3. Life everywhere! on the earth, in the earth, crawling, creeping, burrowing, boring, leaping, running. If the sequestered coolness of the wood tempt us to saunter into its checkered shade, we are saluted by the murmurous din of insects, the twitter of birds, the scrambling of squirrels, the startled rush of unseen beasts, all telling how populous is this seeming solitude. If we pause before a tree, or shrub, or plant, our cursory and half-abstracted glance detects a colony of various inhabitants. We pluck a flower, and in its bosom we see many a charming insect busy at its appointed labor. We pick up a fallen leaf, and if nothing is visible on it, there is probably the trace of an insect larva hidden in its tissue, and awaiting there development. The drop of dew upon this leaf will probably contain its animals, visible under the microscope.

4. This same microscope reveals that the "blood-rain" suddenly appearing on bread, and awakening superstitious terrors, is nothing but a collection of minute animals; and that the vast tracts of snow which are reddened in a single night owe their color to the marvellous rapidity in reproduction of a minute plant. The very mould which covers our cheese, our bread, our jam, or our ink, and disfigures our damp walls, is nothing but a collection of plants. The many-colored fire which sparkles on the surface of a summer sea at night, as the vessel ploughs her way, or which drips from the oars in lines of jewelled light, is produced by millions of minute animals.

5. Nor does the vast procession end here. Our very motherearth is formed of the débris* of life. We dig downward thousands of feet below the surface, and discover with surprise the skeletons of strange, uncouth animals, which roamed the fens and struggled through the woods before man Our surprise is heightened when we learn that the very quarry itself is mainly composed of the skeletons of microscopic animals. The flints which grate beneath our carriage wheels are but the remains of countless skeletons.

was.

* Pronounced da-brec'.

6. The Apennines and Cordilleras, the chalk cliffs of England-these are the pyramids of by-gone generations of atomies. Ages ago these tiny architects secreted the tiny shells which were their palaces; from the ruins we build our Parthenons, our St. Peters, and our Louvres. So revolves the luminous orb of Life! Generations follow generations; and the Present becomes the matrix of the Future, as the Past was of the Present-the Life of one epoch forming the prelude to a higher Life.

7. We have thus taken a bird's-eye view of the field in which we may study. It is truly inexhaustible. We may begin where we please, we shall never come to an end; our curiosity will never slacken.

"And whosoe'er in youth
Has through ambition of his soul given way
To such desires, and grasped at such delights,
Shall feel congenial stirrings late and long."

G. H. LEWES.

N

XVI.—NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON.

I.

AUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, who of old

Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape

Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds
And the relentless smiting of the waves,
Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream
Of a good angel dropping in his hand.

A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God.

II.

He rose and went forth with the early day
Har inland, where the voices of the waves
Mellowed and mingled with the whispering leaves,
As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods,
He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird
He found; though meanwhile in the reedy pools
The otter plashed, and underneath the pines

The partridge drummed: and as his thoughts went back
To the sick wife and little child at home,

What marvel that the poor man felt his faith
Too weak to bear its burden,-like a rope
That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks above
The hand that grasps it.
Even now,
O Lord!

66

"Send me," he prayed, "the angel of my dream' Nauhaught is very poor; he cannot wait."

III.

Even as he spake, he heard at his bare feet
A low, metallic, clink, and, looking down,
He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold
Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held
The treasure up before his eyes, alone

With his great need, feeling the wondrous coins
Slide through his eager fingers, one by one.
So then the dream was true.

IV.

The angel brought One broad piece only; should he take all these? Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb woods? The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely miss This dropped crumb from a table always full. Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear the cry Of a starved child; the sick face of his wife Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce revolt Urged the wild license of his savage youth Against his later scruples.

V.

All the while

The low rebuking of the distant waves

Stole in upon him like the voice of God

Among the trees of Eden. Girding up

His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he thrust

The base thought from him: "Nauhaught, be a man!
Starve, if need be; but, while you live, look out
From honest eyes on all men, unashamed.

VI.

"God help me! I am deacon of the church,
A baptized, praying Indian! Should I do
This secret meanness, even the barken knots
Of the old trees would turn to eyes to see it,

The birds would tell of it, and all the leaves
Whisper above me: 'Nauhaught is a thief!'
The sun would know it, and the stars that hide
Behind his light would watch me, and at night
Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes.
Yea, thou, God, seest me!"

VII.

Then Nauhaught drew

Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus

The pain of hunger, and walked bravely back
To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea;
And, pausing at the inn door, cheerily asked:
"Who hath lost aught to-day?"

"I," said a voice;

"Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse,

My daughter's handiwork." He looked, and lo!
One stood before him in a coat of frieze,

And the glazed hat of a seafaring man,

Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no trace of wings.

VIII.

Marveling, he dropped within the stranger's hand
The silken web, and turned to go his way.

But the man said: "A tithe at least is yours;
Take it, in God's name, as an honest man."
And as the deacon's dusky fingers closed
Over the golden gift, "Yea, in God's name
I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he said.

IX.

So down the street that, like a river of sand,
Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea,
He sought his home, singing and praising God;
And when his neighbors in their careless way
Spoke of the owner of the silken purse-
A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port
That the Cape opens in its sandy wall-
He answered, with a wise smile, to himself:
"I saw the angel where they see the man."

J. G. WHITTIER

F

XVII.—THE CHEERFUL LOCKSMITH.

ROM the workshop of the Golden Key there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humored, that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. Tink, tink, tink-clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, "I don't care; nothing puts me out; I am resolved to be happy."

2. Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people's notice a bit the more for having been outdone by louder sounds— tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

3. It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind. Foot-passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; neighbors who had got up splen'etic that morning, felt good-humor stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing;-still the same magical tink, tink, tink, came gayly from the workshop of the Golden Key.

4. Who but the locksmith could have made such music? A gleam of sun shining through the unsashed window and checkering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light. fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead-the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the world.

5. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like