mals listening in intoxicated silence to its strains. Well, kindness is the music of good-will to men and beasts; and both listen to it with their hearts, instead of their ears; and the hearts of both are affected by it in the same way, if not to the same degree. Volumes might be written, filled with beautiful illustrations of its effect upon both. The music of kindness has not only power to charm, but even to transform, both the savage breast of man and beast; and on this harp the smallest fingers in the world may play heaven's sweetest tunes on earth.

Some time ago we read of an incident in America that will serve as a good illustration of this beautiful law. It was substantially to this effect: a poor, coarse-featured old woman lived on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, where it passed through a wild, unpeopled district in Western Virginia. She was a widow, with only one daughter living with her in a log-hut, near a deep, precipitous gorge crossed by the railway bridge. Here she contrived to support herself by raising and selling poultry and eggs, adding berries in their season, and other little articles for the market. She had to make a long, weary walk of many miles to a town where she could sell her basket of produce. The railway passed by her house to this town; but the ride would cost too much of the profit of her small sales: so she trudged on generally to the market on foot. The conductor, or guard, came finally to notice her traveling by the side of the line, or on the footpath between the rails; and being a goodnatured, benevolent man, he would often give her a ride to and fro without charge. The engine-man and brakeman also were good to the old woman, and felt that they were not wronging the interests of the railway company by giving her these free rides.

And soon an accident occurred that proved they were quite right in this view of the matter. In the wild month of March the rain descended, and the mountains sent down their rolling, roaring torrents of melted snow and ice into this gorge, near the old woman's house. The flood arose with the darkness of the night, until she heard the crash of the railway bridge, as it was swept from its abutments, and dashed its broken timbers against the craggy sides of the

precipice on either side. It was nearly midnight. The rain fell in a flood; and the darkness was deep and howling. In another half-hour the train would be due. There was no telegraph on the line; and the stations were separated by great distances. What could she do to warn the train against the awful destruction it was approaching? She had hardly a tallow candle in her house; and no light she could make of tallow or oil, if she had it, would live a moment in that tempest of wind and rain. Not a moment was to be lost; and her thought was equal to the moment. She cut the cords of her only bedstead, and shouldered the dry posts, head-pieces, and side-pieces. Her daughter followed her with their two wooden chairs. Up the steep embankment they climbed, and piled their all of household furniture upon the line, a few rods beyond the black, awful gap, gurgling with the roaring flood. The distant rumbling of the train came upon them just as they had fired the well-dried combustibles. The pile blazed up into the night, throwing its red, swaling, booming light a long way up the line. In fifteen minutes it would begin to wane; and she could not revive it with green, wet wood. The thunder of the train grew louder. It was within five miles of the fire. Would they see it in time? They might not put on the brakes soon enough. Awful thought! She tore her red woollen gown from her in a moment, and tying it to the end of a stick, ran up the line, waving it in both hands, while her daughter swung around her head a blazing chair-post a little before. The lives of a hundred unconscious passengers hung on the issue of the next minute. The ground trembled at the old woman's feet. The great red eye of the engine showed itself coming round a curve. Like as a huge, sharp-sighted lion coming suddenly upon a fire, it sent forth a thrilling roar, that echoed through all the wild heights and ravines around. The train was at full speed; but the brakemen wrestled at their leverage with all the strength of desperation. The wheels ground along on the heated rails slower and slower, until the engine stopped at the roaring fire. It still blazed enough to show them the beetling edge of the black abyss into which the train and all its passengers would have plunged into a death and destruction too horrible to

think of, had it not been for the old woman's signal. They did not stop to thank her first for the deliverance. The conductor knelt down by the side of the engine; the enginedriver and the brakemen came and knelt down by him; all the passengers came and knelt down by them; and there, in the expiring light of the burnt-out pile, in the rain and the wind, they thanked God for the salvation of their lives. All in a line, the kneelers and prayers sent up into the dark heavens such a midnight prayer and voice of thanksgiving as seldom, if ever, ascended from the earth to Him who seeth in darkness as well as in secret.

Kindness is the music of good-will to men; and on this harp the smallest fingers in the world may play heaven's sweetest tunes on earth.

A VEGETABLE CONVENTION.-GEORGE W. BUNGAY.

Once where our city farmers sat,
And listened to a long debate,
In their own club-room, this and that
Discussion kept them up so late,
They left their samples in the hall,
In heaps upon the dusty floor,

In packages against the wall,

In bundles down behind the door.

The vegetables, still till then,
Began to feel the pulsing flow,

That beats like blood in veins of men,
When feeling kindles thought aglow.
Then the full-orbed onion's sighs
Made a sensation in the heat,
It brought tears to potatoes' eyes
And color to the crimson beet.

First a potato rubbed its eyes,

It must have been an "early rose,"
For it was first of all to rise,

And said: "Permit me to propose
A friendly meeting now and here;
We can be social until morn."
A stalk of maize then bowed its ear,
But spoke not, for 'twas full of corn.

"I second that," a parsnip said,
The timid thing turned deadly pale.
A jealous carrot, round and red,
Objected, for his friend so frail,
Though classical, could not endure
An argument that reached the root;
And should they quarrel, he was sure,
They had things all prepared to shoot.
But he was overruled, and they
Put the potato in the chair,
And then debated until day

Dawned in its glory on them there.
A ripe tomato, bright and red,

Wondered what city farmers knew
Of country crops, that nature fed

With sunshine, and with rain and dew.
They only plow with wheels the street,
And greenbacks are the only greens
That grow where corporations meet
In rings to raise the ways and means.
Oh! how the last remark did please,
Some noisy beans who made uproar,
While in wild ecstasy the peas

In raptures rolled upon the floor.
"This is no place for mirth--instead
Of jollity, we should be wise,"
Cried out in wrath a cabbage-head;
And the potato winked his eyes.
"That is a truthful word indeed

We must be sober and sedate,"
Exclaimed a turnip run to seed,
"Have dignity or stop debate."

A squash now thought that she should speak,
And soften with her language soft,
The quarrel, but her accents weak

Were lost in crashes from aloft.
A box of grapes came tumbling down,
From shelves no hand was there to touch,
With noise enough to wake the town,
Because they had a drop too much.

The grapes rolled out in merry glee,
And reeled in fun across the floor,
The crashing box awakened me,

Just as the last man left the door.
I wished to hear the speeches through,
Hear something about “plowing deep.”-
A work that speakers seldom do,

When their dull words put us to sleep.

THE PHANTOMS OF ST. SEPULCHRE*

CHARLES MACKAY,

"Didst ever see a hanging?"

66

No, not one;

Nor ever wish to see such scandal done.

But once I saw a wretch condemned to die:

A lean-faced, bright-eyed youth; who made me sigh
At the recital of a dream he had.

He was not sane-and yet he was not mad;

Fit subject for a mesmerist he seemed;

For when he slept, he saw; and when he dreamed,
His visions were as palpable to him

As facts to us. My memory is dim
Upon his story, but I'll ne'er forget

The dream he told me, for it haunts me yet,
Impressed upon me by his earnest faith
That 'twas no vision, but a sight which death
Opened his eyes to see,-an actual glimpse
Into the world of spectres and of imps,

Vouchsafed to him on threshold of the grave;
List! and I'll give it, in the words he gave:-

'Ay, you may think that I am crazed,
But what I saw, that did I see.

These walls are thick, my brain was sick,
And yet mine eyes saw lucidly.

Through the joists and through the stones
I could look as through a glass;

And from this dungeon, damp and cold,
I watched the motley people pass.
All day long, rapid and strong,
Rolled to and fro the living stream;
But in the night, I saw a sight-
I cannot think it was a dream.

'Old St. Sepulchre's bell will toll
At eight to-morrow, for my soul;
And thousands, not much better than I,
Will throng around to see me die;
And many will bless their happy fate,

That they ne'er fell from their high estate,
Or did such deed as I have done;
Though, from the rise to the set of sun,
They cheat their neighbors all their days,
And gather gold in slimy ways.

*It may be necessary to inform the reader, unacquainted with London, that the church of St. Sepulchre is close to the jail of Newgate; and that its bell is tolled when a criminal is executed. Few will need to be reminded that the three stories related are not fabulous.