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ful child, bending over her, looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you just as I do-only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it Topsy! you can be one of those spirits bright, Uncle Tom sings about."

"O, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!" said the child; "I will try; I never did care nothin' about it before."

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. "It puts me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. "It is true what she told me; if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did-call them to us, and put our hands on them."

"I've always had a prejudice against negroes,” said Miss Ophelia," and it's a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but I didn't think she knew it."

"Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare; "there's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the heart-it's a queer kind of a fact-but so it is."

"I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; "they are disagreeable to me-this child in particular-how can I help feeling so?"

"Eva does, it seems."

"Well, she's so loving! After all, though, she's no more. than Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia; "I wish I were like her. She might teach me a lesson."

"It wouldn't be the first time a little child has been used to instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare.

From " Uncle Tom's Cabin."

MARY'S DIMINUTIVE SHEEP.

Mary possessed a diminutive sheep,

Whose external covering was as devoid of color as the con< gealed aqueous fluid which occasionally presents insur mountable barriers to railroad travel on the Sierras ;

And everywhere that Mary peregrinated,

The 'venile Southdown was certain to get up and get right after her.

It tagged her to the alphabet dispensary one day,

Which was in contravention of established usage;

It caused the other youthful students to cachinnate and skyfungle

To perceive an adolescent mutton in an edifice devoted to the dissemination of knowledge.

And so the preceptor ejected him from the interior,
But he continued to roam in the immediate vicinity,
And remained very composedly in the neighborhood
Until Mary once more became visible.

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'What causes the juvenile sheep to hanker after Mary so?" Queried the inquisitive children of their tutor; "Why, Mary bestows much affection upon the little animal to which the wind is tempered when shorn, you must be aware,"

The preceptor with alacrity responded.

WAITING BY THE GATE.-W. C. BRYANT.

Beside a massive gateway built up in years gone by,
Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadow lie,
While streams the evening sunshine on quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

The tree-tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight,
A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night;
I hear the wood-thrush piping one mellow descant more,
And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day is o'er

Behold the portals open, and o'er the threshold, now,
There steps a weary one with a pale and furrowed brow;
His count of years is full, his allotted task is wrought;
He passes to his rest from a place that needs him not.

In sadness then I ponder how quickly fleets the hour
Of human strength and action, man's courage and his power

I muse while still the wood-thrush sings down the golden day,

And as I look and listen the sadness wears away.

Again the hinges turn, and a youth, departing, throws
A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully goes;
A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from her hair,
Moves mournfully away from amidst the young and fair.

Oh glory of our race that so suddenly decays!

Oh crimson flush of morning that darkens as we gaze!
Oh breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air
Scatters a moment's sweetness and flies we know not where!

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn ;

But still the sun shines round me: the evening bird sings on,
And I again am soothed, and, beside the ancient gate,
In the soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand and wait.

Once more the gates are opened; an infant group go out, The sweet smile quenched forever, and stilled the sprightly shout.

Oh frail, frail tree of life, that upon the greensward strows
Its fair young buds unopened, with every wind that blows!

So come from every region, so enter, side by side,
The strong and faint of spirit, the meek, and men of pride.
Steps of earth's great and mighty, between those pillars gray,
And prints of little feet, mark the dust along the way.

And some approach the threshold whose looks are blank with fear,

And some whose temples brighten with joy in drawing near,
As if they saw dear faces, and caught the gracious eye
Of Him, the sinless teacher, who came for us to die.

I mark the joy, the terror; yet these within my heart,
Can neither make the dread nor the longing to depart;
And, in the sunshine streaming on quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me.

THE BOOTBLACK.

Here y'are- -? Black your boots, boss,
Do it for jest five cents;

Shine 'em up in a minute,—

That is 'f nothin' prevents.

Set your foot right on there, sir;
The mornin's kinder cold-
Sorter rough on a feller

When his coat's a gettin' old.

Well, yes-call it coat, sir,

Though 'taint much more'n a tear; Can't get myself another

Aint got the stamps to spare.

Make as much as most on 'em?
That's so; but then, yer see,
They've only got one to do for;
There's two on us, Jack and me.

Him? Why-that little feller,
With a double-up sorter back,
Sittin' there on the gratin'

Sunnin' hisself-that's Jack.

Used to be round sellin' papers,
The cars there was his lay,
But he got shoved off the platform,
Under the wheels, one day;

Yes, the conductor did it

Gave him a reg'lar throw—
He didn't care if he killed him;
Some on 'em is just so.

He's never been all right since, sir,
Sorter quiet aud queer—

Him and me go together,

He's what they call cashier.

Trouble? I guess not much, sir.
Sometimes when biz gets slack,
I don't know how I'd stand it
If 'twasn't for little Jack.

Why, boss, you ought to hear him,
He says we needn't care
How rough luck is down here, sir,
If some day we git up there.

All done now-how's that, sir?
Shine like a pair of lamps.
Mornin'!-give it to Jack, sir,
He looks after the stamps.

WILLY'S GRAVE.-EDWIN WAUGH.

The frosty wind was wailing wild across the wintry wold; The cloudless vault of heaven was bright with studs of gleam

ing gold;

The weary cotter's heavy lids had closed with closing day,
And on his silent hearth a tinge of dying fire-light lay.

The ancient hamlet seemed asleep beneath the starry sky;
A little river, sheathed in ice, came gliding gently by;
The grey church, in the graveyard, where the rude fore-
fathers lay,"

Stood, like a mother, waiting till her children came from play.

No footstep trod the tiny town; the drowsy street was still, Save where the wandering night-wind sang its requiem wild and shrill,

The stainless snow lay thick upon those quaint old cottage

eaves,

And wreaths of fairy frost-work hung where grew last summer's leaves.

Each village home was dark and still, and closed was every door;

For gentle sleep had twined her arms around both rich and

poor,

Save in one little cot, where, by a candle's flickering ray,
A childless mother sighing sat, and combed her locks of

gray.

Her husband and her children all were in the last cold bed, Where, one by one, she'd laid them down, and left them with the dead;

Then toiling on towards her rest-a lonely pilgrim, she-
For God and poverty were now her only company.

Upon the shady window-sill a well-worn Bible lay;
Against the wall a coat had hung for many a weary day:
And on the scanty table-top, with crumbs of supper strewn,
There stood, beside a porringer, two little empty shoon.

The fire was waning in the grate; the spinning-wheel at rest;

The cricket's song rang loudly in that lonely woman's nest, As, with her napkin thin and worn, and wet with many a tear,

She wiped the little pair of shoon her darling used to wear. Her widowed heart had often leaped to hear his prattle small; He was the last that she had left-the dearest of them all;

KKK

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