Year: 1872




illustrate the generous returns Of benevo-
lence that sometimes come back to US after
long years, like "bread upon the wa
ter" has found its way to the point of
my pen, and give it for the sake of the
beautiful moral that is so seldom developed
in similar cases; for these visible returns
upon charity are, like angels visits, "few
and far between"


Away back in the years that are gone,
a rich merchant Of our city returning
to his home one cold, dreary, November
evening, found poor barefooted child of
poverty upon his doorstep, shivering and
in tears from The most visible evidences of
suffering and want. The impulse of many
would have been to have driven her away,
but one glance at her face struck pity to
his heart, and he took her into his house,
warmed her by the fire, fed her at his
table and clothed her in he warm, cast off
garments of his own little girl. He listened
to her artless and unstudied tale of sorrow.
believed it, and with basket of food and
an old though comfortable blanket, sent
her home, telling her to come to his house
whenever they needed food, clothing or
fuel.


1t seems that the poor family struggled
on as best they could, and whenever pow
erty pinehed too bitterly the little girl came
to the merchants house for the prohered
charity, until her little face became quite
familiar. One day she came IN great sor-
row and bitter weeping. Her mother was
dead, and she had no one to turn to in the
bereavement of her little heart but our
kind merchant. He buried the poor, dead
woman and took the little girl to his home
until he could, from the dying directions
of the mother, write to her relations, for. as
the story goes, the mother had married
against the will of her parents, and had
been disinherited. During her life, she
had preferred to remain in poverty and
obssurity rather than appeal to her unnatu-
raj parents, but at her death pride was
swallowed up in anxiety for her helpless
child. The relations came and took the
child away, and then her whereabouts
were lost to the merchant.


Years rolled by, and misfortune overlook
Our man of generous heart. Death of his
family and bankruptcy of his fortune left
him wreck on the shore of impecuniosity.
Many were the ways he strove to rise
again, but each time he only fell back lower,
until trembling, grey-haired old man, he
silently pleaded with passers-by for his
daily bread at q street stand until one day
runaway team overturned his apples and
cakes, and injured him so severely that he
was taken to the hospital, and paragraph
of the accident appeared in the papers,
with his name and sketch of his lite and
failure.


This paragraph caught the eye of
wealthy lady living in a neighborlng city,
and Fastening to New York and to the
hospital, she stood by the bed of the poor
old man, and in her fine, generous face
and adornments of wealth he conld not
recognize the little girl he once befriended
But such she was. She had been raised
by wealthy relations, had married in prom
inence and lived in luxury. She had never
forgotten her first benefactor, but had lost
all traces of him until, TO her surprise, she
saw the paragraph in the papers. And
now the bread cast upon the waters has
been found, after many days, ,gloriously mul.
tiplied, like the Savior's lOaves; and taken
to the generous home of the noble woman.
he is passing his last days in peace and
happiness, loved and honored as her own
father, and the children even call him
grandpa.


SAD STORY.


Strolling down on the Battery few
days ago-and here let me preface this
incident by stating that since tie com
mendable improvements Of the Park Com