THE OVERFLOWING CUP.

A company of ladies were assembled in a friend's parlor, when the conversation chanced to turn on earthly affliction. Each had her story of peculiar trial and bereavement to relate. One of the ladies plaintively spoke thus: "My parents possessed a competence, and my girlhood was surrounded by all the comforts of life. I seldom knew an ungratified wish. I was always gay and lighthearted, and married at nineteen one I loved more than all the world beside. Our home was retired, but the sunlight never fell on a lovelier one, or on a happier household. Years rolled on peacefully. Five children sat around our table, and a little curly head still nestled in my bosom. One night about sundown, one of those fierce, black storms came on, which are uncommon. For many hours the rain poured down incessantly. Morning dawned, still the elements raged. The little stream near our dwelling became a raging torrent. Before we were aware of it our house was surrounded by water. I managed with my babe to reach a little spot on which a few widespreading trees were standing, whose dense foliage afforded some protection, while my husband and sons

strove to save what they could of our property. At last a fearful surge

swept away my husband, and he never rose again. Ladies, no one loved a husband more-but that was not trouble.

Presently my sons saw their danger, and the struggle for life became the only consideration. They were brave, loving boys as ever blessed a mother's heart, and I watched their efforts to escape with such agony as only mothers can feel. They were so far off I could not speak to them, but I could see them closing nearer to each other as their little islands grew smaller and smaller.

"The sullen river raged around the huge trees; dead branches, upturned trunks, wrecks of houses, drowning cattle, masses of rubbish, all went floating past us. My boys waved their hand to me, then pointed upward. I knew it was a farewell signal, and you, mothers, cannot imagine my anguish. I saw them all perish, and yet--that was not trouble.

"I hugged my babe close to my heart, and when the water rose to my feet I climed into the low branches of the tree, and so kept retired from it until an All-powerful Hand stayed the waves, that they should come no farther. I was saved. All my worldly possessions were swept away; all earthly hopes blightedyet that was not trouble.

He

"My babe was all that I had left on earth. I labored night and day to support him and myself, and sought to train him in the right way; but as he grew older, evil companions won him away from me. ceased to care for his mother's counsels; he would sneer at her entreaties and agonizing prayers. He left my humble roof, that he might be unrestrained in the pursuits of evil, and at last, when heated by wine one night, he took the life of a fellow

being, and ended his own upon the scaffold. My Heavenly Father had filled my cup of sorrow before, but now it ran over. That was trouble, ladies, such as I hope His mercy will spare you from ever experiencing."

THE TOUCH OF A FLOWER.

One, two, three, four! Mr. S., the shipbuilder, started from his seat at his office-table as the tall clock rang out the hour, closed the books that lay around him and crossed the room to an open window, through which the breeze from the river came up to cool the warm air. The noise of clinking iron and of workmen's calls floated up to him from the great shipyards below. His, all his-the piles of steel and copper--the unfinished hulks of many vessels—yes, even the great iron steamer so near completion, from whose sides resounded the blows of hammers. The workmen—a thousand or more-were his also, to work, to toil, to slave in winter's cold and summer's sun that his wealth might grow from great to greater year by year. What matter to him the noise and the heat? At the ship-yard gate his daughter waits in the carriage, and he would join her and roll away swiftly from the tumult and unsightliness to the coolness of the green parks.

Some one came in to ask a final order; in five minutes thus consumed Gertrude and the roses did their part.

"Thomas," said she to the coachman as she waited in the open barouche, fair and sweet to see in her summer toilet with the bunch of roses on her breast, "can the men down there stop hammering if they're awfully tired or warm?"

"La, no, Miss!" answered the coachman, with an amused smile. "It's work day in and day out steady, or no bread for 'em."

Just then a tired looking workman came very near to the shining wheels as he half staggered back to his place among the others. Gertrude leaned forward, and before Thomas could enter a vigorous objection, her clear young voice was saying: "I am so sorry you are tired! Would you like my roses?”

The young girl unpinned the bunch on her breast and held them, sweet and fair, out to the bewildered man. He took them with a muttered blessing.

"Papa," she said, a minute later as they rolled away towards the boulevards, "I'm thinking."

Mr. S. smiled back at the earnest face raised towards his.

"When we go to Newport," she asked, a minute later, "what does Hays do with all the flowers?"

"I'm sure Gertrude I can't answer that; I suppose they bloom and die. He always has orders to keep up the house and grounds as well as if we were at home. Are you thinking of any of your pet-plants now?"

"No; I was thinking how many must be wasted in our garden. 0, papa, could I could I give them to the men? Not I, you know, for I won't be here, but somebody. That man was so glad to get the roses to carry home!"

Then the whole little story came

out.

At first Mr. S. laughed and teased and called the whole thing impracticable, absurd, and told Gertrude to forget such nonsense; she need not worry her brain about the workmen. But tho days went on, so did Gertrude's pleading go on with them.

"Just let Hays cut the flowers he don't really need, papa, and you get two or three of those boys that run the errands to give them now and then to the men when we are away." "A pretty story for me to be giv

ing my men bouquets!" said Mr. S. Nevertheless, one day he did call Tim and Chips and Ben, three of the most reliable dock-boys in the yard, and sent them up to the great house on the boulevard with distinct orders to carry out the wishes of Miss Gertrude.

Twice a week all that hot summer, as the tired workmen passed through the gates homeward, the three boys, with many a smile and joking word, "gave out the flowers for Miss Gertrude," and many a blessing from lips unused to blessing fell on the head of the child away by the sea.

People said those flowers worked ronders all that year. When the mutterings of strikes and uproar ran rife through the land, all was quietness and peace at the ship-yards. Perhaps there floated the sweet incense of those summer roses to quiet troubled hearts. The rich man himself learned the lesson as he watched the men start homeward with the bit of brightness they carried. He learned that all men, great or humble, rich or poor, can be helped to higher and nobler living. Our Dumb Animals.

COME AND GONE.

Summer has come, twittered the robin and goldfinch but a few short weeks ago, come with its lilies and roses, come with its luscious fruits, come with its dewy breath of Eden, come with its blue skies and golden sunsets, come with all its freshness and beauty to give place to the royal magnificence and gorgeous hues of Autumn, fit funeral robes for such a summer, which has done its work and gone, gone where uncounted others have gone, far away into Oblivion, gone to keep company with the past. What a charge could be brought against time. How many cheeks have blanched at his presence. He speaks, and monuments crumble to dust.

The walled city in its strength would defy him, but in a few short centuries where is its greatness? Ye ask for Egypt's glory, and she will point you to her ruins and say they were; but now Time has marked them for his own.

Ask Babylon, and she will tell you the harp has long since ceased to lament her as fallen, while the waters that leave the willows in mournful murmurs, breaks upon the dreary solitude. So we find the magnificence and wealth of the earth, the towers and temples, have silently lowered to the mandates of Time. Want and destitution have followed in his path, the trees and rocks have been marked by Time's effacing finger.

Draw the curtain over the desolation, hide from our sight the ignorance and poverty, the low cunning and indolence, let us think the fairy land of our youth is not a mirage, that the ideal is not supplanted by an unpleasant real.

Where is the song of liberty which was first borne to us from Egyptian bondage, and to which Vox Populi, Vox Dei, resounded in overwhelming enthusiasm? Gone, all gone.

Come and gone, the fairest hopes, the most earnest resolves, the noblest purposes; transient as a rainbow. fleeting as the mist of the morning. Pray God it may have left us freshened and strong for the battle of life. Pray it may have left our souls purer, and that the sparkling dewdrops of sympathy and compassion may not have gone from our hearts with the knowledge that life is not all poverty. That for each there is a work for them to do.

Come and gone; a dear friend is not with us, a tender bud has been frost-bitten; an orphan's wail is heard in the chill night; the widow appeals to the widow's God for strength in this her hour of suffering and woe;

blackness and despair settle around her; her summer has come and gone. The golden fruitage of anticipated hopes has vanished.

Come and gone; a life that counted it joy to labor and wait. She waited not for the flitting of the birds, or the purpling flush of the vine to crown her departure, but cheerfully, with the fresh breath of a rosy morning she slept the sleep of the blessed gone when the world was all beauty -fit emblem of her life.

And shall we mourn these goings? Shall we challenge Time, with his hoary head, and vigorous footsteps, as he strides forward? Shall we seek to snatch one of these treasures from before his withering touch? A low, solemn nay, is our reply. "Onward" and "change" are indelibly marked upon the dial of Time. Silently if we must, sorrowfully if we may, we can only mark the wanderings and deeds of Time SETA.

SON OF GOD, SON OF MAN.

It was a peculiar and transcendent consciousness that could be expressed in the titles, "Son of God" and "Son of man;" and He who so conceived himself showed he had a mission worthy of his transcendent personality. Very early he had declared his judicial authority and functions, asserted and exercised his right to forgive sins, advanced his claim to the faith and homage of Israel. But these general statements could not satisfy his consciousness: truth required him to become more specific and personal. While he is the least self-conscious of teachers, he is of all teachers the most conscious of himself; while the least egotistical, the most concerned with his own person. He conceives his person to be a supreme necessity to the world; he is the Saviour to the lost; he is the Shepherd, now giving his life for the

sheep, now returning with the res cued lamb in his arms. The death that is to come to him by wicked hands cannot defeat his mission, can only help to fulfil it; it is to mark the culmination of his sacrifice; it is to be the condition and symbol of victory. The theme of Christ's later teaching was Christ, and there is no finer witness to his truth than this: while his teaching is concerned with himself it is never selfish, remains in finitely remote from egotism, is pen. etrated by the sublimest universal. ism. To speak of himself is the highest boon he can confer on the race, for the words that unfolded the consciousness of Divine Sonship that is in him are the only words that have been able to create a conscious Divine sonship in the race.

Round this center the varied ele ments of his teaching beautifully crystallize. Out of his twofold relation, to God and man, springs what he has to say of both. The Son who is in the bosom of the Father declares him, shows him mindful of sinful man, seeking him, receiving him with a sweeping joy that makes all heaven glad. The "Son of man reveals man to himself, shows the transcendent worth of the soul he loves to save, makes man conscious of the infinite possibilities of good within him, of the Divine affinities that sleep in his nature. The person that manifests the divine and the human in beautiful and holy unity fitly shows how God and man can sweetly meet, and rejoice in each other with exceeding great joy. He who is, as it were, our virtues incorporated, is the fit teacher of duty, a voice gentle where most authoritative, making its most imperative commands as sweet as reasonable. And so person and word combine to bring round the fulfilment of his grand prayer: "That they all may be one; as thou, Father,

art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." -Expositor..

DEATH.

The writer was once in a condition to fully realize the state of mind experienced by one who stands face to face with Death, having every prospect of a closer acquaintance soon. With a hereditary taint of consumption in the family, with every symptom that is present in the early stages of that fatal disease, the only hope offered by medical advice was that of brief respite to be obtained by abandoning labor and seeking a more salubrious climate. After careful consideration, it was thought best to give the remnant of life for the benefit of a dependent family rather than to incur additional expense that, in justice to that family, could not well be borne.

Becoming familiar with the idea of death, it was soon apparent that the situation was little worse than that enjoyed by one in the best of health. The final event was equally certain to each and neither could say exactly when it would take place. Most probably it would occur sooner for the invalid, whose thoughts were upon it almost constantly, but possibly his hand might be required to close the eyelids of one who scarcely ever gave the subject serious consid

eration.

By successive steps, the conclusion was reached that death is a change not to be dreaded except on account of the sad farewells. These steps involve the views of materialists, idealists, theists and moralists.

No original ground was taken, but the dogmas of churches were not considered final. Death bed conversions may be well enough, but it is humiliating to one's self-respect to

think of giving one's dying hours to a society from which the years of life have been withheld, and the thought of cowardly motives, which would suggest seeking refuge with a society at the near approach of death, brings forward the thought that no credit would attach to such action. So not only were the Old and New Testament studied in the light of all the criticism, both favorable and adverse, that could be obtained, but the ancient philosophers, Greek and Roman mythology, Asiatic systems, the "scholastics," Jewish treatises, the systems of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume and Hamilton, and the essays of our own Emerson, all contributed to occupy my leisure and form my final conclusions.

First, if the worst comes to the worst, if first impressions are correct, if human existence begins and ends with this life, then death is a matter in which we have no concern, for when it is here we are not and while we are here it is not, and since we will not exist to experience it, we can have nothing in common with death. The selfish estimate that "good and evil are pretty evenly balanced in this life" is correct, and the "easy passage out of it" is assured by the fact that nerves of sensation cease to act before nerves of motion, so that the agony so painful to behold is painless to the victim, who has ceased to suffer and acts only as one under the influence of chloroform or ether, when undergoing a surgical operation. In the majority of cases, death itself is painless.

But then, first impressions are apt to be erroneous. Our first impressions of the sky above and the earth beneath yield to further conscious. ness that the sky cannot be approached, that the earth does not pre