on this returnless voyage! Scarcely had he turned away from gazing on the last sinking mountain-top, when a fearful disease seized upon him with relentless fury. Oh, then what thoughts of home, what thoughts of love made him long and struggle for life! But Death would not be baffled, and as the seventh sun glanced along the western waves he added another trophy to his nameless victories. They wrapped his noble form in a blanket shroud and laid it in a rude, unplaned coffin; then, under the solemn moonlight, a voice, low and trembling, was heard for a little space to read from the sacred page-it ceased— a moment passed-a splash-a brief gurgling of the waters-and the cruel ocean ripples rolled irreverently onward as before, and begun their monotonous beating against the vessel's side. Oh, how it makes one shudder to think of such a sepulture! There is something of pleasure in the thought of a quiet slumber in some chosen restingplace, where the sunlight may fall, the willow droop upon our grave, and the wild bird pour a gladsome lay to our departed spirits, where friends may come bearing wreaths of flowers and moisten the sod with their tears; but with what dread do we shrink from a burial in the dreary, chilly waves, to be wafted about eternally in the sea's dismal depths, or become food for its slimy inhabitants!

Now that we have followed the wanderer to his end, let us return to the parental roof. Daily, nay, hourly, had those parents invoked the blessings of Heaven on their child. The sister sought oftener the society of her whom she knew her brother loved, and ever would the tear-drop leap even to Ella's joy-beaming eye, when they spoke of his perils, and the possibility that he might never return! Thus weeks and months passed by, and as yet no tidings of the absent came. But the blow cannot long be stayed, for on the first returning ship the mournful message is flying to their anxious hearts. The black seal tells a whitelipped tale-Edward, the loved, is now the lost! Ah, reader, I would that you might have witnessed that scene, for grief is holy, and 't is a blessing to behold it! That little messenger with its simoon breath had swept every plant of hope and joy from that once happy circle, and left their hearts torn and bleeding. Reason for a time seemed poising on the wing, but God who had dealt the blow was faithful to his children, and the parent's found at length in the Christian's faith a healing balm. But the gushing fountains of a sister's young heart refused to be stopped. A thousand clamorous memories crowded around her, each demanding a crystal tear. The rock, the meadow, even the glad sunlight, all were laden with sadness.

Ella, "the bird of the mountain," lost her merry song and drooped in silence and solitude. Her dreams of cloudless happiness had fled before the grim presence of sorrow, and now no society is to her so dear, no conversation so sweet, as that of the broken-hearted sister of the loved and lost.

O. L. W.

OUR VILLAGE GRAVE-YARD.

NAY, frown not, reader, at my subject, for I do not intend to read you a homily on the uncertainty of life or the certainty of death, since these are topics which would, indeed, be out of place here. I am aware that to most, associations of grief and sadness are inseparably connected with the Grave-Yard. An instinctive love of life leads us to regard Death as our direst foe, and we style him the "King of Terrors." We regard him as a stern, rapacious tyrant, who sways an iron scepter over a dark and cheerless realm, while with an insatiable avarice he is continually clutching at the beautiful and good of earth. Tears and entreaties of heart-broken friends are of no avail in his sight, for his is a sateless maw that continually cries "give, give." And when once his ponderous iron doors have closed on his victim, there is no escape.

"His gates deny

All passage, save to those who hence depart,

Nor to the streaming eye

He gives them back, nor to the broken heart."

But there during the long lapse of ages, all that we love all that seems worth living for on earth, must lie entombed in darkness and sorrow, while over them a pitiless despot sits as ruler.

But to me, that "grim monarch's" dark and cheerless realm has ever been an object of interest. To me, life seems at best a toilsome journey along a rough and stoney road, beneath a dark and stormy sky. To be sure, there are here and there bright openings among the murky clouds, through which we catch glimpses of the blue sky above, and through which, rays of glorious sunlight stream down upon us. And, too, here and there by the wayside, we find cool, gurgling fountains from which we may drink refreshing draughts, and easy resting-places on which we may throw our weary limbs and gain a little rest. But soon drifting clouds obscure the sunlight; ever varying fortune hurries us on, and again we are plodding heavily along in darkness and in doubt. Thus, toil-worn and weary we come to our journey's end, and then how grateful is the rest of the grave! I love to think that when the turmoil of life is over-when the aching heart has ceased its throbbing-when our limbs have grown weary of their ceaseless march, we may lie down in the quiet tomb and sleep undisturbed by the tumult of the great world above us.

And I love to think that here, at least, all of earth's distinctions cease. Man sets his foot on the neck of his fellow-man and treads him down in the dust. For nearly six thousand years has one part of our race worn the shackles of slavery, while another part has wielded the scepter of authority over them. One part has heaped up gold and "fared sumptuously every day, clothed in purple and fine linen," while the life of another part has been one ceaseless struggle for the bare necessaries of existence. But in the grave the poor man sleeps

as soundly in his box of pine as does the man of wealth in his curtained, mahogany coffin. Here lie they side by side, the rich and poor, the proud and humble, the noble and the mean; and the monarch's dust cannot be distinguished from that of his lowliest subject.

And, too, I love to wander among those turf-crowned mounds, where the learned, the lovely, and the good of earth have laid them down to sleep till the great Archangel's trump shall rouse them. I love to decipher the simple epitaphs of those who years ago passed off the stage of being, and of whom those moss-covered stones are the only memorials left behind. And with my sombre views of human life and human glory, I love to look forward to the time when some similar stone shall be all the record left to tell the world that I have lived. And I love to think that here too the sorrowful and afflicted of the sons of

men may find a balm for their woes. The Grave is a panacea for all earthly misery.

"Here the traveler, outworn with life's pilgrimage dreary,

Lays down his rude staff, like one that is weary,

And sweetly reposes forever."

Thoughts like these invest the Grave-Yard with a melancholy interest and make it a favorite haunt of mine. Not long ince I entered that of my native village. As I passed up the foot-worn aisle, my eye caught the names of many whom I had once known treading the path of life with bright, high hopes of future days spread out before them. There was one whom, though years had come and gone and I was but a child when he died, I remembered well. In early boyhood we had played together and wandered hand in hand over the hills which surrounded his home. Together we had roamed the meadows in search of the first spring violets and had cut from the same branch our first willow whistles. We had together plucked the wild berry in the leafy wood, and had fished together in the little stream which went murmuring by his father's door. But one day they told me he was sick and would probably die. And on a bright, sunny afternoon, when the fresh spring breeze was sporting with the flowers, and there was life and gladness over all the face of nature, they called me to his bed-side. His cheek was flushed with the fever that was raging in his veins, and his glassy eye rolled restlessly in its socket, while his low moaning fell heavily on my ear. Dimmer and dimmer burned the lamp of life till it went out for ever. He was an only child, and I saw tears of bitter anguish roll down his mother's cheek, and that stern father wept too. But when in after years I saw stamped on the brow of that noble-hearted father the brand of the spirit-fiend, I knew that Charles had escaped the shame and misery of the drunkard's child, and I thanked God that it was so.

A few steps further on, and I stood beside the monument of our former Pastor. As I looked upon it, his venerable form seemed to rise up before me, and in fancy I again saw him standing in the pulpit as in the days of my childhood. I looked again on his grey locks and half-closed eyes, and listened once more to the tremulous tones of his

voice, as he supplicated the Throne of Grace for blessings to descend on his little flock. For almost half a century he had dwelt among them. He had shared their joys and solaced their sorrows. He had sprinkled the infant's brow with water from the baptismal font-had sealed the union of loved and loving hearts and sent them forth to battle hand in hand with the trials of life. He had knelt at the bed-side of the dying, and prayed for light on their pathway through the dark valley. In the pulpit he had unfolded the mysteries of revelation, and with a simple eloquence described the form of things to be hereafter. He seemed to have climbed the mount of vision whence the splendors of the promised land lay full in his view, and with an earnest tone and a tearful eye he urged his loved ones upward. And when, at length, disease pressed heavily upon him, and it was known that he must die, there was sadness in every heart. A bereaved congregation followed him to the grave, and their tears bore witness to the truth of their affection for him, and the fidelity with which he had discharged his earthly mission.

There was a monument of a gentle being who had passed nearly twenty years on the earth, and in all that long period no ray of sunlight had ever gleamed on her darkened eye-balls. She had never seen the countenance of that loved mother who had watched over her in infancy and had been her solace in her dark and dreary pilgrimage through life. She had never looked on the faces of her sisters, who had tended her footsteps with all that kindness which only a sister's love can bestow. To her, there was no beauty in the hues of the sunset sky nor in the richly tinted flowers. Her horizon no rainbow ever spanned, and a starless firmament was her's. But dark and cheerless as her pathway seemed, she passed along it with a light and merry heart. What mattered it to her if she could not see the faces of the dear friends around her? She could hear their voices--was conscious that they loved her and was satisfied, while an instinctive idea of the beautiful made our earth with all its deformity a thing of light and splendor. And, too, there was an inner light which burned up calmly and clearly within her heart, and she left this world to open her eyes on the glories of a brighter and a better.

There was one low mound, unmarked save by a solitary rose bush, the only token that the form which lay there had been loved. The turf around was unbroken, and the tall grass was waving in the passing breeze. The very loneliness of that spot told a tale of sorrow.

"The sexton knows a drunkard's wife

Sleeps in that lowly grave."

I could remember when she came to live among us-could remember the sensation her beauty created among the elite of our retired village, and how her kindness and gentleness won the love of all about her. I could remember how uncomplainingly she bore the neglect and even abuse of him, who had promised to love and protect her when he led her away from her home in the sunny South-how confidingly she clung to him when every other friend had left him-and how she strove with

all a woman's fondness to win him back to manhood.

Poverty came

at length, but with a stout heart she bore up against its attendant evils and still kept hoping on. Care, meanwhile, traced deep furrows on her brow-sorrow stole the bloom from her cheek, and one could easily see that anguish was gnawing at her heart-strings. And when, at last, news came that he whom she loved had, by a sudden death, found a drunkard's grave away on the banks of the Ohio, she sunk beneath the blow, and in a few days the hand of charity dug for her that lonely grave. And there, rest thee, thou gentle sufferer. No dream of sorrow shall ever more disturb thy quiet slumber. The wintry wind may howl above thee, but it never more can chill thy shivering frame. No words of unkindness can ever more wound thy sensitive spirit, for peace dwells in thy lowly resting place.

In another grave were laid the remains of an old man whose locks, when he died, the frosts of near a century had bleached to a snowy whiteness. His life had been one of strange vicissitudes. He had outlived three successive generations-had seen his family and kindred, one by one, grow old and die, till he was left alone at his post on the battle-field of life. From the high vantage ground he had gained, he could look farther back over the scene of conflict than any whom he saw around him. A memory which retained its vigor even when age had weakened all his other powers, enabled him to repeat with accuracy the varied incidents of that life-long fight. His first recollections were those of a home far up in the forests of Vermont, where he grew up to manhood, inured to all the hardships incident to a border life. He could tell of hair-breadth escapes from the fangs of the wily panther, of fierce encounters with the ravenous wolf, and hardfought battles with the strong-limbed bear. From early dawn to evening twilight, he had tracked the wild deer through the forest, and when darkness closed around him, had made his couch beneath the branches, and slept with a quietness which a monarch might envy. And, too, more than once had he measured his strength with that of the brawny Indian, and come off victorious. He had out-distanced them in the chase, outwitted them in cunning, and his war-cry was no less shrill or terrible than theirs.

At length tidings reached him of an approaching contest between the United Colonies and Old England. Into the merits of the case he stopped not to inquire, but he knew that his country was assailed by foreign invaders, and this was sufficient. He repaired at once to Bennington, where Ethan Allen was then making preparations for an attack on Ticonderoga, and took his place in the ranks as a volunteer. He entered the fort at the head of his column, and heard that strange summons to surrender, as it fell in thunder tones from the lips of Allen on the ear of the pale and trembling Briton. He afterwards followed the fortunes of our gallant army through the vicissitudes of that seven years' struggle. He was at Bennington as one of those eight hundred Green Mountain Boys, who, with Stark at their head, forged the first link in that chain of disasters which forced Burgoyne to a surrender. He shared with those noble spirits the miseries of Valley Forge