down, one by one, as they fell from his lips. This poem was written by William Knox, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott. He died in Edinburgh, in 1825, at the age of 36.

OH! WHY Should the SPIRIT OF MORTAL
BE PROUD?

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the
high,

Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband, that mother and infant who blest,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in
whose eye,

Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and

praised,

Are alike from the minds of the living erased. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up

the steep,

The beggar who wander'd in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint, who enjoyed the communion of
Heaven,

The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dnst.
So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes-even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen
We drink the same stream, and we view the
same sun,

And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;

From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink;

To the life we are clinging, they also would cling; But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved-but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned-but the heart of the haughty is cold;

They grieved-but no wail from their slumbers will come;

They joyed-but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay, they died; and we things that

are now,

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,

Who make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and

the dirge,

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud! Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

The Hon. W. D. Kelley, of Philadelphia, in an address delivered in that city soon after the assassination, said: "His intercourse with his family was as beautiful as that with his friends. I think that father never loved his children more fondly than he. The President never seemed grander in my sight than when, stealing upon him in the evening, I would find him with a book open before him, as he is represented in the popular photograph, with little Tad beside him. There were of course a great many curious books sent to him, and it seemed to be one of the special delights of his life to open those books at such an hour that his boy could stand beside him, and they could talk as he turned over the pages, the father thus giving to the son a portion of that care and attention of which he was ordinarily deprived by the duties of office pressing upon him."

No matter who was with the President, or how intently he might be absorbed, little Tad was always welcome. At the time of which I write he was eleven years old, and of course rapidly passing from childhood into youth. Suffering much from an infirmity of speech which developed in his infancy, he seemed on this account especially dear to his father. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," and it was an impressive and affecting sight to me to see the burdened President lost for the time being in the affectionate parent, as he would take the little fellow in his arms upon the withdrawal of visitors, and caress him with all the fondness of a mother for the babe upon her bosom !

Judge Bates, the Attorney General, referring to Mr. Lincoln's never-failing fund of anecdote, said: "The character of the President's mind is such that his thought habitually takes on this form of illustration, by which the point he wishes to enforce is invariably brought home with a strength and clearness impossible in hours of abstract argument. Mr. Lincoln," he added, "comes very near being a perfect man, according to my ideal of manhood. He lacks but one thing." Looking up from my palette, I asked, musingly, if this was official dignity as President. No," replied the Judge, "that is of little consequence. His deficiency is in the element of will. I have sometimes told him, for instance, that he

was unfit to be trusted with the pardoning | power. Why, if a man comes to him with a touching story, his judgment is almost certain to be affected by it. Should the applicant be a woman, a wife, a mother, or a sister,—in nine cases out of ten, her tears, if nothing else, are sure to prevail."

"The Soldiers' Home," writes a California lady, who visited Mr. Lincoln there, "is a few miles out of Washington on the Maryland side. It admitted only soldiers of the regular army; but in the graveyard near at hand there are numberless gravessome without a spear of grass to hide their newness-that hold the bodies of volunteers. While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that was flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood silent, too, taking in the scene.

'How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest,'

he said, softly. There was something so touching in the picture opened before us,the nameless graves, the solemn quiet, the tender twilight air, but more particularly our own feminine disposition to be easily melted, I suppose,-that it made us cry as if we stood beside the tomb of our own dead, and gave point to the lines which he afterwards quoted :

'And women o'er their graves shall weep, Where nameless heroes calmly sleep.' "Around the Home grows every variety of tree, particularly of the evergreen class. Their branches brushed into the carriage as we passed along, and left with us that pleasant, woody smell belonging to leaves. One of the ladies, catching a bit of green from one of these intruding branches, said it was cedar, and another thought it spruce. 'Let me discourse on a theme I understand,' said the President. 'I know about trees in right of being a backwoodsman. I'll show you the difference between spruce, pine, and cedar, and this shred of green, which is neither one nor the other, but a kind of illegitimate cypress.' He then proceeded to gather specimens of each, and explain the distinctive formation of foliage belonging to every species.

"There is one little incident connected with this visit to the Soldiers' Home that remains with me as connected with my home here. I had always noticed that the bare mention of our California cemetery filled the minds of those who heard it with a solemn sense of awe and sorrow,-' Lone Mountain!' It seemed to rise before them out of the quiet sea, a vast mausoleum from the hand of God, wherein to lay the dead. I was not astonished, therefore, when Mr. Lincoln alluded to it in this way, and gave, in a few deep-toned words, a eulogy on one of its most honored dead, Col. E. D. Baker. Having witnessed the impressive spectacle

of that glorious soldier's funeral, I gave him the meagre outline one can convey in words, of something which, having been once seen, must remain a living picture in the memory forever. I tried to picture the solemn hush that lay like a pall on the spirit of the people while the grand procession wound its mournful length through the streets of the city out on that tearstained road to the gate of the cemetery, where the body passed beneath the prophetic words of California's most eloquent soul, 'Hither in future ages they shall bring,' etc. When I spoke of Rev. Starr King, I saw how strong a cord I had touched in the great appreciative heart I addressed; and giving a weak dilution of that wondrous draught of soul-lit eloquence, that funeral hymn uttered by the priest of God over the sacred ashes of the advocate and soldier of liberty, whose thrilling threnody seems yet to linger in the sighing wind that waves the grass upon the soil made sacred by the treasure it received that day, I felt strangely impressed as to the power and grandeur of that mind, whose thoughts, at second-hand and haltingly given from memory, could move and, touch the soul of such a man as Abraham Lincoln as I saw it touched when he listened. It is the electric chain with which all genius and grandeur of soul whatsoever is bound,-the freemasonry by which spirit hails spirit, though unseen. Now they all three meet where it is not seeing through a glass darkly, but in the light of a perfect day."

No incident of its kind related of the late President is more profouudly touching in its tenderness and simplicity than that given to me the last evening I passed at the White House, in the office of the private secretary, by a resident of Washington who witnessed the scene.

"I was waiting my turn to speak to the President one day, some three or four weeks since," said Mr. Murtagh, "when my attention was attracted by the sad, patient face of a woman advanced in life, who in a faded hood and shawl was among the applicants for an interview.

"Presently Mr. Lincoln turned to her, saying in his accustomed manner, 'Well, my good woman, what can I do for you this morning?' Mr. President,' said she, 'my husband and three sons all went into the army. My husband was killed in the fight at -. I get along very badly since then, living all alone, and I thought I would come and ask you to release to me my oldest son.' Mr. Lincoln looked into her face a moment, and in his kindest accents responded, 'Certainly certainly! If you have given us all, and your prop has been taken away, you are justly entitled to one of your boys!' He immediately made out an order discharging the young man, which the woman took, and, thanking him gratefully, she went away.

"I had forgotten the circumstance," Mr.

Murtagh continued, "till last week, when happening to be here again, who should come in but the same woman? It appeared that she had gone herself to the front, with the President's order, and found the son she was in search of mortally wounded in a recent engagement, and taken to a hospital. She found the hospital, but the boy was dead, or died while she was there. The surgeon in charge made a memorandum of the facts upon the back of the President's order, and, almost broken-hearted, the poor woman had found her way again into Mr. Lincoln's presence. He was much affected by her appearance and story, and said: 'I know what you wish me to do now, and I shall do it without your asking; I shall release to you your second son.' Upon this, he took up his pen and commenced writing the order, While he was writing the poor woman stood by his side, the tears running down her face, and passed her hand softly over his head, stroking his rough hair as I have seen a fond mother caress a son. the time he had finished writing, his own heart and eyes were full. He handed her the paper: Now,' said he, 'you have one and I one, of the other two left: that is no more than right.' She took the paper, and reverently placing her hand upon his head, the tears still upon her cheeks, said: "The Lord bless you, Mr. Lincoln. May you live a thousand years, and may you always be the head of this great nation!'"'

By

Dr. Stone, his family physician, came in one day to see my studies. Sitting in front of that of the President-with whom he did not sympathize politically-he remarked, with much feeling, "It is the province of a physician to probe deeply the interior lives of men; and I affirm that Mr. Lincoln is the purest-hearted man with whom I ever came in contact." Secretary Seward, who of the Cabinet officers was probably most intimate with the President, expressed the same sentiment in still stronger language. He once said to the Rev. Dr. Bellows : Mr. Lincoln is the best man I ever knew!"-From Carpenter's "Six Months in the White House."

LINCOLN, THE IMMORTAL.

The following eloquent tribute to Mr. Lincoln is from the pen of Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal:

From Cæsar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world has had its soldiers and its statesmen, who rose to eminence and power step by step through a series of geometrical progression, as it were, each promotion following in regular order, the whole obedient to well established and well understood laws of cause and effect. These were not what we call "men of destiny." They were men of the time. They were men whose career had a beginning, a middle and an end, rounding off a life with a history, full, it may be, of interesting and exciting events, but comprehensible and comprehensive, simple, clear, complete.

The inspired men are fewer. Whence their emanation, where and how they got their power, and by what rule they lived, moved, and had their being, we cannot see. There is no explication to these lives. They rose from shadow and went in mist. We see them, feel them, but we know them not. They arrived, God's word upon their lips; they did their office, God's mantle upon them; and they passed away God's holy light between the world and them, leaving behind a memory half mortal and half myth. From first to last they were distinctly the creating of some special providence, baffling the wit of man to fathom, defeating the machinations of the world, the flesh and the devil until their work was done, and passed from the scene as mysteriously as they had come upon it; Luther, to wit; Shakespeare, Burns, even Bonaparte, the archangel of war, havoc and ruin; not to go back into the dark ages for examples of the hand of God stretched out to raise up, to protect, and to cast down.

Tried by this standard and observed in an historic spirit, where shall we find an illustration more impressive than in Abraham Lincoln, whose life, career and death might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the prelude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of modern times.

Born as low as the Son of God in a hovel, of what real parentage we know not; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair surroundings; a young manhood vexed by weird dreams and visions, bordering at times on madness; singularly awkward, ungainly, even among the uncouth about him; grotesque in his aspects and ways, it was reserved for this strange being, late in life, without name or fame or ordinary preparation, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command, and entrusted with the destiny of a nation.

The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside; the most experienced and accomplished men of the day, men like Seward and Chase and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent to the rear; while this comparatively unknown and fantastic figure was brought by unseen hands to the front and given the reins of power. It is entirely immaterial whether we believe in what he said or did, whether we are for him or against him; but for us to admit that during four years, carrying with them such a pressure of responsibility as the world has never witnessed before, he filled the measure of the vast space allotted him in the actions of mankind and in the eyes of the world, is to say that he was inspired of God, for nowhere else could he have acquired the enormous equipment indispensable to the situation.

Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his music? Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman? and stayed the life of the German priest? God alone: and, so surely as these

were raised up by God, inspired of God was Abraham Lincoln, and, a thousand years hence, no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled with greater wonder than that which tells of his life and death. If Lincoln was not inspired of God, then were not Luther, or Shakespeare, or Burns. If Lincoln was not inspired of God, then there is no such thing on earth as special providence or the interposition of Divine power in the affairs of men.

As

AUTUMN ARBOR DAY.

PLANTING trees.

S a rule trees must have good soil in which to grow. Certain varieties seem well adapted to grow in the poorest soil, but for success in ornamental tree-planting good soil is necessary, and it should never be less than a foot deep. In planting street trees, make sure of success by properly preparing the soil where they are to stand. In all gravelly and poor soil dig a hole six or ten feet across and two or three feet deep-it can not be too large; remove the poor soil and replace with good, in which to plant the tree. In very poor soil this must be done to insure success.

The site for planting should be intelligently chosen; then the variety suited to the peculiar soil and situation and use for which it is intended should be considered. In nature the roots of a tree push outward in search of food and moisture and become very long and widely extended, with the young or feeding roots at the extremities, so far away from the tree and so twisted among the stones in the soil and among the roots of other trees that it is not possible to get them, and when the tree is dug nothing but stiff stubs, bare of fibres, are preserved. A tree in this condition has little chance of living, for the fine fibrous or feeding roots are very necessary. They are obtained in the nursery by frequent removals or root prunings, by which the roots become compact together and not long and widely extended as we find them in the forest. Hence it is preferable to plant nursery-grown trees, which have already been once or twice transplanted and have thus acquired a good root system, and then the fine fibrous roots will not have to be sacrificed in transplanting.

In receiving plants from nurseries notice. particularly two points: First, that the plants have good roots that have not been unnecessarily shortened or reduced in removal; and secondly, that the roots have not been dried or injured by frost. This can be determined by cutting off some of the ends of the roots. If the bark on them when cut into appears white and fresh and separates easily from the wood, they are sound and can be trusted. Roots should not be exposed to the sun or drying winds while being transported, but should be kept moist with

The

a covering of straw, moss, or canvas. feeding roots are easily destroyed by exposure, and their loss deprives the tree of much of its power to withstand removal successfully. This is especially true of evergreens, because of their being covered with foliage all the year.

Native trees growing near in similar soil can hardly fail to flourish if properly transplanted. Trees that have grown in open places are hardier and will bear transplanting better than those that have grown under the protection of the deeper woods. Such trees, moreover, like those from the nursery, have an abundance of fibrous roots, on which the tree must rely for support until its stronger roots have had time to lay hold of the moist subsoil beneath. Rapidly growing trees, although giving shade soonest, are mostly short lived, and become soonest unsightly. For a lawn a tree is wanted with all its branches-a tree as it would develop naturally from a seed on the spot and unmutilated by a pruning knife.

How to Plant.-If dug from a forest, the ragged ends of roots should be cut off, making a smooth, clean cut, with a sharp knife. The bruised and broken bark of the roots would be apt to decay and thus hinder the formation of new roots. Cut from the under side of the root, not from the upper, and then the cut surface will rest against the soil and the water can not lodge on it, even if the soil should be saturated, and everything will be more favorable for the new, healthy roots to start out. Since the tree has been removed and a part of the roots has been cut away, the tree is not in a condition to support as much foliage as will naturally appear on it as soon as the buds burst and the leaves appear. It the weather should suddenly become very warm immediately after planting, and the soil be dry, the leaves might come out before any little rootlets had formed to take up sap; and the leaves, which have "breathing pores" on their under surfaces, through which their moisture is taken up by the air, would thus quickly part with all the sap in the tree and it would wither and die. Water would be a remedy if sufficient water were given. Sometimes leaves come and remain on the tree in health, but little or no growth is made. The surest course to insure growth is to cut back the limbs in about the same proportion that the tree has been bereft of its roots. Then there will be fewer leaves for the sap to support, and what growth there is will be at the ends of the branches. Cut to an outside bud and then the head of the tree will grow more open; make the cut from the inside outward, just above a bud on the outside, and any crooked or misshapen branches might be cut out entirely. But do not cut off the head of the tree, if you have any sense of beauty or symmetry.

If the soil is good, all that is necessary is to dig a hole a foot or more outside the longest roots. In planting the tree, place the

roots naturally as deep, or a little deeper if in loose, poor soil, than when they were dug; but use judgment, for more trees are killed by too deep planting than the reverse. Force the soil among the roots firmly, working it carefully with the hand under the stem of the tree, and leaving no open spaces among the roots. The roots should not be permitted to come in contact with decaying matter of coarse, unfermented manure. Should the season be dry and warm, water may be poured in from time to time to settle the fine soil about them, but do not drench them. The practice of using water while planting can hardly be said to be a good one, and with a soil which has a tendency to clog, there is great danger of an uneven distribution and settling, with consequent empty spaces between the roots. More trees are probably killed by too much water in transplanting than by too little; but never wet the soil at or near the surface. The surface should be leveled, or, better, slightly rounded about the trunk of the tree.

Then

a mulch of coarse manure is helpful, for it keeps the surface moist, and its richness will reach the roots gradually in a diluted form. A mulch of straw, leaves, or coarse hay is better than none at all.

After the soil is properly settled about its roots, the tree should not be neglected and suffered to fall a prey to insects or fungus, or allowed to starve for lack of food or water, or to be loosened by the wind. Stake it carefully and firmly or insure it against accidents with a tree-box. Trees should not be planted so near buildings that the roots will interfere with the foundations or that their shade will make the house damp; nor so closely along roadways as to hinder the prompt drying of the road after a rain. Do not overdo the matter of tree-planting, and do not let taste run altogether in the direction of one tree. Do not neglect after-care and culture. Keep the ground free from weeds and grass; prevent it from baking by a covering of mulch and by occasional hoeing and raking. Few people realize the importance of pruning. To keep a tree shapely and in proper balance by judicious pruning is one thing; to clip into a form unlike what it assumes naturally is another. There must be pruning, and a good deal of it too, in all well kept-grounds.

BRITISH FOrest restORATION.

The area of the woodland of the British Isles is now reduced to about 3,000,000 acres, which is only 39 acres to each 1,000 of the country's total area. This is a smaller proportion than that in almost every other European country. Austro-Hungary has 343 acres of forest to each 1,000 acres; Russia, 342; Germany, 257; Sweden and Norway, 250; France, 159; Italy, 145; Belgium, 142; Holland, 72; Denmark, 60. It is estimated that, in addition to about $15,000,000 in tropical woods, Great Britain imports annually $60,000,000 worth of oak, ash, pine,

etc. It is believed that the latter expense could be saved to the country by the afforestation of 6,000,000 acres of what is now waste land-a work that Dr. Schlich calculates would require 15,000 laborers, if the planting were done at the rate of 300,000 acres yearly, while it weuld eventually provide steady employment for 100,000 persons. This problem is now exciting scientific and official interest, and as the future prosperity of Great Britain depends so largely upon a careful husbanding of its resources, so important a source of wealth is not likely to be much longer neglected.

A WORD ABOUT FORESTRY.

The rapid destruction of American forests is all too evident, and a great deal has been said and written on the subject. No civilized people ever had so great a treasure of woodland in their possession, and none could have wasted it more recklessly.

It is not urged that the great industries which consume wood should be stopped, but only that the felling of the forests should be restricted by law to an economic instead of a destructive use. Germany and France have long since been compelled to recognize the fact that forests may be used without being abused, and the time is at hand for America to act on the same principle.

The cure for the evil must no doubt begin in sentiment, but it must end in fact. Sentiment will in time operate upon public opinion, and will thus pave the way for legislation, but there is no argument that appeals so strongly to the American people as the argument of dollars and cents. As soon, therefore, as it will pay to plant and protect trees, just so soon will the waste places be set with trees.

There is reason to hope for this new state of affairs in the early future. Lumber is gradually decreasing in quality and increas ing in price, for the reason that the supply is decreasing while the demand is increasing. The railroads bring us shingles from Michigan, and flooring from the South. We have in our Middle States a considerable amount of hemlock, but white pine is fast going out of the market. Surely it cannot be long before capital will seek an investment in timber culture, on a large scale. To make such an investment possible and profitable we must have better legislation in respect to forest fires, and perhaps in other directions, but the day of timber growing for profit is not distant. There are millions of acres of mountain land in Pennsylvania which can be devoted to this use; and under present agricultural conditions it is quite likely that some of the arable land could with profit be converted into woodland. Such must be the ultimate solution of the forestry problem.

EARTH A POTENTIAL Forest.

Dr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Division of Forestry at Washington, before the American Forestry Association, said: