important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the firstmentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite.

They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler. When I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddlebow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever. He was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after half an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state.

Whether he finally survived that combat, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be

worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.

ON HIS BLINDNESS

JOHN MILTON

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide, "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

A PSALM OF LIFE

What the heart of the young man said to the psalmist

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest !

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping. Wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian. and Hopeful asleep in his grounds.

Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bade them awake and asked them whence they were and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims and that they had lost their way. Then said the Giant, "You have this night trespassed on me by trampling in and lying in my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me."

So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for they knew