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That's just the dish she can't abide,
Whatever kind o' gont it hae.
It's needless to assail her doubts,
She gangs by instinct--like the brutes,-
An' only eats an' drinks what suits
Hersel' and her annuity.

The Bible says the age o' man

Threescore and ten, perchance, may be;
She's ninety-four. Let them who can,
Explain the incongruity.

She should hae lived afore the flood-
She's come o' patriarchal blood,
She's some auld Pagan mummified
Alive for her annuity.

She's been embalmed inside and oot-
She's sauted to the last degree-
There's pickle in her very snoot

Sae caper-like an' cruety.

Lot's wife was fresh compared to her-
They've kyanized the useless knir,
She canna decompose―nae mair
Than her accursed annuity.

The water-drop wears out the rock,
As this eternal jaud wears me;
I could withstand the single shock,
But not the continuity.

It's pay me here-an' pay me there-
An' pay me, pay me, evermair-
I'll gang demented wi' despair-
I'm charged for her annuity.

KNOCKING*.-HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

"Behold! I stand at the door and knock!"

Knocking, knocking, ever knocking!
Who is there?

'Tis a pilgrim, strange and kingly,
Never such was seen before;
Ah, sweet soul, for such a wonder,
Undo the door!

No! that door is hard to open;
Hinges rusty, latch is broken;
Bid Him go.

Wherefore, with that knocking dreary,
Scare the sleep from one so weary?
Say Him, no.

*Suggested by Hunt's picture "Light of the World."

Knocking, knocking, ever knocking!
What! still there?

Oh, sweet soul, but once behold Him,
With the glory-crowned hair;
And those eyes, so true and tender,
Waiting there!

Open, open, once behold Him-
Him so fair!

Ah, that door! why wilt thou vex me-
Coming ever to perplex me?

For the key is stiffly rusty;

And the bolt is clogged and dusty;
Many fingered ivy vine

Seals it fast with twist and twine;

Weeds of years and years before,
Choke the passage of that door.

Knocking, knocking! What! still knocking?
He still there?

What's the hour? The night is waning;
In my heart a drear complaining,
And a chilly, sad interest.

Ah, this knocking! it disturbs me-
Scares my sleep with dreams unblest.
Give me rest-
Rest-ah, rest!

Rest, dear soul, He longs to give thee;
Thou hast only dreamed of pleasure-
Dreamed of gifts and golden treasure;
Dreamed of jewels in thy keeping,
Waked to weariness of weeping;
Open to thy soul's one Lover,
And thy night of dreams is over;
The true gifts He brings have seeming
More than all thy faded dreaming.

Did she open? Doth she-will she?
So, as wondering we behold,
Grows the picture to a sign,
Pressed upon your soul and mine;
For in every breast that liveth
Is that strange, mysterious door,-
The forsaken and betangled,
Ivy-gnarled and weed bejangled
Dusty, rusty, and forgotten;-

There the pierced hand still knocketh,

And with ever patient watching,
With the sad eyes true and tender,

With the glory-crowned hair,

Still a God is waiting there.

AN ODE TO INDEPENDENCE HALL.

J. STEVENSON MITCHELL.

No sculptured marble greets the pilgrim's view;
No gothic dome the ambient zephyrs fan;
No golden spires salute the ethereal blue-
Shrine of enfranchised man!

Thou Mecca of a freedom-loving land!
Voice to all nations struggling to be free!
May thy plain walls in after ages stand,
And tyrants bend to thee.

Ye who have wandered o'er historic climes,
Who've stood upon the seven hills of Rome,
And drank the music of St. Peter's chimes,
And trod beneath its dome;

Ye who have stood on Britain's royal isle,

And paused enraptured with some sacred hymn
Which echoed through St. Paul's aspiring pile,
Like answering cherubim ;

Ye who have trod the imperial streets of Gaul-
Where waved of old the golden oriflamme--
And paused to catch the vespers as they fall
And float from Notre Dame ;-

Forget not this memorial of our love-
This silent witness of a noble deed,-
Hallowed beyond all storied piles of yore,
By freedom's bond decreed!

Thy ancient bell, from out its brazen throat,
Still echoes music that it pealed of yore;
And through the listening ages it shall float,
A hope for evermore.

CENTENNIAL ORATION.-HENRY ARMITT BROWN.

Peroration from the oration delivered upon the occasion of the Centennial An nivrsary of the meeting of the first Colonial Congress in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia.

The conditions of life are always changing, and the experience of the fathers is rarely the experience of the sons. The temptations which are trying us are not the temptations which beset their footsteps, nor the dangers which threaten our pathway the dangers which surrounded them.

These men were few in number; we are many. They were poor, but we are rich. They were weak, but we are strong. What is it, countrymen, that we need to-day? Wealth! Behold it in your hands. Power? God hath given it you. Liberty? It is your birthright. Peace? It dwells amongst you. You have a Government founded in the hearts of men, built by the people for the common good. You have a land flowing with milk and honey; your homes are happy, your workshops busy, your barns are full. The school, the railway, the telegraph, the printing press, have welded you together into one. Descend those mines that honeycomb the hills! Behold that commerce whitening every sea! Stand by yon gates and see that multitude pour through them from the corners of the earth, grafting the qualities of older stocks upon one stem; mingling the blood of many races in a common stream, and swelling the rich volume of our English speech with varied music from an hundred tongues. You have a long and glorious history, a past glittering with heroic deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and unperishable examples. You have passed through danger, endured privation, been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by suffering. You have journeyed in safety through the wilderness and crossed in triumph the Red Sea of civil strife, and the foot of Him who led you hath not faltered nor the light of His countenance been turned away.

It is a question for us now, not of the founding of a new government, but of the preservation of one already old; not of the formation of an independent power, but of the purification of a nation's life; not of the conquest of a foreign foe, but of the subjection of ourselves. The capacity of man to rule himself is to be proven in the days to come, not by the greatness of his wealth; not by his valor in the field; not by the extent of his dominion, nor by the splendor of his genius. The dangers of to-day come from within. The worship of self, the love of power, the lust for gold, the weakening of faith, the decay of public virtue, the lack of private worth-these are the perils which threaten our future; these are the enemies we have to fear; these are the traitors which infest the camp; and the danger was far less when Cataline knocked with his army at the gates of Rome,

than when he sat smiling in the Senate House. We see them daily face to face; in the walk of virtue; in the road to wealth; in the path to honor; on the way to happiness. There is no peace between them and our safety. Nor can we avoid them and turn back. It is not enough to rest upon the past. No man or nation can stand still. We must mount upward or go down. We must grow worse or better. It is the Eternal law-we cannot change it.

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The century that is opening is all our own. The years that lie before us are a virgin page. We can inscribe them as we will. The future of our country rests upon us; the happiness of posterity depends upon us. The fate of humanity may be in our hands. That pleading voice, choked with the sobs of ages, which has so often spoken to deaf ears, is lifted up to us. It asks us to be brave, benevolent, consistent, true to the teachings of our history, proving " g "divine descent by worth divine." It asks us to be virtuousbuilding up public virtue by private worth; seeking that righteousness which exalteth nations. It asks us to be patriotic-loving our country before all other things; her happiness our happiness, her honor ours, her fame our own. It asks us, in the name of justice, in the name of charity, in the name of freedom, in the name of God.

My countrymen, this anniversary has gone by forever, and my task is done. While I have spoken, the hour has passed from us: the hand has moved upon the dial, and the old century is dead. The American Union hath endured an hundred years! Here, on this threshold of the future, the voice of humanity shall not plead to us in vain. There shall be darkness in the days to come; danger for our courage; temptation for our virtue; doubt for our faith; suffering for our fortitude. A thousand shall fall before us, and tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall pass beneath our feet, and century follow century in quick suc cession. The generations of men shall come and go; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten; to-day and the glories of this noon shall vanish before to-morrow's sun; but America shall not perish, but endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons.

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