Oh, many a time, with a careless hand,

I have pushed it away from the pebbly strand,
And paddled it down where the stream runs quick,
Where the whirls are wild and the eddies are thick
And laughed as I leaned o'er the rocking side,
And looked below in the broken tide,

To see that the faces and boats were two,
That were mirrored back from the old canoe.

But now, as I lean o'er the crumbling side,
And look below in the sluggish tide,

The face that I see there is graver grown,
And the laugh that I hear has a soberer tone,
And the hands that lent to the light skiff wings
Have grown familiar with sterner things.

But I love to think of the hours that sped

As I rocked where the whirls their white spray shed,
Ere the blossoms waved, or the green grass grew
O'er the mouldering stern of the old canoe.

BILL ARP ON THE RACK.-HE PLEADS ALDERMAN'S DUTIES AT TWO IN THE MORNING.

It's a

E-v-e-r-y night! Here it is half-past one o'clock. wonder you come home at all! What-do-you-think-a woman-is made for? I do believe if a robber was to come

and carry me off, you wouldn't care a▬▬ -What is it you say? City Council business must be attended to! How do I know you go to the city council? Does the city council meet e-v-e-r-y night? Twelve o'clock-one o'clock-two o'clock. Here I stay with the children all alone-lying awake half the night waiting for you. Couldn't come home any sooner! Of course you couldn't if you didn't want to. But I know something; you think I don't, but I do, that I do; I wish I didn't. Where were you last Monday night? Tell me that. The marshal told me the city council didn't meet that night. Now what have you got to say? Couldn't get a quorum! Well, if you couldn't why didn't you come home? Out e-v-e-r-y night-hunting for-a quorum. But you wouldn't hunt for må

this late if I was missing. Where were you on Thursday night and Friday night? There was a show in town, wasn't there? What did you buy that bottle of hair oil for, and hide it? Oil for your hone, indeed! Who ever heard of hair oil for a whetstone? So you think I didn't see you in the other room brushing and greasing your hair, and looking in the glass at your pretty self! A man ought to be decent! He ought, ought he? Yes, indeed, a man ought to, and a decent man will stay at home with his wife sometimes, and not be out e-v-e-r-y night. How comes it that the city council didn't meet but twice a month last year? Trying to work out of debt! Yes, that's probable-very; laughing and joking and smoking and swapping lies will work a debt off, won't it? Now-I--want-to-know-how-much-longer-you

-are-going to keep-up-this-night-business. Yes, I want to know. Out e-v-e-r-y night. City council, Free Masons, shows, hair oil—and brush, and brush, and brush until you've nearly worn out the brush and your head too. What is it you say? It helps your business to keep up your social relations! Ah, indeed! You've got relations here at home, sir. They need keeping up some, I should think. What did you say about catching it the other night at a whist party? “Fellows, it's eleven o'clock, but let's play a while longer- we won't catch it any worse when we get home." A pretty speech for a d-e-c-e-n-t man to make! Catch it! Catch it! Well, I intend you shall catch it a little. What's that you say? If I wouldn't fret you so you would stay at home more! Well, sir, do you stay at home first a few nights and try it, perhaps the fretting would stop. Out e-v-e-r-y night because I fret you so. What's that, sir? You know ladies who ain't You do, do you? How

always a-scolding their husbands ! come you to know them? What business have you to know them? What right have you to know whether other women fret or not? That's always the way. You men think all other women are saints but your wives; oh, yes, saintss-a-i-n-t-s! I'll have you to know, sir, that there isn't a woman in this town that's more of a saint than I am. I know

them all, sir-a h-e-a-p better than you do. You only see the sugar and honey side of them, and they-only-see ~

the-sugar-side-of-you. Now, sir, I just want you to know that if you can't stay at home more than you do, I'll leave these children here to get burnt up, and I'll go out e-v-e-r-y night. When a poor woman gets desperate, why, sir, she is -SHE IS DESPERATE, that's all.

THE MAGICAL ISLE.

There's a magical isle in the River of Time,
Where softest of echoes are straying;
And the air is as soft as a musical chime,
Or the exquisite breath of a tropical clime
When June with its roses is swaying.

'Tis where Memory dwells with her pure golden hue,
And music forever is flowing:

While the low-murmured tones that come trembling through Sadly trouble the heart, yet sweeten it too,

As the south wind o'er water when blowing.

There are shadowy halls in that fairy-like isle,
Where pictures of beauty are gleaming;

Yet the light of their eyes, and their sweet, sunny smile,
Only flash round the heart with a wildering wile,

And leave us to know 'tis but dreaming.

And the name of this isle is the Beautiful Past,
And we bury our treasures all there:

There are beings of beauty too lovely to last;

There are blossoms of snow, with the dust o'er them cast;
There are tresses and ringlets of hair.

There are fragments of song only memory sings,
And the words of a dear mother's prayer;

There's a harp long unsought, and a lute without strings-
Hallowed tokens that love used to wear.

E'en the dead,- the bright, beautiful dead-there arise,
With their soft, flowing ringlets of gold:

Though their voices are hushed, and o'er their sweet eyes,
The unbroken signet of silence now lies,

They are with us again, as of old.

In the stillness of night, hands are beckoning us there,
And, with joy that is almost a pain,

We delight to turn back, and in wandering there,
Through the shadowy halls of the island so fair,
We behold our lost treasures again.

Dh! this beautiful isle, with its phantom-like show,
Is a vista exceedingly bright:

And the River of Time, in its turbulent flow,
Is oft soothed by the voices we heard long ago,
When the years were a dream of delight.

FAITH AND WORKS.-ALICE CARY.

Not what we think, but what we do,
Makes saints of us: all stiff and cold,
The outlines of the corpse show through
The cloth of gold.

And in despite the outward sin,-
Despite belief with creeds at strife,
The principle of love within

Leavens the life.

For 'tis for fancied good, I claim,

That men do wrong,-not wrong's desire;
Wrapping themselves, as 'twere, in flame,
To cheat the fire.

Not what God gives, but what He takes,
Uplifts us to the holiest height;

On truth's rough crags life's current breaks
To diamond light.

From transient evil I do trust

That we a final good shall draw;

That in confusion, death, and dust,
Are light and law.

That He whose glory shines among

The eternal stars, descends to mark
This foolish little atom swung
Loose in the dark.

But though I should not thus receive
A sense of order and control,

My God, I could not disbelieve
My sense of soul.

For though, alas! I can but see

A hand's breadth backward, or before,

I am, and since I am, must be

Forevermore.

DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.-EDWARD IRVING.

There never was a specimen of manhood so rich and ennobled as David, the son of Jesse, whom other saints haply may have equalled in single features of his character; but such a combination of manly, heroic qualities, such a flush of generous, godlike excellencies, hath never yet been seen embodied in a single man. His Psalms, to speak as a man, do place him in the highest rank of lyrical poets, as they set him above all the inspired writers of the Old Testament,equalling in sublimity the flights of Isaiah himself, and revealing the cloudy mystery of Ezekiel; but in love of country, and glorying in its heavenly patronage, surpassing them all. And where are there such expressions of the varied conditions into which human nature is cast by the accidents of Providence, such delineations of deep affliction and inconsolable anguish, and anon such joy, such rapture, such revelry of emotion in the worship of the living God! such invocations to all nature, animate and inanimate, such summonings of the hidden powers of harmony and of the breathing instruments of melody! Single hymns of this poet would have conferred immortality upon any mortal, and borne down his name as one of the most favored of the sons of men.

But it is not the writings of the man which strike us with such wonder, as the actions and events of his wonderful history. He was a hero without a peer, bold in battle and generous in victory: by distress or by triumph never overcome. Though hunted like a wild beast among the mountains, and forsaken like a pelican in the wilderness, by the country whose armies he had delivered from disgrace, and by the monarch whose daughter he had won,-whose son he had bound to him with cords of brotherly love, and whose own soul he was wont to charm with the sacredness of his minstrelsy, he never indulged malice or revenge against his unnatural enemies. Twice, at the peril of his life, he brought his blood-hunter within his power, and twice he spared him, and would not be persuaded to injure a hair upon his head, -who, when he fell in his high places, was lamented over