THE TRIBUNAL OF THE YEARS.

BY MISS S. H. HUTCHINS.

Ir came to pass, while yet the earth was in her fresh youth, and the bent figure with the hour-glass and scythe was erect and comely, the years had told their first century. They looked from their high palaces in the past and saw the missioned hours speeding to the service of the coming time; the days followed with them, but the sister seasons murmured at their lot, complained bitterly of their tasks, and loitered by the way. Then said the years, one to another, 'They served us faithfully, let us call them back, and counsel them kindly to do well their duty.' And the years, each crowned with his good deeds, sat in grave tribunal; and the discontented sisters were summoned.

·

Spring, a fair young maiden, with graceful hair, blue eyes, and her slight fingers full of leaves and flowers,' stood first before them. Then spake the eldest year, who sat throned above his brethren 'Why, O fairest servant of the years, art thou loitering in thy path? Are not the streams bound

with an ice-chain, till thou comest to free them? Is not the dark cloud-rift to be swept from the sky? Hast thou not to swell the buds, and paint them with the tender green? Are not the bird songs mute while thou art away? Wait not the grass and the violet for thy light step, thou awakener of the earth?'

And the fair face of spring flushed angrily, and she spake indignantly though tremblingly. What merit have I, what reward for all this? Doth not summer come after, and do not all things love her better than me? Doth she not wither my pale flowers, to plant her bright ones in their places? Do not the streams forget who loosed them, and the buds, when leaves and blooms, whose breath called them to life? Have I not to meet the angry frown of winter, and be chilled by her cold winds?

The wise years looked reprovingly but pityingly upon the maiden, and called her sisters, summer and autumn. And two of wondrous beauty stood before them. The brown locks of summer were crowned with roses, and her cheek glowed with the richness, and her dark eye sparkled with the radiance of the sunset. The brow of autumn was paler and more thoughtful, and in her meeker eyes shone a softened light.

'And,' said the eldest year, are you, too, discontent? Knowest thou not, oh, maiden of the

rose-crown, that time hath allotted thee a gracious task? Are not fragrance and bloom the incense of thy path, and rejoicing life thy praise; hast thou not the warmth that gladdens, and the brightness that delights? Are not thine the rainbow, and the tinted cloud; are not thy skies of the deepest blue; thy sunsets glorious in their beauty; and thy moonlight and thy dews most spiritually pure? Are not the shadows of thy trees upon the moving waters, fairer than the loveliness of dreams: doth not all nature pay thee the homage due a queen?'

'And thou, pale autumn, bearer of fruits and yellow leaves, why art thou so sad? Are not thine the ripened grain, the mellow fruit, the skies that bend their clear depths lovingly near the earth? If the flowers that bloomed in thy sister's pathway drooped at thy coming, are not thy forests clothed in more than their varied beauty, and canst thou not make decay and death almost more lovely in thy light, than her fresh life? Do not thy winds wail in wild, stern music; and hast thou not the grandeur of storms?'

Autumn turned aside, and at a sign from the years, a shadowy figure, robed in white, her high pale brow bound with stars and shooting gleams of the northern lights, stood beside her sisters The old year still spake. Thou, winter, so spiritual in thy beauty, so kindly missioned to thy lot, why

complainest thou?

When the mildew and the blight despoil the fair face of earth, is it not thine to hide them beneath a covering of most rare purity? For the music of waters and the song of birds, hast thou not the tempests' loud anthem, and the shriek of the storm spirit? Are not the skies of thy midnight solemnly bright and thy snow mantle dazzling with diamonds? More and better, is not thine the Sabbath rest of nature?'

The shadowy figure replied not, but a flush of shame shone over her pale face, lovely as the morning beam upon her snow-robe, and she meekly bowed her head. There was long silence, when again the old year's voice was heard, and he said — 'Go, ministering seasons, with willing hearts, each to thy differing duties, and repine not, for all are beautiful, all are needful-and far hence, when the sons of men shall fill the earth, to each shall they pay homage, to each shall they render love. The poet shall sing of the tender beauty of spring, the gorgeous loveliness of summer, the mellow richness of autumn, and the stern grandeur of winter. And all the years bowed with one accord, and said, so shall it be.' And the seasons went

forth content evermore faithfully to minister delight to man, to beautify the earth.'

THE MATIN BELLS OF ZIN.

BY MRS. C. M. SAWYER.

['In the wilderness of Zin, which stretches between Palestine and the Red Sea, both the Bedouin Arab and the traveller are greeted by the sound of matin bells, like the convent peal which calls the nuns to their devotion; and this, according to tradition, has been heard ever since the crusades.']

THE morn is breaking o'er the sands of Araby's wide waste,
And fast before the rising sun the shadowy mists are chased.
Beside a lone and shaded fount, by waving palms o'erhung
-A bright oasis mid the waste-an Arab maid is flung.
A lithe and fawn-like desert child-her darkly mournful eyes
Are bent upon that far-off line where meet the earth and

skies.

Down from her turban's scarlet folds her raven locks escaped, Around her slight and drooping form in waving clouds are

draped ;

But anxious and unquiet grows her keen expectant gaze, And oftener she shades her brow to pierce the morning haze. But hark! a sound! she clasps her hands and eager stoops to hear

The far, faint peal of chiming bells, that steals upon her ear. 'O wherefore comes he not!' she cried; "he said he would

but stay

Till Zin's first chiming peals announced the coming of the

day;

And now the sun lies on the palms-my brave Abdullah,

haste!

Thine Abra pines to hear thy barb's swift hoof upon the waste!