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her own heart speaks perpetually to HEAVEN. She feels that she should be

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that man can turn to her from the degenerate world, and find some suggestion of that better world which is to come.

8. H. D.

THE LOS T HOPE.

BY MISS LOUISE E. VICKROY.

I.

It is lost, the sweet hope that was mine, till it taught me
To believe that it formed of my being a part;

Till my cheek could but glow, and my eye but take lustre
From the flame it had lit on the hearth of the heart.

II.

'T was my sun through the day and the star of my night-time;
But alas! when I knew not it suddenly fled,

And its light is no longer a crown for the living,

And, oh! bitterer sorrow! 't is not with the dead.

III.

Oh! no; had it died with the voice of a loved one,

Or chilled with some brow in the grave's gloomy prison,

Some angel of light by the sepulchre door-way

Might kindly point upward and say, 'It is risen.'

IV.

But now, in the brightness and glory of noon-day

I but feel that some shadow my spirit has crossed,
And at midnight, from dreams of the hope that once cheered me
I awake with the cry on my lips: 'It is lost!'

Though sometimes, even yet, to my desolate bosom
Its memory, a phantom-like wandering ray,
Comes, sweet as a flower-scent borne by the breezes,
And soft as an echo just dying away;

VL

Yet 't is lost, and more sad than the star-sisters' grieving
When a Pleiad was missed from the heavenly host,
Is each sister hope's sigh, by despair over-shadowed,
Since I say of the bright one, T is lost! it is lost!'

Johnstown, (Pa.,) 1855.

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SEBASTOPOL .

BY ISAAC MACLELLAN.

THE Russian in the North is out,
His deserts are astir with arms;

The Calmuck's cheer, the Cossack's shout
Fill Europe with alarms!

Their camp-fires blaze from plain to peak,
Along the Ural mountain-chain;
From Frozen Ocean, wild and bleak,
To Volga's cultured plain.

From the blue Baltic to the Black,
From village-street and mountain-track
The Muscovites advance:

Their brass-drums summon from the tents
The savage Tartar regiments,

To arm with gun and lance.

The savage boor that roams the waste

Of bleak Siberia, hears the blast

Of the war-horn, and leaves his flock,
And his rude cabin by the rock,

To swell the ranks of war:
The fiery Hulan, grim and tall,
The sentinel on Moscow's wall
Haste to the battle, at the call
Of the imperial Czar!

All round thy walls, Sebastopol,
From morn to night unceasing roll
The musketry's fierce fusilade,
The batteries' thunderous cannonade;
The mortar's roar, the bursting shell,
The victor's shout, the dying yell,
And all those frightful sounds of rage
When nations in mad fight engage!

And o'er thy walls, Sebastopol,

The sulphurous smokes of battle roll!
A hurricane of iron hail

Sweeps ever in remorseless gale,

On stony rampart, trench, and fosse

'Mid wreathing sinoke thy banners toss;

While round them gleams the dripping blade,

In the hot storm of escalade:

Till reeling from the stern turmoil,
Bleeding and fainting, spent with toil,
The torn battalions back recoil;

Too weak to drag with staggering tread,
From the red field, so thick o'erspread,
Their wounded comrades and their dead!

Around thy walls, Sebastopol,

The white tents of the nations gleam:

New-York, June, 1855.

The Turkish Crescent-flags unroll;
The meteor flags of England stream;
And Gaul's imperial standards float
O'er guarded bastion and moat.

Around thy shores, from decks of fame,
Dark batteries belch their ghastly flame;
Morn, noon is shrouded with their smoke,
And midnight hears the measured stroke
Of marching hosts, and sees the flash
Of shells, and trembles at their crash!

Stand firmly, then, all ye that keep
The leagured fort and battered wall,
Or the bold Briton soon may leap

Triumphant o'er them, and the Gaul
Upon ye in his vengeance fall!
And the fierce Turk with bloody blade,
Trample thy ranks, all lowly laid!

OUR LITTLE MAN: A SKETCH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'PEEPS FROM A BELFRY, OR THE PARISH SKETCH-BOOK,' ETC.

THERE be some persons that will not receive a reward for that for which GoD accounts himself a debtor; persons that dare trust GOD with their charity without a witness.'

WALTON'S LIFE OF DONNE.

THOSE lives which are without striking incidents, are nevertheless not less worthy of record. We love to linger, and can find food for using by the quiet brook, as well as on the margin of the grand and classic river. Each mirrors somewhat of the earth and heaven, from where it starts from nothing, till it empties in the deep, broad sea. So are the tides which bear along the great or lowly; they have their shallows and their whirlpools, and flash about some noted sceneries, as they lave the golden sands of life.

In a certain rural district stands a quaint old parish-church, of no particular style of architecture, but snug and comfortable within. The desk, the pulpit, and the organ-loft are so many high eyries, (a little lower than the angels,) and in the latter I loved to be ensconced when a boy, and look down on the congregation below. Near the chancel is a plain marble slab inscribed to the memory of a late rector, the Rev. Willie Allison, recording the date of his birth and death, and this passage from Holy Writ: Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man what God hath prepared for those who love HIM.' I was acquainted with him well, and have undertaken to write his life, although there is so little to say about him. However, that little is worth knowing. He came to the parish in his youth, and administered in no other place until he died, and was familiarly alluded to by the worthy people as 'Our little man.' Whether this were only

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a title whereby no disrespect was intended, or whether it were a suitable appellation for a scholar and a gentleman, who was no more than the rector of a small country parish, who, according to his demureness and meekness is apt to be considered a mere nobody, it matters not. Almost every modest country parson is known and referred to in like manner. At all events, his name was seldom pronounced. It was: 'What do you think of our little man?' And how do you like our little man? If he preached a discourse with any salient points in it, it would be whispered, as the people moved out: Pretty well to-day for our little man.' If it were on angels, lilies of the field, the devil, or any thing out of the way, they would say: Our little man is getting fanciful; or if on erudite topics of theology, far out into the vasty deep, where the horizon seemed to come down and stop their vision; on faith, or regeneration, or any subject which they did not like to hear, they would also remark: Our little man has put us all to sleep; we have no faith in faith; he preaches heathen Greek.'

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He was not so very petite in stature, say about five feet eight. Some persons of the same height, well-proportioned in other respects, would not be considered small men, especially if they held good positions in the church. But he stooped a little, and his neck was short, and he did not loom up very largely, nor look as if he could fight his physical battles well, which indeed his calling would scarce allow, though an occasion might seem to offer; for theological strife waxes so warm now-a-days, that it occasionally invokes the use of carnal weapons, and he who is the tallest and the lustiest stands a better chance among the foe.

Neither was his mental stature so diminutive; for he was well versed in sacred and profane letters, and had a good faculty of applying what he read, both in conversation and in preaching, so as to make it tell well on the point in hand. If his memory were not very good as to dry and abstract facts, it never let them go if they applied to general, well-established principles. Hence his classification was correct and useful; and although the habits of a student, the careful and precise modes in which he arranged his thoughts, made his manner one of slowness, and a trepidation and nervous temper threw him frequently from off his guard, while all this deprived him of the flippant and ready change, of the small and silvery bits of tattle which pass current, our little man' would by no means be considered of no account in any real and intellectual society.

His disposition was genial and affectionate, though exceedingly reserved, so mild indeed that it impressed others with an idea that he wanted firmness. Seldom liable to any encroachment, and always on the side of peace, he yet knew how to check impertinence, and put it down with a sudden energy which smacked of the natural spirit which was in him. But he was never known to let the sun go down upon his wrath. Without ambition for the world's applause, not pushing himself according to his merits, he seemed rather to creep along through the sequestered walks which he had chosen, paying his kindly and oft-repeated visits to the poor and afflicted, who acknowledged him as their best friend; and these too spoke of him in the language of affection, as

our little man.'

His lot was fixed in a charming locality, where sea and land, hill and valley, smooth lawns and gay meadows combined in a landscape to please the eye and invite the wealthy to reside there. They had taken possession of every desirable nook and secluded by-place, which they had laid out in pebbled walks, adorned with trees, and with a profusion of early and late-blooming flowers. A parish church was a sine qua non to these Christian people, and without it they would not have been willing to come. They drove to church on pleasant Sunday mornings, and by clubbing altogether, ten or a dozen of them, they were enabled to raise a little salary for their little man, about the same as that of a good coachman. He, however, did not complain on that score.

He used to make his home at the house of a poor widow, of whom he was both temporally and spiritually almost the sole support. She lived in a picturesque little nook, in a house composed of one story and a half, very small indeed, and attached to it was also a small garden. She possessed beside a few acres, in which she pastured her cow, and what she received for the rector's board. These, however, were ample to provide a frugal living, sometimes spiced with dainties, for them both. Seated in tidy estate in the parlor of her domicile, she was a picture of piety and contentment, and her mouth was full of expressions about the goodness and mercies of GOD. The greatest pleasure and business of her life was in attending to the wants and comforts of the little man, in mending his shirts, darning his stockings, marking his pocket-handkerchiefs, and in seeing to it that his bands and surplice were without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Quiet heart! How peacefully and serenely were gliding onward the latter days of a life, of which the early part had been overcast and full of trouble.

The pastor's study was a very sanctuary of cosy retirement. It was sheltered in summer from the glare of day by the foliage of two English cherry-trees, and our little man loved to pluck the ripe fruit from the end of the limbs, as he sat in the open window, or watched the robins as they built their nests, or dropped the earth-worms into the wide-agape mouths of their young before his eyes; and when the trees were covered with fragrant blossoms, to listen to the hum of busy bees, who swarmed about their crowns, or bumped their heads against the windowpanes. Every morning after breakfast, the widow glided up the cramped and crooked stair-case, broom in hand, into the study, and bustled about with great zeal and with exceeding discrimination. Every particle of dust was swept out of the room and out of doors with a most eager besom, and no stray thread escaped the keen glance of those spectacled eyes. The ink-stand was washed, and not a dot or blot or spatter was suffered to remain on the margin of the black pool; the nibs and points of many pens were also freed from their incrustations, but no open book, no piece of writing, or paper with its precious written thoughts, was touched or disturbed. Mr. Allison was particularly nervous on this point, and the widow knew it. Once and once only the cat had toyed with a text or two of Holy Writ upon a stray leaf, and dragged it beneath the table. It was searched for and found presently. The rector uttered no word of complaint, but he looked sternly, at least the old lady thought so. After the learned tomes of

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