who so frequently walks among the tombs, and has to weep over the ravages of death, should require to be reminded of his own mortality,that the seeds of death which he beholds levelling others around him are within himself,-and that he is swiftly passing on to the same goal at which they have already arrived. "We all fade as a leaf." Yes, however green in youth, health, and vigour, we may be, we are constantly approaching the sere and yellow leaf of middle life, old age, decay, and death. The work is ever going on, it stays not; as yet, it may be, it shows not itself; no wrinkle lines the brow; the cheek as yet exhibits not the furrows of old age; still is it true, we all fade as a leaf." There is a latent fire within that will consume and blanch the cheek, and dim the eye, and close the ear; silver the locks, dry up the flow of warm and vigorous thought, palsy the hand, and make the strong man bend and move at last as feebly as the child whose infant steps require a mother's hand to stay and guide. "To dust thou shalt return," makes all move on, to "fade as doth a leaf." Gradually, insensibly, from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, thence to old age, we melt away, silently, imperceptibly; we scarcely note the intermediate steps, until before us lies an open grave, towards which our tottering steps bear us along. "We all fade as a leaf," irrevocably. Paint up the leaf we cannot; say to the yellow spot, "Thou shalt not spread," we cannot; fade,-die, -it will. Thou, oh, youth, see here thy destiny; within the vigorous current which now fills thy veins, and gives the glow of health and beauty to thy face, there lurk the seeds of death. Be wise and ponder these words, "We all fade as a leaf," and ere the evil day shall come, when, as the yellow leaf hangs feebly to the branch before it falls, thy life wasted, decrepid, hangs o'er the grave, seek that grace which flows from Christ, and which will make thee strong even there, and to the immortal spirit give a glow of health death cannot touch, and which shall never die. And thou, too, aged friend, needest thou to hear, "We all fade as a leaf"? Another summer has wellnigh passed away; thy outward form bespeaks thy passage to the tomb. The storm of death is near; and when this strong wind comes to beat upon thy frail and trembling form, to shake thee from thy place, where wilt thou fall? Is Christ thy all? Then well; the earth will take the brittle fibres of thy being for awhile; but, oh, thy soul, the bosom of thy God shall it receive! But should Christ be unknown, unloved, what then? Alas, poor aged man, the cold, sharp, outting wind of death will tear thee hence, and bear thee to that dreadful sea of wrath, where Christless souls, upborne upon its heaving waves, for ever mourn, ruined and worthless, irrevocably lost. "We all fade as a leaf." What then, believer? Should we not seek more deadness to the world? and worldly cares, should they so bow us down? We are not to be here long; we cannot; then why so much concern about the things we soon must leave?-why should they plague us so? And labour; yes, we have much to do, and little time allotted us; then let us be up and doing while it is day. And time; should we not seize the moments as they pass, and put them under tribute for our God? they are not ours. Oh, may we cease to trifle! And ought we not to love the gospel more,-the precious truth which never fails, which lights our path with joy, gives strength, and points us to the skies? And death; are we continually approaching it? and should we not prepare? Oh, let us not sit still until he comes upon us as an armed man to take us by surprise, but aim to live as those whose faith keeps steadfastly in view these solemn words: "We all fade as a leaf," and who expect ere long to see the Lord they love. Hammersmith. "RAP HIM AGAIN, SHARPLY." It was near sunset when I found myself at no great distance from a cottage, which had attached to it a piece of waste ground, partly surrounded with a fence of high boards. While looking up at the manycoloured clouds, in the direction where the sun was declining in the sky, my attention was arrested by the sound of repeated blows, which appeared to be struck on a soft substance. Blow followed blow in such a regular manner, that they reminded me of men thrashing in a barn with a couple of flails, only the sound was much duller than that made by thrashers. All at once the blows ceased, and then I heard a man cry out, "Rap him again, sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet." The moment I came to the end of the high fence, I saw a large carpet, stretched on a rope, between two poles, and two men beating it with all their might. The mystery was now made plain, and I no longer wondered at the words, "Rap him again, sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet!" Now the thought may be considered a little fanciful, but it did occur to me that most of us have required, in our time, as hearty a drubbing as the carpet had received. Yes," said I, "we all need to be tried, and chastised, and humbled, for we are proud, and selfish, and worldly-minded; we think much of earth, and little of heaven; much of ourselves, and little of our heavenly Father; and beating is not more necessary to a dusty carpet, than trial is to those whose hearts are cleaving to the dust. Now, considering the matter in this light, the wonder is not that we are beaten, but that we are not always being beaten,-not that we should have affliction, but that we should ever be free from affliction,-for we bring it upon ourselves by our transgressions. "No earthly power can ward the coming blow, Truly, we have all been dealt with very tenderly; what mercy is mingled with the seeming severity of the words of the Holy One, when speaking of his people, "If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from them, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." (Psalm lxxxix. 31—33.) As I returned from my pleasant walk, at the very moment that I repassed the cottage and the high fence, the same voice which I had heard before, cried out, There, let us take him down now, for he looks all the better for his beating!" 66 "Well," thought I, "the beaten carpet was not at all likely to be forgotten by me before, but now it is pretty sure to be retained in my memory. That it looks the better for being beaten, I have no doubt at all. My evening walk has not been in vain, for I have at least obtained a subject for reflection." If we all more steadily believed that the rod is meant to purify us, or, in other words, to get dust out of us, we then might sit more quietly under the merciful corrections of our heavenly Father. How does this apply to you, my readers? Have you been beaten, and are you the better for it? Have any of you been visited with trouble, and can you say, "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I have kept thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes"? (Ps. cxix. 67–71.) "Look up! look up! when troubles frown, Hardly do I think that any of us reflect sufficiently on the value of our daily cares, which are perhaps, after all, as necessary as our daily bread. When they draw us to our heavenly Father, we have indeed reason to be thankful for them. Sweet it is in the day of calamity and the hour of trial, to be able to cast all our cares on Him who careth for us. "Sweet in the confidence of faith, To trust his firm decrees; Oh, the buffettings and beatings through which many of God's people have passed! Look over a small part of the "bill of fare," if I may so call it, of St. Paul's afflictions: "Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been on the deep : in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." Yet all these were blessed to him! You must think over this subject, and see if you cannot turn it to more advantage than I have done. The words of Holy Writ are very encouraging: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." (Heb. xii. 5, 6.) And again: "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Heb. xii. 12.) This little adventure of the beaten carpet often occurs to my remembrance, and especially so when any expected evil is overruled for good, or when my heart is humbled by any passing trouble. Again and again do the words appear to sound in my ears, one time producing a smile, and at another an emotion of a much deeper kind: "Rap him again, sharply, for he has a deal of dust in him yet;" and, "There, let us take him down now, for he looks all the better for his beating." "GO, WORK TO-DAY IN MY VINEYARD.” Tales and Sketches. OLD TIFF AND HIS MISTRESS. BY MRS. H. B. STOWE.* "I say, Tiff, do you think he will come to-night?" "Laws, laws, missis, how can Tiff tell? I's been a gazin' out de do'. Don't see nor hear nothin'." "It's so lonesome!-so lonesome and the night's so long!" And the speaker, an emaciated, feeble little woman, turned herself uneasily on the ragged pallet where she was lying, and, twirling her slender fingers nervously, gazed up at the rough, unplastered beams abore. The woman, who lay upon a coarse chaff pallet in the corner, was one who once might have been pretty. Her skin was fair, her hair soft and curling, her eyes of a beautiful blue, her hands thin and transparent as pearl. But the deep, dark circles under the eyes, the thin, white lips, the attenuated limbs, the hurried breathing, and the burning spots in the cheek, told that, whatever she might have been, she was now not long for this world. Beside her bed was sitting an old negro, in whose close curling wool age had begun to sprinkle flecks of white. His countenance presented, physically, one of the most uncomely specimens of negro features; and would have been positively frightful, had it not been redeemed by an expression of cheerful kindliness which beamed from it. His face was of ebony blackness, with a wide, upturned nose, a mouth of portentous size, guarded by clumsy lips, revealing teeth which a shark might have envied. The only fine feature was his large, black eyes, which, at the present, were concealed by a huge pair of plated spectacles, placed very low upon his nose, and through which he was directing his sight upon a child's stocking, that he was busily darning. At his foot was a rude cradle, made of a gumtree log, hollowed out into a trough, and wadded by various old fragments of flannel, in which slept a very young infant. Another child, of about three years of age, was sitting on the negro's knee, busily playing with some pine-cones and mosses. The figure of the old negro was low and stooping; and he wore, pinned round his shoulders, a half-handkerchief or shawl of red flannel, arranged much as an old woman would have arranged it. One or two needles, with coarse black thread dangling to them, were stuck in on his shoulder; and, as he busily darned on the little stocking, he kept up a kind of droning intermixture of chanting and talking to the child on his knee. "So, ho, Teddy!—bub dar !—my man !— sit still!-'cause yer ma's sick, and sister's gone for medicine. Dar, Tiff 'll sing to his little man. "Christ was born in Bethlehem, Take car, dar!-dat ar needle scratch yer little fingers!-poor little fingers! Ah, be still; now!-play wid yer pretty tings, and see what yer pa 'll bring ye!" "Oh, dear me !-well!" said the woman on the bed," I shall give up!" "Bress de Lord, no, missis!" said Tiff, laying down the stocking, and holding the child to him with one hand, while the other was busy in patting and arranging the bed-clothes. "No use in givin' up! Why, Lord bress you, missis, we'll be all up right agin in a few days. Work has been kinder pressin' lately, and chil'ns clothes an't quite so 'speckable; but den I's doin' heaps o' merdin'. See dat ar!" said he, holding up a slip of red flannel, resplendent with a black patch; "dat ar hole won't go no furdur-and it does well enough for Teddy to wear rollin' round de do,' and such like times, to save his bettermost. And de way I'se put de yarn in dese yer stockings an't slow. Den I'se laid out to take a stitch in Teddy's shoes; and dat ar hole in de kiverlet, dat ar'll be stopped 'fore morning. Oh, let me alone!-he! he! he! Ye didn't keep Tiff for nothing missis,-ho! ho! ho!" And the black face seemed really to become unctuous with the oil of gladness, as Tiff proceeded in his work of consola tion. “Oh, Tiff, Tiff! you're a good creature! But you don't know. Here I've been lying alone, day after day, and he's off nobody The above story has just appeared in The Freeman, as an advance publication of a chapter of Mrs. H. B. Stowe's anti-slavery novel. The work is just ready, published first in this country. It will be read with universal interest if this chapter is a sample of the whole. knows where! And when he comes, it'll be only a day, and he's off; and all he does don't amount to anything, all miserable rubbish brought home and traded off for other rubbish. Oh, what a fool I was for being married! Oh, dear, girls little know what marriage is! I thought it was so dreadful to be on old maid, and a pretty thing to get married! But, oh, the pain, and worry, and sickness, and suffering, I've gone through!-always wandering from place to place, never settled; one thing going after another, worrying, watching, weary, and all for nothing, for I'm worn out, and I shall die!" "Oh, Lord, no!" said Tiff, earnestly. "Lor, Tiff 'll make ye some tea, and give it to ye, ye poor lamb! It's drefful hard, so't is; but times 'll mend, and massa 'll come round and be more settled, like, and Teddy will grow up and help his ma; and I'm sure dere isn't a peartier young un dan dis yer puppet!" said he, turning fondly to the trough where the little fat, red mass of incipient humanity was beginning to throw up two small fists, and to utter sundry small squeaks, to intimate his desire to come into notice. and blew the coals ringer, which, like Then he knelt down under the little porpine-coals in general, always sulked and looked black when somebody was not blowing them. "I wonder, now," he said, suddenly, “what keeps Miss Fanny out so long. Ah! dar she is! Ah, ah, Foxy! you'd bring her along!" caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, which came bounding through the trees. "Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer missis behind ye? Hark, what's dat?" A clear voice came carolling gaily from out the pine-trees, "If you get there before I do I'm bound for the land of Canaan." Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded,— "Look out for me-I'm coming too I'm bound for the land of Canaan." The response was followed by a gay laugh, as a childish voice shouted from the woods, "Ha! Tiff, you there?" And immediately a bold, bright, blue-eyed girl, of about eight years old, came rushing forward. Just at this moment, a loud barking was heard outside the house, together with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of a horse's feet. "Dar's massa, sure as I'm alive!” said he, hastily laying down the invalid, and arranging her pillows. A rough voice called, "Hallo, Tiff, here with a light!" Tiff caught the pine-knot, and ran to open the door. A strange-looking vehicle, of a most unexampled composite order, was standing before the door, drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse. "Here, Tiff, help me out. I've got a lot of goods here. How's Sue?'' "Missis is powerful bad; been wanting to see you dis long time." "Well, away, Tiff, take this out," indicating a long rusty piece of stove-pipe. "Lay this in the house; and here," handing a cast-iron stove-door, with the latch broken. "Law, massa, what on earth is the use of this yer?" "Don't ask questions, Tiff; work away. Help me out with these boxes." "What on arth now ?" said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after another was disgorged from the vehicle, and landed in the small cabin. This being done, and orders being given to Tiff to look after the borse and equipage, the man walked into the house, with a jolly, slashing air. "Hallo, bub!" said he, lifting the twoyear-old above his head. "Hallo, Fan," imprinting a kiss on the cheek of the girl. "Hallo, Sis," coming up to the bed where the invalid lay, and stooping down over her. Her weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck, and she said, with a sudden animation, "Oh, you've come at last. I thought I should die without seeing you!" "Oh, you aint a-going to die, Sis! Why, what talk!" said he, chucking her under the chin. "Why, your cheeks are as red as roses !" "Pa, see the baby!" said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the bed, opened the flannel bundle. "Ah, Sis, I call that ar a tolerable fair stroke of business! Well, I tell you what, I've done up a trade now that will set us up, and no mistake. Besides which, I've got something now in my coat-pocket that would raise a dead cat to life, if she was lying at the bottom of a pond, with a stone round her neck! See here! Dr. Puffer's Elixir of the Water of Life!' warranted to cure janders, tooth-ache, earache, scrofula, speptia, 'sumption, and |