His virtues, being overdone, his face

Too grave, his prayers too long, his charities
Too pompously attended, and his speech
Larded too frequently, and out of time,
With serious phraseology, were rents

That in his garments opened in spite of him,
Thro' which the well-accustomed eye could see
The rottenness of his heart.

THE MISER.

BUT there is one in folly farther gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,

The laughing-stock of demons and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up—
The miser, who with dust inanimate

Holds wedded intercourse.

Ill-guided wretch

-Pollok.

Thou mayst have seen him at the midnight hour-
When good men sleep, and in light-winged dreams
Send up their souls to God-in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin
And bone, and wrapt in most debasing rags—
Thou mayst have seen him bending o'er his heaps,
And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seems to hear
The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,
That palsy shakes, grasping the yellow earth
To make it sure.

Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased;
Of all that sell Eternity for Time,

None bargain on so easy terms with Death.
Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sits among his bags, and, with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drives the poor
Away unalmsed, and midst abundance dies,
Sorest of evils! dies of utter want.

-Pollok.

LXXIII.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

A MERRY HEART.

THE merry heart, the merry heart,
Of heaven's gifts I hold thee best;
And they who feel its pleasant throb,
Though dark their lot, are truly blest.
From youth to age it changes not,

In joy and sorrow still the same;
When skies are dark, and tempests scowl,
It shines a steady beacon flame.

It gives to beauty half its power,

The nameless charm worth all the rest,
The light that dances o'er the face,
And speaks of sunshine in the breast.

If beauty ne'er have set her seal,
It well supplies her absence, too,
And many a cheek looks passing fair,
Because a merry heart shines through.

TRIUMPH.

NoT he who rides through conquered city's gate, At head of blazoned hosts, and to the sound Of victors' trumpets, in full pomp and state

Of war, the utmost pitch has dreamed or found To which the thrill of triumph can be wound;

Not he who by a nation's vast acclaim

Is sudden sought and singled out alone,
And while the people madly shout his name,
Without a conscious purpose of his own
Is swung and lifted to the nation's throne;
But he who has all single-handed stood,
With foes invisible on every side,

And, unsuspected of the multitude,

The force of fate itself has dared defied, And conquered silently. Ah, that soul knows In what white heat the blood of triumph glows!

LXXIV. THE WONDERS OF AN ATOM.

ALL things visible around us are aggregations of atoms. From particles of dust, which under the microscope could scarcely be distinguished one from the other, are all the varied forms of nature created. This grain of dust, this particle of sand, has strange properties and powers. Science has discovered some, but still more truths are hidden within this irregular molecule of matter which we now survey than even philosophy dares dream of. How strangely it obeys the impulses of heat-mysterious are the influences of light upon it-electricity wonderfully excites it—and still more curious is the manner in which it obeys the magic of chemical force. These are phenomena which we have seen; we know them and we can reproduce them at our pleasure. We have advanced a little way into the secrets of nature, and from the spot we have gained we look forward with a vision somewhat brightened by our task; but we discover so much yet unknown that we learn another truth our vast ignorance of many things relating to this grain of dust.

It gathers around it other particles; they cling together, and each acting upon every other one, and all of them arranging themselves around the little center, according to some law, a beautiful crystal results, the geometric perfection of its form being a source of admiration.

It quickens with yet undiscovered energies; it moves with life; dust and vital force combine; blood and bone, nerve and muscle result from the combination. Forces which we can not by the utmost refinements of our philosophy detect, direct the whole, and from the same dust which formed the rock and grew in the tree, is produced a living and a breathing thing, capable of receiving a divine illumination, of bearing in its new state the gladness and the glory of a soul.

-Hunt's " Poetry of Science."

LXXV.-THE MODEL CHURCH.

WELL, wife, I've found the model church! I worshiped there to-day!

It made me think of good old times before my hairs were gray;
The meetin'-house was fixed up more than they were years ago,
But then I felt when I went in it was n't built for show.

The sexton didn't seat me away back by the door,-
He knew that I was old and deaf, as well as old and poor;
He must have been a Christian, for he led me boldly through
The long aisle of that crowded church to find a pleasant pew.
I wish you'd heard the singin': it had the old-time ring:
The preacher said with trumpet-voice, "Let all the people sing!"
The tune was "Coronation," and the music upward rolled,
Till I thought I heard the angels playing on their harps of gold.

My deafness seemed to melt away; my spirit caught the fire;
I joined my feeble, trembling voice with that melodious choir,
And sang, as in my youthful days, "Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of all."

I tell you, wife, it did me good to sing that hymn once more;
I felt like some wrecked mariner who gets a glimpse of shore;
I almost wanted to lay down this weather-beaten form,
And anchor in the blessed port forever from the storm.

The preachin'? Well, I can't just tell all that the preacher said:
I know it wasn't written; I know it wasn't read;
He hadn't time to read it, for the lightnin' of his eye
Went flashing long from pew to pew, nor passed a sinner by.

The sermon was n't flowery: 'twas simple gospel truth;
It fitted poor old men like me; it fitted hopeful youth;
'Twas full of compensation for weary hearts that bleed;
'Twas full of invitations, too, to Christ, and not to creed.

The preacher made sin hideous, in Gentiles and in Jews;
He shot the golden sentences down in the finest pews;
And though I can't see very well-I saw the falling tear
That told me hell was some ways off, and heaven very near.

How swift the golden moments fled, within that holy place; How brightly beamed the light of heaven from every happy face; Again I longed for that sweet time when friend shall meet with

friend,

"When congregations ne'er break up, and Sabbath has no end."

I hope to meet that minister-that congregation, too-
In the dear home beyond the stars that shine from heaven's blue;
I doubt not I'll remember, beyond life's evening gray,
The happy hours of worship in that model church to-day.

Dear wife, the fight will soon be fought-the victory be won;
The shinin' goal is just ahead: the race is nearly run;
O'er the river we are nearin', they are thronging to the shore,
To shout our safe arrival where the weary weep no more.
-John H. Yates.

LXXVI. THE PERSONALITY AND USES OF A LAUGH.

I WOULD be willing to choose my friend by the quality of his laugh, and abide the issue. A glad, gushing outflowa clear, ringing, mellow note of the soul, as surely indicates a genial and genuine nature as the rainbow in the dew-drop heralds the morning sun, or the frail flower in the wilderness betrays the zephyr-tossed seed of the parterre. A laugh is one of God's truths. It tolerates no disguises. Falsehood may train its voice to flow in softest cadences— its lips to wreathe into smiles of surpassing sweetness-its face

but its laugh will betray the mockery. Who has not started and shuddered at the hollow "he-he-he!" of some velvet-voiced Mephistopheles, whose sinuous fascinations, without this note of warning-this premonitory rattlemight have bound the soul with a strong spell!

Leave nature alone. If she is noble, her broadest expression will soon tone itself down to fine accordance with