HOME, SWEET HOME. 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, CHORUS. Home, home, sweet, sweet home, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. I gaze on the moon, as I trace the drear wild, She looks on that moon from our own cottage door, Through woodbines whose fragrance shall cheer me no more. An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; If I return home overburdened with care, The heart's dearest solace I'm sure to meet there; Makes no other place seem like that of sweet home. Farewell, peaceful cottage! farewell, happy home, John Howard Payne. PLUCK WINS. Pluck wins! It always wins! though days be slow, He gains the prize who will the most endure; Who waits and watches, and who always works. Anon. PAT'S FIRST NIGHT IN TOWN. Two Irishmen fresh from Ireland had just landed in New York and engaged a room in the top story of a hotel. Mike, being very sleepy, threw himself on the bed and was soon fast asleep. The sights were so new and strange to Pat that he sat at the window looking out. Soon an alarm of fire was rung in and a fire engine rushed by throwing up sparks of fire and clouds of smoke. This greatly excited Pat, who called to his comrade to get up and come to the window; but Mike was fast asleep. Another engine soon followed the first, spouting smoke and fire like the former. This was too much for poor Pat, who rushed excitedly to the bedside, and shaking his friend called loudly: "Mike, Mike, wake up! They are moving Hell, and two loads have gone by already." Selected. WHO NE'ER HAS SUFFERED. "Who ne'er has suffered, he has lived but half. Rev. J. B. Goode. VIRGINIA'S LETTER. The other day I received a letter from the little blue-eyed girl, now grown to womanhood, who, in the days long gone by, waited at the gate for my daily home coming. How I am thrilled when I think of those meetings. Looking way down the road she would recognize her papa, and how she would run to meet me; rushing into my arms, putting those chubby arms about my neck, those cherry lips to my own, and greeting me with a kiss. Enclosed in the letter was another. From its hiding place in the pocket of my office coat, I have taken it out this morning to read it over. I often do so, for it brings to me so many sweet memories of other days. Let me quote a few words from the first letter: "When I told Virginia I was writing to Grandpa, she wished to write you a letter also. You probably can read it,” and Virginia's letter is the one I have before me now. Shall I describe it? The paper is the same as the mother's, on which are four closely written pages. Did I say written? Yes, written in the child language; a language perhaps not taught in the schools, but understood by so many, many loving hearts. Those long, scrawling lines, characters that no Mongolian would attempt to imitate; scratches of pencil or pen no expert would attempt to duplicate; and yet this is the letter I carry about with me as I follow the routine of a busy life. There may be some reason why an epistle like this has so much value to me. I remember, years ago my family physician came to me one day and told me the mother of my five babies must go away for a change; she must leave the cares of home and children for a few months; and so she left us never to come back. All through those anxious days, when my time was divided between home and the sick chamber miles away, I would never visit the sick one, who was constantly growing weaker, but I was the bearer of letters like the one before me. With what eagerness that mother would break the seals of those missives, and smile or weep, when she would say to me "I understand every word they have written." Virginia's grandmother and her mother's baby brother lie side by side. The other babies have grown to be men and women, and have left the old home, and I am alone. But when I received such letters as the one I carry in my office coat, "I understand every word" and am young again. J. W. C. Pickering. RECESSIONAL. God of our fathers, known of old- The tumult and the shouting dies- Far-called our navies melt away— On dune and headland sinks the fire Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Or lesser breeds without the Law- For heathen heart that puts her trust Amen. Rudyard Kipling. BENJAMIN BREWSTER'S REPLY. Here is an account, told by Henry J. Erskine of Philadelphia of the only instance in which Benjamin H. Brewster, AttorneyGeneral of the United States during Gen. Arthur's administration, was ever taunted in court of the disfigurement of his face. It occurred during the trial of an important suit involving certain franchise rights of the Pennsylvania railroad in Philadelphia. Mr. Brewster was then the chief counsel of the Pennsylvania company. The trial was a bitterly contested affair, and Brewster at every point got so much the best of the opposing counsel that by the time arguments commenced his leading adversary was in a white heat. In denouncing the railroad company this lawyer with his voice tremulous with anger, exclaimed: "This grasping corporation is as dark, devious, and scarified in its methods as is the face of its chief attorney and henchman, Benjamin Brewster!" This violent outburst of rage and cruel invective was followed by a breathless stillness in the crowded court-room that was painful. Hundreds |