MY JOURNEY HOME. ONE pleasant evening, a few weeks ago, | I was seated in a railway carriage, and being whirled along a road which, although not very familiar to me, still terminated I knew in "home." Those who have experienced a separation from that cherished spot, and its more cher ished habitants, will have some idea of my feelings as I sat in the corner of the carriage apparently calm and self-possessed, but with such a tumult of joy within that I scarcely knew how to repress the smile that would occasionally spread itself over my face. Sometimes I caught the eye of my fellow-traveller opposite fixed upon me with a half curious, but kind glance, as if he would like to know the cause of my joy. He was a pleasant, fatherlylooking, old gentleman, who, from the first moment I saw him, won my esteem. I had some slight difficulty in getting into the carriage, and this was increased by the knowledge that I was rather late. He was already seated; but, the moment he saw me, he took my little parcel, and offered his hand so kindly and politely that I tendered him mine, and my sin. cerest gratitude at the same time. The act was simple and common in itself, but the manner won me. However, after I had expressed my thanks, I thought it prudent to maintain silence; and yielded myself to the indulgence of those delightful anticipations (now so near fulfilment), which, for many months, had been the solace of my lonely hours. "We are on our journey home! Shout, shout, the victory! How heartily did my spirit echo to these words, and throb in unison with the simple, flowing melody in which they were arose within me a question that flashed sung! Yet, at the same moment, there searchingly through my soul. Where made itself heard in my heart. On a is thy home? Not the first time it had similar occasion, long ago, it had urged itself with inexpressible earnestness; and eventually suggested the lines below. How solemn seemed that inward voiceWhere is thy home? Truly I felt earth is not my home. Changes constantly pass over it, afflictions darken it, and the over it, and bears away the most loved angel of death often spreads his wings from amongst us. home. How sweetly and consolingly the words came to my mind No! earth is not my "I'm but a stranger here Yes, and my present journey reminded me forcibly of that other and more important journey on which I was travelling. In my earthly. home a beloved mother I knew was anxiously waiting the return of her absent child; and, in my higher and eternal one, an early-lost father was watching over his daughter as she trod the rough, uneven. paths of life, ready, with a welcome, when the hour arrived that should re-unite her to In the momentary silence occasioned by the stoppages at the various stations on the line, I had caught the sound of himself-"the branch to the parentchildren's voices singing. On inquiry, I learned that a party of school-children, with their teachers, were returning from a day's pic-nic in the country, At one station we stopped longer than usual, and their clear, sweet voices floated distinctly to my ear in the still evening air. I know not what the words of the song were; but the chorus, in which they seemed to join. with redoubled earnest ness, was stem." Surely, in bereavement there is blessing. The desire to meet again those "not lost but gone before" is as a link drawing our souls heaven-ward; and the ties that in death appear for ever riven asunder, are, in reality, only strengthened and united to our hearts firmer and closer than before.. Evening deepened into night. The old gentleman opposite looked sleepy; and a noble little fellow next him, who, during the whole of the journey had bravely endeavoured to keep awake, yielded at last to the general drowsiness, and changed the hard seat of the carriage for the softer and more genial one of his mother's lap. The school-children, too, had evidently wearied their little throats, for I heard nothing of them at the last station; but, after a little further travelling, a long, loud whistle announced we were drawing near the termination of our journey. Everybody was wide awake when the ticket-collector's lamp flashed in their faces. Ladies began to fidget after their parcels and draw their shawls around them; and gentlemen buttoned up their coats and rubbed their mous tachios with awakening zeal. At last we fairly stopped in the large, well-lighted station of one of England's principal sea ports; and I had just alighted from the carriage when I discovered, amid the moving mass, that face whose every lineament is indelibly stamped on my heart Another moment and I felt on my cheek the warm tear and fervent kiss of-my mother! "WHERE IS THY HOME?" The spot on earth she loved the best. That's shelter'd by the old oak tree? Can ever be so dear to me: In this my own dear, happy home!" The question of her early days. And press'd it as in days gone by: Our him whatever may betidé. But come, my friend, with me, and see What makes a mother's bosom swell: The earnest hope, the sick'ning fear, A mother's heart alone can tell." Years passed away. Health, beauty fled- Now furrow'd with disease and care, Or if earth's idols-still reign'd there. With prayerful heart I breath'd once more The question as in days of yore.. "My home is not on earth," she said; "My husband and my babe are gone;' My parents and my friends are dead; But yet I am not left alone. Jesus is now my strength and guide! Soon I shall leave this world of pain, And meet with those I've loved on earth-→→ My husband and my babe again. Jesus, Thou hast my sins forgiven; I cannot fear; 'My home's in heaven!" LUCINDA B. MORAL COURAGE. MORAL courage suffers from what is termed animal courage, inasmuch as it aims at a higher motive, and can be exhibited solely by responsible and intellectual beings. A boy would, perhaps, fight a bigger boy for any injury he might have suffered at his hands. In so doing, he simply exhibits his animal courage; and is, in that respect, no whit superior to the bull-dog or game-cock. But if he have fortitude and strength of mind sufficient to enable him to avow a fault, confess a crime, or withstand temptation, his courage is of a higher nature-he displays a nobleness of mind and strength of character which is sure to be appreciated by every intelligent person. Some people are, as I believe, constitutionally timid; their courage and bravery are naturally small and limited; they can only attain to that standard of moral excellence here discoursed of by incessant endeavour and earnest resolution. They must summon reflection to their aid: they should consider and resolve boldly to do what is right, and ignore the consequences. This is the only way by which naturally timid people (that is to say, people who lack strength of mind and determinationthe true "nobility of soul,") can overcome their cowardice and become morally courageous. TERRA COTTA. 236 THE MARVELS AND MYSTERIES HAVE you ever considered how wonderful a thing the seed of a plant is? It is the miracle of miracles. God said, "Let there be plants yielding seed;'" and it is further added, each one "after his kind." succession of boxes. The great naturalist, Cuvier, thought that the germs of all past, present, and future generations of seeds were contained one within the other, as if packed in a Other learned men have explained this mystery in a different way. But what signify all their explanations? Let them explain it as they will, the wonder remains the same, and we must still look upon the reproduction of the seed as a continual miracle. Is there upon earth a machine. is there a palace, is there even a city, which contains so much that is wonderful as is enclosed in a single little seed-one grain of corn, one little brown apple-seed, one small seed of a tree-picked up, perhaps, by a bird for her little ones-the smallest seed of a poppy or a blue-bell, or even one of the seeds that float about in the air invisible to our eyes! There is a world of marvels and brilliant beauties hidden in each of these tiny seeds. Consider their immense number, the perfect separation of the different kinds, their power of life and resurrection, and their wonderful fruitfuloess! About a Consider, first, their number. hundred and fifty years ago, the celebrated Linnæus, "the father of botany," reckoned about 8,000 different kinds of plants; and he then thought that the whole number existing could not much exceed 10,000. But, a hundred years after him, M. de Candollof Geneva, described 40, 00 kinds of plants; and at a later period he counted 60,00, then 80,000, and he supposed it possible that the number might even amount to 100,000. Well, let us ask, have these 100,000 kinds of plants ever failed to bear the right Has seed? Have they ever d.ceived us? a seed of wheat ever yielded barley, or a seed of a poppy grown up into a sunflower? Has a sycamore-tree ever sprung from an acorn, or a beech-tree from a chestnut? A little bird may carry away the small seed of a sycamore in its beak to feed its nestlings, and, on the way, may drop it on the ground. The tiny seed may spring up and grow where it fell, unnoticed, and sixty years after it may become a magnificent tree, under the shade of which the flocks of the valleys and their shepherds may rest. Consider next the wonderful power of life and resurrection bestowed on the seeds of plants, so that they may be preserved from year to year, and even from century: to century. Let a child put a few seeds in a drawer, and shut them up, and sixty years afterward, when his hair is white and his step tottering, let him take one of these seeds and sow it in the ground, and, soon after, he will see it spring up into new life, and M. Jouannet relates that in the year 1835 become a young, fresh, and beautiful plant. near Bergorac. Under the head of each of several old Celtic tombs were discovered the dead bodies there was found a smail square stone or brick, with a hole in it, ontining a few seeds, which had been placed there beside the dead by the heathen friends who had b ried them, perhaps 1,50 or 1,700 years before. These seeds were carefully sowed by those who found themfrom this dust of the dead?-beau:ifu sunand what, think you, was seen to spring up flowers, blue corn-flowers, and clover, bearing blossoms as bright and sweet as those woven into wreaths by merry children playing in fields. Some years ago a vase, hermetica ly sealed, was found in a mummy-pit in The librarian there British Museum. Egypt, by Wilkinson, who sent it to the having unfortunately broken it, discovered in it a few grains of wheat and one or two pe s, old, wrinkled, and as hard as stone. The peas were planted carefully under glass on the 4th of June, 1844, and, at the They had seen to spring up into new life. end of thirty days, these old seeds were o Moses), and been buried probably abou: 3,000 years o (perhaps in the time had slept all that long time, apparently dead, yet still living in the dust of the tomb. Is not the springing of the seed an emblem of the resurrection of the dead? Accordingly it is mentioned by the Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. xv., where, from the springing of the seed, he explains the doctrine of the resurrection unto life. THE VALUE OF TIME.-One of the hours each day wasted on trifles or indolence, saved, and dair devoted to improvement, is enough to make an ignorant man wise in ten years-to provide the of thought-to brighten up and strengthen faculties luxury of intelligence to a mind torpid from lack perishing with rust-to make life a fruitful field, and death a harvester of glorious deeds. LESSONS FROM THE LEAVES.-PEOPLE WE CAN DISPENSE WITH. 80. The leaves may well scorn the com 237 and social development of France and LESSONS FROM THE LEAVES. England, we are almost equally astonished WE men sometimes, in what we presume at the resemblances and the differences. to be humility, compare ourselves with Never have two nations of such diverse leaves; but we have as yet no right to do origin and condition been more thoroughly united in their destinies, or exercised on parison. We who live for ourselves, and each other, by the relations of war and neither know how to use or keep the work of past time, may humbly learn, as from peace, a more constant influence. A French province conquered England; and England the ant, foresight; from the leaf, reverence. possessed for many years a number of the The power of every great people, as of every provinces of France. As this national living tree, depends on its not effacing, but struggle passed away, the institutions and confirming and concluding the labours of political views of the English became a its ancestors. Looking back to the history subject of admiration to some of the most of nations, we may date the beginning of political minds of France-Louis XI. and their decline from the moment when they Philippe de Comines, for example. In the cease to be reverent in heart and accumu- midst of Christendom the two people have lative in hand and brain; from the moment followed two very different religious standwhen the redundant fruit of age hid in them ards; but even this diversity has become a the hollowness of heart whence the simpli- new ground of their contact and association. cities of custom and sinews of tradition had It was in England that persecuted French withered away. Had men guarded the Protestants, it was in France that perserighteous laws and protected the pre-cuted English Catholics, sought and found cious works of their fathers with half the industry we have given to change and ravage, they would not now have been seeking vainly in millennial visions and mechanical servitudes the accomplishment of the promise made to them so long ago: As the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect so long enjoy the works of their hands; we shall not labour in vain nor bring forth for trouble, for they are the seed of the blessed Lord, and their offspring with them." This lesson we have taken from the leafs life; one more we may receive from its death. If ever in autumn a pensiveness falls upon us as the leaves drift by in their fading, may we not wisely look up to their mighty monuments? Behold how fair, how far prolonged in arch and aisle, the avenues of the valleys, the fringes of the hilla! So stately, so eternal! the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, the glory of the earth, they are but monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let them not pass without our understanding their last counsel and example; that we also, careless of monument by the grave, may build it in the world-monument, by which men may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where we lived.-Ruskin's Modern Painters. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. an asylum. And when kings in their turn were banished, it was in France that the king of England, and in England that the king of France, were refugees; nor was it until after a long sojourn in this refuge that Charles II., in the eighteenth century, and Louis XVII., in the nineteenth, returned to their respective kingdoms. The two nations, or rather the upper classes of the two nations, have had the caprice to borrow of each other their ideas, their manners, and their fashions. In the seventeenth century it was the court of Louis XIV. that gave tone to the English aristocracy. It was in the eighteenth century that Paris went to London for models. And when one rises above these matters of history to look at the great phases of the civilisation of the two countries, he immediately perceives that, on the whole, they have proceeded in almost the same career, and that the same attempts and alternatives of order and revolution, of absolute power and of liberty, have occurred in both countries, with most striking coincidences, at the same time with the widest diversities. PEOPLE WE CAN DISPENSE WITH. THE man who "can't live within his salary," and is always wanting to borrow money, but who wears as fine broadcloth and expensive sleeve-buttons as his employer. The woman who brings up her daughters 238 on a diet of curl-papers and dancing-school, The man who would rather buy a new coat (on credit!) and cheat the tailor, than be degraded by a neat patch on his elbows. The woman whose stocking toes resemble a cullender in their ventilating conveniences, but who considers a nicely executed darn in the skirt of a dress to be vulgar. The man who is always "making up his mind," who answers every question with, "Well, I don't know exactly!" and stands with his hands in his pockets, until it is too late to do anything else with them. the supreme kings of Ireland as any sovereign, on or off his throne, at this moment in Europe. I perceived him throwing looks, very like defiance, across the table, at cur opposite neighbour and mutual acquaintance, the Honourable Mr. Ffrench, M.P which induced me to ask "Are you not on good terms with the Ffrench family ?" "I have no reason to be, at all events. You, of course, know the way they have treated us." I pleaded ignorance, and he then entered on a long detail of grievances, public and He was interprivate, of which the Firenchs were the cause to the O'Connors. rupted in the middle by Mr. Ffrench asking him to take wine, to which he courteously responded, and then resumed his story. But when," said I, "did all this hap The woman who always has to stop and sew on her bonnet-strings when she is going out-who is universally behind-hand-who is too late at church, too late at market, too late to get her railroad ticket, and invari-pen-lately?" ably arrives at the steamboat landing just three seconds after the plank has been taken up. The young lady who never can remember the minister's text at church, but who makes the hair of her dear particular friends stand upright with a repetition of the horrors she has devoured in her last yellowcovered romance. The man who "has no faculty to work," but has an amazing faculty in atten ing political meetings, standing at street corners, and running after fire. The woman who can't get a minute's time to mend the girls' aprons and the boys' jackets, and who spends her leisure in leaning out of the window, on her elbows, and hearing about "that dreadful murder" from her next-door neighbour, while the children are paddling in the washtub, and the soup burning in the pot. "Well, not very long ago, in the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth." After dinner Mr. Ffrench came to me, and said— "I am sure O'Connor Don was complaining of me." I said, "Rather." "What did he accuse us of?" "Oh, of robbing him in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.' "Well," said he, "and if we did, were we not robbed ourselves by the Cromwellians? I forget all about it, but I know there was an old grudge; and it is very odd that though I forgive him he cannot forgive me."-Lady Morgan's Memoirs. THE FOREST BIRD. Oh! sing to me, bright bird! Ah! would I could make each sweet sad note My soul was a voiceless lyre; It now feels like a winged choir, And, oh, sweet bird! Had I thy wings Id fly away From earthly things; I'd fly aloft to that blissful shore |