A rush-light was casting its fitful glare

O'er the damp and dingy walls,

Where the lizard hath made his slimy lair,
And the venomous spider crawls;

But the meanest thing in this lonesome room
Was the miser worn and bare,

Where he sat like a ghost in an empty tomb,
On his broken and only chair.

He had bolted the window and barred the door,
And every nook had scanned;

And felt the fastening o'er and o'er,
With his cold and skinny hand;
And yet he sat gazing intently round,

And trembled with silent fear,

And started and shuddered at every sound
That fell on his coward ear.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the miser: "I'm safe at last,
From this night so cold and drear,

From the drenching rain and driving blast,
With my gold and treasures here.

I am cold and wet with the icy rain,
And my health is bad, 'tis true;
Yet if I should light that fire again,
It would cost me a cent or two.

"But I'll take a sip of the precious wine:
It will banish my cold and fears:

It was given long since by a friend of mine

I have kept it for many years."

So he drew a flask from a mouldy nook,

And drank of its ruby tide;

And his eyes grew bright with each draught he took

And his bosom swelled with pride.

"Let me see: let me see!" said the miser then,

"Tis some sixty years or more

Since the happy hour when I began

To heap up the glittering store;

And well have I sped with my anxious toil,

As my crowded chest will show:

I've more than would ransom a kingdom's spoil,

Or an emperor could bestow."

He turned to an old worm-eaten chest,

And cautiously raised the lid,

And then it shone like the clouds of the west,

With the sun in their splendor hid:

And gem after gem, in precious store,

Are raised with exulting smile:

And he counted and counted them o'er and o'er,
In many a glittering pile.

Why comes the flush to his pallid brow;
While his eyes like his diamonds shine?
Why writhes he thus in such torture now?
What was there in the wine?
He strove his lonely seat to gain:
To crawl to his nest he tried;
But finding his efforts all in vain,
He clasped his gold, and-died.

THE OLD HOUSE IN THE MEADOW.

It stands in a sunny meadow,

The house so mossy and brown,

With its cumbrous old stone chimneys,

And the gray roof sloping down.

The trees fold their green arms round it—
The trees a century old,-

And the winds go chanting through them,
And the sunbeams drop their gold.

The cowslips spring in the marshes,
The roses bloom on the hill,

And beside the brook in the pasture
The herds go feeding at will.

Their children have gone and left them;
They sit in the sun alone;

And the old wife's ears are failing,

As she harks to the well-known tone

That won her heart in her girlhood,—
That has soothed her in many a care
And praises her now for the brightness
Her old face used to wear.

She thinks again of her bridal

How, dressed in her robes of white,
She stood by her gay young lover,
In the morning's rosy light.

Oh! the morn is as rosy as ever,

But the rose from her cheek is fled:

And the sunshine still is golden,

But it falls on a silvery head.

And the girlhood dreams, once vanished,
Come back in her winter time,
Till her feeble pulses tremble,

With the thrill of spring-time's prime.

And looking forth from the window,
She thinks how the trees have grown-
Since, clad in her bridal whiteness,
She crossed the old door-stone.

Though dimmed her eye's bright azure,
And dimmed her hair's young gold,
The love of her girlhood plighted
Has never grown dim or old.

They sat in peace in the sunshine
Till the day was almost done,
And then at its close, an angel
Stole over the threshold stone.
He folded their hands together-
He touched their eyelids with balm,
And their last breath floated outward,
Like the close of a solemn psalm.

Like a bridal pair they traversed
The unseen mystical road,

That leads to the beautiful city

Whose builder and maker is God.

Perhaps, in that miracle country,

They will give her her lost youth back, And the flowers of the vanished spring-time Will bloom in the spirits track.

One draught from the living waters

Shall call back his manhood prime:

And eternal years shall measure

The love that outlasted time.

But the shapes that they left behind them, The wrinkles and silver hair

Made holy to us by the kisses

The angel had printed there

We will hide away 'neath the willows,
When the day is low in the west,
Where the sunbeams cannot find them,
Nor the winds disturb their rest.

And we'll suffer no tell-tale tombstone,
With its age and date to rise
O'er the two who are old no longer,
In the Father's house in the skies.

TRUE AND FALSE GLORY.-D. C. EDDY.

The world ascribed to Napoleon great and noble qualities. His banner waved in triumph over many a bloody field; carnage, and famine, and death attended his steps, and like the genius of evil, he stalked abroad. He was doubtless a splendid general and a brilliant emperor; but the child who wandered over the field, after his most tri umphant charge, and moistened with water the lips of the dying soldiers there, was far more exalted in the scale of being than was the plumed and epauletted chieftain.

Nelson was a skillful officer, and died, as the world says, "in all his glory." His banner was his shroud, the roar of cannon was his dirge, and the shout of victory was his requiem. In the list of naval heroes his name stands foremost, and they who love the navy have learned to honor him. But the poor sailor who, a few months since, in yonder city, braved the fire, and at the risk of his own life saved a mother's only child, gained a truer glory than ever shone around the victories of the famous admiral.

How false, how unjust the estimate which the world places upon the actions of men! He who dies upon the battle-field-who rushes to strife and carnage—whose hands are dripping with human gore-is a man of honor! Parliaments and senates return him thanks, and whole nations unite in erecting a monument over the spot where rest his remains. But he whose task it is to dry up the stream of blood-to mitigate the anguish of earth-to lift man up, and make him what God designed him to be-dies without a tongue to speak his eulogy, or a monument to mark his fall.

If you would show yourself a man in the truest and noblest sense, go not to yonder tented field, where death hovers, and the vulture feasts himself upon human victims! Go not where men are carving monuments of marble to per petuate names which will not live in our own grateful memory! Go not to the dwellings of the rich! Go not to the palaces of kings! Go not to the halls of merriment and pleasure! Go rather to the poor and the helpless. Go to the widow, and relieve her woe. Go to the orphan, and speak words of comfort. Go to the lost, and save him. Go to the fallen, and raise him up. Go to the sinner, and whis per in his ear words of eternal life.

THE OLD MAN IN THE WOOD.

There was an old man who lived in the wood, As you shall plainly see,

He thought he could do more work in a day Than his wife could do in three.

"With all my heart," the old woman said,
"And if you will allow,

You shall stay at home to-day,
And I'll go follow the plough.

"And you must milk the tiny cow,
Lest she should go dry;

And you must feed the little pigs
That are within the sty.

"And you

must watch the speckled hen,

Lest she should go astray;

Not forgetting the spool of

That I spin every day."

yarn

The old woman took her stick in her hand,
And went to follow the plough;

The old man put the pail on his head,
And went to milk the cow.

But Tiny she winced, and Tiny she flinched,
And Tiny she tossed her nose,

And Tiny she gave him a kick on the shin,
Till the blood ran down to his toes.

And a "ho, Tiny!" and a "lo, Tiny!"
And a "pretty little cow stand still;"
And "if ever I milk you again," he said,
"It shall be against my will."

And then he went to feed the pigs
That were within the sty;

He knocked his nose against the shed,
And made the blood to fly.

And then he watched the speckled hen,
Lest she should go astray;

But he quite forgot the spool of yarn,

That his wife spun every day.

And when the old woman came home at night,

He said he could plainly see,

That his wife could do more work in a day

Than he could do in three.