dust returning to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who

gave

it.' Why, by the power of the Press, the steps of mortality itself are staid, and full-orbed intellects, at the word of this Joshua of iron, stand still, and the prayer of Telamon's mighty son, 'for light,' is answered.

I do not wonder that the impression of the first type, upon

the printed page, was crimson. It was but the flushing of a new morning, that has dawned upon the intellectual world. Oh! in that black, unseemly engine, lies the world's great strength, and Time's most formidable foe.

Lucy, who is trying to pick up' a refractory stitch, breaks in upon my train of thought, just here, with, ‘Any body married or dead ?' Just like a woman!

One death! Little LOUISE L

The ancients used to fancy the fountain of Arethusa could change age into immortal youth and beauty; and though the divinities of the fountain, the river and the forest, have passed away, there is something attractive in the fancy, and there is hardly one who would not rear it into a faith if he could

The fountain of Arethusa may, long ago, have intermitted, but the charm it used to wear, like Hope, is lingering still.

There are those who daily find that fountain, and are ever young; the beings that pass away in infancy; that are enshrined in memory; that smile on us with their gentle eyes, from away through the distant years; that never grow old, but remain children still, though the cradle that rocked, and the roof that sheltered, and the bosom that pillowed them, have mouldered away.

How could I help thinking so, when I read the brief record that a little being who had filled, we know, a large place in more hearts than one, had turned cherub? And I could not help thinking, too, that it is hardly a bereavement, after all, that one of all our treasures should grow immortal and changeless; one, of all our loves, should triumph over time, and shine like a star, amid the clouds of the world, with a constant and beautiful light.

Oh! many a LOUISE, to-day, is linking earth to heaven; and who would make the number less ? Without a tear, they are awaiting us just beyond the azure ; ever young-ever the children we laid them down-accepted candidates for the Kingdom of Hea

ven.

6

• There is no fold, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there ;
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But hath one vacant chair.'

Here in the corner—the poet's corner, (why is he always set in the corner, like a naughty boy-can any body tell ?)—are two or three stanzas in little type.

They describe the bright spring days as having come, and the cottage door set open wide, and the mother sewing within the lonely room, and there being nothing to delay her sewing on, because

“The little hindering thing has gone.'

It may not so impress you, perhaps, but there is to me, in that little hindering thing,' something wonderfully suggestive. How it conjures up the memory of that little voice, those little pattering feet, those thousand calls from sleep to sleep again, for this and that, so weaving up a mother's life of love, with that little being's destiny.

“ Little hindering thing," indeed' The world

were better to-day, had there been more things to hinder it from growing old — from forgetting the past.

THERE is a queer advertisement, just beneath the brief announcement of sweet Louise' translation; and it reads thus

SPIRIT RAPPINGS.—Communications with the Spirit Land, 25 cents.

wonderful times? Postage to Heaven only twenty-five cents! No ferry on the Jordan; no line of telegraph beyond it; no contract for carrying the mail that we can read of; and yet, for a paltry quarter, here we have the latest advices' from Hades! If it were true-if it were not a sacrilegious humbug-there certainly would be balm and beauty in it. The Rachels of our day could send a wish and a thought' after the lispers whom the Gods loved,' and the Angel in charge, would transmit a line or two, in behalf of the little Marys and Charleys gone on before.' Fatherless sons could take counsel of departed sires, and sainted mothers recall, in spirit whispers, their errant children

Husbands could waft words of love to the dear ones that wandered awhile with them, in disguise ; widows could — if they would, for widows are 'wonderfully sustained,' some how, 'in the general.' The lover's dream, and the poet's song, would thus be realized, and many a welcoming, many a warning voice would be wafted across the dark river; white hands would beckon, through the night, to the waiting this side the water; happy would he be, who had some friend beyond the Jordan, that the tear of parting here, might brighten in the smile of meeting there. The poor washerwoman would consecrate, each week, a hard-earned quarter, to hear from little NELLY, whose spotless garments were 'washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb;' and the appalling waste of nothingness 'twixt this world and that, would be bridged for ever.

"ARRIVAL from California ! A million of golddust! Great news from the mines !' And so it runs on, in great grenadiers of letters, a regiment of exclamation points bringing up the rear.

And so it goes, through three mortal columns