smartly in the grass; but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go

CHOPS. In the name of common sense, Mr. Harris, what do you mean by this rigmarole?

WITNESS. Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard———— CHOPS. Stop, sir, if you please; we don't want to hear anything about your cousin Sally Dilliard and your wifetell us about the fight at Rice's.

WITNESS. Well, I will, sir, if you will let me.
CHOPS. Well, sir, go on.

WITNESS. Well, sir, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go—

CHOPS. There it is again. Witness, please to stop. WITNESS. Well, sir, what do you want?

CHOPS. We want to know about the fight, and you must not proceed in this impertinent story. Do you know anything about the matter before the Court?

WITNESS. To be sure I do.

CHOPS.

Well go on and tell it, and nothing else. WITNESS. Well, Captain Rice he gin a treat

Cuors. This is intolerable. May it please the Court; I move that this witness be committed for a contempt, he seems to be trifling with this Court.

COURT. Witness you are now before a court of justice, and unless you behave yourself in a more becoming manner, you will be sent to jail; so begin, and tell what you know about the fight at Captain Rice's.

WITNESS. [Alarmed.] Well, gentlemen, Captain Rice he gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard

CHOPS. I hope the witness may be ordered into custody.

COURT. Mr. Attorney, the Court is of the opinion that we may save time by letting the witness to go on in his own way. Proceed, Mr. Harris, but stick to the point.

WITNESS. Yes, gentlemen. Well, Captain Rice ho gin a treat, and cousin Sally Dilliard she came over to our house and axed me if my wife she moutn't go. I told consin Sally Dilliard that my wife she was poorly, being as how she had the rheumatics in the hips, and the big

swamp was up; but, howsomever, as it was her, coasin Sally Dilliard, my wife she mout go. Well, cousin Sally Dilliard then axed if Mose he moutn't go. I told cousin Sally Dilliard as how Mose-he was the foreman of the crap, and the crap was smartly in the grass-but, howsomever, as it was her, cousin Sally Dilliard, Mose he mout go. So they goes on together, Mose, my wife, and cousin Sally Dilliard, and they come to the big swamp, and it was up, as I was telling you; but being as how there was a log across the big swamp, cousin Sally Dilliard and Mose, like genteel folks, they walked the log; but my wife, like a blamed fool, waded through.

CHOPS. Heaven and earth, this is too bad; but go on. WITNESS. Well, that's all I know about the fight.

NEW THANATOPSIS.-WM. H. HOLCOMBE

BENEATH the glory of a brighter sun

Than that which keeps this moving globe of dust
True to its orbit, and with vision fed

By spiritual light and wisdom sent from God,
I sought for death throughout the universe-
If haply I might note the dreaded being
Who casts such awful shadows on our hearts,
And seems to break, with his discordant step,
The harmonies of nature. But in vain

I scanned the range of substance infinite
From God to Angels, and through men to earth,
To beast, bird, serpent and the ocean tribes,
To worms and flowers, and the atomic forms
Of crystaline Creations. Change had been,
Perpetual evolution and fresh life,
And metamorphoses to higher states-
An orderly progress, like the building up
Of pyramids from earth's material base
Into the fields of sunlight-but no death.
With deep solemnity akin to fear,
I pondered o'er the elemental world,
That seeming chaos, but its bosom held
No embryonic forms but those of life;
Nor did the spiritual origin of things
Elude my recognition in the maze
Of chemic transformations. Then I read

The geologic leaves of stone sublime,
Immortal book in an immortal tongue,
Full of mysterious life. And then I looked
Jnto the dark mausoleums of the past,

And up the swift and shadowy stream of Time,
Upon whose banks nations and men are said
To have perished. And I turned the teeming soil
Of all the battle-fields of every age,

Peered into charnels, tracked the desolate paths
Of plague and famine, and surveyed with awe
The secrets of the sea-but found no Death.
To spirits, the veil of whose material temple
Is rent in twain, and who are capable
Of purer thought and more interior life,
His name and nature are alike unknown.
Throughout the choral harmony of things,
And all the vast economy of God,

He has no place or power. There is no Death!
God, God alone, is Life; and all our life,
And all the varying substance of the world,
From Ilim derived, and vitalized by Him;
And every change which we ascribe to Death
Is but a change in form or place or state,
Of something which can never cease to live.
Insensate matter is the base of all,

The pedestal of life, the supple mould
Through which the vital currents come and go.
The universe, with its infinity,

Is but the visible garment of our God;

The sun is but the garment of our heavens;

The body is the garment of our soul,

The coarse material out-birth of its life,

Its medium for a time, a shell which keeps

Within its curves the music of the sea

A wondrous thing! which seems to live, but does not,

For nothing lives but God, and all in Him.

The Spirit is a substance, a pure form
Of immaterial tissue, finely wrought
Into the human shape, unseen in this
Our physical existence, but the cause
Of all its motions and its very life.
When ripened for a more exalted sphere,
The soul exuves its earthly envelope,
And leaves the atoms of its chemic dross, -
(Oh never, never more to be resumed!-)
For worms or weeds, or flowers to animate,
While it withdraws to more august abodes,
Happier beyond comparison, than those
Who pass in joy from hovels all forlorn
To palaces imperial.

None have died

From earth's first revolution to the present,
But all are living who have ever lived.
Earth has indeed no monuments of Death,
But only vestiges of those who passed
Through this inevitable vale of shadows,
And left behind the prints of busy hands,
That are still busier now, and songful echoes
Of friendly voices that are singing still.

In gloom and darkness was the poet lost
Who calls this earth the mighty tomb of man:
'Tis but his temporary habitation,

His cradle and his school of discipline

The dark cold ground in which the seed is sown,
That struggling upward, slowly germinates
Until it bursts into the shining air.

Not Christ alone has risen, but all have risen;
The stone is rolled from every sepulchre;
The grave has nothing it can render back.
When wo ascend to our eternal homes,
We leave no living fragment of ourselves.
We do not pass from nature to the grave;
But nature is our grave, from which we rise
At seeming death,--our real resurrection,-
Into the world of spirits. And the tomb,
With all its grief, and tenderness, and shadow,
Is the creation of our sluggish minds,
By kindly memories and sweet suggestions,
To cherish and prolong the love of friends,
Gone, but not lost; unseen, but nearer still,
In beauty and in glory, to our life,
Which lives in God, immortal as himself.

THERE IS NO DEATH.-LORD LYTTON.

THERE is no death! The stars go down
To rise upon some fairer shore:

And bright in Heaven's jewelled crown
They shine forevermore.

Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain or mellowed fruit,

Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

The granite rocks disorganize,

And feed the hungry moss they bear;
The forest leaves drink daily life,

From out the viewless air.

There is no death! The leaves may fall,
And flowers may fade and pass away;
They only wait through wintry hours,
The coming of the May.

There is no death! An angel form
Walks o'er the earth with silent tread;
He bears our best loved things away;
And then we call them "dead."

He leaves our hearts all desolate,

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers;
Transplanted into bliss, they now
Adorn immortal bowers.

The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones,
Made glad these scenes of sin and strife,
Sings now an everlasting song,

Around the tree of life.

Where'er he sees a smile too bright,
Or heart too pure for taint and vice,

He bears it to that world of light,
To dwell in Paradise.

Born unto that undying life,

They leave us but to come again;
With joy we welcome them the same,-
Except their sin and pain.

And ever near us, though unseen,
The dear immortal spirits tread;

For all the boundless universe
Is life-there are no dead.

THE INDIANS.-JOSEPH STORY.

THERE is, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse