the necessity of leaving this bright and busy world, it is the thought of being laid away in some such calm, sequestered, lovely spot, amid flowers and trees and singing birds, and the bending, sunny sky; there to rest folded close to the heart of Nature, in sweet and everlasting peace.

These were some of the thoughts that came to us as we walked among the solemn shades and silent avenues of Mount Auburn, on one of these loveliest days of June. The year was in its bloom, and the whole place was one vast garden, dressed in living green, and filled with beauty and repose. It was just after Memorial Day, and every soldier's resting-place-alas, how frequent they were! had its wreaths and crosses and knots of fading flowers, and its tiny, fluttering flag. No sad personal associations had drawn us hither. Among the multitudes resting here were few whose faces we had ever seen. Many there were, indeed, whom we had known from afar, for whose lives we had blessed God, and whose graves we had come reverently to look upon; but no agony of personal bereavement dimmed for us the sunshine or the beauty. The pensive sadness that brooded over all but gave an added grace and loveliness to the place, fair and holy as Eden ere death was known.

Everywhere about us are the resting-places of the distinguished dead, but we must walk among them with but a lingering glance at "storied pile and monumental urn." We look in upon the marble semblance of a Winthrop, a Story, an Adams, an Otis, those valiant men of the days already old to us in the history written between. Flowers for the defenders of the Republic, and marble for the fathers. It is ours to bring to our new-crowned heroes our tribute of love; other generations shall carve theirs of honor. But we turn from these fathers of the State to find where lie the fathers of the church, those sainted ones of our own communion, who were followed here by the love and sorrow of all believers in the great hopes they so faithfully proclaimed. We gain a beautiful eminence, and from just beyond the summit, looks down upon us the calm, benignant face of Father Ballou. In a quiet and retired spot, whose beauty and simplicity are emblematic of the character of the

great man resting there, rises the plain monument to the memory of Hosea Ballou, 2d. The life-like features of Father Whittemore look forth in bas-relief from the stone that designates the spot where lies all that was mortal of that strong warrior in our Zion. While a plain, simple shaft tells us of "John Murray, minister of the Gospel." How little were all this, if this were all.

There is another point of interest, without visiting which we are never satisfied to leave these sacred precincts. It is the tablet to the memory of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, she whom we must even yet honor as the representative scholar among American women. Her grave is not here, only that of her child, whose body was washed up, dead and warm, upon the beach. She rests, with her husband, in the "wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea," shrouded in the mystery of that fearful shipwreck. But the little foreign child sleeps sweetly here, enwrapped in American lilies; and there is a touching signifiance in the fact that the child rests alone in this alien soil, underneath the tablet that records his mother as "by birth a citizen of Massachusetts, by adoption a citizen of Rome, by genius belonging to the world."

Around us are the graves of many of the family in whose circle she was a beloved member. The brave and good Chaplain Fuller lies near, his grave covered with flowery tributes of remembrance, and the sods are fresh above another brother just laid to rest. They seem a fated family, whom death takes to his embrace all too early.

Climbing the tower for a sunset view, a wide panorama is unfolded to us. The suburbs of the city are one extended park, dotted here and there with villages. Far away is the smoke of the town, and through the meadows that lie between, the Charles spreads his smooth expanse,

-as blue he glides along, And whispers in his reeds."

All around us are the groves and dells and fountains, and gleaming marble of Auburn, a garden of the dead. The haze settles down in the distance, and shuts out the purple light on the far-off hills, but when all is clear no Italian sunsets can rival those from the tower.

As the sun disappears, we turn our steps outward, and, passing by some of the miniature lakes that gem the dales, come to the place we have hesitated to approach, because it is most dear of all. Here, since the time of roses a year ago, has rested all that could die of Thomas Austin Goddard, the earnest worker in our cause, the warm, devoted brother in the faith, the friend of all men "faithful, upright, trusted and beloved." Green be his memory as the velvet sward above his dust! Fragrant be our love and

gratitude as the fresh, bright blossoms that deck his grave!

The very atmosphere about us is religious. Nature is full of hope and faith. Every. where are flowers; the rhododendrons and azaleas, with their wealth of rosy bloom, the catalpa-tree, with its large, milk-white blossoms, the beautiful purple clusters of the wisteria-vine, and an endless profusion of smaller bloom, weaving its bright tracery through all the green of the place. Everywhere flowers, whose language is not of earth, but of the upper world of love and light.

But hope and faith are spoken here in plainer language than the vague words of Nature. The very flowers that are withering here are laid in crosses and crowns. Hardly a tombstone but has its symbol or motto or intimation of immortality. Christ is buried in these sepulchres as he was in the garden of old, and from them he rises in white and shining raiment, and ascends into glory. A visitor of Pere la Chaise, the great cemetery of Paris, gives as a terrible commentary on the infidelity of the French nation, the fact that in all that vast city of the dead, he finds not one word of hope, not the shadow of an intimation of a belief in immortality. On one stone it is recorded that the only hope and joy of fond parents lies buried below; another is raised to the memory of a wife whose loss makes existence insupportable; still another bears the inscription, "Erected by one who mourns with inconsolable sorrow." And so on through the vast, sad labyrinths of the place. The inscriptions are everywhere those of hopeless anguish; the very atmosphere breathes of darkness and despair. But heaven bends nearer to us. It is the light from that world

of blessedness that makes so beautiful to us the summer bloom of our cemeteries; it is this which makes summer in our hearts.

The Distress of the Seison. We know of no person more profoundly to be envied than James Parton, who finds fifteen minutes in the spring, and fifteen in the fall, ample time to devote to his dress for the year. It puts in a new form the old despair of having been born a woman. Every year it becomes a more difficult thing for the female form to array itself, not elegantly, not unusually well, but in just time immemorial never has fashion so disdecent conformity to its neighbors. From mayed the heart or palsied the hand as this very season. We go into our neighbor's over the way, and the ladies sit in dismal conclave. 66 make, and we rather never have a dress Oh, dear, there are our suits to than to undertake them!" Our friend Cordie drops in upon us flushed and anxious. "I have got my black and white all taken apart, and I am distracted!" to which another replies, "well, nothing is done but my ruffles, and I am tired to death of it now. I wish I could put the whole thing out to finish!" We go to another, always so calm and plain that we have an instinctive assur

"that

ance that the distress of the season cannot have invaded her domain, and lo, she sits pale and faint over seams, folds and bands, more trying than an astronomical calculation, and far less certain in their results. "I am convinced," she says, with a sigh, this dress will never be any satisfaction or comfort to me. It is ill-omened from the three such dresses are not worth what I start. Nothing has been right about it, — have suffered over it. without thinking of the pangs it has cost me. I can never put it on And the worst of it is, that it is always so. Why, I think it would have been such a blessing if we had been clothed upon with feathers, like the fowls of the air.”

And so on to the end of the distressful chapter. It is not a few women of fashion who feel thus; it is everybody. The agony is epidemic. We should think it might be at its crisis now, but we cannot predict what a season may bring forth. If the fever runs any higher we shall all pray for speedy deliverance by death.

When this is true, not only of all women, but of all seasons, what shall we say of the strain and anxiety which the present unparalleled season lays upon us? In these days of emancipation for slaves, and laborreduction organizations, and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and jubilees over peace and liberty, why does not some ingenious and humane philanthropist invent a method by which the female half of the race can be clothed, at the sacrifice of fifteen minutes in the spring and fifteen minutes in the fall?

New Church Buildings.

It is sometimes encouraging to pause and take a survey of what we have accomplished in order to keep heart for a perseverance in doing. And our people have a very fair prospect to look back upon for the past year. Let us take, for example, a single item of our work, the building and repairing of church edifices, and note what has been done and is doing in this immediate vicinity. We may thus gain some idea of what has been accomplished in this direction throughout the country.

It is but a short time since the church at Ashton was dedicated. We do not recall the time but think it must be since January. The present month, June, witnesses the dedication of three fine churches, at Springfield, South Boston and Somerville; the one at Springfield is a large and elegant building, an honor to the town and to our cause. Those at South Boston and Somerville, though not so large or expensive as this, are both fine churches, amply sufficient in size for their respective parishes and very thoroughly and tastefully finished. The church of the second society in Lynn which was recently re-dedicated is so thoroughly remodeled as to be to all purposes a new church and may be reckoned as the fourth opened this month for public worship.

To speak of those not yet finished we know of none except the one at Shelburne Falls now under way in this State; but just over the Rhode Island line, the large and handsome Providence church is now

It is not well, perhaps, to say too much of work only laid out, but the parishes at Shirley, North Bridgewater, and South Adams have each done something more, we believe, than lay plans for the new churches soon to be erected in these towns.

So much for this immediate vicinity, and this is but a small fraction of our heritage, important as this fraction may seem in its own eyes. When we come to add to this all New England and double that by New York and Pennsylvania and multiply that amount several times by the great Northwest, we have some idea of the augury with which our centenary work has opened. The Wisconsin State Convention has just voted twenty-five thousand dollars as its centenary offering, which shows the status of the cause in that comparatively new State. Another happy suggestion concerning centenary work was also acted upon at the same convention; the debt resting upon the beautiful new church at Menasha, where it was held, was cleared by subscription during the session of the convention. In all these good works the Let us East and West have common cause. take hope that the large requirements marked by our centenary committee, will not, judged by the spirit of our people everywhere, fall short of fulfilment.

The Picture of Dr. Ballou.

The engraving which we give this month as the frontspiece of the present volume has been very carefully executed from a daguer eotype, the most correct likeness remaining of the late Dr. Ballou. It is pronounced, by those who knew him well, to be very lifelike. One of his friends speaks of it as having that peculiar expression of the eye which was habitual with him when he had something in mind which pleased him, and which he was preparing to say. There is probably no one in our denominational ranks, past or present, whose "pictured semblance" would be more prized by our readers than his who has been repeatedly called the representative scholar of the denomination, the revered first President of Tufts College.

Agents Wanted!

The following little letter has given us so much pleasure that we conclude to share it with our readers.

INDIANA, May 24th., 1869. Agent of LADIES' REPOSITORY:

Sir: My father says I may go around among our friends and take subscriptions for the REPOSITORY, and that I may keep fifty cents from each person who subscribes. Will it be all right? Last Saturday I obtained two, and others have promised to subscribe next Saturday. As I go to school I can only work on Saturdays.

Enclosed you will find four dollars for which please send the REPOSITORY to the names given below.

Please excuse poor writing, as I only commenced learning to write last summer. Truly yours,

Many thanks to little Miss C.

C. L. S.

We

As a story it is perhaps the weakest of anything she has written; hardly better in that respect than Norwood. Indeed, it resembles that book of her brothers more than it does

any previous work of her own. If it were a mere story, that should be most fully told which is almost entirely left out. The most of the plot and all the dramatic interest centres in the last three or four chapters. Within those chapters there is material enough for a volume; but it is simply outlined, and left for the imagination to fill up.

than the mere telling of a story; and this But the preface confesses another object object, the portrayal of New England life and character in the seedtime of the nation, -is admirably carried out. The story is written in the first person as told by one of the leading characters; and the author foreshadows the kind of book in making her hero say:

Our Book Table.

Doubtless there might be a less happy classification of the human family than that which separates them into two divisions, wise and otherwise. But he made a decided improvement on this system who professed to find in the race three distinctive classes, saints, sinners, and the Beecher family. For this distinguished family have too bright a record of good words and works to consign them to a place with the sinners; and surely judged from their own standpoint they are altogether too heretical in doctrine and catholic in spirit, to stand very firmly among the orthodox saints. They are theological anomalies; not to be classified, not to be accounted for on any known laws of cause and effect. It is hardly fair, however, in these latter days to set apart the division to them, exclusively; for in their own and kindred influences there has seemed some magnetic power to draw others into the same unique position. Let us bless God for the inconsistency, that, believing in preordained endless disaster, can work mightily to avert it.

Mrs. Stowe's new story, " Oldtown Folks," is less a story than a study of the theological opinions of New England fifty years ago.

maintain the part simply of a sympathetic spectator. I propose neither to teach or preach through them any farther than the spectator of life is preached to by what he sees of the working of human nature around him.

Though Calvinist, Arminian, High Church Episcopalian, sceptic and simple believer all speak in their turn, I merely listen and endeavor to understand and faithfully represent the inner life of each. I myself am but the observer and reporter, seeing much, doubting much, questioning much, and believing with all my hears in but a very few things."

No one should know New England life and character better than the author; and no one can better describe it. We doubt if there were ever more complete characters drawn than that of the village Jack-at-alltrades, Sam Lawson, and that high-pressure, hard-work-accomplishing machine, Miss Asphyxia Smith. These are New England copyrights, on which no other community has ever infringed.

Then that grandmother's kitchen! was there ever painted a completer picture than it presents, with the cheery, vigorous grandmother herself, and the prudent, thrifty, high-stepping Aunt Lois, standing out sharp and clear, amid the foil of her quieter sisters? Is it a wonder that the rest of the house seemed chill and dismal, shut out as