is the child's voice! The mother looks steadfastly in my face for a moment; she smiles; she places her pale hand on the girl's head, gazes fondly in her young face, and bursts into tears. The little creature, though she strives hard to be calm, sobs as if her heart would break. I stand in the midst of the room, twirling my hat in my hand, and cannot speak. Not one of us can give utterance to words.

In a few moments, however, I repress my feelings, look around me, and see, now for the first time, two other forms lying in a corner, well-nigh concealed under a ragged quilt covering. They are children: one of them an infant, so meagre, so wan and shadowy, that he seems scarcely to be a being of earth. My God! shall I ever forget that face? O, what has this poor babe done, that, with abundance all around him, he should be left to suffer, almost in solitude, the pangs of hunger and cold, until the flesh has perished from his little limbs, and his frame is like that of a skeleton? I approach his rude couch; - hush! traces of tears are on his baby cheeks; let me not disturb him, for he sleeps!—ay, to the day of eternal waking! Poor boy!-no human power, however potent, can rouse thee from that slumber. Thy sojourn here on earth was brief indeed; but O, who knows the weight of anguish, that has pressed upon thy wretched life, until it has crushed thee! Thy little bed-fellow and thy brother, somewhat older, and evidently of a more firm constitution, is not so pale as thou; there are in his countenance indications of nerve and spirit, which, thus far, have no doubt sustained him; whilst thou, not endowed with the power to struggle against thy fate, hast sunk prematurely under it. He has pillowed thy aching head on his arm, and sleeps beside thee. Heaven, be with him, and comfort him! As yet he knows not thy doom. Now, surely, he needs His aid; for cold humanity will suffer him to remain here to starve and die, as thou hast starved and died!

The story of these children and this mother may be told in

few words. The father and been a poor man, dependent on his daily labor for support. Sickness disabled him; he lingered in abject poverty for a few weeks, and died. The wife, heart-broken, became ill also; she could not work for the support of her children. Destitution and misery were their lot. The little ones were sent out to beg, as an only resource; and they starved, mother and children - all! This is their history up to the time I visited them. It is the history of thousands. It is a brief, but a veritable history; yet

how few will reflect on its truth!

LESSON CXVI.

The Voices at the Throne.-T. WESTWOOD.

A LITTLE child,

A little meek-faced, quiet village child,

Sat singing by her cottage door at eve,
A low, sweet Sabbath song. No human ear
Caught the faint melody- no human eye

Beheld the upturned aspect, or the smile,

That wreathed her innocent lips the while they breathed The oft-repeated burden of the hymn,

"Praise God! praise God!"

A seraph by the throne.

In the full glory stood. With eager hand

He smote the golden harp-strings, till a flood

Of harmony on the celestial air

Welled forth, unceasing. Then with a great voice
He sang the "Holy, Holy, evermore,

Lord God Almighty!" and the eternal courts
Thrilled with the rapture, and the hierarchies,
Angel, and rapt archangel, throbbed and burned
With vehement adoration. Higher yet
Rose the majestic anthem, without pause,
Higher, with rich magnificence of sound,

To its full strength; and still the infinite heavens
Rang with the "Holy, Holy, evermore!"
Till, trembling from excess of awe and love,
Each sceptred spirit sank before the Throne,
With a mute hallelujah. But, even then,
While the ecstatic song was at its height,
Stole in an alien voice a voice that seemed
To float float upward from some world afar
A meek and child-like voice, faint, but how sweet!
That blended with the seraph's rushing strain,
Even as a fountain's music with the roll

Of the reverberate thunder. Loving smiles
Lit up the beauty of each angel's face

At that new utterance. Smiles of joy that grew
More joyous yet, as ever and anon

Was heard the simple burden of the hymn,

"Praise God! praise God!" And when the seraph's song

Had reached its close, and o'er the golden lyre

Silence hung brooding when the eternal courts
Rung but with echoes of his chant sublime,

Still, through the abysmal space, that wandering voice
Came floating upward from its world afar;

Still murmured sweet on the celestial air,
"Praise God! praise God!"

LESSON CXVII.

Milton on his Loss of Sight.*

I AM old and blind!

Men point at me as smitten by God's frown;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind,

Yet I am not cast down.

*From the Oxford Edition of Milton's Works.

I am weak, yet strong;

I murmur not, that I no longer see;

Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father Supreme! to thee.

O merciful One!

When men are farthest, then Thou art most near; When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun, Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face

Is leaning toward me, and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place-
And there is no more night.

On my bended knee,

I recognize Thy purpose, clearly shown;
My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see
Thyself, Thyself alone.

I have naught to fear;

This darkness is the shadow of Thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred — here

Can come no evil thing.

O! I seem to stand

Trembling, where foot of mortal ne'er hath been, Wrapped in the radiance from Thy sinless land, Which eye hath never seen.

Visions come and go;

Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
From angel lips I seem to hear the flow
Of soft and holy song.

It is nothing now,

When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes— When airs from Paradise refresh my brow; That earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime,

My being fills with rapture-waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit-strains sublime
Break over me unsought.

Give me now my lyre!

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine;
Within my bosom glows unearthly fire
Lit by no skill of mine.

LESSON CXVIII.

The Dumb Child.- ANONYMOUS.

SHE is my only girl;

I asked for her as some most precious thing,
For all unfinished was Love's jewelled ring,
Till set with this soft pearl:

The shade that time brought forth I could not see;
How pure, how perfect seemed the gift to me!

O, many a soft old tune

I used to sing unto that deadened ear,
And suffered not the lightest footstep near,
Lest she might wake too soon;

And hushed her brothers' laughter while she lay-
Ah, needless care! I might have let them play!

'T was long ere I believed

That this one daughter might not speak to me; Waited and watched, God knows how patiently! How willingly deceived:

Vain Love was long the untiring nurse of Faith,

And tended Hope until it starved to death.