And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive;
For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty-five:
And Willie, my eldest born, at nigh threescore and ten;
I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men.

For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve;
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve:
And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I;
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by.

To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad;
But mine is a time of peace, and there is grace to be had,
And God, not man, is the judge of us all when life shall cease;
And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace.

And age is a time of peace so it be free from pain, And happy has been my life; but I would not live it again, I seem to be tired a little, that's all, and long for rest; Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.

So Willie has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my flower;
But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour—
Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next.
I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext?

And Willy's wife has written, she never was overwise.
Get me my glasses, Annie: Thank God that I keep my eyes,
There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have passed away;
But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to

stay.

Alfred Tennyson.

ACROSS THE RIVER.

WHEN for me the silent oar

Parts the silent river,

And I stand upon the shore

Of the strange forever,

Shall I miss the loved and known? Shall I vainly seek mine own?

'Mid the crowd that comes to meet

Spirits sin-forgiven—

Listening to their echoing feet

Down the streets of heaven,

Shall I know a footstep near,

That I listen, wait for here?

Then will one approach the brink

With a hand extended,

One whose thoughts I loved to think
Ere the veil was rended,
Saying, "Welcome! we have died,

And again are side by side."

Saying, I will go with thee,

That thou art not lonely,

To yon hills of mystery;

I have waited only

Until now, to climb with thee
Yonder hill of mystery.

Can the bonds that make us here

Know ourselves immortal,

Drop away like foliage sere

At life's inner portal?

What is holiest below
Must forever live and grow.

I shall love the angels well,
After I have found them
In the mansions where they dwell,
With their glory round them;
But at first without surprise
Let me look in human eyes.

Step by step our feet must go
Up the holy mountain;
Drop by drop within us flow

Life's immortal fountain.

Angels sing with crowns that burn;
We shall have a song to learn.

He who on our earthly path
Bids us help each other;
Who his well beloved hath

Made our Elder Brother;
Will but clasp the chain of love
Closer when we meet above.

Therefore dread I not to go

O'er the silent river;

Death, thy hastening oar I know,

Bear me, thou life-giver,

Through the waters to the shore

Where mine own have gone before.

Lucy Larcom.

ONLY what we have wrought into our characters during life

can we take away with us.

Humboldt.

SET thine house in order.

Isaiah xxxviii. I.

THE
HE satisfactions of this life are many; but there will come

a time when we have had a sufficient measure of its enjoyments, and may well depart contented with our share of the feast. I am far from regretting that this life was bestowed on me; and I have the satisfaction of thinking that I have employed it in such a manner as not to have lived in vain. In short, I consider this world as a place which nature never intended for my permanent abode; and I look on my departure from it, not as being driven from my habitation, but simply as leaving an inn.

From Cicero "On Old Age."

FLIGHT OF TIME.

WE are doomed to suffer a bitter pang as often as the irre

coverable flight of our time is brought home with keenness to our hearts. The spectacle of a lady floating over the sea in a boat, and waking suddenly from sleep, to find her magnificent ropes of pearl necklace by some accident detached at one end from its fastenings, the loose string hanging down into the water, and pearl after pearl slipping off forever into the abyss, brings before us the sadness of the case.

TRAVELING IN FOREIGN LANDS,

THERE is a dignity about that going away alone, we call dying, that wrapping the mantle of immortality about us; that putting aside with a pale hand the azure curtains which are drawn around this cradle of a world; that venturing away from home for the first time in our lives, for we are not dead

there is nothing dead to speak of—and seeing foreign countries not laid down on any maps that we know about. There must be lovely lands somewhere starward, for none ever return that go thither, and we very much doubt if any would if they could.

PRAYER OF ALEXANDER PEDEN.

LORD, thou hast been both good and kind to old Sanny through a long tract of time, and given him many years in thy service, which have been as so many months; but now he is tired of thy world, and hath done all the good in it that he will do, let him away with the honesty that he has, for he will gather no more.

it.

A SUMMARY SUMMING-UP OF DIFFICULT SUMS. THE sum of all science :-Perhaps.

The sum of all morality:-Love what is good, and practice

The sum of all creeds :-Believe what is true, (to you) and do not tell all you believe.

LIFE.

Residuum of a Library.

IFE! we've been long together,

L'

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Yet steal away, give little warning,

Say not, "Good night," but in some happier clime
Bid me, "Good morning."

Anna Letitia Barbauid.