LVII. EXTRACT FROM

WHITTIER.

1. THE moon above the easter

Shone at its full; the hill-1
Transfigured in the silver f
Its blown snows flashing co
Dead white, save where son
Took shadow, or the sombe
Of hemlocks turned to pitcl
Against the whiteness at th
For such a world and such
Most fitting that unwarming
Which only seemed where'e
To make the coldness visibl

2. Shut in from all the world
We sat the clean-winged hea
Content to let the north wi
In baffled rage at pane and
While the red logs before us
The frost-line back with tro
And ever, when a louder bla
Shook beam and rafter as it
The merrier up its roaring d
The great throat of the chim

3. The house-dog on his paws
Laid to the fire his drowsy 1
The cat's dark silhouette on
A couchant tiger's seemed to

And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And close at hand the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow.
O Time and Change!- with hair as gray
As was my sire's that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now,-
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.

Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees,
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o'er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,

No step is on the conscious floor'

GIANT DESPAIR AND DOUBTING

CASTLE.

BUNYAN.

NYAN, a tinker and preacher, was born near Bedford in Eng, and died in 1688. The following extract is taken from his im"The Pilgrim's Progress," which was written in Bedford jail, as imprisoned twelve years for preaching. Speaking of the ogress, Mr. J. R. Green says: "It is probably the most popu widely known of all English books. Its English is the simplest t English which has ever been used by any great English writer. his tale with such a perfect naturalness that allegories become that the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle are as real to ve see every day, that we know Mr. Legality and Mr. Worldly if we had met them in the street."

this piece, with what clearness and force Bunyan expresses his means of short, easy words.

and Hopeful, leaving the king's highway, get over a stile, and e grounds of Giant Despair.

Y could not, with all the skill they had, get he stile that night. Wherefore at last, lighting Ittle shelter, they sat down there till daybreak; I weary they fell asleep. Now there was, not the place where they lay, a castle, called Doubt e, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it is grounds they now were sleeping; wherefore g up in the morning early, and walking up and his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep ounds. Then with a grim and surly voice he n awake, and asked them whence they were, they did in his grounds. They told him they rims, and that they had lost their way.

n said the giant, "You have this night tresme by trampling in and lying on my grounds, efore you must go along with me." So they

in a fault. The giant therefore drove and put them into his castle, in a v Here, then, they lay from Wednesday day night, without one bit of bread, o light, or any to ask how they did.

3. Now Giant Despair had a wife, Diffidence; so when he was gone to wife what he had done, to wit, tha couple of prisoners, and cast them int trespassing on his grounds. Then he had best do further to them. She co when he arose in the morning, he without mercy.

4. So when he arose he getteth hin tree cudgel, and goes down into the and there first falls to rating them as Then he falls upon them, and beats such sort that they were not able to h to turn them upon the floor. This do and leaves them there to condole the mourn under their distress; so all the the time in nothing but sighs and la

5. The next night, she, talking w further about them, and understandin yet alive, advised him to counsel the with themselves. So, when morning w to them in a surly manner, as befor them to be very sore with the stripes t them the day before, he told them that never like to come out of that place would be forthwith to make an end