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as neat as you can imagine a garden to be, and full of old-fashioned flowers, such as crown imperials, starch hyacinths, and polyanthus, and sweet with southernwood, &c. On entering the house, I perceived that the parlour was full of children's toys and work-baskets, and I expected every moment that a whole flock of grandchildren would come rushing in; but none appeared. I suppose Mr. Morton observed my surprise; for while we were at tea, before the open window, he said, "Mrs. Fairfield, I see you looking at those toys, and wondering what little children come here to enliven an old man's loneliness; but no child comes here. The little girl whose busy fingers last dressed that wooden baby would have been an old woman now, and the merry boys who laughed and shouted at play with those horses would have been elderly, careworn men. Yes, they were mine; and in one week they all left me."

I uttered some exclamation of pity, and he went on in a dreamy voice, as if more to himself than to us, looking from the window all the time :

"Yes, thank you, my dear young lady. In one week wife and children were taken, and I became the solitary man I have been ever since. . .

"It was in a fever," he continued, after a pause "a fever brought here by some wanderers, who came one night to a barn near the village, where one died, and from whom the infection spread. The weather was very bad for it-burning hot and very dry; there was no rain or dew, so that the flowers drooped and the leaves withered with the summer sun beating down all day long. There were deaths around me every day, and the bell was always tolling for the passing of a soul or a funeral. They brought the coffins that way"-and he pointed to a green path out of the forest "in the evening, when one could hardly see them and their attendants against the dark green foliage, in the dusk.

"I went to the sick as much as possible; but I took every possible precaution against infection to my wife and children. We would have sent our darlings away, but we had no one to send them to, and we were a mile and a half away from any infected house. We had three children: Ellen, about eight years old, a thoughtful, quiet,

loving little thing, older than her years. How she used to trot about the house after her mother, trying to help her, and looking up at her, with calm deepblue eyes. Then there were Hugh and Harry, rosy boisterous boys, and their mother-Ellen, Ellen. All that your bride can be to you, Mr. Fairfield, my wife was to me."

He was silent, and looked from the lattice window into the sweet spring evening, at the swallows darting about in the sunshine, the young green leaves and the flowers, whose scent floated through the open window, thinking of the dear companion who had once walked by his side in that sunshine, and tended those flowers with him.

"One evening," he went on, "I was at liberty, and we took the children out, letting the breeze, what there was of it, blow from us to the village. We went to a hill, from whence we could see the silent village afar off. The boys ran about and shouted in their glee; but little Ellen came and laid her golden head on my knee, and looked in my face with her deep sweet eyes. She said, 'Papa, there must be a great many people sorrowful down there in the village. I would like to help them. I wish we could comfort them. I should like so much.' I told her how we could help them, by asking Him who sends us all our troubles to help us to bear them patiently, knowing that they are sent in love and pity. Then we walked home; for the sun was setting like a red ball of fire. The children gathered great nosegays of roses and honeysuckles, which they put in water when we got home. The smell of a honeysuckle always brings that evening again before me.

"My darling laid her doll to sleep, just as it lies now, and wished it and myself good night; the boys arranged all their playthings, and then their mother took them to bed, and I sat here, where I am now, looking into the darkening night. I heard them sing the evening hymn Ellen and her mother, softly and clearly the boys with loud, eager, joyous voices; and my heart was very thankful for the many blessings vouchsafed to me.

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That night there was a great cry in our house, as in Egypt of old, for our first-born was to die. The fever had begun. Our frighted servants ran from the house at midnight, and we

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were left alone with our stricken child. I am coming. Wait till the hymn is sung, or papa and mamma will vexed.' And she raised herself, and stretched out her arms; and, as loud and sweet as last night she had sung in health and reason, she now sung the evening hymn

The morning dawned. The boys awoke, and we bid them dress themselves, and go and play in the forest. Meanwhile I went to Marston, the nearest town, for the doctor and a nurse, resolved, on their arrival, that I would take the boys away to the woodman's wife, Annice; I knew she would take care of them. But neither nurse nor doctor could be spared from Marston; and all that burning July day we watched by our darling's bed, listening to the distant sound of the boys at play, in the forest, commingling with her ravings. Hardly ravings either, for there was nothing frightful; all was happiness and peace, as her young life had been. She talked of Harry and Hugh, of her birds and flowers, and of appearing in the presence of her dear Saviour.

"At last the long, dreadful day was wearing away. The sun was lowering, and we saw the struggle was nearly over. Those who had that fever rarely lived more than twenty-four hours, even the strong, much less one like our darling. About sunset I heard a voice under the window. It was Annice, who had heard of our trouble and had come to help us. I went down to speak to her, and she told me we were to part with our merry healthy boys. I had not dared to go near them all day; but we had heard their voices within an hour. But Annice had found them, and recognised the ghastly signs too well. I knew, too, as soon as I saw them. I went back to tell their mother, and we sent Annice to be with them, and stayed with the one from whom we were first to part.

"It was dark now, and the stars came out, and a red glow on the horizon showed where the moon was to rise by and by. Ellen was talking of walking as we had done last night. Papa, I am very tired; do carry me home; we are coming very near home now, aren't we, very near home?' Then we were in church. You have seen how the sunset light shines on the monument to the Lady Dimdale, lighting up the sweet pure face that is raised to heaven? She thought she saw it. It is growing dark; I want to see the glory on the monument. Ah! there it is; the head is all bright and shining. It is looking at me. I am coming. Such a glory is all around.

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Glory to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light; Keep me, O keep me

And so singing, the angel of Death, that had come so gently to her, took her home. We stood by her grave that night under the solemn stars, and, grief-stricken, thanked the chastening Father for the child he had given and taken away.

"But a great horror fell on me when we went back to our remaining dear ones. It was in bitter anguish that our little Harry left us. He was so strong and so healthy, that he struggled hard to live. He wanted to be out in the forest at play, he said, to feel the fresh air, and to cool his burning hands in the sparkling brook. No vision of glory calmed his last hour, and we were thankful when the end had come.

"Then Hugh woke up from the deadly stupor in which he had lain. He saw his brother lie still and quiet in his little crib; and when his mother took him on her lap, he said in his own sweet lisping voice, Harry is better now; I'll be better soon, mamma.'

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His mother told him Harry would never be ill any more, and never sorry; but, taken to his Saviour, would rest and be happy for evermore.

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"I'll rest, too, till morning, mamma;' and so, clasping his little hands round her neck, he went to his eternal rest, and we were childless!

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After the little coffins had been laid by the first we had followed there, Ellen, my only Ellen, and I sat together on that seat in the twilight. Well do I remember the night. The air was heavy with the scent of hay and flowering bean-fields; bats wheeled round our heads, and great white moths and cockchafers flitted past us. We talked of our darlings, and how perhaps even then their angel spirits were near us; and we felt that it was well. We had laid them in the dark bosom of the earth for a time; but it would soon pass away-oh, very, very soon,

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and then how light the present bitterness !

"And, dear heart,' I said to my beloved one, we have still each other; we will not be desolate.' And we felt peace in our hearts, even the peace of God, that the world cannot give. But the pestilence that walketh in darkness had not yet done its mission.

"My dearest,' my wife said to me one day, 'I am going to leave you too; you will then be alone, but do not let your heart break. A little while-a few years and then we shall all meet together before the throne of the Lamb.'

"I watched one day my wife's dying bed, with Annice, and I remember no more. A long frightful dream, a deep stupor, succeeded. When I awoke it was evening, and the golden sunshine was in my room. From the window I could see into the forest; I saw that rain had fallen, and the grass and leaves were green again. The lurid mist had cleared away, and the sky was soft and blue. All looked joyous and glad; but I knew there was no more earthly gladness for me: the blessed rain had fallen on the graves of all I loved, and the grass grew green upon them.

"I need not tell of all I suffered; it has long gone by. When I first came down here from my chamber, all was as I had left it the night that sorrow first fell upon us. The very flowers, gathered by the little hands that were stilled for ever, were there, but dry and dead. I would not let anything be moved. So they have been for fifty years, and so they will be till I join those who left them there. And in the quiet evening I can see them unaltered before me. Ellen, my wife, with her quiet eyes and smile, in the wicker-work chair; and little Ellen deftly working by her side, with a sedate womanly look on her sweet face; and the boys at noisy play around them. And then I feel that I am alone. But He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb has helped me through all my lonely days.

"And now all I have to tell is told. Perhaps you wonder at my telling it. I could not have done it twenty, nor even ten years ago; but I am now an old man, eighty-five years of age, and it cannot be long ere the changes and chances of this mortal life are over for

me. A long life have I had, and rest will be sweet after the burden and heat of the day. I never see the sunset light on the Lady Dimdale's sweet face without thinking of the shining glory round that angelic head that seemed to call my little Ellen home, and longing for the time when I, too, shall go home to her, and her gentle mother, and her two happy brothers."

And when Mr. Morton was silent, we rose up gently, and bade him goodnight, and walked home through the quiet forest. The influence of his calm resigned spirit seemed to us to pervade all things; and I earnestly prayed that when our day, dark or sunshiny as it may be, is over, and the golden evening falls, that the wondrous peace which is his, may be ours also. John and I, as we walked along, talked seriously of our future life, and of the vast importance of possessing that faith in God and trust in the Saviour which alone would fit us to endure with calmness the shocks of earthly sorrow and trial. And the twilight fell gently around as we came to the cottage door. -Leisure Hour.

HAUNTED HOUSES.

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.

ALL houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open

doors

The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,

With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair; Along the passages they come and go; Impalpable impressions on the air,

A sense of something moving to and fro. There are more guests at table than the

host's

Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet inoffensive ghosts,

As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear:

He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;

Owners and occupants of earlier dates From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,

And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and
vapours dense

A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise

By opposite attractions and desires ;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar

Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
And undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud

Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,

Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd

Into the realm of mystery and night—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and
bends,

Wander our thoughts above the dark
abyss.

houses during the forenoon, and must make up for the loss of time by weary vigils at night; and of the men, some are glad to take an "orra" job whenever they can get it, at any hour of the twenty-four. But the meeting, as we have said, was crowded nevertheless; and if their very presence in such numbers was not enough to attest their anxiety about the concerns of their souls, it was sufficiently manifest in their deportment,

so different from the restlessness and listlessness so common, more or less, in most of our ordinary congregations. An opportunity was given also for silent prayer, when the whole congregation, by one consent, betook themselves to their knees. Prayer was requested by a sister for a sister who was far away. The request came, we learned, from a poor young woman who had been awakened to a sense of her own sin, but had not yet found peace in believing. Prayer was again requested by a wife for an unbelieving husband; and, on the other hand, another wife desired God's people to thank God with her that her husband had on the previous day been brought to serious concern about his state before God, and, as she fully believed, had been made a creature in Christ. The case of the couple last referred to was very interesting. The wife had been so grieved by her husband, that she began to question with herself whether she ought not to leave him; but she took the counsel of her minister, and resolved rather to continue more earnestly in prayer for a blessing on her partner; and the answer, though it tarried long, came at last, and her faith and patience received the promised reward.—Home and Foreign Record.

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PRAYER IN THE WYNDS. SABBATH was felt to be a day of the gracious power of the Spirit in the Wynd church. The congregations at the three diets, and especially in the evening, when composed more entirely of the Wynd people, were very large, and appeared to be deeply impressed. The Word of God was felt to be spoken in demonstration of the Spirit and in power, and very many remained till a late hour at night to receive the consolation of the gospel for their wounded spirits. In the Sabbath-school, the presence of some IF a child has done wrong, and deserves special influence was also sensibly felt. One punishment, punish him; but do it calmly. of the teachers came to Mr. M'Coll, and Scolding, twitching, jerking, frightening, said—“I can't get on with my class; they

are all in tears."

The nightly prayer-meetings continue to be held. One who was present states: The hall was crowded, evidently, from the appearance of the congregation, by inhabitants of the district. Among the females, mutches greatly predominated over bonnets, and short gowns over dresses. The men were in their working clothes, but, like the women, had tidied themselves for the meeting. The Wynd district on a week-night betokens a much greater interest in the object of it than in other places, for a great part of the population have no regular hours for labour, but must work late and early as they get the opportunity. Of the females, some have been hanging on for work out of the ware

DISCIPLINE OF CHILDREN.

scarcely ever reform. A child's disposition may be ruined by constant fretting, but his evil propensities will have but gathered strength. He has a right to all the sunshine that comes with his years. Many mothers have a mistaken idea that punishing children is cruel. On the contrary, no children are so happy as those who are well governed; and no children are so miserable as those who are not governed at all. Poor little things, how can it be otherwise? Ignorant, unreasoning, unreflecting, unforeseeing, with no steady hand to guide them, they are left to the mercy of their own whims. This is cruel. They

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do not know, they cannot be expected to know, what is best for themselves. And the relation of mother and child is created by God, that the mother's experience and wisdom may supply the child's deficiency. A mistake here is fatal, and here, alas! the mistake seems to centre. Billy wants a piece of plum cake because he sees it on the table. His mamma thinks it too rich for him, and that he has already eaten enough, and she tells him so. Billy is not so strongly impressed with this fact as he might be, and urges his claim more strongly. Mamma yields. So does not Billy's stomach, but stoutly asserts its grievances. Who is to blame for Billy's sufferings? Certainly not ignorant little Billy. Children are allowed to eat all kinds of food, at all times in the day. Two-year-old in calico is placed on the floor, and amused with seed-cake to keep him from crying, while mamma is washing the dishes. Two-year-old in cambric undergoes the same process, while mamma is crocheting, or nurse entertaining her callers. Consequently, when Two-year-olds have attained fifteen, if they do attain it, they are hired by papa to undergo slow torture at the hands of the dentist.

Church of Scotland met, down to the present time, there have been constant stages of proGillespie, Erskine, and Chalmers, bring up gress. The very names of Knox, Melville, distinctly the battles of domestic papacy, prelacy, patronage, and spiritual independence. Secessions and disruptions have taken place in the Church of Scotland, but the party of progress has advanced step by step church. All that our fathers really valued towards the perfect liberty and life of the remain with us. We have the good old doctrines, the stern old discipline, and the essential life. Does not this suggest progress in the future? Looking at this countries of the world, in Ireland, England, church as it presents itself in the various Scotland, France, Piedmont, Switzerland, Prussia, the United States, and in all the colonies of the British empire, this remarkable feature appears-that we are one in polity; one faith, one Lord, and one in doctrine, one in practice, and nearly one baptism. We are the greatest and most powerful of Christian people. By uniting, what might we not accomplish; but we are scattered. No one is not ready to admit that important ends may in the meantime be served by our separate organizations. We may be the means of stimulating one another to purity, zeal, and good works, and checking in each the tendency to arrogance and tyranny. These are good things, however, that God brings out of evil, but are no justification of the position of hostility and isolation in which we stand to each other. We must unite our scattered forces. That there should be hindrances in the way is not THE PROGRESS AND UNION OF a matter of wonder. The time is not very THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. remote when we stood in hostile array against each other; and if the conflict is not DOCTRINAL progress, unless towards a more yet ended, I hope we are at least beginning to complete comprehension of the doctrines respect each other's motives, and to do justice believed, we see no room for in the Pres- to each other's principles. This is the byterian Church. We think that our faith first step towards progress in union. Let encompasses revelation, and to depart from, us, by all means, be honest and candid. or go beyond revelation, would be to descend Nothing can come out of compromises and from the mountains bright with the glories reservations. We would be no party in of the Sun of righteousness, into the valleys patching up a union on unsatisfactory terms. dark with the shadows of spiritual death. To say that we agree on all points would be But can we not in some other way make to state what is not true; to suppose that progress? Assuredly we can, else we are one branch was coming over to the views of more than human. We need not always be the other would be to entertain a very harping upon principles, or declaiming delusive idea. As churches, we know our about our superior orthodoxy; let us go on distinctive principles, and honestly adhere to to perfection, but how or in what direction? them. It cannot be concealed that there The Presbyterian Church has ever been a are some knotty points to be discussed, and church of progress. Taking Scotland as its practical difficulties to be settled; and withgreat type and representative, we find in the out attempting the hopeless task of conhistory of the church here a progression verting each other, we might come to a from age to age, conservative in doctrine, better understanding in some things, agree yet exhibiting a development in Christian to differ in others, and shake hands as life and liberty which no barrier has been able to arrest. From the year 1860, when the first General Assembly of the Reformed

brethren, and be one in heart as well as one in doctrine, polity, and practice. And it is cheering to witness this progress being con

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