It was the still September time,

When the Autumn fruits were in their prime.

Here and there a patch of crimson was seen
Where the breath of the early frost had been.

The songs of the birds were tender and sad,
Yet I could not say they were not glad.

Nature's soft and mellow undertone
To a note-like trust in the Father had grown.

And that trust, I ween, in our hearts had sway,
As on through the woods we wended our way.

Meeting and parting fringe life below;
We parted-twenty years ago.

My aunts turned back, and on went I,
Striving my burning tears to dry.

Almost a thousand miles away
Was the Alma Mater I sought that day.

To a voice I turned me on my track,
And saw them both come running back.

"Is something forgotten?" soon stammered I;
And they, without a word in reply,

Caught me in their arms, a great baby of twenty,
And smothered me with kisses not too plenty.

Some joys I had known before that day,
And many since have thronged my way;

But in all my seeking through forty years,
In which rainbow hopes have dried all tears,

I have nothing found in the paths of knowledge,
Surpassing those kisses I carried to college.

XII.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

(BORN 1786-DIED 1847.)

HEROISM ON THE GREAT DEEP-A MARTYR OF THE POLAR SEA.

'HE life of this great navigator is an epic of the ocean, which will stir the brave heart for many ages to come.

One day, toward the close of the last century, a young English lad, named John Franklin, spent a holiday with a companion in a walk of twelve miles from their school at Louth, to look at the sea from the level shores of his native country. It was the first time that the boy had ever gazed on the wonderful expanse, and his heart was strangely stirred. The youngest of four sons, he had been intended for the ministry of the Church of England, but that day's walk fixed his purposes in another direction; and though he knew it not, he was to serve God and man even more nobly by heroic deeds than he could have done by the wisest and most persuasive words.

Mr. Franklin was a wise man, and when he found his son bent on a sailor's life, determined to give him a taste of it, in the hope that this would be enough. John was therefore taken from school at the age of thirteen, and sent in a merchantman to Lisbon. The Bay of Biscay, however, did not cure his enthusiasm; and so we next find John Franklin as a midshipman on board the Polyphemus, seventy-four guns. These were stirring times. In 1801 young Franklin's ship led the line in the battle of Copenhagen, and in 1805, having been transferred to the Bellerophon, he held charge

of the signals at the battle of Trafalgar, bravely standing at his post and coolly attending to his work while the dead and dying fell around him.

Between these two dates Franklin had accompanied an exploring voyage to Australia on board the Investigator, gaining in that expedition not only a great store of facts to be treasured up for use in his eager and retentive mind, but those habits of observation which were to be of the greatest service to him in after-years. On his return home in another vessel-the Porpoise-Franklin and his companions were wrecked upon a coral reef, where ninety-four persons remained for seven weeks on a narrow sand-bank less than a quarter of a mile in length, and only four feet above the surface of the water!

It was in 1818 that the young lieutenant first set sail for the Polar Sea, as second commander of the Trent, under Captain Buchan. The aim was to cross between Spitzbergen and Greenland; but the companion vessel, the Dorothea, being greatly injured by the ice, the two had to return to England, after reaching the eightieth degree of latitude.

A year later lieutenants Franklin and Parry were placed at the head of expeditions, the latter to carry on the exploration through Baffin's Bay, and to find an outlet, if possible, by Lancaster Sound. This was splendidly done, and the North-west Passage practically discovered. The task of Franklin was more arduous. He had to traverse the vast solitary wastes of North-eastern America, with their rivers and lakes, to descend to the mouth of the Coppermine River, and to survey the coast eastward. The toil and hardship of this wonderful expedition, and the brave endurance of Franklin and his friend Richardson, and their trusty helpers, have often been related. They had to contend with famine and illness, with the ignorance and treachery of the Indians,

who murdered three of the party. The land journey altogether extended over 5,500 miles, occupying a year and six months.

In less than two years after their return to England, Franklin, Richardson, and Back volunteered for another expedition to the same region.

In 1825 this second expedition started, Franklin mournfully leaving the deathbed of his wife, to whom he had been married after his last return to England. This brave lady not only let him go, though she knew she was dying, but begged him not to delay one day for her! At New York Franklin heard of her death, but manfully concealed his grief, and pressed on to the northern wastes. As before, his object was to survey the northern shore, only this time by the Mackenzie River, instead of the Coppermine.

This expedition, too, was full of stirring adventure among the Esquimaux, though without the terrible hardships and calamities of the former journey. It was also crowned with great success, leaving in the end only 150 miles of the coast from Baffin's Bay to Behring Straits unsurveyed. These, too, were explored in later years by Franklin's successors, and the great discovery of the North-west Passage completed.

Franklin was now made commander; in 1829 was knighted, and covered with honors by the University of Oxford and the great learned societies in England and France. He had married his second wife in 1828-the Lady Franklin of the later story. In 1832 Sir John Franklin was given the command of the Rainbow, on the Mediterranean station; and so wise and gracious was his rule, that the sailors nicknamed the sloop "The Celestial Rainbow" and "Franklin's Paradise." But we have no space to speak of this now, nor of Franklin's wise and gracious government of Van Diemen's Land, now better known as Tasmania, that succeeded.