"Oh! I'd be so good and patient, and I'd never cry or fret, And your kindness to me, Jesus, I would surely not forget; I would love you all I know of, and would never make a noise

Can't you find me just a corner, where I'll watch the other boys?

"Oh! I think yer'll do it, Jesus, something seems to tell me so, For I feel so glad and happy, and I do so want to go,

How I long to see yer, Jesus, and the children all so bright! Come and fetch me, won't yer, Jesus? Come and fetch me home to-night!"

Tommy ceased his supplication, he had told his soul's desire, And he waited for the answer till his head began to tire; Then he turned towards his corner and lay huddled in a heap, Closed his little eyes so gently, and was quickly fast asleep.

Oh, I wish that every scoffer could have seen his little face As he lay there in the corner, in that damp and noisome place;

For his countenance was shining like an angel's, fair and bright,

And it seemed to fill the cellar with a holy, heavenly light.

He had only heard of Jesus from a ragged singing girl, He might well have wondered, pondered, till his brain began to whirl;

But he took it as she told it, and believed it then and there, Simply trusting in the Saviour, and his kind and tender care.

In the morning, when the mother came to wake her crippled boy,

She discovered that his features wore a look of sweetest joy, And she shook him somewhat roughly, but the cripple's face

was cold

He had gone to join the children in the streets of shining gold.

Tommy's prayer had soon been answered, and the Angel Death had come

To remove him from his cellar, to his bright and heavenly home

Where sweet comfort, joy, and gladness never can decrease

or end,

And where Jesus reigns eternally, his Sovereign and his Friend.

THE BEAUTIFUL GATE.

We speak, we speak of the loved and lost,
Who have gone to the land above,

And the mists of the river of death are crossed

By the rainbow of their love.

Sad hearts are yearning in hall and cot,

To pillow some dreamless head,

But we know the beautiful changes not,

And our darlings are not dead.

By the beautiful gate they watch and they wait,
Till our feet shall cease to roam,
For over the river, that sings forever,
The dear ones gather at home.

The voice of their melody wanders free
Through the wail of our broken song,
And the gleam of their snowy robes we see,
When the earth grows dark with wrong.
We feel the touch of a vanished hand,
That thrilled in the days of yore
And leads us on to the summer land,
Where they live forever more.

We speak when the work of the day is done,
Of the dawning by and by,

And number our treasures, one by one,

In our Father's house on high.

And oft we think when our rest shall come,
Of the meeting which there will be
When the good and beautiful all go home,
To the city beyond the sea.

THE MODERN SHAKESPEARE.

"What, ho! Andromeda!"

"Judged by the tone Jehuic of thy voice, methinks, Henrico, 'twere the tally ho."

"Whereat I tally one for thy sweet wit. But list thee seraphim. Hast heard the news that late hath tattled of Beatrice Marcia ?"

"Me rival i' the choir? what of her? If thou hast news that vilifies the jade, then feed me, boy, the very dregs of it."

"She hath betrothed herself to Count Persimmons." "What! ne that owns the peanut mart below, and daily sops the shekels of the just in change for popcorn, taffy, and the like?"

"The same, Andromeda, the very similar!" "What, he—and she? Nay, nay, it cannot be! Plu tonian furies! crush it i' the bud! For will she not to fair Italia hie and ride gondolas i' the market place, sit for her portrait to Sir Michael Angelo, swap garlics with the fragrant Genoese, and homeward come with voice of foreign timbre so veneered, that she may sell her ditties by the quaver, and count her ducats as we count her faults?"

Go to, thou jealous jabberer, go to! Thy fears do make but corpses of thy wits. There do be ways of circumventing ill, if this thine Iliad of woes should come. I have an uncle, girl."

'As wondrous news as if thou'dst told me thou'dst a father once!"

"But whist thee, wanton. 'Tis a man of gold, this goodly uncle that I tell thee of, and death hath even now a mortgage on the same. Thine own Henrico is the coming heir, and when, on tongue of joy, doth come the tidings of his dear demise, then will us twain across the waters speed and purchase this Italia that thou speak'st" "But, good Henrico

"Nay! withhold me not, for iron is not stronger than me will. Each jot and tittle of this fabled land I will secure me with me uncle's gold,-Florence, Lombardy, Sicily, and Rome, with all their piles of lore and bric-abrac, shall be but ours, and ours alone, me love; and this Persimmons, and his cackling mate, will meet their doom in Como's limpid tide, or forced to live in circumcumstance as lean as is the tower to Pisa consecrate."

"Now do the gods veneer me soul with peace, sweet comforter, and I do swim in dreams of paradise." -Yonkers Gazette.

A DEFENCE OF XANTIPPE.

Xantippe, I know, was a terrible scold,

But only one half of that story's been told;
For Xan. had to worry and cut and contrive,
To keep half-a-dozen young "Soccies” alive,
While their slouchy old father, the wise Socrates,
Penniless, hatless, and bare to the knees,—
In a greasy old toga, paraded the pave,

Delighting all Athens with wise saws and grave;
But all the wise maxims which Socrates said
Ne'er earned for the youngsters a morsel of bread;
With never a shoe for herself or the boys,
What wonder the Madam was given to noise?

He dearly loved Athens,-her forum and "walk”
And the cavalier crowd that applauded his talk,-

Was attached to her soil, and and on face, neck and limb
The soil was quite largely attached to him.

For her, in the forum, the workshop, or gate,

At morning, at noon, or at midnight he'd prate.

He talked of the beautiful,-goodness knows why,

Of inflati divini from out the blue sky;

But in spite of his wit Xantippe ne'er went

Through the old fellow's clothing and fished up a cent!
She worked like a slave, but he sat at his ease
While "chinning” with Crito or Euripides!

The stewpan was broken, and nothing to stew;
Each chair had the rickets,-the table askew,

The bed for the group, a Sicilian plank,

And still he kept "chinning," the logical "crank!"

Now, Socrates held that a man was well fed,
Whose menu consisted of water and bread;

But the bread? For you see, what made Xantippe fuss,
He ne'er earned his youngsters the first obolus.
He'd "chin" it all day,-but work? Not a bit!
(His speeches were marvels of beauty and wit.)
No wonder she stormed! No wonder she railed,
And went for him there with her mop till he paled!
She doused his old toga with dish-water foul,
And keyed up her voice till it reached a wild howl!
No wonder she turned out a bit of a shrew!-
I think the old lady had reason; don't you?

THE DEATH-BRIDGE OF THE TAY.-WILL CARLETON,

From "FARM FESTIVALS," by permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers. The night and the storm fell together upon the old town of Dundee,

And, trembling, the mighty firth-river held out its cold hand toward the sea.

Like the dull-booming bolts of a cannon, the wind swept the streets and the shores;

It wrenched at the roofs and the chimneys, it crashed 'gainst the windows and doors;

Like a mob that is drunken and frenzied, it surged through the streets up and down,

And screamed the sharp, shrill cry of "Murder!" o'er river and hill-top and town.

It leaned its great breast 'gainst the belfries, it perched upon minaret and dome

Then sprang on the shivering firth-river, and tortured its waves into foam.

'Twas a night when the landsman seeks shelter, and cares not to venture abroad;

When the sailor clings close to the rigging, and prays for the mercy of God."

Look! the moon has come out, clad in splendor, the turbulent scene to behold;

She smiles at the night's devastation, she dresses the stormking in gold.

She kindles the air with her cold flame, as if to her hand it were given

To light the frail earth to its ruin, with the tenderest radiance of heaven.

Away to the north, ragged mountains climb high through the shuddering air;

They bend their dark brows o'er the valley, to read what new ruin is there.

Along the shore-line creeps the city, in crouching and sinuous

shape,

With firesides so soon to be darkened, and doors to be shaded with crape!

To the south, like a spider-thread waving, there curves, for a two-mile away,

This world's latest man-devised wonder,-the far-famous bridge of the Tay.