winter incrusted with frost-work and diamonds its root-wreathed basin. On the roof of the farm-house more moss had gathered, and its rough fence of brown bars was replaced by a white paling.

Within was the same cheerful fire that blazed when we last visited it. By its hearth-stone stood the same arm-chairs, but its former occupants had become tenants of that lowly bed which no rising sun awakens. In their place sat the eldest son, and by his side a woman of mature age and pleasing countenance, on whose knee was a fair infant. On a pallet, in a shaded nook of the apartment, two little ones quietly breathed in the sleep of innocence, and at a small table two boys, with thoughtful brows, pondered their lessons. A wintry storm was raging, and as the blast shook the casements, the farmer said to his wife,

"In such cold, bad nights, I cannot help thinking of my poor brother. But so many years have passed since we heard aught of him, and his way of life was so full of danger, that it is most probable he no longer needs our sympathy." "Husband, just as you began to speak, I thought I heard some one knock; or was it the winds striking the old elmtree?"

On opening the door, a motionless form was found extended near the threshold. A staff was still feebly grasped in his hand, and a crutch, that supplied the place of a lost limb, had fallen at his side. With difficulty he was borne in, and pillowed in a large chair near the fire. After the application of restoratives, he opened his eyes, and seemed to gaze on every surrounding object-clock, and oaken table, and large old Bible-as on some recollected friend. Then there was a faint sound of "Brother!"

That tone touched the tender memories of earliest years. Their welcome to the poor wanderer with the broken frame and tattered garment, was heart-felt. Yet their tears freshly flowed at his pathetic tones, "See, I have come home to die!"

They hastened to spread the refreshing repast, and to press him to partake. Afterward they induced him to retire to rest, without taxing his exhausted strength by conversation. The next morning he was unable to rise. They sat by his couch, solacing his worn spirit with kindness, and with narratives of the changes that had befallen them and other friends in the peaceful spot of his birth. At intervals he mingled his own sad recital.

"I have had many troubles. But that which hath most bowed me down in wardly was my disobedience in leaving home, against the wishes, and without the knowledge of my parents, to be a soldier. I have felt the pain of wounds, but the sting of conscience is keener. Hunger and thirst have I known, and the prisons of a foreign land. When I lay sick and neglected, it would sometimes seem, in the fever-dream, that my mother bent kindly over me, as she would if I had only the headach; or that my father came with the great Bible in his hand, to read, as he used to do, before our prayers, morning and evening. Then I cried out, in my agony, 'I am no more worthy to be called thy son.'" He paused, overcome with emotion, and his brother hastened to assure him of their perfect forgiveness, and of the fervour with which he was brought ever before their family altar as the son erring, yet beloved.

66

Ah, those prayers! They followed me like angel wings. But for them, I might have been a reprobate both to God and man."

He

By little and little, as his feebleness admitted, he told the story of his wanderings. He had been in warfare both by sea and land. He had heard the deep ocean resound to battle thunders, and seen earth saturated with the red shower from the bosom of her sons. had served in the armies of Europe, and pursued the hunted Indian in his own native clime. He had plunged recklessly amid the thickest dangers, seeking everywhere the glory that dazzled his boyhood, but in vain. He found the soldier's lot was hardship, privation, and death, that others might reap the fame. He saw what wounds and mutilations, what anguish, mourning, and death were implicated in a single victory. He felt how far the renown of the greatest conqueror falls short of the good that he forfeits; how it fades away before the misery that he inflicts.

"For a few moments," he said, "on the verge of battle, I felt a shuddering, inexpressible horror at the thought of destroying my fellow-creatures; but in the heat of conflict all human sympathies vanished. Desperate madness took possession of me, and I cared neither for this world nor the next. I have been left helpless on the field beneath trampling horses, my open gashes stiffening in the chill night air, while no man cared for my soul. Yet why should I pain you by

such descriptions? You have ever dwelt within the sweet influences of mercy, and shrank to distress even a soulless animal! You cannot realize the hardness of heart that comes with such a life as I have led. The soldier is enforced to be familiar with suffering and violence. His moral and religious sensibilities are in continual peril. Profanity and contempt of sacred things mingle with the elements of his trade. The softening, hallowing privileges of the sabbath are not for him. The precepts of the gospel that were instilled into his childhood are in danger of being swept away. Still my heart ceased not to reproach me in seasons of reflection, though I would fain have silenced it. Oh that it might be purified by penitence, ere I am called to answer for deeds of blood, and for a lost life!"

His sympathising brother and sister still cherished the hope that, by medical skill and careful nursing, his health might be restored. They placed much reliance on the bland influences of his native air, and on the salutary trains of feeling which the kindness of early friends awakened.

Yet his constant assertion was, "My vital energies are wasted. They can be rekindled no more. Death standeth at my right hand. When I came to the borders of this valley, my poor swollen limb tottered, and my whole frame began to fail. Then I besought Him whom I had so often forgotten, 'Oh! give me heart and hope, and hold me up but a little while, that I may die in the house where I was born, and be buried at the feet of my father and my mother.'

The suffering and humbled man sought earnestly for the hope of salvation. Feeling that a great change was necessary ere he could be prepared for a realm of purity and peace, he studied the Scriptures with prayer, and listened to the counsels of pious men.

'Brother, dear brother, you have followed the example of our parents. In the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, your life has flowed on like an unruffled stream. I chose to toss among whirlpools, and made shipwreck of all. You have kept the law of love even with inferior creatures. You have shorn the fleece, but not wantonly destroyed the lamb. You have taken the honey, and spared the labouring bee; but I have destroyed both the hive and the honey, the fleece and the flock, man and his habitation. I have cruelly defaced the

image of God, and crushed out that breath which I can never restore. Bitter is the warfare of my soul with the prince of the power of the air, who ruleth in the children of disobedience."

As the last hour approached, he laid his cold hands on the head of his brother's two little sons, saying, with solemn emphasis, "Choose the plough, and not the sword!"

Tender gratitude lighted up the glazing eye as he faintly uttered, "Sister, brother, you have been angels of mercy to me. Peace be in your hearts, and upon your household."

The venerable pastor, who had been the teacher of his childhood and the comforter of his sickness, stood by his side as he went down into the dark valley of the shadow of death. 66 My son, look unto the Lamb of God!" "Yes, father. sin of the world."

He taketh away

the

The white-haired man lifted up a fervent supplication for the departing soul. When he ceased, the eyes of the dying were closed. There was no more heaving of the breast, or gasping. And they spoke of him as having gone where no sin or sorrow can have place. Yet again the eyelids trembled, and one long, struggling sigh burst from the marble lips. Bending down, the mournful brother caught the last sounds, faint, yet tuneful, "Land of peace!" and "Saviour of sinners!"-Mrs. Sigourney.

A WORD FOR THE POOR, BY OLD
HUMPHREY.

"THOSE Scraps of mutton!" said I, musing as I went along; "those scraps of mutton!"

It never answers, in writing a piece that is intended to affect the heart, to begin fiercely and end faintly. We ought rather to gain than to lose strength as we go on, It is such a sad fall off when treating on an elephant to descend to an ant; when dealing with sunshine, to decline to shadows; and when dwelling on the glory of heaven, to come tumbling down to the glooms of earth. Better, a great deal, to reverse this method; better to go from ants to elephants, from shadowy scenes to sunbeams, and to mount up from earth to heaven.

There would be something really amusing in giving up an hour or so to consider how differently the world provides for those who have money and those who

have it not, if it were not for the heartach that would accompany the investigation. Old Humphrey is not the man to envy and rail against the rich, nor to make the poor discontented with their portion; much rather would he remind both that the advantages of riches and the evils of poverty are of very short duration. He cannot, however, see human deprivation without feeling human sympathy.

Yes! the rich are provided for in one way and the poor in another, and it must of necessity be so. There is some difference between the linendrapers' shops of St. James's and St. Giles's, and not less difference in the costliness of the articles they sell. The rich lady makes her purchases at the former establishment, the poor woman buys what she requires at the latter. They are both descendants from him who was formed in the image of God, both fashioned by the hand of the Most High, and both of them may be, in the best sense of the word, "King's daughters,' heirs of the kingdom of heaven; and yet while the one, with ease, pays fifty pounds for a Cashmere shawl, the other lays out two shillings for a cotton petticoat.

In some of the first-rate shoemakers' shops, the boots and shoes in the windows are so exquisitely formed that a droll friend of mine once affected to regret that he could not have his leg made to the boot, instead of having the boot made to his leg. To these shops go the rich; but Monmouth-street is the place for the poor, where thousands of patched-up old trampers, both boots and shoes, are daily to be seen, looking, with the "bloom of the blacking brush" upon them, better than they are. While the rich order their new boots elsewhere, here the poor purchase their second-hand shoes. Strange scenes have I witnessed in Monmouthstreet, and you may witness them too, if you have any interest in seeing the poor wrestling with their poverty.

A pleasant thing it is to look in at the shop of a seller of second-hand books, and to roam over the old lettered stores. Some of the worthy old volumes are in parchment jackets, some in. leathern jackets, and some in no jackets at all. What goodly rows of encyclopædias, voyages, travels, divinity, and books of all kinds, in folio, quarto, and octavo, for those who have money! and for those who have it not, or but little of it, there is the box of oddments at the door, so

that while a "well-to-do" customer lays out a pound, the poor purchaser in the threadbare coat buys a book for a penny.

When I took up my pen, it was not with the intention of writing about linendrapers, shoemakers, and booksellers' shops, and yet I have touched upon them all. It is now high time that I begin to tell you what I have to say about "those scraps of mutton!"

As I passed a butcher's shop in the city, I could not but notice how differently, as I said before, the rich and the poor were provided for. There were hanging up in front, and spread out on benches covered with clean cloths, inside the shop, quarters, sirloins, and rounds of beef, with saddles of mutton, haunches, and other joints of the very first quality. Just at the moment came up to the shop a good-looking, light-hearted, broadbreasted man in a white waistcoat, jingling his gold seals, and making a low, half-whistling sound with his mouth. He looked carelessly at the prime joints, bargained for a sirloin, a haunch, and a tongue, obtained a little abatement, more, I suspect, because it was business-like, than for any other reason, and walked on in the direction of the Exchange, thinking, I believe, no more of the money he had paid, than he did of the penny which a minute before he had given to the sweeper of the crossing.

But while the light-hearted, whitewaistcoated man thus bargained for the prime joints on the benches covered with clean cloth, I observed another bench which had no cloth at all upon it. It stood at one end outside the shop, almost like a separate concern. Hardly need I say that it was intended for the poor. It had upon it scarcely anything else than scraps of mutton. The white-waistcoated man, I verily think, never saw them, never thought of them, never knew that they were there. If he had, he was as likely a looking man as any one I know to have given a hundred of them away to the poor.

It is often rather want of thought, than unkindness, that keeps the wealthy from performing deeds of charity. "Those scraps of mutton!" thought I, "those scraps of mutton!"

A poor, meek-looking woman, with famine in her face, passed by with an old basket in her hand, and she paused and looked at the scraps of meat wishfully, then ventured to lift up one of them, to turn it round, and to ask the price. I warrant you, by its appearance, that it

had been handled by twenty people at least before her. The poor woman shook her head at the price, and walked slowly on, returning, however, in a little time and making a bidding, when the good-humoured butcher told her to take it, and make it out to him another time. But though this poor woman bore away her scrap of mutton, many others did not do so who appeared to be in as much need as she was. Some, who had short tempers, told the butcher that he ought to be ashamed to ask poor creatures so much for such wretched scraps; others went away in silence; and one, tall, thin, sharpfaced man, very dirty and very ragged, seemed quite ready to beg, to borrow, or to steal. In a word, I saw in a little time a great deal of misery, and walked away with a heavy heart. "Those scraps of mutton!" said I, musing as I went along, "those scraps of mutton!"

Again it occurred to me, how differently the rich and the poor are provided for. The lighthearted man in the white waistcoat never looked at the scraps of mutton, not he! he never dreamed of such things-they were quite out of his way. The poor woman never looked up to the sirloins and saddles that were hanging up. Why should she? She might just as well have gazed up at the gilded ball at the top of St. Paul's, for she was about as likely to obtain the one as the other. "Those scraps of mutton!" thought I, "those scraps of mutton!"

You may, perhaps, be thinking, reader, and I hope you are, that I ought to have helped some of the poor creatures described by me. Supposing, however, that I was deficient in kindness, that will not justify you in following a bad example. I am about to propose to you how, providing you have leisure, ability, and inclination, you may pass an hour and expend a few shillings very pleasantly. Post yourself, then, on a Saturday night, within view of a butcher's shop, and exercise your discrimination and kindness by helping the poor people who come to purchase the scraps of mutton.

Take care, however, that you do not fall into an error. You must not expect to find them all cleanliness, propriety, good manners, and gratitude, but rather take them as you find them. Poverty is not the less real because it is attended with unlovely qualities. Now and then you may fall in with a poor widow dressed in her clean cap, whose manners may proclaim that she has "seen better days,"

and whose thankfulness may more than repay you for your kindness; but, more frequently, you will meet with a want of cleanliness, a want of good manners, and a want of gratitude. The words of holy writ are not, Blessed is he that considereth the neatly dressed poor, or the well-behaved poor, or the thankful poor, but, "Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble," Psa. xli. 1.

It is hardly well to expect too much from poor humanity. Some people never think of the martyrs without imagining them to be a company of quiet, wise, grey-headed men, as comely to behold as good father Latimer himself, and women as prudent in their conduct and matronly in their appearance as we suppose Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham, to have been; but instead of this, they were of all ages and appearances, and many of them, no doubt, deficient in worldly wisdom and good manners, having very little to recommend them to notice; but this only sets forth the grace of God more strikingly, that such people should have faith and courage enough to die a cruel death, rather than deny the Lord.

A poor woman may be uncleanly and forbidding, and yet be suffering grievously through distress; a poor man may be uncivil and unthankful, and yet poverty may be gnawing him to the bones. Take the poor, then, such as they are, bear with them, speak kindly to them, correct their bad habits if you can; but, at any rate, relieve them.

What fearful narrations have reached us from Ireland and Scotland of distress and famine! Why, if only half the accounts given are true, and I have no reason to doubt them, it behoves every one, according to his means, to lend a helping hand to mitigate the wide-spread distress that has fallen on a suffering people. The fruit of the ground has failed; famine is stalking abroad; disease is wasting the strength of thousands; and the darts of death are thickly flying around. Ireland has cried aloud in her agony, and promptly has England hastened to her aid; and if Scotland has more patiently endured her visitation, she is by far the more, on that account, entitled to our kindest sympathy and support. If there be such a thing as honest pride, I feel it when I look over the fair page of English philanthropy-the freehearted, open-handed charities of a generous people.