CHARLES SPURGEON had the merry sportiveness of a school-boy, and when our long talks in his study were over he would seize his hat and the chain of his pet dog and cry out, Come, brother, come, and let us have a tramp over the heath!"

He was a prodigious pedestrian, and at threescore and ten he held his own over a Swiss glacier with the members of the Alpine Club.

He had hoped to equal his famous predecessor Rowland Hill, and preach till he was ninety, but when he was near his eighty-sixth birthday he was stricken with paralysis and never left his bed again.

His last two weeks were spent in the Land of Beulah, and in full view of the Celestial City.

Theodore L. Cuyler.

THE AUTUMN OF LIFE.

SOME lives are like the Autumn leaves
That flutter softly to and fro
In every breeze that faintly grieves -
The leaves gleam richest as they go.
In one swift burst of regal hues

They blaze with crimson and with gold And none of their perfection lose

When, withering, they drop their hold.

The leaves, at last, when all is done,
Show us anew the days of June –
The golden glory of the sun

And softened luster of the moon.

The red that riots in the dawn

Is mingled with the restful brown.
That tints the leaves ere they have gone,
While they are slowly swaying down.

Some lives are like the Autumn leaves:
The rose hued memory of youth

In all their acts a pattern weaves
With the most precious gold of truth;
And they grow fair, and fairer still

Like Autumn leaves their beauty glows
With newer charm and grace, until
These lives are perfect at the close.

Wilbur D. Nesbit.

OLD AGE'S LAMBENT PEAKS.

THE touch of flame- the illuminating fire the loftiest look at last,

O'er city, passion, sea-o'er prairie, mountain, wood — the earth itself.

The airy, different, changing hues of all, in falling twilight, Objects and groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;

The calmer sight - the golden setting, clear and broad:

So much i' the atmosphere, the points of view, the situations whence we scan

Bro't by them alone - so much (perhaps the best) unreck'd before;

The lights indeed from them-old age's lambent peaks.

Walt Whitman.

AT the conclusion Mr. Paston describes a noble woman, Mrs. Fletcher, who was indeed the English Madame Roland of her time. She was the true radical and the earnest advocate of all those measures of public freedom which have raised England above the ruck of other European states. Born in 1770, her work belongs rather to the Victorian era than to the Georgian period. Margaret Fuller paid Mrs. Fletcher a visit in 1846, and thus describes her:

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Seventy-six years have passed over her head, only to prove the truth of my theory that we need never grow old. . In childhood she had warmly sympathized in the spirit that animated the American Revolution, and Washington had been her hero; later, the interest of her husband in every struggle for freedom had cherished her own. She has known in the course of her long life many eminent men, and sympathized in the American victories with as much ardor as when a girl, though with a wiser mind. Her eye was full of light, her manner and gesture of dignity; her voice rich, sonorous, and finely modulated; her tide of talk marked by candor and justice."

INDIAN SUMMER.

WHAT heights of rest are in these silences!
What thirst of plains the sunlight seems to slake!
The meadows bask. No bitter north winds wake
The tree-tops from their fruitless dreams of ease.
The slow brooks murmur like a swarm of bees,
And some sly creature in the tangled brake
Darts and is still, and trooping sparrows make
A moment's chatter in the cedar trees.
Then on far skies they quickly seem to cease,
Or, wheeling, drop behind some stubbled mound;
But all day long the brooks find no release

And lift their wandering undertones of sound.
This is the year's full flower, the crown of peace,
The sunlight's harvest, and the south-wind's bound.
L. Frank Tooker.

Ar the termination of the war, crowds of Englishmen flocked to Paris.

Franklin was then recognized as incomparably the most illustrious man on the continent of Europe. He was seventy-eight years old, but his mind retained all its brilliancy.

At eighty he wrote several essays, esteemed among the best of his writings; and Mr. Baynes spoke of him as one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed.

In November, 1788, Franklin wrote: "You kindly inquire after my health. People that will live a long while and drink to the bottom of the cup must expect to meet with some of the dregs. But I enjoy many comfortable days, in which I forget all my ills and amuse myself in writing or in conversation with my friends, laughing and telling merry stories as when you first knew me, a young man of about fifty."

OCTOBER never fades: the soft opal tints melt away, rich and glowing to the last. We only need to see it once and remember forever.

ABOUT 1862 Thoreau observed: Plants soon cease to grow for the year, unless they may have a fall growth, which is a kind of second spring. In the feelings of the man, too, the year is already past, and he looks forward to the coming winter. It is a season of withering; of dust and heat; a season of small fruits and trivial experiences. But there is an aftermath, and some spring flowers bloom again. May my life be not destitute of its Indian Summer!"

LIKE this kindly season, may life's decline come o'er me;
Past is manhood's summer, the frost months are here;
Yet the genial airs and a pleasant sunshine left me
Leaf and fruit and blossom to mark the closing year.

Bryant.