"And how was her noble effort rewarded? "The cupboard was bare!' It was bare! There were to be found neither oranges, nor cheese-cakes, nor penny buns, nor gingerbread, nor crackers, nor nuts, nor lucifermatches. The cupboard was bare! There was but one, only one solitary cupboard in the whole of that cottage, and that one the sole hope of the widow, and the glorious loadstar of the poor dog-was bare! Had there been a leg of mutton, a loin of lamb, a fillet of veal, even an 'ice' from Gatti's, the case would have been different, the incident would have been otherwise. But it was bare, my brethren, bare as a bald head, bare as an infant born without a caul.

Many of you will probably say, with all the pride of worldly sophistry, 'The widow, no doubt, went out and bought a dog-biscuit.' Ah, no! Far removed from these earthly ideas, these mundane desires, poor

Mother Hubbard, the widow, whom many thoughtless worldlings would despise, in that she owned only one cupboard, perceivedor I might even say saw at once the relentless logic of the situation, and yielded to it with all the heroism of that nature which had enabled her, without deviation, to reach the barren cupboard. She did not attempt, like the stiff-necked scoffers of this generation, to war against the inevitable; she did not try, like the so-called men of science, to explain what she did not understand. She said nothing. 'The poor dog had none!' And then at this point our information ceases. But do we not know sufficient? Are we not cognizant of enough?

"Who would dare to pierce the veil that shrouds the ulterior fate of Old Mother Hubbard, the poor dog, the cupboard, or the bone that was not there? Must we imagine her still standing at the open cupboard door; depict to ourselves the dog still dropping

his disappointed tail upon the floor, the sought-for bone still remaining somewhere else? Ah, no, my dear brethren! we are not so permitted to attempt to read the future. Suffice it for us to glean from this beautiful story its many lessons; suffice it for us to apply them, to study them as far as in us lies, and bearing in mind the natural frailty of our nature, to avoid being widows; to shun the patronymic of Hubbard; to have, if our means afford it, more than one cupboard in the house; and to keep stores in them all. And, O dear friends! keeping in recollection what we have learned this day, let us avoid keeping dogs that are fond of bones. But, brethren, if we do, if Fate has ordained that we should do any of these things, let us then go, as Mother Hubbard did, straight, without curveting or prancing, to our cupboard, empty though it be; let us, like her, accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness; and should we, like

her, ever be left with a hungry dog and an empty cupboard, may future chroniclers be able to write also of us in the beautiful words of our text, 'And so the poor dog had none.'

AT MIDNIGHT.

EDGAR FAWCETT.

There is something at the window,
Tapping on the pane.

I heard it twice; I heard it thrice;

I hear it now again

Above the whirling tempest and the rushes

of the rain.

Why should I chill and tremble

At little sounds like these,

And sweat for fright in my bed at night,
And feel my pulses freeze,-

I, that have battled bravely with perils upon seas?

We were together on the raft. .

I moaned to Heaven for food;