DEACON MUNROE'S STORY.-N. S. EMERSON.

Yes, surely the bells in the steeple

Were ringin'. I thought you knew why.
No? Well, then, I'll tell you, though mostly
It's whispered about on the sly.
Some six weeks ago, a church meetin'
Was held, for-nobody knew what;
But we went, and the parson was present,
And I don't know who, or who not.

Some twenty odd members, I calc'late,
Which mostly was wimmin, of course;
But I don't mean to say aught ag'in 'em;
I've seen many gatherin's look worse.
And, in the front row sat the deacons,
The eldest was old Deacon Pryor,
A man countin' fourscore and seven,
And gin'rally full of his ire.

Beside him, his wife, aged fourscore,
A kind-hearted, motherly soul;
And next to her, young Deacon Hartley,
A good Christian man, on the whole.
Miss Parsons, a spinster of fifty,

And long ago laid on the shelf,

Had wedged herself next; and beside her
Was Deacon Munroe-that's myself.

The meetin' was soon called to order,

The parson looked glum as a text;

We silently stared at each other,

And every one wondered, "What next!" When straightway uprose Deacon Hartley; His voice seemed to tremble with fear

As he said: "Boy and man, you have known me,
My friends, for this nigh forty year.

"And you scarce may expect a confession
Of error from me; but-you know
My dearly loved wife died last Christmas,
It's now over ten months ago.

The winter went by long and lonely,
But the springtime crep' forward apace;
The farm-work begun, and I needed
A woman about the old place.

"My children were wilder than rabbits,
And all growing worse every day;
I could find no help in the village,
Although I was willin' to pay.
I declare I was near 'bout discouraged,
And everything looked so forlorn,
When good little Patience McAlpine
Skipped into our kitchen, one morn.

"She had only run in of an errand;
But she laughed at our woe-begone plight,
And set to work, just like a woman,
A putting the whole place to right.
And though her own folks was so busy,
And illy her helpin' could spare,
She'd flit in and out like a sparrow,
And most every day she was there.

"So the summer went by sort o' cheerful,
But one night my baby, my Joe,
Was restless and feverish, and woke me
As babies will often, you know.

I was tired with my day's work and sleepy,
And couldn't no way keep him still;
So at last I grew angry, and spanked him,
And then he screamed out with a will.

""Twas just then I heard a soft rapping,
Away at the half-open door;
And then little Patience McAlpine
Stepped shyly across the white floor.
Says she, 'I thought Josey was crying;
I guess I'd best take him away.
I knew you'd be getting up early
To go to the marshes for hay,

"So I staid here to-night, to get breakfast;
I guess he'll be quiet with me.
Come, baby, kiss papa, and tell him

What a nice little man he will be!'
She was bending low over the baby,
And saw the big tears on his cheek;
But her face was so close to my whiskers,
I daresn't move, scarcely, or speak;

"Her arms were both holding the baby, Her eyes by his shoulder was hid; But her mouth was so near and so rosy,

That I-kissed her. That's just what I did." Then down sat the tremblin' sinner,

The sisters they murmured "For shame." And "She shouldn't oughter a let him.

No doubt she was mostly to blame."

When slowly uprose Deacon Pryor.
"Now, brethren and sisters," he said,
(We knowed then that suthin' was comin',
And we sot as still as the dead.)

"We've heard brother Hartley's confession,
And I speak for myself when I say,
That if my wife was dead, and my children
Were all growin' wuss every day;

"And if my house needed attention,
And Patience McAlpine should come
And tidy the cluttered-up kitchen,

And make the place seem more like home;
And if I was tired out and sleepy,
And my baby wouldn't lie still,

But cried out at midnight and woke me,
As babies, we know, sometimes will;

"And if Patience came in to hush him,
And 'twas all as our good brother says,
I think, friends-I think I should kiss her,
And 'bide by the consequences."
Then down sat the elderly deacon,
The younger one lifted his face,
And a smile rippled over the meetin'
Like light in a shadowy place.

Perhaps, then, the matronly sisters
Remembered their far-away youth,
Or the daughters at home by their firesides,
Shrined each in her shy, modest truth;
For their judgments grew gentle and kindly,
And-well! as I started to say,

The solemn old bells in the steeple

Were ringing a bridal to-day.

-Appleton's Journal

LITERARY PURSUITS AND ACTIVE BUSINESS. A. H. EVERETT.

Heed not the idle assertion that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life. Reject it as a mere imagination, inconsistent with principle, unsupported by experience. Point out to those who make it the illustrious characters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes forging, by the light of the midnight lamp, those thunderbolts of eloquence, which

"Shook the arsenal, fulmined over Greece,

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Cæsar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from heaven and the sceptre from the hands of the oppressors. Do they say to you that study will lead you to skepticism? Recall to their memory the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure? Tell them they are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. Repeat to them the ancient apologue of the youthful Hercules, in the pride of strength and beauty, giving up his generous soul to the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in the wrong with Plato, than in the right with Epicurus. Tell them that a mother in Sparta would have rather seen her son brought home from battle a

corpse upon his shield, than dishonored by its loss. Tell them that your mother is America, your battle the warfare of lips, your shield the breastplate of Religion.

ARTEMUS WARD ON WOMAN'S RIGHTS. C. F. BROWN.

I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day last seeson, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a deppytashun of ladies came up & sed they wos members of the Bunkumville Female Moral Reformin & Wimin's Rite's Associashun, and thay axed me if thay cood go in without payin. "Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in." "Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimin- -a tall and feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton umbreller under her arm-'do you know who we air Sir?"

"My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that you air females."

'We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman-"we belong to a Society whitch beleeves wimin has rites-which beleeves in razin her to her proper speer—whitch beleeves she is indowed with as much intelleck as man is-whitch beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed-& who will resist hense4th & forever the incroachments of proud & domineering men."

Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabed me by the coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly over my hed.

"I hope, marm, sez I, starting back, "that your intensions is honorable? I'm a lone man hear in a strange place. Besides, I've a wife to hum."

"Yes," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she never dream of freedom-doth she never think of throwin off the yoke of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself? -Doth she never think of these here things?"