For the thought of her little Peter
Has been with her all night.
And now she watches the pathway,
As yester-eve she had done;

But what does she see so strange and black
Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors are bearing between them
Something straight to her door;

Her child is coming home, but not
As he ever came before.

"He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!
And the startled father hears,

And comes and looks the way she looks
And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers
Thrills the stricken man and wife-
"Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,
And God has saved his life!"

So, there in the morning sunshine
They knelt about the boy;

And every head was bared and bent
In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still,
When the sea roars like a flood,
Their boys are taught what a boy can do
Who is brave and true and good.
For every man in that country
Takes his son by the hand,
And tells him of little Peter,
Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero
Remembered through the years;
But never one whose name so oft
Is named with loving tears.

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,
And told the child on the knee,

So long as the dikes of Holland

Divide the land from the sea.

THE SINGER'S ALMS.

In Lyons, in the mart of that French town,
Years since, a woman, leading a fair child,
Craved a small alms of one who, walking down

The thoroughfare, caught the child's glance and smiled

To see behind its eyes a noble soul;
He paused, but found he had no coin to dole.
His guardian angel warned him not to lose
This chance of pearl to do another good;
So, he waited, sorry to refuse

The asked-for penny, then aside he stood,
And, with his hat held as by limb the nest,
He covered his kind face and sang his best.

The sky was blue above, and all the lane

Of commerce where the singer stood was filled,

And many paused, and, listening, paused again

To hear the voice that through and through them thrilled; I think the guardian angel helped along

That cry for pity woven in a song.

The singer stood between the beggars there
Before the church; and overhead the spire,
A slim, perpetual finger in the air

Held toward heaven, land of the heart's desire,
As though an angel, pointing up, had said,
"Yonder a crown awaits the singer's head."

The hat of its stamped brood was emptied soon
Into the woman's lap, who drenched with tears
Her kiss upon the hand of help. 'Twas noon,

And noon in her glad heart drove forth her tears.
The singer, pleased, passed on, and softly thought
"Men will not know by whom this deed was wrought."

But when at night he came upon the stage,

Cheer after cheer went up from that wild throng,
And flowers rained on him. Nought could assuage
The tumult of the welcome, save the song
That for the beggars he had sung that day
While standing in the city's busy way.

Oh! cramped and narrow is the man who lives
Only for self, and pawns his years away
For gold, nor knows the joy a good deed gives,
But feels his heart shrink slowly, day by day,
And dies at last, his band of fate outrun;
No high aim sought, no worthy action done.
But brimmed with molten brightness like a star,
And broad and open as the sea or sky,
The generous heart. Its kind deeds shine afar,
And glow in gold in God's great book on high;
And he who does what good he can each day

Makes smooth and green, and strews with flowers, his way.

THE WATER-MILL.-D. C. MCCALLUM.

Oh! listen to the water-mill, through all the live-long day, As the clicking of the wheels wears hour by hour away; How languidly the autumn wind doth stir the withered leaves,

As on the field the reapers sing, while binding up the sheaves!

A solemn proverb strikes my mind, and as a spell is cast, The mill will never grind again with water that is past.”

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The summer winds revive no more leaves strewn o'er earth and main,

The sickle never more will reap the yellow garnered grain; The rippling stream flows ever on, aye tranquil, deep and still,

But never glideth back again to busy water-mill.

The solemn proverb speaks to all,with meaning deep and vast, "The mill will never grind again with water that is past."

Oh! clasp the proverb to thy soul, dear loving heart and true, For golden years are fleeting by, and youth is passing too; Ah! learn to make the most of life, nor lose one happy day, For time will ne'er return sweet joys neglected, thrown away; Nor leave one tender word unsaid, thy kindness sow broadcast

"The mill will never grind again with water that is past."

Oh! the wasted hours of life, that have swiftly drifted by, Alas! the good we might have done, all gone without a sigh; Love that we might once have saved by a single kindly word, Thoughts conceived but ne'er expressed, perishing unpenned, unheard.

Oh! take the lesson to thy soul, forever clasp it fast,

"The mill will never grind again with water that is past."

Work on while yet the sun doth shine, thou man of strength and will,

The streamlet ne'er doth useless glide by clicking watermill;

Nor wait until to-morrow's light beams brightly on thy way, For all that thou canst call thine own, lies in the phrase "to-day:"

Possessions, power, and blooming health, must all be lost at

last

"The mill will never grind again with water that is past."

Oh! love thy God and fellow man, thyself consider last, For come it will when thou must scan dark errors of the past;

Soon will this fight of life be o'er, and earth recede from

view,

And heaven in all its glory shine where all is pure and true. Ah! then thou❜lt see more clearly still the proverb deep and vast,

"The mill will never grind again with water that is past."

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.-J. G. HOLLAND.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching; how many of them? Sixty thousand! Sixty full regiments, every man of which will, before twelve months shall have completed their course, lie down in the grave of a drunkard! Every year during the past decade has witnessed the same sacrifice; and sixty regiments stand behind this army ready to take its place. It is to be recruited from our children and our children's children. Tramp, tramp, tramp-the sounds come to us in the echoes of the footsteps of the army just expired; tramp, tramp, tramp-the earth shakes with the tread of the host now passing; tramp, tramp, tramp-comes to us from the camp of the recruits. A great tide of life flows resistlessly to its death. What in God's name are they fighting for? The privilege of pleasing an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of filling sixty thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses with felons, of detracting from the productive industries of the country, of ruining fortunes and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul in hell before their time.

The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every department of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So long as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condition, it will cost America the sacrifice of sixty thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable from the cause. The cost to the country of the liquor traffic is a sum so stupendous that any figures which we should dare to give would convict us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of industry sacrificed, the

amount of bread transformed into poison, the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the poverty, the pauperism, the brutality, the wild waste of vital and financial resources, make an aggregate so vast-so incalculably vast,—that the only wonder is that the American people do not rise as one man and declare that this great curse shall exist no longer.

A hue-and-cry is raised about woman-suffrage, as if any wrong which may be involved in woman's lack of the suffrage could be compared to the wrongs attached to the liquor interest.

Does any sane woman doubt that women are suffering a thousand times more from rum than from any political disability?

The truth is that there is no question before the American people to-day that begins to match in importance the temperance question. The question of American slavery was never anything but a baby by the side of this; and we prophesy that within ten years, if not within five, the whole country will be awake to it, and divided upon it. The organizations of the liquor interest, the vast funds at its command, the universal feeling among those whose business is pitted against the national prosperity and the public morals-these are enough to show that, upon one side of this matter, at least, the present condition of things and the social and political questions that lie in the immediate future are apprehended. The liquor interest knows there is to be a great struggle, and is preparing to meet it. People both in this country and in Great Britain are beginning to see the enormity of this business-are beginning to realize that Christian civilization is actually poisoned at its fountain, and that there can be no purification of it until the source of the poison is dried up.

Temperance laws are being passed by the various Legislatures, which they must sustain, or go over, soul and body, to the liquor interest and influence. Steps are being taken on behalf of the public health, morals, and prosperity, which they must approve by voice and act, or they must consent to be left behind and left out. There can be no concession and no compromise on the part of temperance men, and no quarter to the foe. The great curse of our country and our race must be destroyed.