ailed me that day; I was in a disquieted frame continually; my thoughts, which were ever active and companionable, now wrestled within me, and left me no peace. Sometimes I pictured to myself a home and a wife; but she wore not Anne Harrison's features, nor spoke with her voice; she was a stranger, and an alien, and I was homesick for the calm, sweet presence I had been wont to live in. Then I seemed to read Anne's letter, and it was a fond and impassioned acceptance, that froze me with a sense of my own cold heart; or, again, it was a brief and bitter refusal, that put barriers of ice between us forever, wounded my pride, and sent quick pulses of pain through the very most feeling part of my nature. Truly, I knew not what I would have, and I went home at night more tired than if I had dropped corn over half Mount Tom, instead of the little meadow. So things went with me for three days; and yet I dreaded certainty even more than the doubt in which I rocked to and fro so wearily; and when, on Saturday night, just after supper, little Silas Harrison came into the barn-yard, where I was milking the last cow, and handed me the letter, I could not speak a word, to ask after Anne, but put the paper hastily in my pocket, and went at my work again with such violence, that the gentle cretur' I was milking felt my roughness, and took her own way of rebuke; and as I picked up the empty pail she had sent half across the yard, in escaping from my hands, and carried it to the shed, I heard my mother say to little Silas, who had stopped for a spell of play with our Martha:

“How's Anny to day, Silas?'

"She ain't very smart, ma'am, I b'lieve," said the child; her eyes was real red and sleepy to-day, and she looks as if it hurt her to speak loud.'

"I did not wait to hear any more. I went up stairs. I took my coat off, with that letter in the pocket, and hung it on the peg; for, truly, my soul failed me. I could not read it, and so I lay upon the bed, tossing and turning, like one in a fever, until daylight was clear; and then, being desperate, I jumped up, and, tearing the letter from its place, I opened it with equal vehemence, and there, in the silence and freshness of that spring Sabbath morning, I read what I shall repeat to you; for I know that letter by heart and soul, even to

the places of the words, and the trembling lines of the upright letters therein, and it began this way:

"DEAR CYRUS:-Your letter, which came to me Thursday, surprised and pained me, yet made me, for a moment, happy. I want to write, to-day, just what I think, and I dare to tell you all I think, because you know me. I wish I could be sure that my letter will please you. I am afraid it will not; but it does not help the matter to go round it in this way. I do love you dearly, but I cannot marry you ever. I have loved you, all this time, a great deal more than you have me, partly because you were lonely, and not good enough to be happy, and I was sorry for you; partly because you were so kind to me; and, most of all, because I could not help it. I say this all plainly, though, perhaps, it seems odd to you, for your sake. I do not know why I should be ashamed to say it; for my love has not been like most people's. I knew, from the first, I could never be any more than your friend, and I tried to quiet my feelings down to that alone, but it tried me very much, and I grew weak; yet I could not stop trying; I had to keep on; so I am almost tired out now. I tell you this, partly that you may know it is not easy for me to hurt your feelings, as I must; and partly to show you that there are still some people who believe in God, and try to serve him, even in suffering, though you do not think so. I shall be glad that I have suffered, if it does you any good. The reason I cannot marry you is, that you do not believe in such things. If I did not think the Bible spoke clearly on this point, I should know, by my own consciousness, that I ought not to give my whole life, heart and soul, to any one upon earth, who must leave me when we should die. I love you enough now to make the thought of that parting a terror I dare not face; what, then, would it be, if I knew I might let you love me, so taking every restraint from my own heart, and letting it flow on, and into yours, for life and death, not for that other life. I am sure I could not live, with a daily dread of that final separation before me, and yet I could not bear to die. I know you will understand me fully, because you know, that if I am in earnest in anything, it is this thing-trying to love God and serve him. There are several other reasons that I could tell you, why it

would be best that I should still say no, were this greatest of all not in the way. I am different from you in ways that would give us both annoyance and pain, and I should love you too much, either for your good or mine; but all these might give way, the other cannot. And this reason also concerns others. could not give occasion of offense to any tender conscience in the church, for the sake of my own feelings, nor do such wrong to all who would look to us for example, as to set an evil, and not a holy one, before their eyes. No man

I

Still

liveth to himself,' it says in the Bible, and we cannot do it if we would. this is not the main part of the reasonthat I have already given you, and it would still hold good, if we were living on a desert island. I must not marry you.

"I do not think you will suffer much from my refusal, at first, for you know you do not love me as you should love a person you ask to be your wife; and this would be reason enough, with most girls, for refusing you; but I am sure you would learn to love me better than all the world, if I were with you always; and I am so sure of it, that I have spoken the very thoughts of my heart in this letter.

"Moreover, I am afraid you will love me now better than ever you did, and in thinking over what I say, you will at length suffer as I cannot bear to have you; yet it must be. For my own sake, and even more for yours, I ask you to please to go away from Cranberry for a time. I am every day growing weaker with the milder weather, and I shall have no peace, if I think you are close by and I cannot see you; for you must not come here again. Please go away! I do not think I shall die; for I know God never made any of his children to be the helpless prey of one affection. Time and patience will cure me: I shall be better when you are gone. I need not tell you that I shall never marry anybody else; you know I am not made that way. I shall always love you, even when I get well, and never, never, forget to pray for you. I think it would be better if you could forget me; but I know you cannot. I hope and believe that God will bring us both to heaven, and till that time, even if I never see you, I shall be, as I am now, Yours truly,

"ANNE HARRISON.'

"Oh dear!" said Parson Field, after a brief pause, in which he choked once or twice, through the effort to speak, and, at last, uttered only that pitiful and helpless exclamation. "My young friend, when I had finished that letter, I thought I had become blind, for everything seemed so dark. I sat in my chair, like a person stunned with a great blow, and all my thoughts were in such a maze, that when some blossom leaves from the cherry-tree blew in at my window, I stooped to pick them up, and lay them to my parched lips, for I thought it was snow. I felt only wintry. What Anne had said was true, now, regarding what might have been. I came, for the first time, to the knowledge of myself. I began to know that I had held her image within me, and compared every other by that pure touch-stone, till there was no place found for another beside it. I did not love her with the wild and fitful passion of youth, but with such calmness and depth as we see in the quiet flowing of a strong river, that maketh not, in its out-going, one-tenth part of the turmoil wherewith a mountain brook pours itself headlong. My life was suddenly disappointed, my purposes were, indeed, broken off, and I could not even have the support of pride or anger; for the simplicity of her words was like the presence of a little innocent child, a divine candor, such as an angel might speak with, but utterly silencing to human wrath or rebellion. I was dumb. I opened not my mouth, though I knew not then that it was God who did the thing."

Why didn't you try again, sir?" exclaimed I, utterly carried away by my sympathy and interest.

"My young friend," said Mr. Field, as gravely and reprovingly as if I had been profane, "you do not know Anne Harrison. I knew that what she had said was as final as a decree of Providence, indeed, it was one to her; and, although she was as gentle and tender in her affections as the most loving child, she was singularly framed in one respect, being as firm, upon a matter of duty, as if her whole nature were stone, and had a table of the law graven thereupon. No. I knew better than to attempt to shake her constancy, nor should I have held her in such respect and honor, had I believed it possible: believe me, there never was a man made who did not love the woman, to whom he

offered marriage, all the better for proving to him her faithful and unswerving love of right. She who is true to God, will be true to man; it is an unfailing verity. Well, I put my worldly possessions together, and having seen my father well settled with a trustworthy hired man and his wife to take care of the farm, and relieve my mother of some labor, I went off to Ohio, leaving a note for Anne in these words:

Good-by, dear, dear Anne; you were right about all of it.

"Yours always,

C. P. F.'

"I remained in Ohio upwards of two years, striving to drive away, by bodily exercise, the pains within. I heard from home once in many months; for the land was not as it is now, but was newly-settled, not all civilized. However, I heard always that Anne was getting slowly better, and after eighteen months my mother wrote that she seemed almost well, and I was truly glad; for I knew then that time and my ab sence had given her control of herself again, and I felt assured, even as the king did concerning Daniel, that the God whom she worshiped would not forsake her. Now, about this time I had occasion to go across the Ohio country some sixty miles, on horseback, by unfrequented and new roads, so it was no strange thing that I should lose my way; indeed, I was busily thinking of Anne, for she was never out of my thoughts now when I was alone, and so my horse took his own way, and presently I found myself near the ford of a creek that was strange unto me; and having crossed it, I came presently unto a fair oak-opening, and a little prairie beyond, which was sprinkled with the white tents of a camp-meeting. I got off my horse and tied him to a tree, while I went forward to gather some instructions concerning the right way to my destination; but as I reached the camp I found the assembly all at prayer, and I could not interrupt them. There was a strange fervor and simplicity about the old Methodist preacher who conducted those services. More than once his direct and earnest speech made me to think of Anne; but soon I was too much absorbed in the discourse which followed upon the prayer to note any resemblances. And there, in the wilderness, I was visited of the Lord. I think, my young friend, there is a certain de

gree of sacrilege in the common talk of many truly Christian persons, concerning their religious experience. I believe it is necessary, at times. to recount it for the benefit of others; but no lesser motives should induce us to unveil the holy of holies within. Suffice it to say, I went on my journey after two days, a changed man, rejoicing, even as Simeon did, to have seen his salvation; and yet never once in that time did the thought of Anne Harrison come to me. I had been so absorbed in the new world of feeling, that I truly forgot her whose saintly prayers were now answered. And even when I returned to mine own hut upon the edge of the river, I dwelt there a month before I permitted myself to think that there was new hope in my life, that now I might obtain the great blessing I had lost. And now, indeed, my love for Anne strengthened daily; for I perceived, as if with another sight, the excellence of her character, and its faith and patience, even unto the martyr's spirit. And as I meditated there in the solitude of the forests, I became like an unfledged bird that pineth for wings. So, as the summer heats drew nigh, I even sold out to the next squatter my cabin and its furniture, and paid him to carry me as far as the nearest stage-town, that I might get on my way home. I rode after that three days and three nights, in my zeal to reach my own country and my father's house; and by an inscrutable Providence, as the last of these stage-rides was near to its end, the vehicle broke down some ten miles from Cranberry, about eleven o'clock in the evening, and after an hour or two of vain attempts to set the coach up, the passengers dispersed for the nearest shelter, but as it was a fair moonlight night, and I something impatient of delay, I shouldered my small knapsack and footed it over the hills toward Cranberry. Truly, never did a night seem so long or a way so endless unto me before. It was just dawn as I ascended the high hill which overlooks Cranberry from the west. I well remember how my heart failed me when I saw the village lying silent as the grave itself at my feet. It was ten weeks since I had heard from homewhat might not have happened in that time? I looked eastward over the rolling country that stretched away to the valley of the Connecticut, now clothed in the deepest green of summer, and

drinking of still waters and heavenly dew. There was no cloud in the deep, saffron-colored sky, but just where its prophecying gold melted into the blue ether, hung, lonely and calm, the faithful morning star. I gazed upon this day-spring, remembering who it was that had called Himself by that name, till I was also calm; and turning from my place of rest, I sought the wellknown path, and was soon once more at home beside my mother's chair. Well, time hath had its power over me, doubtless, but, old as I am, I cannot now recall that day with firmness, or speak of it with ease. Let it be enough for me to tell you that I had returned in vain. Anne, my Anne, had been with her sister saints in glory for many days! Yet I was spared one pain that would have been keener than all-the thought that she had died as I left her, striving to stifle her own heart, and so dying with it.

"No-she was in the right in all she had said. Time and patience and her simple faith had conquered. She was well and cheerful, doing good unto all as she had opportunity, when an epidemic fever that raged among the poor in a settlement called the Flats, a mile below Cranberry, had smitten her in her very labors of love among those poor, and she died after ten days of pain and delirium.

"Of course she had left no letter for me; but her reason returning for a few hours before death, she sent for my mother, and told her to say she had loved me to the last, and should look for me in heaven; adding: Do not be anxious for Cyrus, Mrs. Field, he will make you a happy mother yet-for I know that God has heard me. Tell him that I said so.' And then, having kissed my mother tenderly, she clasped her hands and closed her eyes with a

smile that faded no more, but shone even within the coffin-lid, where my mother next beheld the sweet and peaceful face I should never see again till the resurrection morning. Oh, my dear young friend, those were days not to be recalled. The arrows of the Almighty drank up my spirit, and I fainted at his reproof. Also, my flesh failed, and I lay some weeks in a fever of the brain, from which I recovered by divine help, a sobered and chastened

man.

"Now I perceived inwardly that I had a call to the ministry, and though I was somewhat past the usual age, I yet commenced my studies directly, and found a slight relief from present sorrow in preparing myself for the college course, as well as in its diligent pursuit. Forty and five years have I been a minister of the Lord, and many women have passed before mine eyes, fair to look upon, and adorned with the graces of the spirit, but none were like her, though for her sake I held them in honor. She had gifts and graces in equal measure, but her heart was greater than all. And I think of her whenever I think of heaven, as of one who hath found her native country, and will show me the streets thereof if I possess my soul in patience till the good time draweth nigh."

THE HE recent exciting and protracted contest, as to the organization of Congress, was significant, in more respects than one. It was a topical symptom of a general state, showing a large amount of derangement, and yet a tendency to recuperation.

We saw the representatives of the people brought to a complete deadlock by the antagonism of parties, each pulling a different way, with no one strong enough to prevail, and no two seemingly ready to coalesce. For two months, nearly, the usual course of legislation was suspended on the settlement of a preliminary dispute as to the Speakership. Yet the House of Representatives was never more truly representative than in this temporary paralysis of its functions; for the whole nation is in pretty nearly the same predicament. Its politics are decussated, if we may use the expression, not by well-defined parties, but by numerous opposing factions. Their conflicts, but for the seriousness of the subjects involved, would exhibit as droll a spectacle as Marryatt describes in his triangular duel. The Republicans, taking a pistol in either hand, fire away at the Democrats and the Americans; the Americans, doing the same, fire at the Republicans and the Democrats; while the Democrats, again, discharge their pieces at the Americans and the Republicans. Everybody shoots at everybody else; and everybody, let him aim in whatever direction he will, is sure to aim at an enemy, who is also aiming at him, thus rendering the exposure equal, and the chances of sudden disaster somewhat even. It was evident, however, during the struggle in the House, in spite of the seeming and superficial differences of opinion among the several factions, that there was, radically, but a single issue. Each member felt, as he gave his vote for this or that candidate, though he was not always ready to avow it, that the turning-point of all was, the question of slavery. All the other questions, which may have operated in forming little knots of voters, were incidental, or aside, like the small eddies which whirl about in the very current of the principal vortex. Banks and Aiken were the leaders of the hosts

between which the real battle was fought, while they who shouted for Fuller, Zollikoffer, and what not, were only deserters from the main ranks, or camp-followers and marplots.

Nor were leaders ever chosen with more instinctive wisdom, considering the peculiarity of their relations to this predominant issue. Mr. Banks was a man of the people, who had risen by his own efforts from an humble mechanical occupation to a high political office; while Mr. Aiken was a slaveholder, one of the wealthiest of his class, endowed with all the better qualities of that class, and as sincere as he was strong in his geographical convictions. Mr. Banks, represented the state of Massachusettsitself the best example of a free condition of society to be found on the face of the earth; while Mr. Aiken represented South Carolina-long distinguished as the ablest exponent of both the opinions and the influences of the slave-civilization. In these, their champions, therefore, the two social systems of the North and South were pitted against each other, and, for the first time so openly and directly, in the history of our national existence.

In the same way, the nation, in the midst of the parties and agitations by which it is distracted, recognizes the fundamental and vital question to be that of slavery. Wink it out of sight as we may, or complicate it as we may, it can not be disguised, that slavery is the single real element of party divisions. Openly or secretly, it controls the action of all parties. They come together, as in the case of the Americans, for other ostensible purposes; but before they separate, are fiercely at loggerheads about this matter. Every ancient partyorganization has been sundered by it, and their members, in forming new party ties, are almost exclusively controlled by it. The first condition they enact, before joining any body is, that it should think thus and so of the slavery question.

But what is the slavery question? What is the real issue at the bottom of the excitement which gathers about this word slavery, as a nucleus? Let us answer, in the first place, that it is not a question as to the merits of slavery in