Come, sit thee down! Here is the bench where Benjamin would sit

On First-day afternoons in spring, and watch the swallows flit;

He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear the pleasant bees

Go humming round the lilacs and through the apple trecs.

I think he loved the spring: not that he cared for flowers: most men

Think such things foolishness-but we were first acquainted

then,

One spring; the next he spoke his mind; the third I was

his wife,

And in the spring (it happened so) our children entered life.

He was but seventy-five: I did not think to lay him yet
In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly Meeting first we

met.

The Father's mercy shows in this: 'tis better I should be Picked out to bear the heavy cross-alone in age—than he.

We've lived together fifty years; it seems but one long day,

One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away; And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet contentment home,

So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come.

I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it was to know
If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I should go;
For father had a deep concern upon his mind that day,
But mother spoke for Benjamin-she knew what best to

say.

Then she was still they sat awhile: at last she spoke again,

The Lord incline thee to the right!" and "Thou shall have him Jane!"

My father said. I cried. Indeed, 'twas not the least of

shocks,

for Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Orthodox.

I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost:

Her husband's of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.

She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a

hireling priest—

Ah, dear! the cross was ours; her life's a happy one, at least.

Perhaps she'll wear a plainer dress when she's as old as Perhaps s

Would thee believe it, Hannah? once I felt temptation nigh!

My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste: I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon at the waist.

How strange it seemed to sit with him upon the women's side!

I did not dare to lift my eyes: I felt more fear than pride,

'Till, "in the presence of the Lord,” he said, and then there

came

A holy strength upon my heart, and I could say the same.

I used to blush when he came near, but then I showed no sign;

With all the meeting looking on, I held his hand in mine. It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I was his for life: Thee knows the feeling, Hannah-thee, too, hast been a wife.

As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so green as

ours;

The woods were coming into leaf, the meadows full of

flowers;

The neighbors met us in the lane, and every face was kind

'Tis strange how lively everything comes back upon my

mind.

I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding-dinner spread;

At our own table we were guests, with father at the head, And Dinah Passmore helped us both—'twas she stood up with me,

And Abner Jones with Benjamin-and now they're gone, all three !

It is not right to wish for death; the Lord disposes best. His Spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them for His

rest;

And that He halved our little flock was merciful, I see:

For Benjamin has two in heaven, and two are left with me.

Eusebius never cared to farm-'twas not his call in truth, And I must rent the dear old place, and go to daughter

Ruth.

Thee'll say her ways are not like mine-young people now-a-days

Have fallen sadly off, I think, from all the good old ways.

But Ruth is still a Friend at heart; she keeps the simple tongue,

The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when she was young; And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,

That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.

I once heard Jesse Kersey say, "a spirit clothed with grace, And pure, almost, as angels are, may have a homely face." And dress may be of less account; the Lord will look within:

The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or sin.

Thee mustn't be too hard on Ruth: she's anxious I should

go,

And she will do her duty as a daughter should I know. 'Tis hard to change so late in life, but we must be resigned The Lord looks down contentedly upon a willing mind.

FOUND DEAD.—Albert Leighton.

Found dead---dead and alone,

There was nobody near, nobody near
When the outcast died on his pillow of stone,
No mother, no brother, no sister dear,
Nor a friendly voice to soothe or cheer;
Not a watching eye or a pitying tear.
Found dead-dead and alone,

In the roofless street, on a pillow of stone.

Many a weary day went by,

While wretched and worn he begged for bread,

Tired of life and longing to lie

Peacefully down with the silent dead.

Hunger and cold and scorn and pain,

Had wasted his form and scared his brain,

Till at last on a bed of frozen ground,

With a pillow of stone was the outcast found,

Found dead-dead and alone,

On a pillow of stone in a roofless street-
Nobody heard his last faint moan,

Or knew when his sad heart ceased to beat.
No murmur lingered with tears or sighs,

But the stars looked down with pitying eyes,
And the chill winds passed with a wailing sound,
O'er the lonely spot where his form was found.

Found dead-yet NOT alone;

There was somebody near, somebody near,
To claim the wanderer as his own,
And find a home for the homeless here.
One, when every human door

Is closed to children, accursed and poor,
Who opens the heavenly portal wide;
Ah! GCD was there when the outcast died!

THE PRETEXT OF REBELLION.
Stephen A. Douglass.

IF war must come - if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Constitution-I can say, before God, my conscience is clear. I have struggled long for a peaceful solution of the difficulty. I have not only tendered those States what was theirs of right, but I have gone to the very extreme of magnanimity. The return we receive is war, armies marched upon our Capital, obstructions and danger to our navigation, letters of marque to invite pirates to prey upon our commerce, a concerted movement to blot out the United States of America from the map of the globe. The question is, Are we to be stricken down by those who, when they can no longer govern, threaten to destroy? What cause, what excuse do disunionists give us for breaking up the best government on which the sun of heaven ever shed its rays? They are dissatisfied with the_result of a Presidential election. Did they never get beaten before? Are we to resort to the sword when we get de feated at the ballot-box? I understand that the voice of the people expressed in the mode appointed by the Constitution must command the obedience of every citizen. They assume, on the election of a particular candidate, that their rights are not safe in the Union. What evidence lo they present of this? I defy any man to show any act

P

on which it is based. What act has been omitted or been done? I appeal to these assembled thousands, that, so far as the constitutional rights of the Southern States-I will say the constitutional rights of slaveholders-are concerned, nothing has been done, and nothing omitted, of which they can complain.

There has never been a time, from the day that Washington was inaugurated first President of these United States, when the rights of the Southern States stood firmer under the laws of the land than they do now; there never was a time when they had not as good a cause for disunion as they have to-day. What good cause have they now that has not existed under every administration? If they say the Territorial question-now, for the first time, there, is no act of Congress prohibiting slavery anywhere. If it be the non-enforcement of the laws, the only complaints that I have heard have been of the too vigorous and faithful fulfilment of the Fugitive Slave Law. Then what reason have they? The slavery question is a mere excuse. The election of Lincoln is a mere pretext. The present secession movement is the result of an enormous conspiracy formed more than a year since-formed by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve months ago. They use the Slavery question as a means to aid the accomplishment of their ends. They desired the election of a Northern candidate, by a sectional vote, in order to show that the two sections cannot live together. When the history of the two years from the Lecompton charter down to the Presidential election shall be written, it will be shown that, the scheme was deliberately made to break up this Union. They desired a Northern Republican to be elected by a purely Northern vote, and now assign this fact as a reason why the sections may not longer live together. If the disunion candidate in the late Presidential contest had carried the united South. their scheme was, the Northern candidate successful, to seize the Capital last spring, and, by a united South and divided North, hold it. That scheme was defeated in the defeat of the disunion candidate in several of the Southern States. The conspiracy is now known. Armies have been raised, war is levied to accomplish it. There are only two sides to the question. Every man must be for the United States or against them. There can be no neutrals in this war: only patriots or traitors.