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PPjjJPS^rit.-- ^;;ry*Fx?<K t BY AND BY. Down the stream where the tide is clearer, Farther on where the shores are fair, * And the gracious forms we would fain be nearer, The names we speak in the voice of prayer. Be the voyage long they will be the dearer When after while we shall greet them there, Farther on where the tide is clearer, Down the stream where the shores are fair. By and by when the sun is shining, After while when the skies are clear. When the cloud unfolds its silver lining And shores of the peaceful isles draw near, We shall free our tongues from their dull repining And fill our hearts with words of cheerAfter while when the sun is shining, By and by when the skies are clear. ?Chicago Herald. Sophy's Transgression. BY MARY T. FARKSWORTH. "Oh, uncle, can't I go?" Sophy Allerton leaned, over her uncle's chair, with pleading eyes, and hands unconsciously clasped over the carved knob upon its top. She was a small rosy damsel of eighteen, with luxuriant brown hair, eyes of the velvety brown that you see in a ripe chestnut that has just burst its burr, and a bright complexion, none the worse for a few touches of healthy sunburn. And her dress, though only of shilling calico, was tastefully made, and she wore a "butterfly bow" of rosc-colorcd ribbon at her collar, and a carmine-blossomed clove-pink in her hair. Uncle Joshua shook his head gravely. "Child," said he, "you know, before hand, what my answer will be!" "But, uncle, all the Bates girls are going!" f "Well, let them go.' I'm not responsible for Siah Bates's girls. But I am for you, and I don't approve of these balls. rnn onw mnr<* WllPn U U UUU L bVUOt UiV UUJ iuv?vt II MVM I've said no, no "it shall be. And Sophy Allerton went back to strain the night's milking into the row of glittering milk pans that stood on the snowy buttery shelves, with eyes too full of rebellious tears to see what she was about. Uncle Joshua Hale and his niece lived all alone in the old yellow farm-house under the butternut trees. Uncle Joshua was a sixty-year old bachelor, who passed his time alternately between bed and chair, a helpless paralytic, so far as his lower limbs were concerned. But, as he was wont hopefully to observe, he wasn't paralyzed at the top, and by the aid of a sturdy man-of-all-work, who came before daylight, and went home at night, when the chickens climbed their roosts, the farm progressed bravely. k-I aint a miser," said Uncle Joshua, "but I kind o' want to leave a little suthin' to my sister's orphan child. Sophy aint one. to rough it much, and I mean she shall be provided for when I'm gone." Uncle Joshua took up his paper and began to unfold its columns as Sophy crept spiritlessly away. "It goes to my heart to thwart her," said he, "but 'taint right to let her get into the way of running to such places. A girl as is all alone in the world, like my Sophy, poor lamb, can't be too careful. She'll pout a little at first?it's only natural sne snouia?ana inen sue u see that her old uncle was ia the right of it, after all!" In the meanwhile, Sophy was sitting on the back kitchen door-sill, listening to a whip-poor-will repeating its plaintive refrain on the edge of the maple swamp below, and watching, as well as she could through her tears, a .great golden star hft its shield through the purple of the mid-summer horizon. When, all of a sudden, Obadiah Carstairs, the hired man, came upon her like a shirt-sleeve vision?for no mortal ever saw Obadiah with a coat on between ~ the months of April and November. J 'I've fetched a ham up from the smoke-house," said he; "and Squire Martin is goin' to lemme hcv a fore-quar ter of lamb for "Wednesday." "Yes," said Sophy, listlessly, "it's all right, I d8ve say." Eut instead of going into the house to help Uncle Joshua to bed. as Sophy expected he would, Obadiah shifted himself from one leg to the other, like a meditative fowl. "Goin' to be great doin's down to . S\amp Basin, I hear," said he. "Tomorrer night, aint it?" "I believe so," Sophy answered. "You're goin', I suppose?" "I don't kuow why you should suppose so," retorted Sophy, somewhat tartly. "Well, I vum!" said Obadiah. "You ain't a-goin', then? There's to be tew fiddles aud a cornet; and Squire Dickerman's old barn is filled up with flags and evergreens and pink cambric festoons so as ye wouldn't know it; and a hundred candles, all a burnin' at once!" "Uncle Joshua don t approve 01 sucn things," sighed Sophy. "All the young folks is goin\" persisted her Job's comforter. "Old man thinks a dreadful sight of you. I should s'pose he'd let you go!" "Well, he won't, then, and there's no use talking any more about it," said Sophy, rising and going back into the house, with some manifestation of temper. "Well,I vum!" again repeated Obadiah Carstairs, looking hard at the big golden star. Not more consolatory was Lizzie Larkspur, the pretty daughter of the nearest neighbor, two good miles away, when she came the next day to borrow Sophy's pattern for a lace fichu. "Not going!" said Lizzie. "Why, everybody will be there! Albert Bates and Mark Lennani, and?dear me, Sophy, what does make your uncle so cranky?" "I don't know, I'm sure!" said Sophy, despondently. "Look here!" cried Lizzie, lowering, her voice to a mjsteiious whisper, 'there's no earthly reason you should stay, at home, unless you please. Sophy Allertoc !" "I don't understand what you mean, Lizzie!" "Doesn't your uncle Joshua always retire at eight o'clock?" "Of course he does. "What of that?" "Why, how on earth can he know where you are, when he is asleep and dreaming? Slip quietly out on the sly. I'll wait until half-past nine for you; the fun will be only just beginning. And you can be at home and in bed long before your crusty old uncle is awake in the morning." Sophy winced a little at this. Vexed as she was at that particular moment with Uncle Joshua, she knew that he did not deserve the scornful epithet applied to him by Lizzie Larkspur. But . .. . .....: I- " . % . V .. . * . .. - - the temptation to accede to Lizzie's plan i was almost overmastering. "Do you think I could manage it?" she questioned, the color coming and going rapidly on her cheek.' "Manage it? Of course you could. A child could manage it." "I've a great mind to try," said Sophy, drawing a quick breath. Nine o'clock, of a starry August night ?the night of the ball at Swamp Basin ?and a shadow, stealing softly down the butternut shaded walk, which was not the shadow of tree or bough. Sophy Allerton had succeeded in creeping out of the house without disturbing Uncle Joshua Hale's conscience sweet slumbers. "There!" cried Sot?hy to herself, before she had reached the big white pine tree at the Cross Roads. "I forgot to blow out my candle, and it's too late to : go back now. But it's all right; it will i bum down to the sockct and go out. ! And, after all, it will be no very great ! waste, for the candle was only an inch j ,onS-'' I And so Sophy kept on her way to I where Lizzie Larkspur and Albert Bates I ! ?that young lady's sturdy cavalier? I were awaiting her coming, not without I impatience. Well, the ball was a grand affair, as country balls go, with plenty of lights, bunting, evergreen boughs, and fiddles. Sophy had never danced so much at one time in all her life before; and all was ^oing "merry as a marriage bell," when, ! standing by the door, fanning herself : after a quadrille, she heard a man, who ; had ridden up on horseback, say some, thing to another man about a "big fire" up toward Lee's Valley. "Fire!1' cried Sophy, eagerly. "What fire? Where is it?" The man could not exactly say. He was a stranger in these part3. But as he rode through the little settlement of Lee's Valley he had heard tidings of a lonely farm-house being just burned to ! the ground, and its only tenant, a solitary j old man, burned to death. j Every drop of blood in Sophy Aller> ton's veins seemed to congeal to ice as she listened to this unconscious messenger of evil tidings. Poor, helpless Uncle Joshua! And the candle she had so carelessly left burning! At once her mind reverted to every possibility of evil; she could see the red shafts of lurid flame rising upward; the clouds of smoke; she could hear Uncle Joshua's [ unavailing cries for help, and it was all I through her wild, wicked folly! She looked around for Lizzie and Al. horfc thev were whirling through the mazes of a polka at the other side of the , floor. < ( "I can't wait for them," she mur| mured, unconscious that she was speaking aloud, and catching up the shawl that lay nearest, she muffled herself in its folds, and set off, all alone, through the starry dark of the summer morning. For it was well-nigh on to three o'clock by this time. And, through all the surging confusion of her thoughts, one horrible reflection I rose up constantly. If Uncle Joshua? dear, kind Uncle Joshua, who was the only father she had ever known?lay dead in the ashes of the burned farm-house, what better was she, Sophy Allerton, than a murderess? It was only about five miles, and Sophy, | like most country girls, was a good walker, but the last mile, after she had passed the old stone church, with its square tower, seemed actually intermina- I ble. Hush! Footsteps! No need to shrink , ,, it_ _e .1J? beiiina tne can growcu m eiuci umuw that skirted the road, for in another second she recognized the round-shouldered figure and slouching gait of Obadiah Car- j 1 stairs. ''Wall, I rum!" quoth that personage. I"Blest if I didn't think you was a ghost! 1 Been to the ball, eh?" | j She caught his arm. "Tell me, Oba-! diah?the fire!" "Just come from there," said Obadiah. "All burned to the ground, and Eliakim Hawley only just saved. He would go back arter that old leather money-bag o' his 'n. Serve him right to let him burn, j I say if he was so sot on it."" Sophy caught for breath. "Then it was uot our house?" "Your house! No, not by a long chalk. 1 It was Eliakim Hawley's, down by the Valley postoffice. And you was afcerd it was yourn, eh, poor child? No, no; j your house is all safe enough. <ioin' home, eh? Wall," with a chuckle, "young folks will be young folks, and I won't tell your uncle uothin' about it!" Sophy colored an angry and mortified scarlet. "I shall tell him myself," said she. And when Uncle Joshua opened his kindly blue eyes on the soft light of the summer dawn, his niece was kneeling j sobbing by his bedside. "Why, Sophy, child?" cried Uncle Joshua, scarcely certain that he was not yet wandering in the mazes of a dream. I "What's the trouble?" And Sophie confessed all to him?her temptation, her fault, the horrible hours of remorse she had endured, her relief and gratitude when she learned at last that God had been more merciful to her than she deserved. "Oh, uncle!" she sobbed, "I will never, never attempt to deceive you again, if you will cnly forgive me this once." And Uncle Joshua's tender kiss upon her brow sealed the pardon without any necessity of words. Poor Sophy! she had learned through bitter experience that, however rosegarlanded it may appear at first, "the wn? of tlip txanso-rpssor is hard."?The Ledger. Getting Even With Chicken TIricves. A chicken raiser at Elmhurst, Penn., lost thirty odd broilers last summer by hen hawks. He found that the hawks generally swooped dowu upon the young fowl at about midday. Au old woodsman told him how to get even with the big chicken thieves. Out in the lot near his barn he planted a round post with a flat top. Around the rim of the top he i bored gimlet holes two inches apart, slanting them outward a little. Then he got some steels out of an old umbrella, made them uniform in length, filed one end of each to a point as sharp as a darning needle, and inserted them into the gimlet holes, with the sharp points up. Inside of the circle of spikes he stood a dead chicken, placing its head as though it was picking food. Before the novel trap had been completed an hour an immense i hawk swooped down after the dead chicken on top of the post, striking so hard that five of the sharp wires ran clear through its body. During the summer eight hen hawks and a big owl got impaled on the sharp spikes, and the poul-! try raiser lost no more chickens. J nmr THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SONDAT SERMON. Snbject: "A Mediterranean Voyage." (Preached at Brindisi, Italy.) Text: "And so it come to pass that they escaped all safe to land." Acts xxvii., 44. Having visited your historical city, which we desired to see because it was the terminus of the most famous road of the ages, the Roman Appian Way, and for its mighty fortress overshadowing a city which even Hannibal's hosts could not thunder down, we must to-morrow morning leave your harbor, and after touching at Athens and Corinth, voyage about the Mediterranean to Alexandria, Egypt. I have been reading this morniug in my New Testament of a Mediterranean voyage in an Alexandrian ship. It was this very month of November. The vessel was lying in a port not very far from here. On board that vessel were two 'distinguished passengers: one, Josephus, the historian, as we have strong reasons to j believe; the other, a convict, one Paul by name, who was going to prisoD for upsetting things, or, as they termed it, "turning the world upside down." This convict had gained I the confidence of the Captain. Indeed, I think that Paul knew almost as much about the sea as did the Captain. He had been shipwrecked three times, already; he had dwelt much of his life amidst capstans, aud yardarms, and cables, and storms; and he knew what he was talking about. Seeing the equinoctial storm was coming, and perhaps noticiug something unseaworthy in the vessel, he advised the Captain to stay in the harbor. But I hear the Captain and the first mate talking together. They say: ''We cannot afford to take the advice of this landsman, and he a minister. He may be I able to preach very well, but I don't believe he kuows a marlinspike from a luff tackle. All aboard! Cast off! Shift the holm for headway! Who fears the Mediterranean?" They had gone only a little way out when a whirlwind, called Euroclydon, made the torn sail its turban, shook the mast as you would brandish a spear, and tossed the hulk into the heavens. Overboard with the cargo ! It is all washed with salt water, and worthless now, and there are no marine insurance companies. All hands ahoy, and out with the anchors! Great consternation comes on crew and passengers. The sea monsters snort in the foam, and the billows clap their hands in glee of destruction. In the lull of the storm I hear a chain clank. It is the chain of the great apostle as he walks the deck, or holds fast to the rigging amidst the lurching of the ship?the spray dripping from his long beard as he cries out to the crew; "Now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of anv man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood bv me" this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying. Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before C;esar; ana, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." Fourteen days have passed, and there is no abatement of the storm. It is midnight. Standing on the lookout, the man peers into the darkness and, by a flash of lightning, sees the long white line of the breakers, and knows they must be coming near to some country, ana fears that in a few moments the vessel will be shivered on the rocks. The ship flies like chaff in a tornado. They drop the sounding line, and by the light of the lantern they see it is twenty fathoms. Speeding along a little farther they drop the line again, and by the light of the lantern they see it is fifteen fathoms. Two hundred and seventy-six souls within a few feet of awful shipwreck 1 The managers of the vessel, pretending they want to look over the side of the ship and undergird it, get into the small boat, expecting in it to escape; but Paul sees through the sham, and he tells them that if they go off in the boat it will be the death of them. The vessel strikes I The planks spring! The timbers crack 1 The vessel parts in the thuudering surge! Oh, what wild struggling for life! Here they leap from plank to plank. Here they go under as if they would never rise, but, catching hold of a timber, come floating and panting on it to the beach. Here, strong swimmers spread their arms through the waves until their chins plow the sand, and they rise up and wring out their wet iocks ' +V.A Knonk WVion tha rr\ll nf f.ViA chin id called, two hundred and seventy-six people answer to their names. '"Ar^d so," says my text, "it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land." 1 learn from this subject: First, that those who get us into trouble will not stay to help us out. These shipmen got Paul cut of Fair Havens into the storm; but as soon as the tempest dropped upon them, they wanted to go off in tno small boat, caring nothing for what became of Paul and the passengers. Ah me! human nature is the same in all ages. They who get us into trouble never stop to help us out. They who tempt that young man into a life of dissipation will be the first to laugh at his imbecility, and to drop him out of decent society. Gamblers always make fun of the losses of gamblers. They who tempt you into the contest with fists, saying, "I will back you," will be the first to run. Look over ali the predicaments of your life, and count the names of those who have got you into those predicaments, and tell me the name of one who ever helped you out. They were glad enough to get you out from Fair Havens, but when, with damaged rigging, you tried to get into harbor, did they hola for you a plant or throw you a rope? Not one. Satan has got thousands of men into trouble, but he never got one out. He I led them into theft, but ho would not hide tho goods or oau out tne aerenaanc. me spider shows the flv tho way over the gossamer bridge into the cobweb, but it never shows the fly the way out of the cobweb over the gossamer bridge. I think that there were plenty of fast young men to help the prodigal spend his money, but when he had wasted his substance in riotous living, they let him eo to the swine pastures, while they betook themselves to some other new comer. They who take Paul out of Fair Havens will be of no help to him when he gets into the breakers of Melita. I remark again, as a lesson learned from the text, that it is dangerous to refuse the counsel of competent advisors. Paul told them not to go out with that ship. They thought he know nothing nbout it. They said: "He is only a minister!" They wont, and the ship was destroyed. There are a great many people who now say of ministers: "They know nothing about the world. They cannot talk to us!" Ah, my friends, it is not necessary to have the Asiatic cholera before you can give it medical treatment in others. It is not necessary to have your own arm broken before you can kuow how to similiter a fracture. And we who stand in tlie pulpit, and in the office of a Christian teacher, know that there are certain styles of belief and certain kinds of behavior that will lead to destruction as certainly as Paul knew that if that ship went out of Fair Havens it would go to destruction. "Rejoice, 0 young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer theo in thy days of thv youth; but know thou that for all these tilings God will bring thee into judgment." We may not kuow much, but wo know that. Young people refuse the advice of parents. They say "Father is over-suspicious, and mother is getting old. '' But those parents have been on the sea of life. They know where the storms sleep, and during their voyage have seen a thousand battered hulks marking the place where beauty burned, and intellect foundered, and morality sank. They are old sailors, having answered many a signal of distress, and endured great stress of weather, and gone scudding under bare poles; and tho old folks know what they are talking about. I<ook at that man?in his choek the glow of infernal fires. His eye flashes not as once with thought, but with low passion. His brain is a sewer through which impurity floats, and his heart the trough in which lust wallows and drinks. Men shudder as tho lopor passes, and parents cry: "Wolff wolf!" Yet he once said the Lord's Prarer at his mother's knee, and against that iniquitous brow once pressed a pure mother's lips. But he refused her counsel. He went where euroclydons have their lair. He foundered on the sea, while all hell echoed at the roar of the wreck: Lost Pacificsl Lost Pacifics! Another lesson from the subject is that Christians are always safe. There did not seem to be much chance for Paul getting out of that shipwreck, did there? They had not, in those days, rockets with which to throw ropes over foundering vessels. Their lifeboats were of but little worth. And yet, notwithstanding all the danger, my text says that Paul escaped safe to land. And so it will always be with God's children. They may be plunged into darkness and trouble, but by the throne of the eternal God, I assert it, "they shall ill ee> t cape safe to land." , '' ' #. . " ' -./ . ' Sometimes there comes a storm of com' mercial disaster. The cables break. The masts fall. The cargoes are scattered over the sea. Oh! what struggling and leaping on kegs and hogsheads and corn bins and store shelves! And yet, though they may have it so very hard in commercial circles, the good, trusting in God, all come safe to land. Wreclcers go out on the ocean's beach and find the shattered hulks of vessels; and on the s treets of our great cities there is many a wreck. Mainsail slit with_ banker's pen. Hulks abeam's end on insurance counters. Vft jt credits sinking, having suddenly sprung aletk. Yet all of them who are God's children shall at last; through His goodness and mercy, escape safe to land. Tne Scandinavian warriors used to drink wine out of the skulls of the enemies they had slain. Even so God will help us, out of the conquered ills and disasters of life, to drink sweetness and strength for our souls. You have, my friends, had illustrations in your own life of how God delivers His people. I have had illustrations in my own life of the same truth. I was once in what on your Mediterranean you call a Eurocyldon, but what on the Atlantic we call a cyclone, but the same storm. The steamer Greece, of the National line, swung out into the river Mersey at Liverpool, bound for New York. We bad on board seven hundred, crew and passengers. We came together strangers?Italians, Irishmen, Englishmen, Swedes, Norwegians, Americans. Two flags floated from the masts?JJritisli ana American ensigns, ?v e had a new vessel, or one so thoroughly remodeled that the voj'age had around it all the uncertainties of a trial trip. The great steamer felt its way cautiously out into the sea. The Dilot was dischartred: and commit ting ourselves to the care of Him who holdoth the winds in His fist, we were fairly started on our voyage of three thousand miles. It was rough nearly all the way?the sea with strong buffeting disputing our path. But one night, at 11 o'clock, after the lights had been put out, a cyclone?a wind just made to tear ship3 to piecescaught us in its clutches. It came down so suddenly that we had not time to take in the sails or to fasten the hatches. You may know that the bottom of the Atlantic is strewn with the ghastly work of cyclones. Oh! they aro cruel winds. They have hot breath, as though they came up from infernal furnaces. Their merriment is the cry of affrighted passengers. Their play is the foundering of steamers. And, when a ship goes down, they laugh uutil both continents hear them. 1 hey go in circles, or, as I describe them with ray hand?rolling on! rolling on! with finger of terror writing on tho white sheet of the wave this sentence of doom: "Let all that come within this circle perish! Brigantines, go down! Clippers, go down. Steamships, go down!" And tho vessel, hearing the terrible voice, crouches in the surf, and as the waters gurgle through the hatches and port holes, it lowers away, thousands of feet down, farther and farther, until at last it strikes the bottom; and all is peace, for they have landed. Helmsman, dead at the ?1 It m : J 1 : 4-U.^ wneeii iiugmesr, ueou ttuuuai una cauiuguished furnaces! Captain, dead in the gangway! Passengers, dead in the cabin! Buried in the great cemetery of dead steamers, beside the City of Boston, the Lexington, tho President, thevCambria?waiting for the archangel's trumpet to split up the decks, and wrench open the cabin doors,and unfasten the hatches. I thought that I had seen storms on the sea before; but all of them together might have come under one wing of that cyclone. "We were only eight or nine hundred miles from home, and in high expectation of soon seeing Dur friends, for there was no one on board so poor as not to have a friend. But it seemed as if we were to be disappointed. The most Df us expected then and there to die. There were none who made light of the peril, save two. One was an Englishman, and he was drunk, and the other was an Ameri?n, and he was a fool! Oh! what a time it was! A night to make one's hair turn white. We came out of the berths, and stood in the gangway, and looked into the steerage, and sat in the cabin. While seated there, we heard overhead something like minute guns. It was the bursting of the sails. Wo held on with hoth hands to keep our places. Those who attempted to cross the floor came back bruised and gashed. Cups and glasses were dashed ? to iragmenis; pieues ui iuo taurc gcvuug loose, swung across the saloon. It seemed as if the hurricane took that great ship of thousands of tons and stood it on end, and, said* 4'Shall I sink it, or let it go this once?' And then it came down with such force that the billows trampled over it, each mounted of a fiuy. We ielt that everything depended on the propelling screw. If that stopped* for an instant we knew the vessel would fall off into the trough of the sea and sink; and so we prayed that the screw, which three times since leaving Liverpool had already stopped, might not stop now. Oh I how anxiously we listened for the regular thump of the machinery, upon which our Uves seemed to depend. After a while some one said: "The screw is stopped!" No; its sound bad only been overpowered by the uproar of the tempest, and we breathed easier again when we heard the regular pulsations of the overtasked machinery going thump, thump, thump. At 3 o'clock in the morning the water covered the ship from prow to stern, and the skylights gfivo way I The deluge rushed in, and we felt that one or two more waves like that must swamp us forever. As the water rolled back and forward in the cabins, and dashed against the wall, it sprang half way up to the ceiling. Rushing through the skylights as it came in with such terrific roar, there went up from the cabin a shriek of horror which I pray God I may nover hear again. I have dreamed the whole scene over again, but God has mercifully kept me from hearing that one cry. Into it seemed to be com fresseci tne agony 01 expecwja saipwrech. t seemed to say: "I shall never get home again! My children shall be orphaned, and my wife shall bo widowed! I am launching now into eternity! In two minutes I shall meet my God!" There were about five hundred and fifty passengers in the steerage, and as the water rushed in and touched the furnaces, and be> gan violently to hiss, the poor creatures ir the steerage imagined that the boilers wer< giving way. Those passengers writhed in the water and in the mud, some praying, some crying, all terrified. They made a rush foi the deck. An officer stood on deck and beat them back with blow after blow. It was necessary. They could not have stood ar instant on tho dock. Oh! how they begged to get out of the hold of th< ship! One woman, with a child in her arms rusned up and caught hold of one of tht officers and cried: "Do let me out! I wil help you! Do let me out! I cannot di< here!" Some got down and prayed to th( Virgin Mary, saying: "0 blessed mother keep us! Have mercy on us!" Some stooi witn white lips and fixed gaze, silent in theii terror. Some wrung their hands and criec out: "0 God! what shall I do? What shal I do?" Tho time came when the crew could no longer stay on the deck and the cry of the officers was: "Below! al hands below!" Our brave and sympathetii Captain Andrews?wuoso praise i snau noi cease to speak while I live?had been swep by the hurricane from his bridge, and had es caped very narrowly with his life. The cyclone seemed to stand on the deck, waving it* wing, crying: "This ship is mine! I hav< captured itl. Ha! ha! I will command it If God will permit, I will sink it here anc now! By a thousand shipwrecks, I 6weai the doom of this vessel!" There was t lull in the storm; but only that il might gain additional fury. Crash! went the lifeboat on one side. Crash! went thf lifeboat on the other side. The great booms got loose, and, as with the heft of a thunderbolt, pounded the deck and beat the mast? tho jib boom, studding sail boom, and square sail boom, with their 6trong arms, beating time to tho awful march and music of the hurricane. Meanwhile the ocean became phosphorescent. Tho whole scene looked like fire. The water dripping from tho rigging, there were ropes of fire; and there wore masts of fire; and there was a deck of fire. A ship of fire, sailing oil a sea of fire, through a night of lire. May I never see anvthiug like it again! Everybody prayed. A lad of twelve years of age got down and prayed for his mother. "If I should give up," he said, "I do not know what would becomo of mother." There were men who, I think, had not prayed for thirty years, wtio then got down on their knees. When a man who has neglected God all his life fools that he has come to his las*", time, it makes a very busy night. All of our sins and shortcomings passed through our minds. My own life seemed utterly unsatisfactory. I could only say: "Here, Lord, take me as I am, I cannot mend matters now. Lord Jesus, Thou didst die for the chief of sinners. That's me I It seems, Lord, as if my work is done, and poorly done, and upon Thy infinite mercy I cast myself, and in this hour of shipwreck and darkness commit myself and her whom I hold by tha hand to Thee, 0 Lord Tesus! Kr ?. ;v; "; _ ! praying that it may be a short struggle in the water, and that at the same instant we may both arrive in glory I" Oh! I tell you a man prays straight to the mark w>en he has a cyclone above nim, an ocean beneath him. and eternity so close to him that he can feel its breath on his cheek. The night was long. At last we saw the dawn looking through the port holes. Aain the olden time, in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came walking on tho sea, froji wave cliff to wave cliff; and when He puts His foot upon a biilow, though it may be tossed up with might it goes down. He cried to the winds, Hush! They knew His voice. The waves knew His foot. They died away. And in the shining track of His feet I read fches# letters on scrolls of foam and fire; "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea." The ocean calmed. The peril or me steamer oecame more and more mild; until, on the last morning out, the sun threw round about us a glory such as I never witnessed before. God made a pavement of mosaic, reaching from horizon to horizon, for all the splendors of earth and heaven to walk upon?a pavement bright enough for the foot of a seraph?bright enough for the wheels of the archangel's i nUnrirtf Ao a noronf. omhrflrpc fl nltflrl onri kisses away its grief, so over that sea, that naa oeen wrrcmng in agony in tne tempest, the morning threw its arms of beauty and of benediction, and the lips of earth and heaven met. As I came on deck?it was very early, and wo were nearing the shore?I saw a few sails against the sky. They seemed like the spirits of the night walking the billows. I leaned over the taffrail of tue vessel, and said: "Thy way, 0 God, is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters." It grew lighter. The clouds were hung in purple clusters along the sky; and, as if those purple clusters were pressed into red wine and poured out upon the sea, every wave turned into crimson. Yonder, lire cleft stood opposite to fire cleft; and here, a cloud, rent and tinged with light, seemed like a palace, with names bursting from the windows. The whole scene lighted up until it seemed as if the angels of God were ascending and descending upon stairs of fire, and the wave-crests, changed into jasper, and crystal, and amethyst, as they wore flung toward the beach, made me think of the crowns of heaven cast before the throne of the great Jehovah. I leaned over the taffrail again, and said, with more emotion than before: "Thy way, 0 God, is in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters?'' So. I thought, will be the going off of the storm and night of the Christian's life. The darkness will fold its tents and away! The golden feet of the rising morn will come skipping upon the mountains, and all the wrathful billows of the world's woe breik into the splendor of eternal joy. And so we come into the harbor. The cyclone behind us. Our friends before us. God, who is always good, all around us. And if the roll of the crew and the passengers had been called seven hundred souls would have answered to their names. "And so it came to pass that we all escaped safe to land." And may God grant that, when all our Sabbaths on earth are ended, we may find'that, through the rich mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, we all have weathered the gale! Into the harbor of heaven now we glide, Home at !?tt! Softly we drift on the bright sllrcr tide, Home at last 1 Glory to God 1 All our dangers are o'er; We stand secure on the glorified shore. Glory to God I wo will shout evermore. Home at last 1 Home at lastl An Observing Profession. "It's no wonder that robbers go out torob," observed a tramp the other day, as he sat on a salt barrel in front of a grocery on West street. "Any man with an ounce of brains can make a sure thing of it." "Please explain." "Well, it's this way: While I never stole a cent's worth in all my life, I've been tempted a thousand times. Let me give you the lay of the average farm house. There is always half a dollar on the kitchen clock shelf to buy notions of the peddlers. If the farmer is working, his silver watch hancrs on a nail just to the right of the shelf. In the bedroom j off the sitting room you'll find all the jewelry. It's always kept in the left, hand corner of the bottom bureau drawer." "How do you know?" "You never mind. The deeds and other papers are in a tin box under the bed. If there's any sum of money above I $10 in the house it's in a baking-powdei | can on the top shelf of the pantry. No j farmer goes to bed with over a dollar 01 two in his pooket. He lays his pants on a chair at the foot of the bed, and they can always be reached from the window. The key to the barn hangs on a nail over the kitchen sink, and the lantern alwayhangs in the cellarway." "You are a close observer, my friend.j "Well, perhaps, but no more than the rest of the boys. I can go through the average farm house at midnight and nevertouch a chair nor squeak a door.and I'll find things just where I have told you they were kept."?New York Sun. A Faithful Old Elephant" i The Ceylon papers announce the death | of an elephant named Sella which had ; served the Public Works Department foi over sixty-five years, and had worked in various parts of the island under different circumstances for an unknown'period. t Originally Sella belonged to the last of > the Kings of Kandy, Sri Wickrema Rajs 1 Singha, and was one of about one huar ! dred elephants which passed to the Brit; ish Government in 1815, when the Kani dyan dynasty was overthrown and the } whole island passed under British rule. , [t was supposed that Sella was fifteeB , years of age at the time, but this is sur> mise. His two friends, with which lit | usually worked, and which fell to th< j Government at the same time, died ! twenty-five years ago. In 1880 it was [ decided to sell all the elephants belong1 ing to the Public Works Department, 1 and Sella fell to a resident of Colombo, r Mr. de Soysa. The animal was a tuskar, j very docile, and worked steadily all hit > life. He aided :n several operations foi t the capture and taming of wild elephants, b but became totally blind about three ATn^withstandiuir this he con jrgoio "5^. ?- t, 5 tinued to work at the plow until within ' a short time before his death. Aftei ; death the tusks were removed, and meas. ured five feet in length, the height of the i animal being eight feet. He was well f known to successive generations of BritJ ish residents in Colombo. Floating Gardens. i The floating vegetable gardens of Chins ' are prepared in April on bamboo rafte ' ten or twelve feet long by half as wide, the poles being lashed together with in teratices of an inch. Each raft is covered 1 with an inch of straw, then with twe inches of adhesive mud, which receives j the seed. The rafts are moored to the j bank in still water, and require no fur 1 ther attention. The straw and. soil soon give way, the roots drawing support from the water alone. In about twenty days the rafts become covered with the creeper spomoeo reptans, whose stems and roots are gathered for cooking, and whose blossoms present a pretty appearance in autumn. In some places marshy land is profitably cultivated in this manner. Floating rice fields are similarly constructed, the mud beiug heiu l>y a layer of weeds. They furnish the ripened crop in from sixty to seventy instead of the usual one hundred days, and may be depended on when the neighboring land fails eithe^from drought or flood. RELIGIOUSREADING. "kissbd his mother." Sbe sat on the porch in the sunshine, As I went down the street? A woman whose hair was dlvef, But whose face was blossom sweet, Making me think of a garden, Wh??n, in *pite of the frost and snow Of bleak November weather, Late, fragrant lilies blow. I heard a footstep behind me, And the sound of a merry langh, And I knew the heart it came from Would be like a comforting staff In the time and in the hour of trouble, Hopeful and brave and strong, ; One of the hearts to lean on When we think all things go wrong. I turned at the click of the gate latch. And met his manly look; A f ce like his gives me pleasure, Like the page of a pleasant book. It told of a steadfast purpose, Of a brave and daring will; A face with a promise in it, That, God grant, the years fulfil. Ho went up the pathway singing; I saw the woman's eyes Grow brijrht with a wordless welcome, As sunshine warms the skies. "Back again, sweetheart mother," He cried, and bent to kiss The loving face that was uplifted * For what some mothers miss. That boy will do to depend on; I hold that this is true? From lads in love with their mothers Onr bravest heroes grew, [hearts Earth's grandest hearts bave been loving Since time the earth began; And the boy who kisses his mother Is every inch a man! a boy's religion. Tf n Vim- i<a n Inver nf thp Lord .Tpsns Christ. though he can't lead a prayer-meeting, or be a church officer, or preacher, he can be a godly boy, in a boy's way and a boy's place. He ought not be too solemn or too quiet for a boy. He need not cease to be a boy because he is a Christian. He ought to run, jump, play, climb, and yell like a real boy. JBut in it all he ought to be free from vulgarity and profanity. He ought to eschew tobacco' in every form, and nave a horror of intoxicating drinks. He ought to be peaceable, gentle, merciful generous. He ought to take the part of small boys against large ones. He ought to discourage fighting. He ought to refuse to be a party to mischief, to persecution, to deceit. And, above all things, he ought now and then to show his colors. He need not always be interrupting a game to say he is a Christian, but he ought not be ashamed to say that he refuses to do something because it is wrong and wicked, or because he fears God, or is a Christian. He ought to take no part in the ridicule of sacred things, but meet the ridicule of others with a bold statement that.for the things of God he feels the deepest reverence.?SelecUd. TH* DUTY OF PRAISE. Praise when it is deserved is of more importance to the giver thaq to the receiver. Praise does not immediately affect the merit of him to whom its awarding belongs. If a man deserves praise, he is guite as much of a man without Draise as with it: but no man can be so ranch*of a man, nor seem so much of a man, while withholding just praise as while bestowing it. If, for example, a man risks his life for another in an act of unselfish heroism, it in no way affects his merit, that he is given or is "denied praise; but it does affect the merit of an observer of tnat act, that he renders prai30 unstintingly, or that he withholds it ungenerously. And the same principle is operative all along the line of human conduct and of its observance. Praise is the price that an on-looker puts upon a well-doer's Eerformance; and the on-looker measures iraself in the measure of the price which he awards to the performance of the welldoer. In little matters as in larger tbe giving of deserved praise is a duty, the performance of which is even more important to the one who owes it than to tfte one to whom it is owed. The man who deserves praise can get along without it. The man who ought to give praise can never get along as he ought to unless he pays it all to the uttermost farthing.?Sunday School Times. I MIRRORS WANTED. A recent writer says, "What the world need< is more mijrrore that adequately reflect the character of Christ." These words occur at the end of a talk on sanctification. in which he shows that that quality is not to be sought by striving to eradicate single sins one by one, nor by attempting to copy i t.hfi details of Christ's character bit by bit, I nor by any method which is mechanical. The lapse of time will not bring this quality: "There i? no salvation in 'time.'" We aire to be sanctified bv getting near to Christ, studying His character, absorbing His life. "Make Christ yonr most constant companion, and then,reflecting in a mirror His character, you will be changed into His imase.s' This is the true idea of salification. It is the becoming Christ-like. Of course the more like his Master one is, the more nearly has he approached to complete sanctification. When we put the mat er in this way,, moreover, tt.is very desirable quality seems ' more possible of attainment than when we regard it from some other points of view. Keep up a life of constant striving to be better? It is possible, of course, but not easy. It calls for heroic resolution which most of us find verv hard to maintain, especially I wnen tne results, somenow, ao not seem to I iw? of oil nrnnnrtmtifire to the endeavor. Shall we then endeavor to imitate now this element in our Lord's character and now that? But that is fragmentary in its results; it will give certain good thing*, but it will not yield symmetrical character, it will not result in a homogeneous whole. But we can put ourselves into communion with Christ. We can-make Him a companion. U'c can get close to Him. Suppose one seeks every morning, before beginning the labors of the day. a season alone with Christ. It need not be long, and of course if it is perfunctory it will amount to nothing. But two or three or five minutes of retirement face to face with the Lord, the world shut cut?what new views will be given to the soul, what assurances of strength, what ideas of duty, what renewed consecration, what a conscousness of the divine friendship! No Christian can dare to say th.it he cannot find the few minutes that w'll bring to them these blessings that are beyond compare. A few daily minutes of intercourse with Christ, if more cannot be had. may give color to the whole day, and the believer will grow daily more and more like Christ his Lord. Such piety is hearty. There is the force of a real life in it. It is not a thing of times and seasons, nor of forms and ceremonies. It is not cold and lifeless, but warm and exuberant. It is rich and full, and so men catch its enthusiasm, and some, at least, are borne along on its strong tide who I .,1,1 Ka mnvmf hv ft nitV that W33 V> UUIU nctci uw tuvfvv. ?^ g upon the surface and took no hold upon the springs of life. It is the great heart of Christ beating in His followers, and it must make its power felt. And this piety that is derived from this daily communion with Christ is continous. It is not subject to fluctuations. It is not on the mount one day and in the deep valley the next. Daily communion with Christ!?then daily the heart will be warmed and cheered bv His presence,its fears will be removed, its hopes will be expanded, its faith will be confirmed, and will all the time be exerting a healthful influence. There may come to it special seasons of refreshing, but it w 11 know few seasons of coldness and deadness. It will all time proclaim Christ. How quickly, how surely,the glad tidings would bespread, did only every professed Christian reflect clearly from the mirror of hi< life thcbrisrht shiriinsr of the Sun of Richteousness!?American Jfcxxmi/i-r. CHILDREN EESJIT WITH TEMPTATION. Tho rights of children are not recognized when 10,000 children in Chicago are bearing the burdens of as many men, and are beset with temptations that no man ought to face. ''Suffer little children," said our Lord, and we suffer them to go about our streets with begrimed faces, tattered clothes, and bare feet, besmeared with tobacco, and bearing I the stench of the grog shop on their breath, j ?Walter Thomas Mills. DIVORCE AXD DRIXK. Rev. S. TV. Dike, LL.D., in introducing a discussion of the divorce question in the North American Review for November, states that a special study of forty-five counties, in twelve States, shows that drunkenness was a direct or indirect cause in onefifth of the cases. Other estimates give even a larger percentage. \ ' TEMPEBMCE. A ' AUZ07 THE LIQDOaiTKS. \ Unscrupulous Hquorites hare scattered ?*>j I and wide the statement that in Dee Moinea,; Iowa, there are sixty-four large brick stor?houses in the center of the city "unocCUSled." The Iowa Register proves that tharlK . i only one such empty storehouse, and thaSk|| one a building whicn as a saloon gained reputation so bad that no legitimate businew^B could afford to go there. V SALOONS NXAK CK3CZTEBIK8. A celebrated orator, in speaking of SacxA'vV mento, says: "The last thing you pass bvas 1 you enter the cemetery gate, and only arty " feet from it, is a saloon. The first thing : which confronts a mother after laying away 'j her boy, a victim of the liquor traffic, as she J passes out at the gate, is the legalized bustness that destroyed him. Inside the cemetery are places set apart for the burial of Odd Sj Fellows, Masons and members of the Im- ;v' proved Order of Red Mem It seemed to me - j that what was most needed in wine-cursed . - - j ?i? ; i;aiuoraia was an uupiuvcu. wu? v* ^,-j LABOR LEADERS WHO ABHOR LIQVOB. >, It is a hopeful sign of the times that the ;V leader of the late London Dock strike, John .'4 Burns, declared in a recent speech that "he had never drunk intoxicating liquor in his Ufa and had never smoked," and that "he would have nothing to do with a strike that- would minister to the vilest passions of men, or pan-1 der to their drunken habits by giving money away that ought to go to build up the ooustz- . v tutionof women and children." When g great body of workingmen will join in a per-.. *$ petual "strike" against the brewery, distil- > Iery, and the saloon, under such leaden as Mr. Burns, the greatest oppressor of labor will be speedily overthrown. It is also significant and encouraging that' v Mr. Powderly, the official head of Knights of Labor on this side of the Atlantic, is outspoken for the prohibition of the liquor ttfaf- ? flc, and that he gives his aid to Sunday cloe-,. ing, where saloons exist. On a recent Son- * day afternoon in Chicago he addreesedffve thousand people in one of the large halls of " that city upon4 'Sunday Closing of. Saloons," and his address was greeted with remarkable enthusiasm.?National Temperance Adnocate. ? RCM'S WORK. jWjfciL According to the testimony of JosuflH Thomson, not all the ages of sensuality ancHH idol worship and warrine have done ao much^H to demoralize and brutalize the Africans as ^ has been effected in a generation or two I through strong drink. It is when removed I from drink in the interior that the souls of J the natives are comparatively pure and stain- ;; less, while brought in connection with ftp. > nearest coast they have become black and de? ? generate. The same was true of the Tnrtian Q races in this country. With all thB ages be- f. y* hind him the red man could never become fiend and a devil till rum made him so. We > talk of paganism, heathenism and all the rat, "?? but there are thousands upon thousands fa'' our large cities whom strong drink has made more heathenish, depraved and God-foraakea ). than paganism could do if it' had added cen- ' . turies in which to work out its natural r&suits. If evolution were to be taken for granted in regard to native races. strong [ drink appears to be the one thing above afi -v others which arrests it and sends them on the : 1 line of hopeless degradation. In case of mnl- .5 titudes it equally arrests it in Christian ooon-. -i tries, so that nothing is to be hoped for by 7} any natural process, if even through the % Brace of God. DRINK AND CRIME. It is a signiflcent fact, says the Temwtr <:? ance Advocate, of New York, that while there has been a general increase of crime in : j the country at large during the last' decade,; r. there has been a diminution of crime in all ^ the States and localities wherein the liquor traffic is prohibited. In this aspect the nax* ; United States census report is Iiieiy to prorw a valuable temperance document. Alcohol transforms women as wen as men into reckless criminals. Recently, at an earfy ;i hour in the morning, the attention of a Jersey;*! City policeman was attracted by screams of , murder, and he found the street in an uproar .*? and about a dozen men and women In a , drunken row. After he had separated the people and was about to leave ne heard a. pistol shot, and a bullet whizzed by lib i ear. Turning he saw a revolver in the natub of a drunken woman, aimed at his heacLiuo^ by a dexterous movement he wrested ifrErigSi her, and took her a prisoner to the station^ house, where she awaits trial. Alcphol con- . verted the woman into a murderous fiend. A short time ago a promising young men, or boy, of sixteen, near Oshkosh, went to a Saturday night village dance, and after drinking heavily went home and shot him- 3 self, the shooting unpremediated, the result of a brain crazed with whisky. Recently an Indian at Odanah, addicted to drink, stabbed and killed his brother, horribly mutilating his body, because the latter . had given information to the authoritiai about taking liquor into the reservation. Alcohol is no respector of either sex or race. ' THE DRINK TROUBLE ABROAD. Not the least important of the international conferences recently.held in Paris was that ' which met to study the drink question. The European countries have become alarmed at I the dangerous progress of alcoholism, and are searching for means to stem it. \ In France and Belgium Government Commissions have considered the question and . suggested various remedies. DrunkenneiB until a few years ago was all but unknown in France. One might have walked the streets of Paris at any hour of the day or night without seeing any one the worse for liquor. Bat now drunkenness is there in its worst form. The report of the recent Congress contains figures which prove that drink is now one of the chief causes of crime and of lunacy. Fourteen per cent, of the lunatics under treat- \ ment in France owe their insanity to alco- . holism, and in 1885 it was the cause of 588 accidental deaths and 868 suicides. Some statistics of the number of liquor saloons to inhabitants in different European countries were given at the congress. In England there is a licensed house for every 223 inhabitants; in Austria, one to 286 inhabitants; in Denmark, one for every 194; in Italy, one for every 175; in Holland, one for every 149; in France, one for every 90 people. and in Belgium one for every 43. The Belgians drink more than any ofiler people in Europe. They consume 70, (XX),000 litres of^ liquor every year, which gives 60 litre|MttM every male adult. Paris is pretty well prc^^H vided with liquor shops, or cafes, having one^H ! among every 88 inhabitants. Tne quantity H of liquor consumed per head of the Inhabit- D I ?ntii wnnwn and children included, is $ litres in England, 10 in Sweden, 16 in Dm mark, 9 litres in Belgium, and 7 in Prussia H and France. _________ ' TEMPERANCE NEWS AN'D NOTE8. I The Peace Society of Paris publishes I monthly paper and works with the W. C. H The Boston Record savs there were 3845 H women arrested for drunkenness in that city H the past year. / ' : H The City Council of Kansas City, Mo., I have appropriated $4000 for thirty drinking j fountains in that city. D Give us clubs, Bands of Hope, societies by B the thousands, all having temperance educa- H j tional work as their aim. H Beware of bad company. Many an inno* fl I cent molasses jug has been scandalized be- H ; cause it was in the hands of a drinking man. H At the State Fair in Milwaukee, Wis., the H W. C. T. U. distributed 14,000 pages of tem- H perance literature in different languages, be- H sides nearly 3000 papers. H Miss Frances TV'illard, the temperance H orator, sometimes stops in front of a saloon H and entreats a would-be customer not to go H in. Her persuasive tongue and handsome face seldom meet witu ianure ua suvu <u w casiou. fl A florist who has had opportunities of ob- H servation says that niue murderers out of ten H| liave a love for flowers. From careful H study, adds the Voice, we are able to report H I that ten murderers in every ten have a still I more passionate love for whisky. Christian men and women, the injunction H I of the Apostle is, "Do good unto all men."l ; The saloon is doing evil to all men, either dij reotly or indirectly. To abolish it, says the | Pioneer, would be to do the greatest good to , the greatest number that it.is possible to do by any political act. Wake up the churchec^M Patrick Cox, after being confined in^tfae^H Iowa State Prison six years for selling liquor in violation of law, was pardoned out several months ago on the condition that he would neither drink nor sell whisky. Recently he^H was found openly violating the prohibition statute. He was tried, convicted and seat to^fl prison. The remaining ten years of hB term added to his recent sentence will keea^H him in prison for UXe.