But what has Jenny in that cabin done;

What is she bearing in her cloak away; What is the fear that causes her to run

With beating heart in such a stealthy way; What is it she with troubled glance has laid Upon her bed behind the curtain's shade?

The woman has been stealing you would say.

When she got home it was the break of day. She sat down pale and trembling, some regret Seemed to be weighing on her mind, she let The brow she clasped fall heavy on the bed And in short broken sentences, she said,

"My husband! Heavens! what will the poor man say!

Such toil and trouble- what a thing I've done!
Five children on his hands already. None
Work harder than he does; and I must make
His burden heavier. How that door does shake!
I thought 'twas he. Well, if he scold outright,
Or even beat me, it will serve me right,
Is that his footstep? No- not yet -I'm glad -
Why, what a shame! things must be getting bad
When I'm afraid to see him back again!'
And then she shuddered, and a gloomy train
Of thought absorbed her so, she heard no more
The shrieking sea-birds or the waves' dull roar.

Sudden the door bursts open, lets a track
Of cold light in; upon the threshold stands,
Dragging his dripping net with both his hands,
The fisher, calling gaily, "Well! I'm back."

""Tis you!" cried Jenny, as she caught and prest

Her husband as a lover to her breast,

A shudder passed before her answer came-
"I! nothing much—I sat and sewed-the sea
Roared so like thunder it quite frightened me.
The winter seems set in before its time."

Then, trembling as if taken in a crime,
Jenny continued-"Oh! and by the way,
Our neighbour's lying dead died yesterday,
I think—at least it was last evening late —
"Twas after you were gone at any rate.
She leaves two children-boy and girl — quite
small-

Johnny begins to walk and Meg to crawl.

The poor good soul was almost starved, I fear." The man looked grave at once, and flung away His close blue cap wet through with rain and spray;

"Deuce take it!" he exclaimed, and rubbed

God's goodness in reproof my eye beholdeth,
And his severity.

There is no grievous chastening but combineth
Some brightness with the gloom;

Round every thorn in the flesh there twineth
Some wreath of softening bloom.

The sorrows that to us seem so perplexing
Are mercies kindly sent,

THE SPIRIT OF THE SPRING. SWEET Spirit of the Spring,

I hear thee on the wing,

And greater ills prevent.

Like angels stern, they meet us when we wander Out of the narrow track,

With sword in hand, and yet with voices tender, To warn us quickly back.

We fain would eat the fruit that is forbidden, Not heeding what God saith;

But by these flaming cherubim we're chidden, Lest we should pluck our death.

To save us from the pit, no screen of roses Would serve for our defence,

The hindrance that completely interposes Stings back like thorny fence.

drops shed their light. And I heard thee singing say, "Come, love, with me away,

And I'll chant a sweeter matin as we sunward take our flight.

"I will show thee where the lilies,
The laughing daffodils,

Are bright with golden halos and bending o'er the brooks,

Whose pretty, playful ways
Have scooped out fairy bays

In the willow-wattled bank-side and by aldershaded nooks.

"Come say, love, wilt thou follow Over height and primrose hollow?

plaining

Of wounds that freely bleed,

God's hedges of severity us paining,

May seem severe indeed.

flow,

From The London Edition.

I know, how weak soever I now appear, [

UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREW'S,

MARCH 19, 1868.

THE UNIVERSITY.

tongue glorify his name in the same place.' Gentlemen, that town was St. Andrew's,

6

My first duty, in the observations which I am about to address to you, is to make my personal acknowledgments on the occasion which has brought me to this place. When we begin our work in this world, we value most the approbation of those older than ourselves. To be regarded favourably by those who have obtained distinction bids us hope that we too, bye and bye, may come to be distinguished in turn. As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our abilities. Our expectations for the future shrink to modest dimensions. The question with us is no longer what we shall do, but what have we done. We call ourselves to account for the time and talents which we have used or misused, and then it is that the good opinion of those who are coming after us becomes so peculiarly agreeable. If we have been roughly handled by our contemporaries, it flatters our self-conceit to bave interested another generation. If we feel that we have before long to pass away, we can dream of a second future for ourselves in the thoughts of those who are about to take their turn upon the stage.

Well, if anybody had told me, when I was reading about this, that I also should one day come to St. Andrew's and be called on to address the University, I should have listened with more absolute incredulity than Knox's comrade listened to that prophecy.

·

Yet, inconceivable as it would then have seemed, the unlikely has become fact. I am addressing the successors of that remote generation of students whom Knox, at the end of his life, called round him,' in the yard of this very College, and exhorted them,' as James Melville tells us, ' to know God and stand by the good cause, and use their time well.' It will be happy for me if I, too, can read a few words to you out of the same lesson-book; for to make us know our duty and do it, to make us upright in act and true in thought and word, is the aim of all instruction which deserves the name, the epitome of all purposes for which education exists. Duty changes, truth expands, one age cannot teach another either the details of its obligations or the matter of its knowledge, but the principle of obligation is everlasting. The conscious

Many years ago, when I first studied the history of the Reformation in Scotland, I read a story of a slave in a French galley who was one morning bending wearily over his oar. The day was breaking, and, rising out of the grey waters, a line of cliffs was visible, and the white houses of a town and a church tower. The rower was a man unused to such service, worn with toil and watching, and likely, it was thought, to die. A companion touched him, pointed to the shore, and asked him if he knew it.

'Yes,' he answered, 'I know it well. I see the steeple of that place where God opened my mouth in public to his glory; and

moral nature of man what life is in the seedcells of all organized creatures; the conditions of its coherence, the elementary force in virtue of which it grows.

Every one admits this in words. Rather, it has become a cant now-a-days to make a parade of noble intentions. The application is the difficulty. When we pass beyond the verbal propositions our guides fail us, and we are left in practice to grope our way or guess it as we can. So far as our special occupations go, there is no uncertainty. Are we traders, mechanics, lawyers, doctors? we know our work. Our duty is to do it as honestly and as well as we can. When we pass to our larger interests, to those which concern us as men what Knox meant by knowing God and standing by the good cause' I suppose

-to