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XXIII.—MAGNIFICENT DISTANCES.

ASTRONOMERS estimate that some of the most distant stars, seen by Lord Rosse's telescope, give to the earth the rays of light which left them fifty thousand years ago, having taken all that time, at the rate of two hundred thousand miles, or eight times round our earth, in one second, to reach us; that the rays emitted now will not reach our solar system until another fifty thousand years have passed away. Take our earth for a central point, and

one of these distant stars being due east and another due west, their distance from each other would be double this distance from the earth; or, one hundred thousand years would be consumed in the passage of rays of light from one to the other, more time than is allotted to three thousand generations of the human race. If the time so occupied is inconceivably vast, how can we form any conception of the distance? Multiply the one hundred thousand years, reduced to seconds, by two hundred thousand, and you get the distance between two such stars in miles, but the number is absolutely overwhelming.

We have only begun to look a comparatively small distance out into infinite space, or perhaps into, to us, the unlimited creation. We may imagine a million of stars placed in a straight line, each as far distant from its next as the two we have above supposed, and yet the distance between the two last extremes would be too short for a measure to measure across the vast creation, though extended over new space once in each minute, for a million years.

How vast, how infinite, that Eternal Mind which filled these unmeasurable spaces with the creations we are able to see and contemplate, and whose presence intelligently fills the entire bounds of infinite space! Whose knowledge and power are not exhausted on the grand, the sublime system of the universe, but also employed in giving and sustaining life to the myriads of the microscopic insects in all the vast

universe, without diverting his attention at any time from either the greatest or smallest object within the range of our conceptions!

How appropriate to turn our eyes from all this vastness, and look at ourselves, inhabitants of this little "dirty speck men call earth!" How diminutive the size of man's body compared with these vast distances! How short his earthly duration, when measured by the vast ages and periods involved in the creation of the universe! How contracted the capacities of his mind compared with the allembracing intelligence of that powerful mind who originated, preserves, and regulates the boundless creation! How proper to repress the swellings of pride, to thus discover our own nothingness, and how appropriate to humble ourselves before that Being, who gave and preserves our existence !

XXIV.-FORTY YEARS AGO.

I'VE wandered to the village, Tom,
I've sat beneath the tree,
Upon the school-house play-ground,
That sheltered you and me;

But none were there to greet me, Tom,
And few were left to know

Who played with us upon the green,
Just forty years ago.

The grass was just as green, Tom,
Barefooted boys at play

Were sporting, just as we did then,
With spirits just as gay.

But the master sleeps upon the hill,
Which, coated o'er with snow,
Afforded us a sliding-place,

Some forty years ago.

The old school-house is altered some
The benches are replaced

By new ones, very like the same
Our jack-knives had defaced.

But the same old bricks are in the wall,
And the bell swings to and fro,
Its music's just the same, dear Tom,
'Twas forty years ago.

The spring that bubbled 'neath the hill,
Close by the spreading beech,

Is very low; 'twas once so high
That we could scarcely reach;

And kneeling down to take a drink,
Dear Tom, I started so,

To think how very much I've changed
Since forty years ago.

Near by that spring, upon an elm,
You know I cut your name,

Your sweetheart's just beneath it, Tom,
And you did mine the same.

Some heartless wretch has peeled the bark

'Twas dying sure, but slow,

Just as she died whose name you cut

There forty years ago.

My lids have long been dry, Tom,
But tears came in my eyes;
I thought of her I loved so well,
Those early broken ties.

I visited the old church-yard,

And took some flowers to strow Upon the graves of those we loved Just forty years ago.

Some are in the church-yard laid,
Some sleep beneath the sea;
But none are left of our old class,
Excepting you and me.

And when our time shall come, Tom,
And we are called to go,

I hope we'll meet with those we loved
Some forty years ago.

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XXV. DRUNKARDS NOT ALL BRUTES.

IT is often said that reckless victims of intemperance are brutes. No, they are not brutes. I have labored for about eighteen years among them, and I have never found one that was a brute. I have had men swear at me; I have had a man dance around me as if possessed of a devil, and spit his foam in my face, but he was not a brute.

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I think it is Charles Dickens who says: "Away up a great many pair of stairs, in a very remote corner, easily passed by, there is a door, and on that door is written Woman.' And so in the heart of the vile outcast, away up a great many pair of stairs, in a very remote corner, easily passed by, there is a door on which is written 'Man." Here is our business: to find that door. It may take time, but begin and knock. Don't get tired, but remember God's long-suffering for us, and keep knocking a long time, if need be. Don't get weary if there is no answer; remember Him whose locks were wet with dew. Knock on-just try it-you try it; and just so sure as you do, just so sure, by and by, will the quivering lip and starting tear tell you have knocked at the heart of a man and not of a brute. It is because these poor wretches are men and not brutes that we have hopes of them.

I remember a man of whom it was said, "He is a brute; let him alone." I took him home with me and kept the "brute" fourteen days and nights through his delirium; and he nearly frightened my wife out of her wits, once. chasing her about the house with a boot in his hand; but she recovered her wits and he recovered his. He said to

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live?"

think I had a wife and child?"

"I have, and, God bless her little

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heart, my little Mary is as pretty a little thing as ever stepped," said the "brute." I asked, "Where do they "They live two miles from here." When did you see them last?" "About two years ago." Then he told me his story. I said, "You must go back home again." "I must n't go back; I won't; my wife is better without me than with me! I will not go back any more; I have knocked her, and kicked her, and abused her do you suppose I will go back again?"

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Now, come

on one side

I waited to

I went to the house with him; I knocked at the door, and his wife opened it. "Is this Mrs. Richardson?" "Yes, sir." "Well, here is Mr. Richardson. into the house." They went in. The wife sat of the room and the "brute" on the other. see who would speak first, and it was the woman. She pulled her apron till she got hold of the hem, and then she pulled it down again. Then she folded it up closely, and jerked it through her fingers an inch at a time, and then. she spread it all down again; and then she looked all about the room, and said, "Well, William?" And the brute said, "Well, Mary?"

He had a large handkerchief round his neck, and she said, "You had better take the handkerchief off, William ; you'll need it when you go out." He began to fumble about it. The knot was large enough; he could have untied it if he liked; but he said, "Will you untie it, Mary?" and she worked away at it, but her fingers were clumsy and she could n't get it off. Their eyes met, and the love-light was not all quenched; she opened her arms gently and he fell into them. If you had seen those white arms clasped about his neck, and he sobbing on her breast, and the child looking first at one and then at the other, you would have said, He is not a brute; he is a man with a great, big, warm heart in his breast."

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