five. How clearly and almost merrily each stroke told of her once peaceful slumber in her mother's bosom, and of her seat at nightfall on her weary father's knee. Six seven eight - nine ten, rang out the tale of her sports upon the greensward in the meadow, and by the brook. Eleventwelve thirteen - fourteen fifteen, spoke more gravely of school-days, and little household joys and cares. Sixteen seventeen eighteen, sounded out the enraptured visions of maidenhood and the dream of early love. Nineteen brought us the happy bride. Twenty spoke of the young mother, whose heart was full to bursting with the newsprung love which God had awakened in her bosom. And then stroke after stroke told of her early womanhood,— of the love, and cares, and hopes, and fears, and toils through which she passed during these long years, till fifty rang out harsh and loud. From that to sixty each stroke told of the warm-hearted mother and grandmother, living over again her own joys and sorrows in those of her children and children's children. Every family of all the group wanted grandmother then, and the only strife was who should secure the prize; but hark! the bell tolls on! Seventy-one two three four. She begins to grow feeble, requires some care, is not always perfectly patient or satisfied: she goes from one child's house to another, so that no one place seems like home. She murmurs in plaintive tones, and after all her toil and weariness it is hard she cannot be allowed a home to die in; that she must be sent, rather than invited, from house to house. Eighty-eighty-one — two-three - four-ah! now she is a second child. now "she has outlived her usefulness, she has ceased to be a comfort to herself or anybody;" that is, she has ceased to be profitable to her earth-craving and money-grasping children.

Now Sounds out, reverberating through our lonely forest, and echoing back from the "hill of the dead," eighty-nine! There she now lies in the coffin, cold and still; she makes no trouble now, demands no love, no

soft words, no tender little offices. A look of patient endurance, we fancied also an expression of grief for unrequited love, sat on her marble features. Her children were there, clad in weeds of woe, and in irony we remembered the strong man's words, "She was a good mother in her day."

When the bell ceased tolling, the strange minister rose in the pulpit. His form was very erect, and his voice strong, but his hair silvery white. He read several passages of Scripture expressive of God's compassion to feeble man, and especially of his tenderness when gray hairs are on him, and his strength faileth. He then made some touching remarks on human frailty and of dependence on God, urging all present to make their peace with their Master while in health, that they might claim his promise when heart and flesh should fail them. Then, he said, "The eternal God shall be thy refuge, and beneath thee shall be the everlasting arms." Leaning over the desk, and gazing intently on the coffined form before him, he then said reverently, "From a little child I honored the aged, but never till gray hairs covered my own head did I know truly how much love and sympathy this class has a right to demand of their fellow creatures. Now I feel it. Our mother," he added, most tenderly, "who now lies in death before us, was a stranger to me, as are all her descendants. All I know of her is what her son has told me to-day, that she was brought to this town from afar, sixty-nine years ago, a happy bride; that she passed most of her life toiling, as only mothers ever have strength to toil, until she had-reared a large family of sons and daughters; that she left her home here, clad in weeds of widowhood, to dwell among her children, and that, till health and vigor left her, she lived for you, her de scendants.

"You, who together have shared her love and care, know how well you have requited her. God forbid that conscience should accuse any of you of ingratitude or murmuring on account of the care she has been to you of late. When you go back to your homes be