[For the National Magazine.] LITTLE CHILDREN. BY LURA A. BOIES. THERE is music, there is sunshine, In the hut, or in the cell; Glancing from the soft blue eyes; Gleaming, glancing everywhere. They will win our smiles and kisses Of their sunny, upward gaze. When their young lips meet our own, And the magic of their presence Round about our hearts is thrown. Little children-yes, we love them Where their bounding footsteps go; If no little one is there. When they ask us curious questions Hardly knowing what to say; Waiting for our kind replies, If perchance some passing shadow Sunny smiles again will play, Spoken in a pleasant way. Now we see them meekly kneeling Soft it rises, clear it swells, AN OLD MAN'S STORY. ach. I remember standing up on the coach to catch a distant view of King's-college chapel, and a tide of emotions rolled over me as I came full in view of the town. I cast a glimpse forward to a day when I should be pointed to as one of the distin going; but it was a mirage; that day never arrived, and it never will arrive now. OW well I remember it, and yet it is more than fifty years ago since they pulled down the quaint, old-fashioned grange in England in which I was born. The spacious kitchen, with its huge fire-guished sons of the college to which I was place, like a blacksmith's furnace; the old oak staircase, with its massive balusters; the balcony over the front door, with rose branches twined all about it; the grass plot, with its hedge of intermingled box and holly-trees on each side; and the glorious old garden, with its gnarled and bent trunks, that bore loads of fruit despite their bad looks. Yes, I remember all, as if I had but seen them yesterday. My father, too, with his thoughtful face and steady step; my mother's sunny smile and nimble foot; and my dark-eyed sister, with her merry laugh and full-lipped kiss : ay, I remember them all as they were full sixty years ago. It was a mournful day at Hawthorne-grange when my father died. I can almost fancy I hear now the piercing shriek my mother gave when they told her he had breathed his last; and I remember how she threw her arms round me and Lucy, and cried so bitterly, that the tears dropped, or rather ran, from her cheek upon mine. I was sent soon after this to Dr. Oakham's. How his black gown and his wig struck me dumb with awe when my mother led me into his study all covered round with books! Who would think that this withered hand is so near akin to the chubby palm which I used to put slowly forward to receive the deserved stripes from the doctor's 'rod; for he never punished but when we did deserve it. Fifty years ago this very year, I went to Ashborough to take the coach for Cambridge. I was going to college; and my mother, after tugging for a long time, had at length succeeded in getting a pile of sandwiches into a coat pocket. She kissed me at the door, and then turned sharply round and left me. I believe she could not see me for tears. I met with a palelooking student at Stamford, and behaved very deferentially to him, for I had a great reverence for hard-reading students then. I think differently now, for I believe those succeed best who avoid study when they ought to be in bed; and, be that as it may, excessive use of the brain is as really intemperance as excessive use of the stom However, I did get honorably through my college career, and took a high place at its close; but the expected happiness which I used to think I should obtain, if I reached a certain point in the class list, was still before me. That was a mirage too. It is strange to look back and see how I kept fancying, year after year, that I should be happy when I had compassed first one and then another object of my ambition. But I was chasing a rainbow; for when I attained the point whence my felicity was to commence, I always found that I had a little further to go before I reached the oasis. But I did reach it at last. I was steering in the wrong course, but I took the Bible for my chart after many disappointments, and then I found the desired haven. But I am anticipating. I was elected second master of the school where I had myself been a scholar; and instead of shaking hands with Dr. Oakham's rod, I now shook hands with himself, and many a happy hour we spent together. Why, my spectacles are getting quite dim. Now I know what it is that makes the red fire look so hazy. Ay, it is forty-four years since I and Mary were married. How her hand shook as I put on the ring, and mine too seemed to tremble, but perhaps it was her hand that shook mine. How I paced our garden too, and looked first toward heaven and then toward our ivy-porched door, to see the servant-maid as she came running out. I knew all was well before she came near enough to tell me that it was a fine boy," and that "mistress" was "capital." I believe I was more frightened than Mary was, but then she was better than I am, and always had such a cheering trust in Providence. "Come what may," she used to say, we know all is for the best." I knew this, but I did not seem to believe it so firmly as she did. Next came Edward and then Lucy; we named the first one George: we had but three. 66 My mother died soon after Lucy was born. She died in my arms. I placed my ear near to her lips to catch her faint whisper. "God bless you!" were her parting words; and he has blessed me. I cannot help crying, and I should be ashamed of myself if I could, when I think of that death-bed scene. Poor Edward, he went next; and a grievous sight it was to see him borne up the garden, with his brown curly hair hanging backward from his forehead, and the water dripping from it. We tried everything, but it was in vain. He was drowned. The stem was snapped while the flower was yet in bud. God required a sapling for his heavenly garden, and he took him-for I had hope in his death. A heavier blow came next. Mary came home one autumn afternoon pale and trembling. Death had placed his icy hand upon her and she shook under it. And I shook at the thought of what was coming. It was a dreary time that. I crept silently about, and if anything fell and made a noise it seemed to shoot through me. Poor little Lucy, she looked so serious, and yet she scarcely knew why, for she was too young to have a full understanding of the cause of our grief. Sometimes she would forget and laugh, and then in a moment she would look grave and say: "I will laugh when mamma is better." The doctor looked more and more solemn every day, and at last he called me aside and told me what I had dreaded-that there was scarcely a hope of recovery. She died the next day; and though she could not speak, the look that she gave me as she gently glided away uttered volumes. It told of peace, love, faith within. It was the last glorious effulgence of the setting sun. I hope to see that smile again. Now that my tears are dried I will go on with my story. George went to Rugby, but I did not send him to college. He did not wish to go. He seemed bent upon being a missionary, and I gladly consented. Seventeen years ago I saw a white speck upon the horizon of the sea -it was the ship that was carrying him to his far distant home. I do not expect ever to see him in this world again. But I have his model often with me. His eldest boy is a frequent visitor at the old school-house, and I hope he will tread in his father's steps. He says he hopes so too. Lucy, poor Lucy! it grieves me to see her, and yet she is very happy. It was a bad sprain, and her ankle is now immovably fixed; but let us be thankful that it was no worse. Her health is excellent, and she can walk a great deal faster than I can, and without the least pain. I could see her heart was full when Edward came to see her the first time after he had learned that she must walk lamely for ever. I watched them both, and I saw her cheek flush and her lip quiver as she said, “ Edward, you have heard that I am slightly crippled for life, and I now consider you freed from your ties to me, if you wish to be so." How earnestly she gazed at his features, and how they crimsoned with animation, as he replied, "Lucy, banish such thoughts, for you wrong me by indulging in them." I heard no more, for I hastened out of the room; but as I closed the door a sound fell upon my ear, which, if it was not that of a kiss, was certainly the closest imitation of it that ever was made. A few months afterward they were married; and tell me where there is a happier pair than Edward and Lucy Vernon. I never saw one yet, and I am an old man. Little Lucy-for there is another Lucy nowcomes and climbs upon my knees to stroke my silvery hair, and I could almost fancy that it is a miniature model of Mary. She must have been just such another as Lucy when she was a girl. How strange it is that faces are handed down in this way. Why, how I have been talking aloud to myself, and just as if I had a listener. I have got quite a habit of doing so it seems to bring the past more forcibly before me. How vividly some parts of my past life have flitted by! "Yes, and so you have had a listener, have you not?" said Edward, who had been sitting quietly in the room, with his book laid open on the table before him, earnestly attending to this monologue. "Why, you went out of the room a short time ago. I never heard you return: I think my deafness increases." Why, really," he replied, "I thought you meant the story for me all the time." 66 THE SABBATH QUESTION. WE LEGISLATION FOR IT. E have already endeavored to show, that the essential purposes of the Sabbatic rest, whether as affecting our relation to God or our interests as members of civil society, are independent of the day appropriated for its commemoration; but that, while the Sabbath was instituted for the accomplishment of its chief and ulti- | mate design, it has always realized a secondary and inferior purpose, to which the day specially set apart for its observance may be subordinate, in patriarchal times symbolizing the rest of the creation, and, under the Mosaic economy, the deliverance from Egypt. And it will be noticed that the literal observance of the same day is, from the very nature of things, unattainable; it was impossible for the Jew, scattered over the ancient world; and it is equally impossible for the Christian in his still wider dispersion. The day is but a comparative accident, the Sabbath is the abiding reality. Reasoning only from analogy, we might have assumed it as possible that when that Divine Being, who finished the work of creation, and rested after his six days' labor, had accomplished, through the Messiah, a new and spiritual creation, the glory of the greater event would, in future, be made the theme of special commemoration. And to this, not very indistinctly, the expectations of prophecy referred. Thus we read in Isaiah: "For behold, [saith God,] I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad, and rejoice forever in that which I create for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." Isaiah lxv, 17, 18. Let it not be forgotten, that the observance of the seventh day was to the Jewish Church the abiding and joyful token of that creation, which now, in comparison with the spiritual creation, was to be remembered no more. And so again, in Psalm cxviii, the completion of the work of redemption is represented as the stone which the builders rejected having become the head of the corner. It is to be celebrated by "the voice of rejoicing and of salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous," and the time of celebration is to be" the day which the Lord hath made." When John, in the Revelation, speaks of being in the Spirit on the Lord's day, is not that also the day which the Lord had made? We have occupied too much space to allow of a full discussion of those passages in the New Testament which refer, as we believe, to the observance of the first day of the week as the Christian Sabbath. Let us, however, state them briefly. On the very day of Christ's resurrection it is said,—“Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you," (John xx, 19;) sanctioning with his presence this first memorial of his resurrection. Then the second Christian Sabbath dawns; for "after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." John xx, 26. It certainly appears that there is something more than coincidence in the fact, that the assembling of the disciples should have been postponed from one resurrection-day to another; and that Christ, on each day, should have manifested his presence to his Church. Once more: "When the day of Pentecost was fully come, [again, be it observed, the first day of the week,] the disciples were all, with one accord, in one place." Acts ii, 1. And then, as Christ had previously sanctioned their meeting on that day by his twofold appearance, and not to the disciples individually, but to the congregation of the faithful, the Holy Spirit is poured forth upon the Church. But while Peter and the other disciples appear to have observed this day as their Sabbath, Paul, and the Christians who had been instructed by his ministry, equally acknowledged its authority; and it must be borne in mind that Paul professed to have received not only his commission, but the very truths he taught, independently of the other apostles, and directly from Christ himself; for as he declares, in his Epistle to the Galatians, the apostles at Jerusalem "added nothing to him." But it is said of Paul and his companion, (Acts xx, 6, 7,) "We came unto Troas in five days; where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, (ready to depart |