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last they form a portion of that cloud on which He will appear when He cometh to judge the world.” Oh water! beautiful water! Heaven's benisons rest upon thee! Thy home is in the sky!-far up in the beautiful blue, where angels walk in robes of starry light. Thou comest to the earth in many a fairy form of icicle and frosted snow. And when, in the music of soft spring rain, I hear the patter of thy tiny feet upon my window-pane, I bless thee, for thou art full of corn and abundance. Thou comest to earth on a mission of love, flowers spring up in thy footprints. Wherever thou goest over the earth it is as though an angel had shaken his glittering pinions and heaven's own dew and sunlight had fallen around. Everything that breathes doth bless thee! Eighteen hundred years have rolled around, since some Oscan beauty took thee from the sparkling spring, to bathe her dark eyes, or wash the dust from her black tresses, when, heated with love-making and the sight of blood, she came by night from the arena of the gladiators. Though eighteen hundred years have passed away since thou wast taken from thy mountain home, yet thou art crystal pure ;—as pure to slake the thirst of the Neapolitan as ever thou wast that of Diomede, or Glaucus, or Nydia the Flower Girl.

Oh water-beautiful water! Heaven's benisons rest upon thee!--Prof. Ferguson.

COMO, OR MY TIGER LILY.

The red-clad fishers row and creep,
Below the crags, as half asleep,
Nor ever make a single sound.

The walls are steep, the waves are deep,
And if a dead man should be found,
Why, who shall say but he was drowned?

The lakes lay bright as bits of broken moon
Just newly set within the cloven earth.
The ripened fields drew round a golden girth
Far up the steeps and glittered in the noon.
And when the sun fell down from leafy shore,
Fond lovers stole in pairs to ply the oar.
The stars as large as lilies flecked the blue,
From the Alps the moon came wheeling through
The rocky pass the great Napoleon knew,

A gala night it was-the seasons prime, We rode from castled lake to festal town, To fair Milan. My friend and I, rode down By night, when grasses waved in rippled rhyme, And so, what theme but love at such a time? His proud lip curled the while with silent scorn At thought of love, and then as one forlorn He sighed, then bared his temples dashed with gray, Then mocked-as one outworn and well blasé.

A gorgeous tiger lily-flaming red, So full of battle-of the trumpet's flare, Of old-time passion-upreared its headI galloped past-I leaned-I clutched it-Then From out the long, strong grass I held it high And cried: "Lo, this to-night shall deck her hair, Through all the dance: And mark! the man shall die Who dares assault for good or ill design

The Citadel where I shall set this sign."

He spoke no spare word all the after while. That scornful, cold, contemptuous smile of his ! And in the hall the same old hateful smile!

Why, better men have died for less insult than this! Then marvel not that when she graced the floor, With all the beauties gathered from the four

Far quarters of the earth, and in her midnight hair My tiger lily-marvel not-I say,

That he glared like some wild beast well at bay.

Oh! she shone fairer than summer star Or curled sweet moon in middle destiny.

Oh, have you loved and truly loved, and seen
Aught else the while but your own stately queen?
Her presence it was majesty-so tall-

Her proud development encompassed all-
She filled all space, I sought, I saw but her.
I followed as some fervid worshipper.

Adown the dance she moved with matchless grace, The world-my world moved with her!

Suddenly, I questioned who her cavalier might be. 'Twas he his face was leaning to her face.

I clutched my blade. I sprang, I caught my breath,
And so stood leaning, cold, and still as death.
And they stood still. She blushed, then reached and

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The lily as she passed. All round the floor

She strewed its heart like bits of gushing gore.
'Twas he said, "heads not hearts were made to break."
He taught me this that night in splendid scorn.

I learned too well. The dance was done-Ere morn
We mounted-he and I, but no more spoke--
And this for woman's love! My lily, worn
In her dark hair in pride-to then be torn
And trampled on for this bold stranger's sake!
Two men rode silent back toward the lake,
Two men rode silent down-but only one
Rode up at morn to meet the rising sun.

The walls are steep, the crags shall keep
Their everlasting watch profound.
The walls are steep, the waves are deep-
And if a dead man should be found
By red clad fishers in their round,
Why, who shall say but he was drowned?

Joaquin Miller.

THE NEW SOUTH.

"There was a South of slavery and secession,-that South is dead.--There is a South of union and freedom,--that South, thank God, is living, breathing, growing every hour.”

Dr. Talmage has drawn for you with a master's hand the picture of your returning armies. How, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eyes! I will tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war--an army that marched home in defeat and not in victory—in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equalled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Think of the foot-sore Confederate soldier, as ragged, half-starved, he turned his face southward from Appomattox, in April, 1865. Having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow, and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find? answer, you, who went to your homes eager to find in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice. He finds the home he left so prosperous and beautiful in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his barn empty, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone.

What does he do--this hero in gray with heart of gold? Sit down in sullenness and despair? not for a day. Surely God, who has stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. Restoration

was swift. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow: horses that had charged federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April, were green with harvest in June, and there was little bitterness in all this. Bill Arp struck the key-note when he said, "Well, I killed as many of them as they did of me; and now I am going to work, and if the Yankees fool with me any more I will whip 'em again."

Never was nobler duty confided to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding of the prostrate and bleeding South, misguided perhaps, but beautiful in her suffering honest, brave, and generous always.

When Lee surrendered, the South became, and has since been loyal to this Union. She fought hard enough to know she was whipped, and in the toad's head of defeat she found her jewel. The shackles that had held her in narrow limitations fell forever, when the shackles of the negro slave were broken. Under the old régime, the negroes were slaves to the South, the South was a slave to the system. The old South rested everything on slavery and agriculture, unconscious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South presents a perfect democracy-a social system compact, and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but stronger at the core, a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace.

The new South is enamored of her work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of glowing power and prosperity, as she stands upright and full statured, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because in the inscrutable wisdom. of God her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten.

The South has nothing for which to apologize.