THE MAN WHO FELT SAD.

He entered the hardware store on Woodward avenue about 10 o'clock Saturday morning, and taking a seat by the stove, he beckoned to the proprietor and said:

Sit down here-I want to speak with you."

He was a man who looked sad from the crown of his hat to the toes of his boots. There were deep care lines on his face, his eyes were red and anxious looking, and his tattered overcoat was drawn in at the waist by a wide leather belt.

Can we do anything for you to-day?" asked the merchant as he sat down.

The sad man slowly wiped his nose, slowly turned around, and slowly replied;

"Sir, it makes me feel sad when I reflect that we have all got to die!"

Yes-um," replied the merchant.

Christopher Columbus is dead!" continued the sad man, "and who feels bad about it--who sheds a tear over his loss? He is gone, and we shall never see him more! You and I must sooner or later follow him, and the world will go on just the same."

"Then you don't want anything to-day?" queried the merchant after a painful pause.

"-nd King James is dead!" exclaimed the sad man, wiping his nose again. "Is anybody weeping over his loss? Don't folks laugh and laugh, and don't the world go on just the same? Sir, it may not be a week before you and I will be called upon to rest from the labors of this life. Doesn't it make you feel sad when you think of it?"

"Of course, we've got to die," replied the merchant as he tossed a stray nail over among the eight pennys.

"Andrew Jackson is dead," continued the sad man, a tear falling on his hand. “Yes, Andrew has been gathered, and a good man has gone from among us. Were you acquainted

with him?"

"I believe not," was the answer.

"Well, he was a fine man, and many a night I have laid awake and cried to think that he would be seen among us no more forever. Yet do you hear any wailing and sobbing?

Does anybody seem to care a cent whether Andrew Jackson is dead or living? You or I may be the next to go, and the world will move on just the same as if we had never lived.” "The world can't, of course, stop for the death of one man, no matter how great," said the merchant.

"That's what makes me sad-that's why I weep these tears!" answered the man, wringing his long, peaked nose with vigorous grief. "William Penn is also dead. Once in a great while I hear some one express sorrow, but as a general thing the world has forgotten William with the rest. Don't it make you feel sad when you reflect that you will never see him again? Don't it make you feel like crying when you think he has gone from among us?"

"I never have time to think of these things,” answered the merchant, fondling the coal stove shaker.

"And Shakspeare's gone, too!" exclaimed the man, his chin quivering with agitation," we may sigh, and sigh, and wish, and wish, but poor Shaky will never be seen moving with us again! They have laid him away to sleep his long sleep, and a bright lamp has been extinguished forever." "Well, did you want anything in the line of hardware?" asked the merchant as he rose up.

"Can you speak of hardware to me at such a time as this?" exclaimed the sad man. "Knowing my sad feelings, seeing these tears, and listening to my broken voice, can you have the heart to try and force hardware upon me?”

The merchant went over to his desk and the sad man wrung his nose again and went out.

-Detroit Free Press.

RESIGNATION.-H. W. Longfellow.

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying;

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ;
Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,-the child of our affection,-
But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;

For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion

Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion

And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest,

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

THE LEAP OF CURTIUS.-GEORGE ASPINALL.

Within Rome's Forum suddenly

A wide gap opened in a night, Astounding those who gazed on it, A strange, terrific sight.

In Senate all their sages met,

And seated in their chairs of state, Their faces blanched with deadly fear, Debated long and late.

A sign inimical to Rome,

They deemed it a prognostic dire, A visitation from the gods,

In token of their ire.

Yet how to have their minds resolved,
How ascertain in this their need,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt,
If thus it were indeed.

In silence brooded they awhile,
Unbroken by a single word,
While from the capital without
The lightest sounds were heard.

Then rose the eldest magistrate,

A tall old man with locks like snow,
Straight as a dart, and with an eye
That oft had quelled the foe.

And thus with ripe, sonorous voice,
No note or tone of which did shake,
Or indicate the wear of time,

The aged Nestor spake :

Fathers, the Oracle is nigh,

To it then let us promptly send,

And at the shrine inquire what this
Dread marvel doth portend.

"And if to Rome it augurs ill,

Then ask we, ere it be too late, How we may best avert the doom, And save the sacred state:

"That state to every Roman dear,

As dear as brother, friend, or wife,
For which each true-born son would give,
If needful, even life.

"For what, O Fathers! what were life
Apart from altar, hearth, and home;
Yea, is not all our highest good,
Bound up with that of Rome?

"And now adjourn we for a space,

Till three full days have circled round,
And on the morning of the fourth,
Let each one here be found."

Then gat they up and gloomily
For such short interval did part,

For they were Romans staunch and tried,
And sad was every heart.

The fourth day dawned, and when they met,
The Oracle's response was know? :
Something most precious in the chasm
To close it must be thrown.

But if unclosed it shall remain,

Thereon shall follow Rome's decay,

And all the splendor of her state
Shall pale and pass away.

Something most precious! What the gift
That may prevent the pending fate,
What costly offering will the gods

Indeed propitiate?

While this they pordered, lo! a sound
Of footsteps fell on every ear,

And in their midst a Roman youth
Did presently appear.

Apollo's brow, a mien like Mars,

In Beauty's mould he seemed new made,

As or his golden hair the sun

With dazzling dalliance played.

"Tis Marcus Curtius! purer blood

None there could boast, and none more brave:

There stands the youthful patriot, come,

A Roman, Rome to save.

His own young life, he offers that,
Yea, volunteers himself to throw
Within the cleft to make it close,
And stay the heavy woe.

And now on horseback, fully armed,
Behold him, for the hour hath come,