benefit of his experience in the matter of cheap periodicals. His information was well received, and seemed quite satisfactory to the committee. After nearly two months' stay in England, he went over to the continent, visited Calais, Paris, and Lyons; went across the Alps to Turin, and spent three weeks among the principal cities of Italy. Returning through Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium, the 21st of July found him again in London. He closed his European tour by a hasty trip through the north of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and on the 6th of August, in the Baltic, started for home. He wrote under date of that day the following paragraph :

"I rejoice to feel that every hour, henceforth, must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months' absence has taught me to appreciate more dearly, and to prize more deeply, than before. With a glow of unwonted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark! the last gun announces that the mailboat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat on our ocean journey; the shores of Europe recede from our vision; the watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and death below, our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of the mighty deep. May Infinito Mercy watch over our onward path and bring us safely to our several homes; for to die away from home and kindred seems

This mor

one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. tal tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud; this spirit reluctantly resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine; these eyes close regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen and stormy main. No! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered and beloved; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of friendship, and hear the thrilling accents of proved affection, and when, sooner or later, the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that congenial soil which, however I may then be esteemed or hated is still 'My own green land forever!""

He reached New York in safety, having stolen a march on the daily papers, by arranging the foreign news all ready for publication, before leaving the vessel. Rushing from the steamer, he carried the "copy" to the Tribune office, and while the compos itors of the other papers were setting up their type, the Tribune boys were shouting the arrival of the Baltic.

In 1836, Mr. Greeley married Mary Y. Cheney, of Litchfield, Connecticut, by whom he has had six children, four of whom, alas! are now sleeping in the grave. His domestic afflictions and his constant and severe toil have given to his brow a weary, worn look, like that upon the countenance of a sorrowing,

suffering man. And now he begins to talk of growing old. He says most beautifully :

"As for me, long tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict, and an arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the shade of forty years fell upon me, the weary, tempestdriven voyager's longing for land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast.

"The sober down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it develops or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or overlaid, for 'that dear hut,' our home. And so I, in the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought me a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and, bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the city's labors and anxieties, at least one day in each week, wherein to revive, as a farmer, the memories of my childhood's humble home.

"And already I realize that the experience cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an antidote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the week which environ it. Already my brook murmurs a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain, and my trees, gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet strength and patient trust in God.

"And thus do I faintly realize, but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which shall irradiate the farmer's vocation, when a fuller and a truer education shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when science shall have en

dowed him with her treasures, redeeming labor from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent earth."

In another place he writes thus eloquently of growing old:

"Is it well to desire and pray for length of days? I would say, so long as our mental faculties remain essentially undecayed, it is well, it is desirable to live. The love of life is not a blind, irrational instinct, but has as its base a just perception that existence is a blessing, and that even in this "vale of tears," its joys outweigh its woes. And besides, our terrestrial course prepares and shapes us for the life that shall succeed it, which will be, to a great extent, a continuation, or second edition of this, with corrections and improvements. Doubtless, Infinite Mercy has means provided whereby the millions to whom this life was a blank shall nevertheless be prepared for bliss in the next; and I trust even those who have misused and culpably squandered this stage of being will yet be ultimately fitted for happiness in another. But opportunities wasted can never be regained; the memory of past unworthiness must ever be humiliating and regretful to the redeemed soul. In vain does Joseph, revealing himself in Egypt to his treacherous brethren, entreat them to 'Be not angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life;' the view of God needed no vindication, while theirs do not receive any. I apprehend that flagrant transgressors (and who is or is not of this number, who shall here say?) will ever feel consciousness of inferiority and self-reproach in the presence of

soul of all

those who walked worthily on earth-that retrospect of their darker hours can never be joyful nor welcome to Judas or Magdalen. So long as we may grow therein in wisdom and worth it is as well, it is desirable to live, but no further. To my view, insanity is the darkest, the most appalling of earthly ca lamities; but how much better is an old age that drivels and wanders, that misunderstands and forgets? When the soul shall have become choked and smothered by the ruins of its wasting, falling habitation, I should prefer to inhabit that shattered tenement no longer. I should not choose to stand shuddering and trembling on the brink of the dark river, weakly drawing back from the chill of its sweeping flood, when faith assures me that a new Eden stretches green and fair beyond it, and that the baptism it invites will cleanse the that now clogs, clouds, and weighs it to the earth. No, when the windows of the mind shall be darkened, when the growth of the soul here shall have been arrested, I would not weakly cling to the earth which will have ceased to nourish and uphold Rather 'let the golden cup be loosed, and the pitcher broken at the fountain;' let the sun of my existence go down ere the murky vapors shroud its horizon; let me close my eyes calmly on the things of earth, and let my weary frame. sleep beneath the clods of the valley; let the spirit, which it can no longer cherish as a guest, be spared the ignominy of detention as a prisoner; but, freed from the fetters of clay, let it wing its way through the boundless universe, to wheresoever the benign Father of spirits shall have assigned it an everlasthome."

me.