Year: 1874




cumstauce and a certain unmindful some
body. The building is old and wormv.
wedged in among the brick wildernesses of
great city. The stranger and the outcast.
and the night watch pass it hourly: vet
the associations that now crowd upon nv
mind are there, the old staircase, the gas
jet, the picture | so much admired and
sNo."


My footstep sounds loudly in the lofty
hall-Ah! l could not have foreseen that
any one could be up there and about. The
doctor is gone the good sisters are at the
evening matin; they having the Word of
the Master have left her to herself. and are
gone, gone to pray for her.


No" is all alone on the stairs. She
has been mildly chastened, but her voice is
still that OF the mOurner, and it may be
| yet many days before it is sweet as ever. |
hear the gentle call, and 90 up-upward,
as are my aspirations to better and nobler
purposes for my star was there then, and
Its pure light pointed the way.


| 1t had been foolish, thought, to hope
at such time, lest it might blight her with
relapse, and bring back the stripe that noA
seemingly had gone. 1t had been foolish
to wish, lest it might recall the remem-
brance of weary hours just expired. Aye,
| 1t had been very, very foolish, all my hopes
and wishes, they have been so unkind to
me.


The word and token which then suggest
cd my earnest hopes, | may not wish to
tell. 1t had been her own secret for a
time she whispered it, and kept it as
rich treasure, for to her, it had been quite
new, and the more enteresting. | may not
in turn wish to tell it, for should it be
known, it would disturb her, though her
face we may never see. The merit of our
| secret now is in the keeping-down in the
inncrmost, the associate of our prayer.
1t is an unfriendly hope that leads us
jOyousl y onward for a season, and then
betrays us The word we have whispered
in confidence tonight, may, before the sun
rises be repeated aloud as an evidence of
disloyaly, and become the by-word that
arousos the contempt of the world Our
sins.visit us at will the rod is uplifted, and
it matters little whether hope, or disap-
pointment produces, the sting. The honor
nevertheless lies in performing our own
part well in thinking well, and hoping well
| She might not have rewarded us with u
| hope, which WAS so soon to die. The with
holing it was far better There is always
| a weeper at our door now, whose fidelity
never wearies but tries in vain to realize.
what we often hoped to be, and is incidental
/ to all we think and say. While We write
! this, we are seemingly regardless Of it but
it turns again and asks to be remembered
as she is, with the oft-repeatcd assurance,
| that the end when it does come, shall find
her tried and true. We turn towards the
pleader and extend our hand. 1t may
| never be otherwise for the voice is SO
! familiar and the shadow so commonplace
! that VIC dare not propose to abandon 1t.
/ Yet we cannot compromise, or cOerce it.
/ We are, as defiant slave, but wrest the
! Chain as we may. it hangs about us still.
Then oft her friendly face visiting our
weariest night, beguilcs us back to the
first and purcst hope which she herself
! inspired, what Of it, think we, if the end
never comes. or conres too lOte The as
surance Notwithstanding we once had
conditionally to be sure-that it would
shortly come. and withal it has come even
now.


How we do learn to hope


For in the dingy pile where she once
told me what she thought, there is a tradi-
ton Of one, whose presence supported a
dying fugative, in the weariest honor Of his
rapidly approaching end. They tell there
of maid who lived as none before or after
her. They tell her name i'll song and Orison,
and repeat their wish over again, as if she
were always near and heard But it may
not he so, for it is but another evidence of
hope, such as we have. Mary may not
hear. although the hope of supplication
urges the recital of what they ask Of her.


Thus wherever we 90, we hear the
friendly and cordial greeting and the hand
we feel in ours, that we may not press again.
! 1t is our mania TO murmur at the world S
fIlsily, forgetting that the breaking of our
own idol, has but stripped and exposed the
sin so offending us. "No'; told us of better
purer something too finely philosophic for
cur rude intelligence to contemplate. 1t
faded and died while we touched it. Like
the Ark Of God at Ashdod, it importumed
us. until, as with heavy sorrow we wearled
under it, and prayed as we do now, that
we had never known it. \ tired heart
told us it were good to die, and We listened
as to kindred spirit


So often in our solitude have we listened,
that the well remembered scene occurs afresh,
renewing the fatal compact and the old,
old story is told over again, in words we
may never forget "No" may not influence
our idol to quicken sensibility than as the
heart can revive it; nor withdraw the
promise which makes us unhappy tonight.


Our own hope acted unknidly in its way,
and now recalls only such occasions as
expose the disadvantages We were under,
adding to our unhappiness. What we
turn to now is the hope, that we may be
a little LONGER the associate of the shadow,