POETRY.

Poetry.

THE CATHEDRAL BELLS.

IN the land where blooms the orange, and where the olive grows,
Near where the silvery current of the classic Arno flows,

An artist laboured at his task, with eager brain and eye,

All heedless of the world around, as hour by hour went by.

The bells his pliant hands had shaped, at last, O joy! are done,
And sweet the sound that floats across to show the triumph won;
The work has cheered his hand and heart through long and weary years,
But now he holds the victor's crown, and bathes it with his tears.

"My own! my beautiful!" he cried, in accents of delight;
"What is life worth without thy chimes to soothe me day and night?"
He placed them in a convent near, and there they swung above,
Filling his soul with rapturous joy, nor sought he other love.

No woman's tones could bring to him, though honeyed they might be,
Such pure excess of happiness as their sweet melody.

But soon 'neath Italy's fair skies sounds out war's dread alarms,
And then in place of gentle peals there comes the clash of arms.

His home by strife made desolate, his bells the conqueror's prize,
The artist, broken-hearted, stood, while tears bedimmed his eyes ;-
"You've taken all that made life sweet," in bitterness he cried;
"Those bells, those bells were more to me than child, or wife, or bride !"

Years passed; on Shannon's placid waves a bark was seen to glide,
The artist, now grown old and gray, sat leaning o'er its side;
The boatmen plied their oars with haste, urged by that weary man,
Who bade them speed by day and night since first their voyage began.

He raised his eyes in thankfulness, no sound his wan lips stirred,
For now upon the stilly air his own loved chimes are heard.
A steeple in the sunlight's glow he fondly gazed upon,

He crossed his hands upon his breast—his journeyings were done.

Their ringing peal fell on his ear as when he heard them last,
Though many a year of doubt and gloom since then had o'er him passed;
But when the bark touched Emerald's Isle his gentle heart was cold;
He had his wish-his own loved bells his requiem had tolled.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

GRIEF AND JOY, hope and fear, tears and smiles, pain and pleasure, are all twins-children of the same mother-linked together throughout the whole of humanity. No lot, no country, no climate, no scene, no condition in life may claim the enjoyment of one without the rebuking companionship of the other. No cloud, however, is without its inner light. The blue sky still harbours behind the canopy, ready with its sunshine, and keeping the sad soul from being entirely delivered to despair. No condition is so lowly as to be without hope; no sorrow so poignant and oppressive as not to permit the consolidation of some sweet ministers, interposing at the right moment with compensation and perhaps delight. There is no such thing as unmitigated evil; there is no such thing as pleasure and joy without cloud or qualification. We have only to open our hearts to smile and sunshine; not turn our backs, or shut our eyes to the angelic visitor, who is always sure to stand upon the threshold whenever we deserve, most need, and are willing to give him a welcome.-Emerson.

THE SEA is the largest of all cemeteries, and its slumberers sleep without monuments. All other grave-yards in all other lands show some distinction between the great and the small, the rich and the poor; but in the ocean cemetery, the king and the clown, the prince and the peasant, are alike distinguished. The same waves roll over all—the same requiem by the minstrels of the ocean is sung to their honour. Over their remains the same storm beats and the same sun shines; and there unmarked, the weak and powerful, the plumed and unhonoured, will sleep on until awakened by the same trump.

WIFE ASLEEP.-A minister of the "Kirk" of Scotland once discovered his wife asleep in the midst of his homily on the Sabbath. So, pausing in the steady, and perhaps somewhat monotonous, flow of his oratory, he broke forth with this personal address, sharp and clear, but very deliberate :-"Susan !" Susan opened her eyes and ears in a twinkling, so did all other dreamers in the house, whether asleep or awake! "Susan, I didna marry you for your wealth, sin' ye have none. And I didn't marry ye for your beauty, that the hail congregation can see. And if you have no grace, I have made but a sair bargain!"

IN THE OLDEN TIMES, when pastors "spoke right out in meetin," a clergyman in Scituate thus addressed the late Mr. Bryant:"Neighbour Bryant, it is to your reproach that you have disturbed the worship by coming late, living as you do within a mile of this place, and especially so, since here is Goody Barstow, who has milked seven cows, made a cheese, and walked five miles to the house of God in good season."

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

THREE LINKS.-Said William Carter, in his sermon to the outcasts of London :-"Hear what Jesus declares: 'Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my Word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.' Now, my friends, here are three links in the blessed chain of truth: hearing, believing, and having. The devil always tries to cut these links off, and give three links of his own forging, viz., doing, praying, and feeling."

I WOULD NOT give much for your religion unless it can be seen. Lamps do not talk, but they shine. A lighthouse sounds no drum, it beats no gong, and yet far over the waters its friendly spark is seen by the mariner. So let your actions shine out your religion. Let the main sermon of your life be illustrated by your conduct, and it shall not fail to be illustrious.

PRAYER is a religious representing of our will, and pouring out our hearts before God; it is the soul's pulse, and shows the state of the heart; if spiritual life be weak in us, our prayers will be so too. Prayer is, in all ordinary cases, and it always ought to be, a calm and peaceful exercise, not an agitating one.

A LITTLE FOUR-YEAR OLD was saying the Lord's Prayer; and after he had finished it, his mother said, "Now, Sandy, ask God to make you a good boy." The child raised his eyes to his mother's face for a few moments, as if in deep thought, and then startled her with the following reply:-"It's no use, ma. He won't do it. I've asked Him a heap of times."

DR. ARNOLD once lost all patience with a dull scholar, when the pupil looked up in his face and said, "Why do you speak so angrily, sir? Indeed I am doing the best I can." Years after, the doctor used to tell the story to his children, and say, "I never felt so ashamed in my life. That look and that speech I have never forgotten."

IF MEN only thought of their religion as they think of their estates, they would feel the need and value of guaranteed continuity. They could not be rationally and cordially at ease in their own religious professions, without wishing them entailed on posterity.-Alexander Knox.

THE CELEBRATED LINNÆUS always testified in his conversations, writings, and actions the greatest sense of God's omnipresence. He was, indeed, so strongly impressed with this idea, that he wrote over the door of his library, "Live innocently; God is present."

THE KNOWLEDGE of external things will never console us for our ignorance of morality in the time of affliction; but the knowledge of morality will always console us under the ignorance of external things. -Pascal.

THE FIRESIDE.-THE PENNY POST BOX.

The Fireside.

THE WIFE.

ONLY let a woman be sure that she is precious to her husband-not useful, not valuable, not convenient simply, but lovely and beloved; let her be the recipient of his polite and hearty attention; let her feel that her care and love are noticed, appreciated and returned; let her opinion be asked, her approval sought, and her judgment respected in matters of which she is cognizant; in short, let her only be loved, honoured, cherished, in fulfilment of the marriage vow, and she will be to her husband, her children and society, a wellspring of pleasure. She will bear pain, and toil, and anxiety, for her husband's love is to her a tower and fortress. Shielded and sheltered therein, adversity will have lost its sting. She may suffer, but sympathy will dull the edge of sorrow. A house with love in it-and by love I mean love expressed in words and looks and deeds (for I have not one spark of faith in love that never crops out)-is to a house without love as a person to a machine; one is life, the other is a mechanism. The unloved woman may have bread just as light, a house just as tidy as the other, but the latter has a spring of beauty about her, a joyousness, an aggressive, penetrating and pervading brightness, to which the former is a stranger. The deep happiness in her heart shines out in her face. It gleams over it. It is fair and graceful, and warm and welcoming with her presence; she is full of devices and plots and sweet surprises for husband and family. She has never done with the romance and poetry of life. She herself is a lyric poem, setting herself to all pure and gracious melodies. Humble household ways and duties have for her a golden significance. The prize makes her calling high, and the end sanctifies the means. "Love is heaven, and heaven is love."

The Penny Post Box.

TACT.

LOVE swings on little hinges. It keeps an active little servant to do a good deal of its fine work. The name of the little servant is tact. Tact is nimble-footed and quick-fingered; tact sees without looking; tact has always a good deal of small change on hand; tact carries no heavy weapons, but can do wonders with a sling and stone; tact never runs its head against a stone wall; tact always spies a sycamore tree up which to climb when things are becoming crowded and unmanage able on the level ground; tact has a cunning way of availing itself of a word, or a smile, or a gracious wave of the hand; tact carries a bunch of curiously fashioned keys which can turn all sorts of locks;

FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

tact plants its monosyllables wisely, for being a monosyllable itself, it arranges its own order with all the familiarity of friendship; tactsly, versatile, diving, running, flying tact-governs the great world, yet touches the big baby under the impression that it has not been touched at all.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

THE trees like tall, cowled friars stand, More men are drowned in the bowl As if they bore, in masses grand, With pleading hands upraised in prayer, than in the sea. The swaying incense of the air.