But I am obliged to stop in this brief story of a noble life at the very point from which it would be pleasant to go on. It was fitting that the crowning service of the foremost scholar in a great denomination of Christians should be connected with one of those institutions by which that denomination will be kept alive. It was a favorite maxim of Dr. Ballou that "sects, societies live by their institutions."

Dr. Ballou remained at his post, the wise and careful guardian of the college, till the messenger came and said, "The Master has come and calleth for thee."

On the twenty-seventh day of May, 1861, while the sun was in the western sky, he went quietly, peacefully to his rest.

As I write these last words, I hear the song of the oriole out of the fine elm that is not far from my study window. Summer is in the sky, and an unwonted beauty covers all the earth. I look out and listen. I think of the man who more than any other I ever knew loved the Creator's nature, and whose soul was full of "all sweet sounds and harmonies." There were few regions on this earth in which, by thought and feeling, he had not travelled. One of the best descriptive pieces ever written of the White Hills came from his pen; and it was said that "his knowledge of the Alps was so accurate, that he could probably have told precisely where he was if he had been dropped from a balloon into some one of the passes or valleys of Switzerland." When from Lake Geneva he first saw the dome of Mt. Blanc, as it lifts above the lower hills, he met its mighty welcome as an old friend. When from the spires of Berne and the hills of Zurich he first saw the beautiful Oberland, he counted all the peaks by name. And so wherever he went, he seemed to have sent himself on before, so familiar by study had he become with the scenes amid which he was moving.

of the one hundred and twenty snowy summits, which, as seen from a few great points in that marvellous land, fill all the horizon i and when from the slopes of the Jura, and the turrets of Milan, he saw these same domes of living white, he knew and verified their outline, and marked their groups from his own little picture, so rudely and yet so accurately drawn.

But how inadequate all these hints and allusions! The promise to do more must for the present remain unfulfilled. I seem to myself to bring but one small leaf of love to be woven into that fadeless chaplet, which must forever rest upon the brow of an immortal.

Thou hast no thought of human years. The sun that warms thee loves thee well, The blue above thee paints thy bell; Then wherefore droop and sorrow thus? Go to! and leave the tears to us. O Willow, wherefore bend and weeɣ, And vaunt thy grief before our face? Thou hast no woes to sob to sleep Or need to mourn departed grace. Thy green branch o'er our losses waves, Thy tassels droop upon our graves; Then wherefore mourn and weary thus ? Go to! and leave the grief to us. O Brooklet, sing me something gay,

The sparkles on thy ripples shine, The small birds sip and trill a lay

That asks more blithe reply than thine. Thou art not running to our sea, The sea of life's eternity,

Then wherefore croon and murmur thus?
Go to! and leave the dirge to us.

O Flower, and Tree, and bonny Brook,
I trow a deeper need have ye
For tear and plaint and drooping look,

Than careless eyes at first may see.
Immortal Hope ye may not know,
Who share no human joy or woe.
Then wherefore do I blame ye thus,
Who leave eternal bliss to us?

I

THE EVERGREENS.

BY MRS. N. T. MUNROE,

HAD been watching all through the spring for the robins, and during the last few days had seen them flying in the garden below and up into the great Norway spruce tree close by my study window, where there was a deserted nest which I hoped they would rebuild and refit for their habitation, for I knew they were considering the subject of the location of their future homes. Yet I had no way of luring them back. The nest as far as I could see was in good repair and in a most sheltered spot, for the overhanging branches and the nearness to the house would most effectually protect it from the cold spring storms, and no mortal cat could ever climb the rough trunk of this spruce, so if they intended to build in the garden at all, they could not do better than to build here. As I was thus thinking while sitting at my window, looking into the heart of the evergreen, I heard the whirring of wings, and saw a robin on the lower branches of the tree. Picking the little insects from the bark, he hopped from branch to branch, turning his little bead-like eyes this way and that, till he came to the nest, of which he actually took a survey, and then flew down, alighting on the grape vine trellis, from which he flew to a neighboring pear tree. I kept as quiet as possible while all this was going on, not daring to raise a finger and keeping my glass eyes out of sight as much as possible, remembering how terribly I had frightened a brood two summers previous. For a day or two I lived on this encouragement, but probably the survey of the nest was not satisfactory, for the robin never brought his mate to it, though I waited in anxious expectation.

The summer came on in all its beauty, the fruit trees, the maples, the lindens and the birch, were in full leaf, and the evergreens were just putting out their scaly leaf buds, and one day I seated myself, as I often do, at my study window, which looks into the heart of this evergreen. Norway spruce-"Branches pendulous, leaves elongated somewhat, tworanked, cones long, cylindrical, pendulous, scales broad, with a slightly projecting and twotoothed apex. Parks and shrubberies. A tall, stately evergreen with dense and dark

green foliage. It grows luxuriantly and is a finer tree than any of our native species." I now became conscious of a slightly murmuring noise among the branches of the two evergreens near me, and keeping myself very quiet, I heard what I will proceed to relate. I have often noticed that trees grow in pairs, and that this is especially true as regards evergreens, and when so growing, one is always taller and of darker foliage than the other. I can see two cedars far off in a neighboring field thus paired, and walking in the woods the other day I particularly noticed a pair of giant pines, as also a great many other trees of different species also paired. I have two such trees in my garden, and it is of these I now speak, and it was the taller, which I call the male tree, that spoke first. He repeated the words I had just read. "It grows luxuriantly and is a finer tree than any of our native species.' Do you hear that? I knew it was so. Don't you see how much taller we are than those pines, and yet they have been in this garden nearly as long as we have."

"But they were little young things when they were set out, and what could you expect?" broke in the female in a quick tone and with a brisk rustling of her sharp needles.

"That is true. But it makes me laugh to think of the time when they were brought here. They came from some town down by the seashore, and were left here one day by an express man, all packed tightly in a barrel. The people thought they would have a clump of pines, and so they planted them closely together; I saw it all done and rare fun it was. It looked like a baby grove, for they weren't much more than large bushes. Well, they were watched and watched those little trees, while no attention was paid to us, yet they didn't grow for all that, and their little branches got broken off and some of them died, and by and by they were all taken up and set out by the fence where they are now, one, two, three, four, all there are left."

"Yet they look very nicely now, and I have no doubt will in time make very fine trees, and grow luxuriantly, as we do."

6

"Now don't be vain, pray don't. I know the owner thinks a great deal of those pines, perhaps quite as much as of us, though we are not of the native species.' I saw her go down to one of them the other day, and when she came back she brought a small branch which was just putting out its leaf buds, and she took up the big book she was reading from just now. And she said over a lot of hard names which I can't remember, and pulling one of those longaments,' as she called them, to pieces, she took a little glass and examined it very carefully."

"Well that was just what she was doing to one of my leaf-buds just now. She pulled the little scales all off and examined them with the little glass; underneath the scales were the tiny leaves all folded up so nicely. These she pulled to pieces and examined, and although it made me feel badly at first, when I thought that probably it was for some scientific purpose, I was comforted."

"When she took this little branch of the pine, she turned over the book till she found what she wanted, and then she read thus 'Leaves fasicled in fires. Cone scales not thickened at the end, unarmed. Bark comparatively smooth. The White Pine. A most majestic and useful forest tree.''

"O, that is very well. Pines are really very fine trees. But then, it is a finer tree than any of the native species,' sounds much better, I think, and seems to give us superiority."

"But trees are often valued by their owners from their associations; now the pines were given by a friend, while we were purchased."

"Nevertheless I think we receive as much attention as any trees in the garden, for not only in summer does the owner look upon us when she sits at this window, but in the winter when she doesn't even glance at the other trees because they are bare and unsightly, she often stops to admire us, especially when, as is often the case, our branches are laden with soft snow or crystal ice."

"I think one reason of her looking so much at you just now is on account of that robin's nest up in your topmost branches."

"Perhaps so, and I hoped for her sake the robins would come back. I did all I could for them. I bent my branches down over

the nest that they would protect it from the rain, and the robins came and looked at it and they made a great chattering about it, but I could not win them back. Yet apart from this I think she sits great store by us, as also by our cousins yonder, for indeed we are getting quite large and stately and ornamental, and I have heard her say that we are the first evergreens that lived and thrived in her garden."

"But suppose some day she should have you dug up as she did the maple tree that was too near that window below? Don't you feel your branches shake every time she looks at you? I thank my stars every day that I am so far on one side of the window."

"Don't be uneasy. I haven't a bit of fear. I am a fixture. I know all about that maple tree, for being so near the window where she is so often, I have a chance to know many of her thoughts. Between you and I, she was a bit sorry to have it taken away, but it never ought to have been placed there. I, you see, am just one side of the window, and if my branches get too near they can be lopped away."

"I am glad you feel so secure, for I should miss you very much were you to be transplanted as the maple has been. I often think the birch tree must be very lonely."

"Yes, and she is a very timid thing, and keeps a continual shaking which almost makes me nervous. She leans over in what might seem an affected way to us who are so straight and erect. On the whole I think evergreens have a much pleasanter time than these poor deciduous trees, that are left all bare and naked through the wintry weather. As for the fruit trees, I think they are very much to be pitied, for what with worms and flies and caterpillars, they have but a hard time of it. True they come out very beautifully in the spring, with their pretty blossoms and their bright green leaves; but even now, I can see some of the leaves of the pear trees are turning black where a little worm has folded himself snugly up, and pretty soon the caterpillars will be making their nests in the apple trees, and mayhap the canker worms be eating up their leaves. It may be a good thing to bear fruit. Sometimes when I see how much attention fruit trees draw during the fruit season, I almost wish we too

be much satisfaction in feeling one's importance; yet on the whole, I am pretty well content, for if we don't bear fruit we bear cones, which the book says, for I have heard her read it, are very 'showy and elegant.' And I am sure, though our foliage is dark, it is very handsome; and now the scales have fallen from your leaf-buds and your new leaves are putting out, it is quite a pleasure to look upon you."

The complimented tree just moved her branches a very little, but seemed not very much affected by her companion's remarks, judging by her reply.

"It seems to me you are very backward. I think you must have been wasting your time looking after the robins or into the window, for you scarcely show your new leaves as yet, and there are a great many dry branches hanging from your trunk, and on the whole I think you present a decidedly ragged appearance. I hope you will soon manage to fix yourself up."

"I am sure I don't know how I can do it. The other trees get pruned occasionally of their dead branches, but somehow, they never think of coming to us, and the old things stick to me so tightly I don't see how I can get rid of them. I can't imagine how you keep yourself so trim and nice. This poor luckless branch was knocked off in a snow slide last winter, but I managed to keep my head safe from all the avalanches, for which I am thankful, and soon I shall be so tall I shall be safe from them forever."

"Yes, I must say you are growing amazingly tall, but I would advise you to pay a little more attention to your personal appearance. I fear you are too much taken up with what is going on inside, and that you have taken up gossiping habits, for I see you and the birch manage to understand each other. Now our race has always been remarked for its stillness, in this respect quite unlike the pines, who always keep up a continual whispering."

I felt a little sorry for the poor tree and determined that its dead branches should be attended to, and then went to look after a nest up in a cherry tree, about which I was rather anxious, as I had not seen the bird on it for some days. There was no bird there now, and the question arose in my mind, Is the nest deserted by the old birds, and if so, is there anything in the nest? I sent a delegation of one into the tree and the report came, "Two eggs, one broken, the other not, and both cold." "Bring them down." The delegation came, eggs in hand. We examined the broken one; a small piece of the shell was broken off, and there protruded the tiniest little bird's bill. Very carefully we peeled off the shell, disclosing the smallest conceivable robin, all folded up, with every limb and every part of its little body perfect as the folded bud. Indeed it seemed much more of the floral kingdom than the animal. But its little perianth had proved its tomb. How wonderfully, how perfectly had the little life been folded in this little space! Just so all the robins flying around in the garden had once lain in their frail cases. And so small a thing might crush them, and so little of neglect might cause them to perish! There wasn't much to stand between them and death! What luckless mischance had put out the life in this little mechanism? Had some boy thrown a stone and broken the egg? Had the careless mother trodden on it, or neglected it? or had she fallen a prey to the fowler? There was some tragedy here, and a tragedy which no detective could ever fer

ret out.