It seemeth but yesterday since they were young;
Now they're all scattered the world's paths among;
Out where the great rolling trade-stream is flowing,
Out where new firesides with love-lights are glowing,
Out where the graves of their life-hopes are sleeping,
Not to be comforted,--weeping, still weeping;
Out where the high hills of science are blending,
Up mid the cloudrifts,-up, up, still ascending,
Seeking the sunshine that rests on the mountain;
Drinking and thirsting still, still at the fountain;
Out in life's thoroughfare, all of them moiling,
Out in the wide world, striving and toiling.
Little ones, loving ones, playful ones all,
That went when I bade and came at my call,
Have you deserted me? Will you not come
Back to your mother's arms, back to the home?
Silent and lone, silent and lone!

Where, tell me where, are my little ones gone?
Useless my cry is; why do I complain?
They'll be my little ones never again.
Can the great oaks to acorns return?

The broad rolling stream flow back to the burn?
The mother call childhood again to her knee,
That in manhood went forth the strong and the free?
Nay, nay, no true mother would ask for them back,
Her work nobly done, their firm tramp on life's track
Will come like an organ's note, lofty and clear,
To lift up her soul, and her spirit to cheer;

And though the tears fall when she's silent and lone,
She'll know it is best they are scattered and gone.
Silent and lone, silent and lone!

Thy will, O Father, not my will be done!

A STORY OF LIFE.-JEAN INGELOW.

Sweet is childhood; childhood's over,
Kiss and part.

Sweet is youth; but youth's a rover―
So's my heart.

Sweet is rest; but all by showing
Toil is nigh.

We must go. Alas! the going,
Say, "Good-bye."

SAMPLE ROOMS.

Samples of wine, and samples of beer,
Samples of all kinds of liquor sold here;
Samples of whiskey, samples of gin,
Samples of all kinds of bitters. Step in.
Samples of ale, and porter, and brandy;

Samples as large as you please, and quite handy;
Our samples are pure, and also you'll find
Our customers always genteel and refined;

For gentlemen know when they've taken enough,
And never partake of the common stuff.

Besides these samples within, you know,
There are samples without of what they can do;
Samples of headache, samples of gout;
Samples of coats with the elbows out,
Samples of boots without heels or toes;
Samples of men with a broken nose,
Samples of men in the gutter lying,
Samples of men with delirium dying,
Samples of men carousing and swearing,
Samples of men all evil daring;
Samples of lonely, tired men,

Who loug in vain for their freedom again;
Samples of old men worn in the strife,

Samples of young men tired of life;
Samples of ruined hopes and lives,
Samples of desolate homes and wives;
Samples of aching hearts grown cold
With anguish and misery untold;
Samples of noble youth in disgrace,
Who meet you with averted face;
Samples of hungry little ones,

Starving to death in their dreary homes.
In fact, there is scarcely a woe on earth

But these "samples" have nurtured or given birth!
Oh! all ye helpers to sorrow and crime,

Who deal out death for a single dime,

Know ye that the Lord, though he may delay,

Has in reserve for the last great day

The terrible "woe," of whose solemn weight
No mortal can know till the pearly gate
Is closed, and all with one accord
Acknowledge the justice of their reward.

MR. SANSCRIPT'S SLIDE DOWN HILL.

The boys were coasting down the hill last evening. when John Sanscript and his wife came along. They had been visiting some friends and were on their way home.

"Just see them boys, now," said John, as he braced up at the street crossing. "It really reminds me of the days when I was a lad. Do you know, Jane, that I used to coast down hill on a sled that way?"

"Did you, John?"

Why, yes; but that was fifty years ago.”

Sanscript scratched his head contemplatively and then muttered sotto voce: "I think I'll try it again."

"Try what, dear?" anxiously asked Mrs. S.

'I'm going to coast just once, to revive recollections of fifty years ago."

"Now, John, if I were you-"

"But you are not me, so don't interfere. Here, sonny" (to a lad who had just puffed up the hill with his sled); "here, sonny, I'll give you a quarter to let me slide down on your sled once."

The bargain was eagerly nailed and clinched.

"Be keerful, old man," urged the boy, as Sanscript squatted rather awkwardly on the sled; "be keerful, I say, and don't let her flunk one way or t'other till she brings up, or you will git mashed."

"Never mind, younker," assured John; "I've been here afore, some years afore, but—”

But what will never be known, for just then the sled of its own accord started down hill, and even John himself has not since been able to recall what he was about to observe. The surprise at the sled's unexpected movement was general.

"Look out!" yelled the boy.

"O John!" screamed Mrs. Sanscript. "Whoa there!" yelled John.

But the sled wouldn't whoa. It seemed to have set off down the hill to beat its best time. John had chance only to clutch hold of both sides and hold his breath for fear the wind would blow off the top of his head. The only thought he had time to foster was that the boy must have greased the sled's runners as a practical joke. And if this was coasting, he had never coasted, if his recollection served him right.

Two thirds way down the hill the sled struck an ice hummock, and immediately his course was changed to a parabolic curve.

Whack! bang! clash! clink!

grocery

The bringing up was awfully sudden and uncertain. Sanscript and the sled disappeared as abruptly as a shooting star. The latter lay shivered to atoms against a lamp-post, and Sanscript lay shivering in the cellar just opposite. When the off-runner of the sled collided with the lamp-post and stopped the vehicle, Sanscript rose like a circus-leaper and went right on, turning twenty somersaults to the second. He went through the grocery window as the circus-leaper goes through a paper hoop. All the ginger-bread horses and candy apples and other Christmas luxuries were disarranged, of course. One of Sanscript's feet struck a cheese on the counter, scattering the skippers in consternation. The old coaster bounced five feet at an obtuse angle, touching again for a second at the top step of the cellar stairs in the rear of the store, and then, continuing like a diver into the Plutonic depth below, he went feet foremost through the head of a hogshead filled with something soft. At first he was uncertain whether the contents were Orleans molasses or melted glucose. Before he had time to investigate, the grocer and two policemen came down. The unhappy old boy was lifted out of his sweet pickle and hauled off to the station-house, on a charge of malicious destruction of property. The grocer appeared soon after and compromised upon John paying the following bill:

Then the boy came in with a bill of $5 for his sled, to say nothing of the loss of a suit of clothes, a surgeon's bill for plastering sundry skinned surfaces, and the bill of a hackman who conveyed the fainting wife home. In the cooler moments of afterthought Sanscript reckoned it up and discovered that it had cost him $109.78 to recall recollections of fifty years ago, and required but one minute and five seconds of old Father Time in which to do the recollecting.

THE LEGEND OF THE ORGAN BUILDER.

JULIA C. R. DORR.

Day by day the Organ-builder in his lonely chamber wrought;

Day by day the soft air trembled to the music of his thought;

Till at last the work was ended, and no organ voice so grand Ever yet had soared responsive to the master's magic hand. Ay, so rarely was it builded that whenever groom or bride Who in God's sight were well-pleasing in the church stood side by side,

Without touch or breath the organ of itself began to play, And the very airs of heaven through the soft gloom seemed to stray.

He was young, the Organ-builder, and o'er all the land his

fame

Ran with fleet and eager footsteps, like a swiftly rushing flame.

All the maidens heard the story; all the maidens blushed and smiled,

By his youth and wondrous beauty and his great renown beguiled.

So he sought and won the fairest, and the wedding-day was

set:

Happy day, the brightest jewel in the glad year's coronet!