THE BELFRY OF GHENT.-ROBERT MAGUIRE,

Hast thou ever known the feeling
I have felt, when I have seen,
'Mid the tombs of agéd heroes-
Memories of what hath been-
What it is to view the present

In the light of by-gone days;
From an eminence to ponder
Human histories and ways?

Once I stood with soul enchanted,
Lost in deep astonishment,
On the lofty, dark old belfry

Of the ancient town of Ghent.
From the height I looked below me,
Saw the quaint old city lie,
Full of glorious recollections,
Climbing up to memory.

Toilsome was the steep ascending,
By that broken flight of stairs;
But the end was like the pleasure
Oft derived from weary cares:
Like the steps that lift us upward
To the aim we have designed;
Like the stages leading onward

To the things we seek to find.

From that noble height of vision,
To that distant azure sky,
Thrill, my harp, the swelling anthem,
Taught and tuned by memory!
Celebrate the deeds of glory;

Sing the hearts that throbbed and beat;
Sing the hands that stayed the throbbing;
Songs like these, my harp, repeat !

Tell the days of ancient heroes,
On a nobler errand sent-
Old Saint Bavon, once a soldier,
Now the patron saint of Ghent.
Show the tomb of St. Columba,*
Erin's and Iona's pride;

Let me gather leaves and flowers
From its green and mossy side.

The grave of St. Columba is shown at Ghent.

Chime, ye merry ringing changes,
Booming through the liquid air;
Though ye tell that Time is passing,
Ye are what ye ever were!

Yes, the same sad midnight chiming,
Yes, the self-same peals by day;
Have ye not a voice that speaketh?
Tell me, therefore, what ye say!

THE CHIMES.

"We speak of days long, long ago;
We speak of Time now given;
We speak of Time that's yet to come,
And say-Prepare for heaven!
Twice we tell the hours in passing-
First by due advertisement; *
Then we tell the hour's departure-
We, the bells of ancient Ghent.

"We have told the birth of princes;
Sounded forth the marriage bell;
We have sung the Miserere;

We have rung the last farewell;
Varied still, but true the tidings,
Sounding from our belfry floor;
Yet the time is coming, coming,

When our bells shall chime no more."

Yes, the day is hast'ning onward,

When all earthly tongues shall cease;
And the chimes that sung their praises,
Shall be stilled when all is peace.
Till that day sound forth your measures,
Ring your changes to the last;
And, amid the tomb of ages,

Tell the virtues of the past.

Still I saw the waking vision,

Read the memories of old,

Till the changes chimed the vesper,

And the hour of evening tolled.

Thus I mused, and thought, and pondered,

Lost in deep astonishment,

On the well-remembered belfry

Of the ancient town of Ghent,

*The clocks in Belgium usually strike the time twice-at the half-hour and the hour.

MULLIGAN'S GOSPEL.-ANNIE HERBERT.

I've a rare bit of news for you, Mary Malone,
And truth, 'tis the strangest that ever was known;
You remember I told you a twelvemonth ago
How a soul came from heaven to Poverty Row?
If an angel had troubled the waters that bore
Such little white craft to our turbulent shore,
No mortal could tell; but that innocent child,

Like a dove without wings, nestling downy and tender,
With eyes veiling pictures of Paradise splendor,

Came into the tenement crazy and wild,

And the hard life so pitiless, rough, and defiled,
Over to Mulligan's.

It is strange to our eyes, but perhaps you have seen
A vine clasp its tendrils of delicate green
Round a desolate rock, or a lily grow white

With its roots in the tarn and its face in the light;
Or when night and storm wrap the sky in a shroud,
A star shaken out from the fold of a cloud:

So this little one came-but it never seemed right-
There were children enough, heaven knows! in that Babel,
Cadets for the Tombs from the bold whiskey rabble,
Choked out from the love that is heaven's own light,
Rank sons of the soil, cropping out for a fight,

Over to Mulligan's.

There was many a banquet in Mulligan Hall,
When the revelers feasted on nothing at all,
And a king at the board giving knighthood of pains,
And orders of crosses, and clanking of chains:
Tim held as a law the most perfect in life
The strong tie that bound him to Nora, his wife;
But, blinded by drink, when his passion ran high,
He beat her, of course, with a fury inhuman,-
And she such a poor, patient bit of a woman!
Well for her a soft voice answered low to her cries,
And her sun never set in the baby's blue eyes

Over to Mulligan's.

It was twelve months or more from the time she was born, As I sat at my window one sunshiny morn,—

Jist come over," the voice of Tim Mulligan said,

"I belave in me sowl that me baby is dead!” He had held a wild revel late into the night,

And the wee, frightened dove plumed her pinions for flight; This the man saw at last, with a sudden dismay;

"God forgive me!" he cried, "sure she'd niver be stayin' Wid the cursin' an' drink when me lips shud be prayin'!"

And the priest came and went, little dreaming that day
How the priesthood of angels was winning its way
Over to Mulligan's.

Then the sweetest, the saddest, the tenderest sight,
Lay the child like a fair sculptured vision of light:
Hands closed over daisies, fringed lids over tears
That never would fall through life's sorrowful years.
"Ah, mavourneen!" moaned Tim, "it's foriver I'll think
That the saints took yez home from the divil of drink;
An' mayhap"-here he shivered decanter and bowl---
"She will see me, up there wid the mother of Jesus,
An' sind down the grace that from sin iver frees us!"
So the leaven that spread from one beautiful soul
Through that turmoil of misery, leavened the whole,
Over to Mulligan's.

Now a thing the most wonderful, Mary Malone,
And truth 'tis the strangest that ever was known,
Mr. Mulligan met me to-day on the street,

And he looks like a man, from his head to his feet;

Though his clothes are but coarse, they are comely and trim, And no man dares to say, " Here's a health to you, Tim!" He will soon rent a cottage, and live like the best;

And the gossips do say, with wise lifting of fingers, It is all for sweet charity's sake that he lingers In the row where God's peace settled down in his breast, When a soft, weary wing fluttered home from the nest, Over to Mulligan's.

-Christian Union.

PLEASURES OF PICNIC-ING.

This is the season of the year when picnics are most frequent. For real solid enjoyment we, for our part, much prefer a well conducted funeral to an ordinary picnic. You generally reach the grounds about eleven o'clock, and the exercises begin with climbing a hill, up which you are compelled to carry two heavy lunch baskets. When you reach the summit you are positively certain the thermometer must be nearly six hundred and fifty in the shade. You throw yourself on the grass, and in a few moments a brigade of black ants begin to crawl down the back of your neck, while a phalanx of ticks charge up your trouser leg. And just as

you jump up, your oldest boy, who has been out in the woods, where he stirred up a yellow-jacket's nest, comes in with his head and face swelled to the size of a water-bucket, conveying the information that your other boy, William Henry, is up a tree and can't get down. After laboring to release William Henry the thermometer seems to have gone up two hundred more degrees, and you will take a swim in the creek. While you are in the water young Jones strolls out with Miss Smith, and unconscious of your presence, they sit down close to your clothes, and engage in conversation for three quarters of an hour, while you lie down in the shallow stream, afraid to budge and nearly killed with the hot sun. When they leave, you emerge and find that some wicked boy from the neighboring village has run off with your shirt and socks. You fix up as well as you can, and when you get back with the party they are eating dinner from a cloth laid on the ground. A spider is spinning a cobweb from the pickle-jar to the little end of the cold ham; straddle-bugs are frolicking around over the pound-cake, caterpillars are exploring the bread plate, grasshoppers are jumping into the butter, where they stick fast, the bees are so thick around the sugar-bowl that you are afraid to go near it, and there are enough ants in the pie to walk completely off with it. You take a seat, however, determined to try to eat something, but you get up suddenly—all at once as it were, for you have set down on a brier. Then William Henry, who has quaffed an unreasonable quantity of lemonade, gets the colic, and his mother goes into hysterics be cause she thinks he is poisoned with pokeberries. You lay him under an umbrella, and proceed to climb a tree in order to fix a swing for the girls. After skinning your hands, tearing your trousers and ruining your coat, you get to the top, tie the rope and undertake to come down on it. Yon do come down with velocity and your fingers are rubbed entirely raw. Just then it begins to rain furiously, and the whole party stampedes to the depot for shelter. When the shower slackens you go back to the ground to get the rope, and just as you get up in the tree the owner of the place comes along with a gun and a dog, and threatens to blow your brains out and eat you up if you don't leave immedi