A VISIT TO THE SEA.-JOHN TROLAND.

There is something most refreshing

In a visit to the sea,

That unlocks imprisoned fancy

And that sets the spirit free;
That gathers up the cares of life
And sweeps them all away,
Bedazzled in the sparkle

Of an evanescent spray.
There's a something sympathetic
In the swelling of the tide,
That enriches one's conception
Of a kingdom free and wide;
And there's magic in the stillness
That succeeds the measured roar
When the emerald-crested breaker
Spends its fury on the shore.
You may list' the sacred concert,
With its voices by the score,
You may wake the mighty organ,
With a thousand stops, or more,
You may link the world's performers
In one loud harmonic strain,
But you cannot catch the cadence
Of Old Ocean's grand refrain.
There's a fund of entertainment
In each pebble and each shell,
And a flavor appetizing

To the very sense of smell;
For, to me, than breath of roses,
There's a perfume far more sweet
From the sprayed and tangled sea-weed
Flung in garlands at my feet.

There's a retrospective blending
With a future “by-and-by,”
And a mist that kindly mixes

With the moisture of the eye

When there comes that tender feeling
Of a Power we cannot see,

With the rushing, and the gushing,

And the hushing of the sea.

-Journal of Education

THE DRUNKEN ENGINEER.

"Let me put my name down first-I can't stay long!" It was a red ribbon meeting, and the man was a locomotive engineer, bronzed and streng, and having eyes full of deep determination. He signed his name in a bold, plain hand, tied a red ribbon in his buttonhole, and as he left the hall he said:

"As the Lord looks down upon me, I'll never touch liquor again."

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Have you been a hard drinker?" queried a man who walked beside the engineer.

"No. Fact is, I never was drunk in my life. I've swallowed considerable whiskey, but I never went far enough to get drunk. I shouldn't miss it or be the worse off for an hour, if all the intoxicating drink in the world was drained into the ocean."

"But you seemed eager to sign the pledge."

"So I was, and I'll keep it through thick and thin, and talk temperance to every man on the road."

"You must have strong reasons?"

"Well, if you'll walk down to the depot, I'll tell you a story on the way. It hasn't been in the papers and only a few of us know the facts. You know I run the night express on the Broad. We always have at least two sleepers and a coach, sometimes we have as many as two hundred passengers. It's a good road, level as a floor, and pretty straight, though there is a bad spot or two. The night express has the right o' way, and we make fast time. It is no rare thing for us to skim along at the rate of fifty miles an hour, for thirty or forty miles, and we rarely go below thirty. One night I pulled out of Detroit with two sleepers, two coaches, and the baggage and mail cars. Nearly all the berths in both sleepers were full, and most of the seats in the coaches were occupied. It was a dark night, threatening all the time to rain, and a lonesome wind whistled around the cab as we left the city behind. We were seventeen

minutes late, and that meant fast time all the way through.

"Everything run along all right up to midnight. The main track was kept clear for us; the engine was in good spirits, and we ran into D- as smooth as you please. The express coming east should meet us fifteen miles west of D-, but the operator at the station had failed to receive his usual report below. That was strange, and yet it was not, and after a little consultation the conductor sent me ahead. We were to keep the main track, while the other trains would run in on the side track. Night after night our time had been so close that we did not keep them waiting over two minutes, and were generally in sight when they switched in.

"When we left D-- we went ahead at a rattling speed, fully believing that the other train would be on time. Nine miles from Dis the little village of Parto. There was a telegraph station there, but the opera tor had no night work. He closed his office and went home about nine o'clock, and any messages on the wire were held above or below until next morning. When I sighted this station I saw a red lantern swinging between the rails. Greatly astonished, I pulled up the heavy train, and got a bit of news that almost lifted me out of my boots. It was God's mercy as plain as this big depot. It was the operator who was swinging the lantern. He had been roused from sleep by the whistles of a locomotive when there wasn't one within ten miles of him. He heard the toot! toot! toot! while he was dressing, and all the way as he ran to the station, thinking he had been signaled. Lo! there was no train. Everything was as quiet as the grave. The man heard his instruments clicking away, and leaning his ear against the window he caught these words as they went through to D: 'Switch the Eastern express off quick! Engineer on the Western express crazy drunk and running a mile a minute.'

'The operator signaled us at once. We had left D

nine miles away, and the message couldn't have caught us anywhere except at Parto. Six miles further down was the long switch. It was time we were there, lacking one minute. We lost two or three minutes in understanding the situation and in consulting, and had just got ready to switch in where we were when the headlight of the other train came into view. Great heavens! how that train was flying. The bell was ringing, sparks flying, and the whistle screaming, and not a man of us could raise a hand. We stood there on the main track, spellbound as it were. There wouldn't have been time anyhow, either to have switched in or got the passengers out. It wasn't over sixty seconds before that train was upon us. I prayed to God for a breath or two and then shut my eyes and waited for death, for I hadn't the strength to get out of the cab.

"Well, sir, God's mercy was revealed again. Forty rods above us that locomotive jumped the track, and was piled into the ditch in an awful mass. Some of the coaches were considerably smashed and some of the people badly bruised, but no one was killed, and our train escaped entirely. The Almighty must have cared for Big Tom, the drunken engineer. He didn't get a bruise, but was up and across the fields like a deer, screaming and shrieking like a mad tiger. It took five men to hold him after he was run down, and to-day he is the worst lunatic in the state.

"Tom was a good fellow," continued the engineer af ter a pause, " and he used to take his glass pretty regularly. I never saw him drunk, but liquor kept working away on his nerves, till at last the tremens caught him, when he had a hundred and fifty lives behind his engine. He broke out all of a sudden. The fireman was thrown off the engine, all steam turned on, and then Tom danced and screamed, and carried on like a fiend. He'd have made awful work, sir, but for God's mercy. I'm trembling yet over the way he came down for us, and I'll never think of it without my heart jumping for my

throat. Nobody asked me to sign the pledge, but I wanted my name there. One such night on the road has turned me against intoxicating drinks, and now that I've got this red ribbon on, I can talk to the boys with better face. Tom is raving, as I told you, and the doctors say he'll never get his reason again. Good-night, sir-my train goes in ten minutes." - Occident.

THE CANDIDATE.

"Father, who travels the road so late?"
"Hush, my child, 'tis the candidate."
Fit example of human woes-
Early he comes and late he goes,

He greets the women with courtly grace,
He kisses the baby's dirty face,

He calls to the fence the farmer at work,
He bores the merchant, he bores the clerk;
The blacksmith, while his anvil rings,
He greets, and this is the song he sings:
"Howdy, howdy, howdy-do?

How is your wife and how are you?
Ah! it fits my fist as no other can,—
The horny hand of the working man.”

"Husband, who is that man at the gate?"
"Hush, my love, 'tis the candidate."

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Husband, why can't he work like you?

Has he nothing at home to do?"

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My dear, whenever a man is down,

No cash at home, no credit in town,

Too stupid to preach, too proud too beg,
Too timid to rob and too lazy to dig,
Then over his horse his leg he flings
And to the dear people this song he sings:
'Howdy, howdy, howdy-do?

How is your wife and how are you?
Ah! it fits my fist as no other can,--
The horny hand of the working 'nar.”

Brothers, who labor early and late,
Ask these things of the candidate:
What's his record? How does he stand
At home? No matter about his hand,