's chin was bare!

Silence fell upon priest and clown,
Each stood riveted in his place ;

The brat that tugged at his mother's gown
Caught the terror that blanched her face.

INTEMPERANCE.

Then one, a patriarch, bent and gray,
Wise with the grief of years fourscore,
Picked up his staff, and took his way

By the mountain-path to the Abbot's door;

And bravely told this thing of the nest,

How the birds had never touched cheek or eye,
But daintily plucked the fleece from the breast
To build a home for their young thereby.
"Surely, if they were not afear'd

66

(God's little choristers, free of guile!)
To serve themselves of the Hebrew's beard,
It was that he was not wholly vile!

Perhaps they saw with their keener eyes

The grace that we missed, but which God sees:

Ah, but He reads all hearts likewise,

The good in those, and the guilt in these.

Humbly the Abbot bowed his head,

And making a gesture of accord:

"What would you have? The knave is dead."

66 Certes, the man is dead! No doubt

Deserved to die; as a Jew, he died;
But now he hath served the sentence out

(With a dole or two thrown in beside),
Suffered all that he may
of men,

Why not earth him, and no more words?"

The Abbot pondered, and smiled, and then

147

"Well, well! since he gave his beard to the birds!" T. B. ALDRICH.

Note 60.

INTEMPERANCE.

THE London Times proclaimed twenty years ago that intemperance produced more idleness, crime, distress, want, and misery than all other causes put together; and the

Westminster Review calls it a 66 curse that far eclipses every other calamity under which we suffer." Gladstone, speaking as Prime Minister, admitted that "greater calamities are inflicted on mankind by intemperance than by the three great historical scourges, war, pestilence, and famine." These are English testimonies where the State rests more than half on bayonets. Here we are trying to rest the ballot-box on a drunken people. "We can rule a great city," said Robert Peel, "America cannot "; and he cited the mobs of New York as sufficient proof of his assertion.

Thoughtful men see that, up to this hour, the government of great cities has been with us a failure; that worse than the dry-rot of legislative corruption, than the rancor of party spirit, than even the tyranny of incorporated wealth, is the giant burden of intemperance, making universal suffrage a failure and a curse in every great city. But while this crusade, the temperance movement, has been for sixty years gathering its facts and marshalling its arguments, rallying parties, besieging legislatures, and putting great States on the witness-stand as evidence of the soundness of its methods, scholars have given it nothing but a sneer. But if universal suffrage ever fails here for a time, permanently it cannot fail, it will not be incapable civil service, nor an ambitious soldier, nor greed of wealth that will put universal suffrage into eclipse. It will be rum intrenched in great cities and commanding every vantage ground.

WENDELL PHILLIPS.

Note 61.

AN INCIDENT OF THE CRIMEAN WAR.

(Abridged.)

SOON, beside Kadiköi, on the road between camp and port, there sprung up wooden store-houses, and stacks, and bales, and chests; and there, too, men observed as they passed, that under some motive force newly reaching Crim