Then came he whom they so hated, and behind him, as before,

Rode twelve men, who, bows and arrows, swords and battleaxes bore.

Scattering sparks, the whole procession swept beside them rapidly;

Struck with deepest awe and wonder, they, now following silently,

Saw, as the town-gate was opened, how the magic twentyfour,

Suddenly, in haze dissolving, vanished, and were seen no

more.

In the murderers' hearts repentance now succeeds to hate and fear;

In the noble judge's dwelling they with reverence appear, Fall down at his feet, confessing their foul, treacherous offense;

He looks up to Heaven, saying: "This hast Thou done, Providence!"

THE OLD METHODIST'S TESTIMONY.

Praise the Lord my Christian friends,
That I am with you still,

Though standing like an old log-house
Upon a west side hill.

The music has gone out, you know,
The timbers have decayed,

But sunshine on 'em's just as warm
As when the first was laid.

Almost a hundred years have passed
Since I was born, and then,
'Twas only fifteen farther on
And I was born again.

I've seen the forest melt away,

Nice houses have been reared,

The world has quite outstripped the Church,

I'm very much afeared.

They used to tell a Methodist,

As far as eye could scan

No gewgaws on a woman then,

No dickey on a man.

But now our congregations are

So much by fashion led,
They look just like a rainbow
Wrecked upon a posy-bed.
The circuit-riders of them days
Were not so fine and grand;
They took degrees a-haulin' logs,
And clearin' up the land;
But when one of 'em rose to preach,
I tell you we could smell
The fragrant flowers of heaven,
And the stifling smoke of hell.

We had an "amen corner," too,
Beside the pulpit stairs,

And while he raised his sermon bents
We lifted with our prayers.

We threw in many a loud "thank God!"
And weren't obliged to go,

To give the Lord the glory,

To a class-room down below.

The gospel plow went deeply then,
With ridin' on the beam;

I wish you could have been there once
And heard 'em groan and scream;
Though I'm afraid that if you had,
You'd most outrun your wits
To get a doctor to prescribe
For epileptic fits.

The old grand quart'ly meetin's was
To all the brethren dear,

Just like four green oases in
The desert of the year.

The people flocked for miles around,
My wife would take a score;
And after supper they would pray,

And sleep upon the floor.

I know the world's a-moving on,

As Galileo said;

For now I rent a cushioned pew

To hear an essay read.

But when through stained-glass windows
The sun throws blue and gold,

I cannot help a-thinkin' how
The glory shone of old.

They call me an "old fossil,”
And a "relic of the past,"
croaker," too,

A "fogy" and a

But this won't always last.

I tread a trembling isthmus where
Two seas of glory roll,

And soon the past and future bliss
Will swallow up my soul.

And when I reach fair Canaan,
The Lord will doubtless see
That mansions in the city will
Not do for such as me.

So he will let me go among

Old-fashioned saints, I think,

And praise him 'neath the trees of life,
Upon the river's brink.

POMPEII.

And lo, a voice from Italy! It comes like the stirring of the breeze from the mountains! It floats in majesty like the echo of the thunder! It breathes solemnity like a sound from the tombs! Let the nations hearken; for the slumber of ages is broken, and the buried voice of antiquity speaks again from the gray ruins of Pompeii.

Roll back the tide of eighteen hundred years. At the foot of the vine-clad Vesuvius stands a royal city; the stately Roman walks its lordly streets, or banquets in the palaces of its splendor. The bustle of busied thousands is there; you may hear it along the thronged quays; it rises from the amphitheater and the forum. It is the home of luxury, of gayety, and of joy. There, toged royalty drowns itself in dissipation; the lion roars over the martyred Christian; and the bleeding gladiator dies at the beck of applauding spectators. It is a careless, a dreaming, a devoted city.

There is a blackness in the horizon, and the earth

quake is rioting in the bowels of the mountain! Hark! a roar, a crash! and the very foundations of the eternal hills are belched forth in a sea of fire! Woe for that fated city! The torrent comes surging like the mad ocean; it boils above wall and tower, palace and fountain, and Pompeii is a city of tombs!

Ages roll on; silence, darkness, and desolation are in the halls of buried grandeur. The forum is voiceless; and the pompous mansions are tenanted by skeletons! Lo! other generations live above the dust of long lost glory; and the slumber of the dreamless city is forgotten.

Pompeii beholds a resurrection! As summoned by the blast of the first trumpet, she hath shaken from her beauty the ashes of centuries, and once more looks forth upon the world, sullied and somber, but interesting still. Again upon her arches, her courts, and her colonnades, the sun lingers in splendor, but not as erst, when the reflected luster from her marbles dazzled like the glory of his own true beam.

There, in their gloomy boldness, stand her palaces, but the song of carousal is hushed forever. You may behold the places of her fountains, but you will hear no murmur; they are as the water-courses of the desert. There, too, are her gardens; but the barrenness of long antiquity is theirs. You may stand in her amphitheater, and you shall read utter desolation on its bare and dilapidated walls.

Pompeii! moldering relic of a former world! Strange redemption from the sepulcher! How vivid are the classic memories that cluster around thee! Thy loneliness is rife with tongues; for the shadows of the mighty are thy sojourners! Man walks thy desolated and forsaken streets, and is lost in his dreams of other days.

He converses with the genius of the past, and the Roman stands as freshly recalled as before the billow of lava had stiffened above him. A Pliny, a Sallust, a Trajan, are in his musing, and he visits their very homes.

Venerable and eternal city! The storied urn to a nation's memory! A disentombed and risen witness for the dead! Every stone of thee is consecrated and immortal. Rome was; Thebes was; Sparta was; thou wast, and art still. No Goth or Vandal thundered at thy gates, or reveled in thy spoil.

Man marred not thy magnificence. Thou wast scathed by the finger of Him who alone knew the depth of thy violence and crime. Babylon of Italy! thy doom was not revealed to thee. No prophet was there, when thy towers were tottering and the ashy darkness obscured thy horizon, to construe the warning. The wrath of God was upon thee heavily; in the volcano was the "hiding of his power"; and, like thine ancient sisters of the plain, thy judgment was sealed in fire!

THE GOTTINGEN BARBER.-J. E. CARPENTER. A long while ago-you the date must suppose― A barber there lived; he was not one of those Who shave for a penny, when other shops close, All the Gottingen students he took by the nose. One day when the college was closed for the night, A little fat stranger, a horrible fright, Walked in, and demanded-by no means politeThat the Gottingen barber would shave him outright. The hair on his chin did like bristles appear, As if he had never been shaved for a year: Says the Gottingen barber, "My friend, it's quite clear, I shave students alone, so you don't get shaved here!" "Not shave me!" the stranger roared out with a curse"Not shave me!" again, and his anger grew worse; "Not shave me!"-he then seemed to feel for his purse, But a pistol pulled out, looking black as a hearse. Then the pistol he cocked, put it down on a chair"You either shave me, or I you, I declare!" Then seizing the barber, ere he was aware, He set to and lathered him in his own chair.