clinging arms, and Harry struggled, gasp- When he came to himself again, he was lying on his own bed. His eyes opened wonderingly, then with a sudden rush of consciousness he tried weakly to rise. "Faith!" he said eagerly. God forgive me! but I was cruel. I had no pity for him then. I could see nothing but a vision of my sweet girl's face tangled about with sea-weed, slimy with the spume of the murderous sea. "Faith!" I answered slowly; "Do you not know where Faith is? You left her out there to die; your promised wife!" A great wave of pain passed over his face. The tips of his clenched fingers whitened against his palm. All together we went up with our sad burden, carrying darkness to the humble home which she had brightened for eighteen years. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” said the white-haired minister, standing with uncovered head above her open grave. Harry returned directly to the city, arranging with me to send his luggage after him. A fortnight after Mrs. Gray and Edith left me quite alone. I saw Harry once more, two years afterwards. He was about to go abroad, and came to bid me good-bye. A few months later I received a paper with the announcement of his marriage to Edith Gray. He has never returned. Just before he left me he put a little box in my hand. "It is Faith's letter," he said. "As God hears me," he said, "I believed "You may keep it; I have no need, since I had Faith in my arms." He fell back and closed his eyes. I bent over him and kissed him, and the first tears I had shed fell on his face. Some one called my name from across the passage-way: "Miss Gray is better, and wants you." I went in. Edith lay propped up on pillows, her pale face turned eagerly towards the door. "Come close," she said, in a weak but thrilling voice. "I wanted you to know. Faith gave her life for me. I clung to the boat, and I heard Mr. Willoughby cry out, 'Faith, throw yourself on my shoulders and hold fast, but for your life don't touch my arms.' I felt my fingers slipping, slipping, and I closed my eyes. Then, in an instant, my arms were wrenched away from the boat and clasped violently about something, I knew not what. I must have fainted then, for I knew no more till I woke in this room and saw my mother's face." The tide gave back my little Faith that night. Tenderly she was borne up the long path her light feet had trodden so often; terfderly we took from her the dripping garments and laid her, robed in white, on her every word is written on my heart." Shall I show you the letter? My hostess and I rose and entered the cottage together. She unlocked the inner drawer of an antique cabinet, and drew forth a small, blue velvet casket. It opened by a spring, and on the delicate satin lining lay a yellow, folded paper, stiffened and defaced by the contact of the salt water. I took it reverently in my hand. A score of years ago it rose and fell with the last throb of a heart whose love had vanquished death; a score of years the young hand that wrote it had moldered gently into dust, yet these blurred, half-illegible lines, held the last words of a great soul: "MY DARLING :-There is something which I have wanted to tell you, and I write it now, because, if I were to speak to you, you might think that I was not in earnest, or that I was hurt with you for something that had happened, which I am not, nor ever could be, for I trust you with all my heart. "I have been happier than I ever believed anybody could be in this world. As long as I live, I shall be thankful that I have had your love, even though it was not mine to keep. And I am so glad that I know surely not, for my sake, because I never, never can, and it would only grieve us both. I will just give you this little note, and then we will never speak of it again, for since the mistake was our own we will correct it together, and all shall be right between us, now and always. "I am sure you will not forget me. May God bless you forever and ever, and I shall be, dear Harry, till I die, "Your loving sister, FAITH." Mary A. P. Stansbury. ANNA, THE PROPHETESS. "And there was one Anna, a prophetess, and she was a widow of about four score and four years, which departed not from the temple, and served God with fastings and prayers night and day."—Luke II., 36, 37. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? body."-I. Corinthians, VI., 19, 20. ST. Luke, the apostle, hath left in his history To us a legend most soothing and calm, Therefore glorify God in your Much in few words to our spirits doth say, Through wedded bliss, from her innocent maidenhood Then through the shock and the anguish of widowhood, Served in the temple by night and by day. Veiled far within, were the Ark and gold Cherubim. After forbidden ground,-Anna the prophetess, Many a daughter of Zion, in bravery Mincing abroad, tinkling jeweled, and curled, Proudly the livery wove of her slavery Unto the prince of this perishing world,- Sneered synic Sadducee. Large in phylactery, Writ on his raiment, and not in his heart,— While in her lowliness Anna, the prophetess, Served in the temple by night and by day. Till when, in swaddling-bands, fashioned by mortal hands, Leaving his sire, to survey over low tare-sown lands, The prince of the universe bowed him to come, He in his infant grace, to the meek votaress Came, in his mother's soft arms as he lay, Where, at her post suitress, Anna, the prophetess, Low lies the temple that towered o'er Jerusalem; Where hallelujahs succeed to the requiem, Anna, the prophetess, jubliant stands. Still at our work, Father, us with this blessing bless; That we, when they fall, may with Anna, the prophetess, E. Foxton. FORECASTLE JACK. "A SAILOR," says Mr. R. H. Dana in his inimitable "Two Years before the Mast," "has a peculiar cut to his clothes, and a way of wearing them which a green hand can never get. The trousers tight about the hips, and thence hanging long and loose about the feet, a superabundance of checked shirt, a low-crowned, well varnished hat worn on the back of the head with half a fathom of black ribbon hanging over the a slip-tie to the black silk handkerchief, etc." Thus nattily attired did the gallant mariner of a quarter of a century ago shiver his timbers at the call of distress, or splice the main brace at every left eye signal triumph of virtue over vice. But with other pleasant illusions, the Jack Tar of bye-gone days is only remembered in song and story. His individuality has disappeared with the picturesque garb alluded to, and even the sweet little cherub who in Mr. Dibdins's day sat up aloft for the express purpose of looking out for the life of poor Jack, hasif I may so express it-followed suit. The true reasons for ending the cherubic watch once so helpful, are unknown. Perhaps it is because the present Jack Tar seems disinclined (except from what might be termed an abstract point of view) to help himself. For it must be confessed that Jack compares very unfavorably with his prototype of former days. Once, our merchant sailors were largely made up of a self-reliant ambitious race of Young Americans who followed the sea from choice. Many of them were our friends and schoolmates some, perhaps, were those of our own household. Such were content to begin in a ship's forecastle the rudiments of a nautical education which should be ultimately completed on the quarter deck. A dominant desire to excel in their chosen profession, no less than the influence of the Christian homes which they had left, were in most cases, effectual safeguards against the grosser forms of temptation. Their proverbial good-heartedness and daring bravery was accounted to them for righteousness by admiring friends-Jack Tar being then quite generally looked upon as an object of interest, in whom were extended possibilities for good. From this stock came many of the American ship-masters of whom we are to-day so justly proud,-but who will compose the commanders of the coming generation? For scarcely will you find one native born American in a ship's crew at the present time. And with the exception of the Teutonic races, the foreign element which is so largely in the ascendant comes, to an alarming extent, from the lowest grades of humanity, so that Forecastle Jack, no matter what be his nationality, is reckoned among those who are pleasantly termed the scum or offscourings of society. That he is a human being with a dormant or stunted human soul underlying the vices of a life-time, is sometimes lost sight of. Indeed, well-meaning Christians, failing in their spasmodic effort at straightening a sin-bent mortal all at once into an erect manhood, will tell you with a sigh that there are those whose moral natures are hopelessly warped by the heat of unbridled indulgence in sin. Thus Forecastle Jack is generally known to the public as an ignorant, insolent, dirty and dissipated sailor, careless as to clothing, with an appetite for strong liquors and an aptitude for strong language. But as he is seldom brought into notice except as iden tified with the charge "drunk and disorderly," or through some breach of social etiquette whereby he has made a freer use of his knife than is allowable by law, it is not surprising that society, which invariably sees him at his worst, regards him as a literal castaway, with few if any redeeming features. Seemingly without hope and without God in the world, he affects a careless defiance for laws human or divine, declaring that he has but one life to live—and as he is treated like a brute on shipboard, he may as well maintain his right to the unenviable title, through the short, sad chapter of his life. His peculiar form of belief varies somewhat, according to his nationality, except in one striking particular-he religiously believes that every man's hand is against him. He would have you understand that the name of God is oftenest associated in his mind with the idea of a familiar spirit constantly invoked by his task-masters, to emphasize their harsh commands. He is inclined to regard his soul as a mere figure of objurgatory speech from so often hearing it verbally condemned to perdition. But he has no more doubt as to the reality of the "Gehenna" or "sheol" under present discussion, than of the absolute individ uality of the devil. He would localize the former with the same practical and unfaltering distinctness that would mark his designation of the latter, who differs from his Scriptural representative, in that when resisted he flies at rather than from his opposer. Do not understand me as taking up the cudgels for Forecastle Jack, simply because they are both literally and in a metaphysical sense, wielded against him, when I say that from personal experience and observation, I am led to believe that his ill repute is not altogether due to his natural depravity, but may be to a considerable extent attributable to his treatment on board a majority of ships, where the idea is prevalent among those having authority that Forecastle Jack can not appreciate kind usage. Let me speak of three different captains with whom I have sailed, to better illustrate my views on this point. Captain Average was a fair sample of the larger proportion of his brotherhood at the present day. A kindly dispositioned man at his own home and courteous in the treatment of his inferiors, at sea he exhibited for the sailor who after a brief debauch had been thrust half-naked and penniless on board his ship an unbounded and not unnatural contempt, which he was at no pains to conceal. The great social gulf between captain and crew was too wide to be spanned even by such notice or kindly word as was accorded to the ship's dog who ate of the crumbs which fell from his master's table. True, this state of things on shipboard proceeds to some extent from the traditional theory that Forecastle Jack is ready to take an ell of liberty for every inch relaxed by the hard hand of discipline; but traditional theory is by no means an infallible rule for any line of conduct. No doubt there are sailors who cannot or will not distinguish between kind treatment and loose government, but as far as my own observation has gone they are the exception rather than the rule; and a firm hand will readily bring them into at least outward subjection. Captain Average carelessly regarded Forecastle Jack as a rude machine which could only be made to serve its special purpose under unremitting pressure from the propelling power exercised by the ship's officers, whose duty it was to keep this imperfect human machinery in perpetual running order. The pithy speech made by Captain Average at the commencement of the voyage, was an abbreviated index of its history: "Now then, you fellers," he remarked, as he looked down upon the assembled crew from the quarter, "If you've come aboard to do your duty, well and good; if you haven't, you'll wish you had, that's all. Go for'ard!" From possibly humane, and probably prudential motives, he prohibited his officers from everything except verbal abuse, especially when he was on deck. But to the foul oaths and fouler epithets which these officials freely used in enforcing their orders, he was calmly indifferent. Indeed, when the wind or the waves were adverse, his own language was so profanely emphatic as to suggest the idea that the milk of human kindness suffers a material change in sea air or among sea surroundings. What a pleasant thing it would be for Forecastle Jack, if like its lacteal representative it could be condensed and "warranted to keep pure and sweet in any climate." This crew was if anything, a trifle better than the average when taken as a whole, but all the same they were hard worked, by no means overfed, and verbally abused from the day they came on board, until heartily cursing the ship, its captain and officers, they vanished over the rail the moment that the ship was made fast in port. That there could be any middle ground between severity and laxity of discipline was regarded by Captain Average as the wildest absurdity. "The better you treat an old sailor, the less work you get out of him,” was his favorite maxim. No alleged brutality having ever been charged upon Captain Average, he is quite generally regarded as a kind-hearted and humane commander, which I, for one, would not gainsay. But the indifference which suffers brute force, in the shape of a ship's officer, to wield an almost limitless sway over half a dozen cowed sailors is blameworthy, to say the least; for if the captain but choose, he can, by a word, make all discipline subordinate to his own directions. A little brief authority is a dangerous thing for an evenly-balanced mind to handle; but in the possession of a man of limited selfcontrol it is worse than dangerous. know that for a brief season a few fellowcreatures are cringingly subservient to his every order, that never so much as by word or look will they dare to question or refuse, is likely to bring what inherent badness there is in a man quite to the surface. At sea, those in authority are very apt to be a law unto themselves, and while, from prudential motives, men like Captain Average may outwardly forbid kicks and blows, there are plenty of methods, as the sailor well knows, by which his life for the voyage may be made perfectly wretched. To Now Captain Beansole was a very different man. He was worse than a brute and |