Why must you come again to torture me?
'Tis true I killed you, but it had to be.
We played at dice. Why did ye lose the game?
Ye paid the forfeit. I am not to blame."

The leech gave him the cup; and to his bed,
With all the contents drained, the king fell fainting:
Then glanced around, and in a whisper said:
"Where are they now? Pray, tell me, have they fled?
Those direful shapes that fancy has been painting?
Perchance they were but vapors; but, believe me,
They often come to torture me at night.
I'll tell thee all . . . . Ah! 'tis a dreadful sight!
It cannot be that fancy should deceive me.

"I once was young, confided in my star,
Believed in men, but soon the youthful vision
Had passed away, while laughter and derision
Alone were left-I saw things as they are.
I saw that men are base ignoble creatures.
From lofty trees I plucked the fruit they bore,
But found a worm still gnawing at the core;
And everywhere I gazed, the stony features
Of basest selfishness grinned in my face.

"

Fiercer than beasts, the worthless human race
Is only known by boundless love of money,
And lips all dripping with deception's honey,
While in the breast the basest passions play.
Where is the man who would not fain betray
His dearest friend? Show me, forsooth a brother
Who does not yearn, at heart, to slay the other;
A wife who would not poison with a smile.
All are alike. All hearts are full of guile.
"I grew like them. As fear alone could tame
These raging beasts, I poured a brimful measure
Of woe upon them. It became my pleasure
To persecute them all with sword and flame.
I waged a war with man; his dying rattle
Was sweeter music than the sound of battle.
Now, even horrors fail to please my sight,
And tortured sore by every ray of light,
Remorseless still I gaze into the night."

He ceased, with failing voice and panting breath.
Cold sweat rolled from his brow. The mask of death
Spread o'er his bloodless features. Macro saw
The dreadful change, and braved the monarch's ire.
"Pray shall I call." he said, approaching nigher,
"Caius, your grandson, called Caligula ?
Your illness grows apace."

But he: "May curses fall
Upon thee, serpent! Ha! Is that thy plan?
I am not dead. Caius is, like them all,
Fool, liar, scoundrel-least of all, a man.
But, if he were, no hero's hand could save

Rome and the world, for all is desolation.
Though to enrich the soil he slew the nation,
No fruit would ripen on its barren grave.
If there were gods, no gods could make it grow,
And can this silly boy? Not Caius-No!
Spirits of vengeance that so oft annoy me-
Furies of hell, commissioned to destroy me-
Let them, and Chaos my successors be.
Theirs be my sceptre!"

In his agony

The king sprang from his couch. With steps uncertain He sought the window, tore away the curtain,

Down through the darkness, with a trembling hand, He threw the emblem of his royal power.

And then fell back unconscious.

At that hour
A soldier, musing, might be seen to stand
Upon his watch, within the court below,

Blonde-bearded, tall. As though it ran to meet him,
The ivory sceptre fell; and rose to greet him,
Rebounding at his side. He did not know
Its meaning then, and seized it with his hand.
Then, musing still, he saw a distant land.
In yonder vale, where Weser's waters pass
Through gloomy woods he saw the tree-tops tremble,
In council, there, beheld his friends assemble,
Where every word was bright as burnished brass,
And weighty as the battle-axe in fighting;
Where hands were true in friendship, as in fighting.
He thought of one who, 'neath the cottage door,
Waited to greet her lord with fond caresses;
He saw her seated, with her amber tresses,
Twirling the spindle as she did of yore,
Thinking of him. Upon the green at play,
His little boy was fashioning a spear.

His eye so blue, so bright, devoid of fear,
It flashed amain, as though it sought to say,
"Give me a sword, and all the world is mine!"

CHRISTIAN HEROISM.

she lost a brother in far off China. He died in the naval hospital at Shanghai. During bis illness he was nursed by strangers. This aroused in the heart of his devoted sister a strong desire to follow the example of Miss Nightingale and other English women in the Crimes, and devote herself to the business of nursing. She revealed her design to the Bishop of Winchester, who told her she was too young to enter on such a mission, and advised her to wait till her mind was matured. She did wait a few years, but her heart was full of determination and hope. Miss Nightingale was asked for advice and she gave it, and assisted Miss Lees in getting the necessary training. She entered St. Thomas's Hospital, and commenced preparing for the work in which she meant to spend her life. After this she entered King's College Hospital, and continued her course in that institution. Then she went to Holland, Denmark, Germany, and France, for the purpose of perfecting her education. At Kaiserswerth, in Germany, she passed

Self-sacrifice is the key-note of Christianity. Those who were moved by its spirit have never been self-seekers. They gave themselves to others without regard to glory or fame. Many such have through the practical training of a received no reward but the con- nursing deaconess, and received a cersciousness of having done well and tificate of efficiency. Then she went nobly. Many of them passed away to France. M. Hasson, the Directorwithout receiving the approval of those General of civil hospitals, gave her perwhom they served. Perhaps the bravest mission to work in the chief hospitals of and the best of them were rewarded Paris under the charge of Roman with ingratitude-perhaps they were Catholic sisters. She was associated as compelled to sow in tears; still they a "Soeur Postulante" with the Auguslooked for a day when they should tinians, the Dames of St. Thomas de come bearing their sheaves with joy. Villaneuve, and the Sours de Charité Let no one say that their hope was of St. Vincent de Paul. With these without foundation, since their works she worked harmoniously. Personally do follow them. the kindness of the sisters to her was beyond words. They treated her more as a sister and friend, than as one separated from them by creed, country, and secular life. From them she learned lessons of quiet cheerfulness under difficulties, of hope and trust in an all overruling Providence, and a firm self-denial and utter giving up of self to Him whose divine charity she aimed to imitate.

Miss Lees got her last and most valuable training through the kind permission of Gen. Leboeuf, the French Minister of War, to work in the French military hospitals. The late Michel Levy, the director-general, took great interest in her. He had been associated with Miss Nightingale in the Crimea,

BY REV. I. E. GRA EFF.

IN ancient times valor and virtue were regarded as the same thing, but in these days it is understood that there may be a broad difference between them. It is possible to be very brave, and yet to lack all the elements of moral courage. To elevate and save men is true valor, though but little credit for heroism may be given to those who devote themselves to so noble a work. Man is made, not for fame, or for glory, or for success in life, but for honest sympathy, for self-denial, for self-sacrifice, for that kind of largeheartedness which dares to do right in the face of danger and contumely. It is this sort of bravery that will overcome and win laurels that are not liable to fade.

It is the province of all to cultivate and give expression to this kind of nobility and courage. All are intended to honor themselves with this sort of glory, timid women as well as bold and brave men. Some of the most delicate and frail are fighting the hard battle of life with an endurance which the heroes of a thousand wars could never surpass. On the arena of Christian sympathy and devotion scores of such make a full display of the higher glory of moral bravery. It is on this high level that woman has taken her firm stand, and has helped the cause of humanity with a giant hand.

Florence Lees was a young girl when

force the door. The poor fellow wished to go home to his "liebe mutter." Calling another patient to her help, and, telling the delirious one he would go home the next day, he was prevailed upon to take his bed again. Another delirious soldier was searching for a knife under his bed-fellow's pillow. The nurse got hold of it and hid it. Such were her trials when left alone to take care of her patients as best she She had returned to her native land. could. No wonder that she entreated. Soon war was declared between France the surgeon, when he came round, that and Germany. The newspapers were she might not again be left alone in the full of the results of sanguinary battles. hospital at night.

The young nurse's heart was touched. She continued her labors in that She set out for the Continent, accom- place for many weeks. At last Bazaine panied by some German ladies. She surrendered; his prisoners were sent passed through Belgium to Cologne, into Germany. Miss Lees had done where she saw the wounded soldiers her work at Metz, but her self-imposed lying in rows along the station plat- task was not ended. She was taken to form. Then she passed on to Coblentz Hamburg, where she was put in charge and Treves, and finally she reached of a hospital of wounded soldiers, unMetz, which was her station. The jour- der the superintendence of the Crown ney was a rough one after she left the Prince of Prussia. After her return steamer. In the midst of the confusion from Germany, she made a voyage to she had lost her baggage, but she was Canada and the United States, to inthere herself to enter upon her work spect our hospitals here in America. with a heroism that shines brightly side She made this journey in 1873, and by side with the military valor of the visited Halifax, Quebec, Montreal, campaign. Marshal Bazaine had taken Toronto, Cleveland, New York, Boston, refuge in Metz. Prince Frederick was Philadelphia, Washington, and Aninvesting the city. Miss Lees was ap- napolis. Later she became Directress pointed to an hospital at Marangue, in of the Westminster Nursing Associathe rear of the investing army, where tion, and continued to make herself she found miserable quarters in an old useful in her good work. barn. She slept on a bit of sacking filled with straw. little medicine and less food. The principal disease among the soldiers was typhus fever, occasioned by the dampness of the trenches. The hospital had twentytwo beds, and these were always full.

ere was

Certainly the nurse of this field-hospital had no light task before her. When the men were brought in feverstricken, they had first to be cleaned. And, coming out of miry trenches, they were so incrusted with dirt that it required scraping before they could be washed, after which the hard work of nursing by night and day took its beginning, and all this in the midst of the

Thus, then, we have a brief statement of the life of this model Christian heroine. Her life may be regarded as a specifically exemplary one. She rose above all that is merely personal and national, to the high and broad level of a common humanity. She did not remain at home to nurse the invalids of her own people, neither did she follow these into foreign lands and foreign wars. But she went among the sick of other nations, and risked her own life in ministering to them. This may be called Christian self-sacrifice in the highest sense. There is nothing of home sympathy in it. It looks entirely like a pure offering on the altar of

most depressing circumstances. The Christian love. It is hard to see how, men sometimes became furiously de- in the life of sinful mortals, there could lirious. One night she was alone. She be anything more like the sinless life of heard a noise up-stairs. She went up Jesus. and found a delirious soldier trying to

Still Miss Lees must not be held up

and for her sake he made Miss Lees pass through a course of training unusually severe; but the practical experience she gained in this manner, at the Val-de-Grâce, was so valuable that, in the course of her eventful after-life, she never failed to gratefully remember it. Such was the long and severe training of this brave young woman, for the work of Christian self-denial to which she had determined to devote her life.

as the only Christian woman who has heroic philanthropy of modern times made a sublime display of the loftiest does not run on a higher level than heroism. She is but one among many, that of heathen benevolence, and much young and old, rich and poor, who of the large-heartedness of our day have done deeds of a like character. would hardly bear comparison with the Neither is this sort of noble bravery royal generosity of some of the ancient only of modern birth. The godly heathen sages. Yet we have the true women of all ages in the kingdom of light and a better faith than the anGod were moved by the same springs, cients had, and therefore we have inand did works of the same kind. Pious dividual characters which loom up imwomen were the companions of the mensely above all pagan greatness and Saviour, and stood by when He died on goodness, and a system of public benethe cross. Others after them caught ficence, such as the world with all its the same spirit, and ministered for wisdom could not have until the very Jesus' sake to both friend and foe. God of peace brought it down and gave Thus public beneficence took its course it to man. Christian heroism is not and grew immensely. bravery simply, nor is it simply generosity, but it is bravery and generosity combined in the spirit of faith and love to both God and man. It is different from other heroism, because it is more divine, more heavenly, and even more human, than any valor can be which is not the offspring of the life of Christ in the world.

Epimenides, an ancient philosopher and poet of Crete, was called to Athens to stay the plague. It is said that he succeeded in arresting the pestilence, and that he refused any reward for his services beyond the good-will of the Athenians towards the inhabitants of Gnossus, where he dwelt. This was showing an excellent spirit. Other ancient heathen philosophers have given evidence of similar high and generous motives. Yet all classic heathendom, with all its masterly genius and public spirit, failed to create a system of public beneficence, and, in the whole brilliant catalogue of its great masters, there is not a single character like the one we have just glanced at in the history of Florence Lees. To bring about such exhibitions of personal purity and self-denial, it was necessary to lift the human mind out of the sphere of the merely secular, and to give it a baptism from the presence of the Most High. Hence the ancient Hebrew had a system of public charity, while classic pagandom had nothing but occasional individual generosity to grace its brilliant record. Hence also the history of the Christian era is so largely made up of the deeds of men and women, who were not only generous but full of selfsacrificing charity, regardless of all personal considerations. The humane impulses of our age have had their origin in the sublime ideals of the Christian life, and the various energies of mankind have thus received an inspiration higher and nobler than that of either philosophy or art.

It is no doubt true that much of the

We have looked at a star of the first magnitude in the Christian heavens. Let us not forget that there are many smaller stars, shining perhaps less brightly, but shining still with a Christian light before men. Not all have the same gifts, though all are inspired by the same Spirit. There are thousands in Israel who could not do the work of Florence Lees, even if they had the will. She evidently was fitted, both by nature and grace, for her peculiar mission. But her example should encourage every one to use his or her talents in some good and noble work.

She was in doubt when she first conceived the idea of becoming a nurse, but she began to prepare for such a mission, being full of faith and hope, and history has already recorded her success. Let others have faith and hope and endurance, in some Christian work or mission, waiting for their reward as those in days gone by have done, and that reward will as surely come as it has come before. Christian heroism, inspired by Christian hope, shall never be confounded.

Heaven's gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.