Calmly in front of the human storm,
With a stern, commanding shout:
"Align those guns!"

(We knew it was Pleasonton's.)

The cannoneers bent to obey,

And worked with a will, at his word:

And the black guns moved as if they had heard.
But ah, the dread delay!

"To wait is crime;

O God, for ten minutes' time!"

The general looked around.

There Keenan sat, like a stone,

With his three hundred horse alone

Less shaken than the ground.

"Major, your men?”—

Are soldiers, General." "Then,
Charge, Major! Do your best:
Hold the enemy back, at all cost,

Till my guns are placed ;-else the army is lost.
You die to save the rest!"

By the shrouded gleam of the western skies,
Brave Keenan looked in Pleasonton's eyes
For an instant,-clear, and cool, and still;
Then, with a smile, he said: “I will.”

"Cavalry, charge!" Not a man of them shrank.
Their sharp, full cheer, from rank on rank,

Rose joyou-ly, with a willing breath,

Rose like a greeting hail to death.

Then forward they sprang, and spurred and clashed; Shouted the officers, crimson-sashed;

Rode well the men, each brave as his fellow,

In their faded coats of the blue and yellow;
And above in the air, with an instinct true,

Like a bird of war their pennon flew.

With clank of scabbards and thunder of steeds,
And blades that shine like sunlit reeds,

And strong brown fices bravely pale
For fear their proud attempt shall fail,
Three hundred Pennsylvanians close
On twice ten thousand gallant foes.

Line after line the troopers came

To the edge of the wood that was ringed with flame;

Rode in and sabered and shot-and fell;
Nor came one back his wounds to tell.
And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall
In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall,
While the circle-stroke of his saber, swung
Round his head like a halo there, luminous hung.
Line after line, ay, whole platoons,

Struck dead in their saddles, of brave dragoons
By the maddened horses were onward borne
And into the vortex flung, trampled and torn;
As Keenan fought with his men, side by side.
So they rode, till there were no more to ride.
But over them, lying there, shattered and mute,
What deep echo rolls?-'Tis a death-salute
From the cannon in place; for heroes, you braved
Your fate not in vain: the army was saved!
Over them now,-year following year,-

Over their graves, the pine-cones fall,

And the whip-poor-will chants his specter-call;
But they stir not again; they raise no cheer:

They have ceased. But their glory shall never cease,
Nor their light be quenched in the light of peace.

The rush of their charge is resounding still

That saved the army at Chancellorsville.

-Scribner's Monthly.

GOLD.-THOMAS HOOD.

Gold! gold! gold! gold!

Bright and yellow, hard and cold,

Molten, graven, hammered and rolled;

Heavy to get, and light to hold;

Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,

Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled :

Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould;
Price of many a crime untold:

Gold! gold! gold! gold!

Good or bad a thousand-fold!

How widely its agencies vary,—

To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,

As even its minted coins express,

Now stamped with the image of good Queen Bess,

And now of a Bloody Mary.

A MOTHER'S ANSWER.-LILLIE E. BARR.

Over the lofty Ben-Lomond
The charm of the sunset fell;
And sweet in the purple twilight
The chime of the old kirk bell.
And lo! in the grassy kirk-yard
Was the white-haired Dominie;
Men and women on either hand,
And the children at his knee.
And there, in the still, warm evening,
Low sitting among the dead,
The good man took the Sacred Book,
And the trial of Abraham read.
Until in the solemn shadows,

The sorrow grew wondrous near;—
Fathers looked at their own bright sons,
And the mothers dropped a tear.

Thoughtful all sat a little space,

And then the Dominie said:

"David, couldst thou have done this thing?"
And the old man bowed his head,

And standing up with lifted face,

Answered, "I think I could,

For I have found through eighty years
That the Lord our God is good!"

"Janet, you've been a mother oft,

Could your faith have stood this test?"
She raised her grandchild in her arms,
And she held it to her breast-
"God knows a mother's love," she said,
While the tears dropped from her eyes;
"And never from a mother's heart
Would have asked such sacrifice."

"O mother wise," the preacher said,
"O mother wise and good!
A deeper depth than man can reach
Thy heart hath understood.

Take Janet's sermon with you, friends,

And as your years go by,

Believe our Father no poor soul
Beyond its strength will try."

9*

201

PUBLIC OPINION.-CANON FARRAR.

The point of view from which I shall speak is that of total abstinence. It is, I know, the unpopular view, the depreciated view, the despised view. By taking it I rank myself among those of whom some speak as unpractical bigots and ignorant fanatics. But, because I believe it in the present need to be the only effective remedy for an otherwise hopeless evil, therefore I take it undeterred. Public opinion, my brethren, is a grand power. It is a mighty engine for good if we can array it on our side. He who despises it must be either more or less than man; he must be puffed up by a conceit which mars his usefulness, or he must be too abject to be reached by scorn. He, therefore, that affects to despise public opinion stands self-condemned; but yet public opinion has, many a time, been arrayed on the side of wrong; and he who is not afraid to brave it in defence of righteousness, he who, in a cause which he knows to be good, but which his fellow-men do not yet understand, is willing to be ranked among the idiots and fools, he is a partaker with all those who, through faith and patience, have inherited the promises. It was thus-it was for the cause of scientific truth-that Roger Bacon bore his long imprisonment, and Galileo sat contented in his cell; it was thus-it was for the cause of religious truth-that Luther stood undaunted before kings; it was thus that, to wake the base slumbers of a greedy age, Wesley and Whitefield were content to "stand pilloried on infamy's high stage, and bear the pelting scorn of half an age;" it was thus that Wilberforce faced in Parliament the sneers and rage of wealthy slave-owners; it was thus, "in the teeth of clenched antagonisms," that education was established, that missions were founded, that the cause of religious liberty was won. The persecuted object of to-day is the saint and exemplar of to-morrow. St. John enters the thronged streets of the capital of Asia as a despised Galilean and an unnoticed

exile; but, when generations have passed away, it is still his name which clings to its indistinguishable ruins. St. Paul stands, in his ragged gabardine, too mean for Gallio's supreme contempt; but to-day the cathedral dedicated to his honor towers over the vast imperial city where the name of Gallio is not so much as heard. "Count we over the chosen heroes of this earth," says a great orator, "and I will show you the men who stood alone, while those for whom they toiled and agonized poured on them contumely and scorn. They were glorious iconoclasts, sent out to break down the Dagons worshiped by their fathers. The very martyrs of yesterday, who were hooted at, whom the mob reviled and expatriated;-to-day the children of the very generation who mobbed and reviled them, are gathering up their scattered ashes to deposit them in the golden urn of their nation's history!"

THE BEST SEWING-MACHINE.

"Got one? Don't say so! Which did you get?
One of the kind to open and shut?

Own it or hire it? How much did you pay?
Does it go with a crank or a treadle? Sa-y.
I'm a single man, and somewhat green;
Tell me about your sewing-machine."
"Listen, my boy, and hear all about it:
I don't know what I could do without it;
I've owned one now for more than a year,
And like it so well that I call it 'my dear;'
"Tis the cleverest thing that ever was seen,
This wonderful family sewing-machine.
"It's none of your angular Wheeler things,
With steel-shod back and cast-iron wings;
Its work would bother a hundred of his,
And worth a thousand! Indeed it is;
And has a way-you need not stare-
Of combing and braiding its own back hair!

"Mine is not one of those stupid affairs

That stands in a corner with what-nots and chairs,