I was inspirited by a happy return home, by the cheerfulness of my daughters, by our pleasant little parlor. The table was ready laid for me, and on it stood a flask of wine, a NewYear's present from an unknown benevolent hand.

The looks of the lovely little child in Jenny's arms refreshed me above all things. Polly showed me the beautiful little bed of our nursling, the dozen fine napkins, the dear little caps and night clothes, which were in the box, and then a sealed packet of money directed to me, which they had found at the feet of the child when it awoke, and they took it out.

Anxious to learn something of the parentage of our little unknown inmate, I opened the packet. It contained a roll of twenty guineas and a letter, as follows:

"Relying with entire confidence upon the piety and humanity of your reverence the unhappy parents, of this dear child commend it to your care. Do not for'sake it. We will testify our gratitude when we are at liberty to make ourselves known to you. Although at a distance, we shall keep a careful watch, and know

everything that you do. The dear boy is named Alfred. He has been baptized. His board for the first quarter accompanies this. The same sum will be punctually remitted to you every three months. Take the child. We commend him to the tenderness of your daughter Jenny."

When I had read the letter, Polly leaped with joy, and cried, "There's the bishop's miter!" Bountiful Heaven! how rich had we suddenly become ! We read the letter a dozen times. We did not trust our eyes to look at the gold upon the table. What a New-Year's present! From my heaviest cares for the future was I thus suddenly relieved. But in what a strange and mysterious way! In vain did I think over all the people I knew, in order to discover who it might be who had been forced by birth or rank to conceal the existence of their child, or who were able to make such a liberal compensation for a simple service of Christian charity. I tasked my recollection, but I could think of no one. And yet it was evident that these parents were well acquainted with me and mine.

Wonderful are the ways of Providence!

January 2.-Fortune is heaping her favors upon me. This morning again received a packet of money, £12, by the post, with a letter from Mr. Fleetman. It is too much. For a shilling he returns me a pound. Things must have gone well with him; he says as much. I cannot, alas! thank him, for he has forgotten to mention his address! God forbid I should be puffed up with my present riches. I hope now in time to pay off honestly my bond to Mr. Withell.

When I told my daughters that I had received a letter from Mr. Fleetman, there was a new occasion for joy. I do not exactly understand what the girls have to do with Mr. Fleetman. Jenny grew very red, and Polly jumped up laughingly, and held up both her hands before Jenny's face, and Jenny behaved as if she was right vexed with the playful girl.

I read out Fleetman's letter; but I could scarcely do it, for the young man is an enthuBiast. He writes many flattering things which I do not deserve; he exaggerates everything,

even, indeed, when he speaks of the good Jenny. I pitied the poor girl while I read; did not dare to look at her. The passage, however, which relates to her is worthy of note. It runs thus:

"When, excellent sir, I went from your door, I felt I shall never forget you, never forget how happy I as if I were quitting a father's roof for the bleak world. was with you. I see you now before me, in your rich poverty, in your Christian humility, in your patriand the-ah! for your Jenny I have no words! In archal simplicity. And the lovely, fascinating Polly;

what words shall one describe the heavenly loveliness by which everything earthly is transfigured? Forever shall I remember the moment when she gave me the twelve shillings, and the gentle tone of consolation in which she spoke to me. Wonder not that I have the twelve shillings still; I would not part with them for a thousand guineas. I shall soon, perhaps, explain everything to you personally. Never in my life havo I been so happy or so miserable as I am now. Com mend me to your sweet daughters, if they still bear me in remembrance."

I conclude from these lines that he intends to come this way again. The prospect gives me pleasure. In his unbounded gratitude, the young man has perhaps sent me his all, becauso I once lent him half of my ready money. That grieves me. He seems to be a thoughtless youth, and yet he has an honest heart.

We have great delight in the little Alfred. The little thing laughed to-day upon Polly, as Jenny was holding him like a young mother in her arms. The girls are more handy with the little citizen of the world than had anticipated. But it is a beautiful child. We have bought him a handsome cradle, and provided abundantly for all his little wants. The cradle stands at Jenny's bedside. She watches day and night, like a guardian spirit, over her tender charge.

January 3.-To-day, Mr. Curate Thomson arrived with his young wife, and sent for me. I went to him immediately, at the inn. He is an agreeable man, and very polite. He informed me that he was appointed my successor in office; that he wished, if I had no objections, to enter immediately upon his duties; and that I might occupy the parsonage until Easter: ho would in the meanwhile take up his abode in lodgings prepared for him at Alderman Fieldson's.

I replied that, if he pleased, I would resign my office to him immediately, as I should thus be more at liberty to look out for another situation. I desired only permission to preach a farewell sermon in the churches in which I had for so many years declared the word of the Lord.

He then said that he would come in the afternoon to examine the state of the parsonage.

He has been here, with his wife and Alderman Fieldson. His lady was somewhat haughty, and appears to be of high birth, for there was nothing in the house that pleased her, and she hardly deigned to look at my daughters. When she saw the little Alfred in the cradle, she turned to Jenny, and asked whether she were already married. The good Jenny blushed up to her hair, and shook her little head by way of negative, and stammered out something. I had to come to the poor girl's assistance. My lady listened to my story with great curiosity,

and drew up her mouth, and shrugged her shoulders. It was very disagreeable, but I said nothing. I invited them to take a cup of tea; but they declined. Mr. Curate appeared to be very obedient to the slightest hint of the lady. We were very glad when the visit was over.

January 6.—Mr. Withell is an excellent man, to judge from his letter. He sympathizes with me in regard to my unfortunate bond, and comforts me with the assurance, that I must not disquiet myself if I am not able to pay it for ten years, or ever. He appears to be well acquainted with my circumstances, for he alludes to them very cautiously. He considers me an honest man; that gratifies me most; he shall not find his confidence misplaced. I will go to Trowbridge as soon as I can, and pay Mr. Withell Fleetman's £12 sterling, as an installment of my monstrous debt.

Although Jenny insists that she sleeps soundly, that little Alfred is very quiet o' nights, and only wakes once, when she gives him a drink out of his little bottle, yet I feel anxious about the maiden. She is not so lively by far as formerly, although she seems to be much happier than when we were every day troubled about our daily bread. Sometimes she sits with her needle, lost in a reverie, dreaming with open eyes, or her hands, once so active, lie sunk upon her lap. When she is spoken to, she starts, and has to bethink herself what was said. All this evidently comes from the interruption of her proper rest; but she will not hear a word of it. We cannot even persuade her to take a little nap in the daytime. She declares that she feels perfectly well.

I had no idea that she had so much vanity. Fleetman's praises have not displeased her. She has asked me for his letter, to read once more; and she has not yet returned it to me, but keeps it in her work-basket!

I don't care, for my part; the vain thing!

January 8.-My farewell sermon was accompanied with the tears of most of my hearers. I see now at last that my parishioners love me. They have expressed their obligations on all hands, and loaded me with gifts. I never before had such an abundance of provisions in the house, so many dainties of all kinds, and so much wine. A hundredth part of my present plenty would have made me account myself over-fortunate in past days. We are really swimming in plenty. But a goodly portion has already been disposed of. I know some poor families in C-, and Jenny knows even moro than I. The dear people share in our pleasures.

I was moved to the inmost by my sermon. With tears had I written it. It was a sketch of my whole past course, from my call and settlement. I am driven from the vineyard as an unprofitable servant, and yet I have not labored as a hireling; many noble vines have I planted, many deadly weeds cut away. I am driven from the vineyard where I have watched, and taught, and warned, and comforted, and prayed. I have shrunk from no sick-bed. I have strengthened the dying for the last conflict with holy hope. I have gone after sinners. I have not left the poor desolate. I have called back the lost to the way of life. Ah all these souls that were

knit to my soul are torn from me-why should not my heart bleed? But God's will be done! Gladly would I now offer to take charge of the parish without salary, but my successor has the office. I have been used to poverty from my birth, and care has never forsaken me since I stepped out of my boy's shoes. I have enough for myself and my daughters in little Alfred's board. We shall be able, indeed, to lay up something. I would never again complain of wind and weather beating against my gray hairs, could I only continue to break the bread of life to my flock.

Be it so! I will not murmur. The tear which drops upon this page is no tear of discontent. I ask not for riches and good days, nor have I ever asked. But, Lord! Lord! drive not thy servant forever from thy service, although his powers are small. Let me again enter thy vineyard, and with thy blessing win souls!

January 13.-My journey to Trowbridge has turned out beyond all expectation. I arrived late, with weary feet, at the pleasant little old city, and could not rouse myself from sleep until late the next morning. After I had put on my clean clothes, (I had not been so finely dressed since my wedding-day-the good Jenny shows a daughter's care for her father,) I left the inn, and went to Mr. Withell's. He lives in a splendid great house.

He received me somewhat coldly at first, but when I mentioned my name, he led me into his little office. Here I thanked him for his great goodness and consideration, told him how I happened to give the bond, and what hard fortunes had hitherto been mine. I then laid my £12 upon the table.

Mr. Withell looked at me for a while in silence, with a smile, and with some emotion. He then extended his hand, and shook mine, and said, "I know all about you; I have informed myself particularly about your circumstances. You are an honest man; take your £12 back. I cannot find it in my heart to rob you of your New-Year's present; rather let me add a pound to it, to remember me by."

He arose, brought a paper from another room, opened it, and said, "You know this bond and your signature? I give it to you and your children." He tore the paper in two, and placed it in my

hand.

I could find no words, I was so deeply moved. My eyes filled. He saw that I would thank him, but could not; and he said, "Hush! hush! not a syllable, I pray you; this is the only thanks I desire of you. I would gladly have forgiven poor Brook the debt, had he only dealt frankly with me."

I don't know a more noble-hearted man than Mr. Withell. He was too kind. He would have me relate to him much of my past history; he introduced me to his wife, and to the young gentleman his son; he had my little bundle, containing my old clothes, brought from the inn, and kept me at his house. The entertainment was princely. The chamber in which I slept, the carpet, the bed, were so splendid and costly, that I hardly dared to make use of them.

The next day, Mr. Withell sent me home in his own elegant carriage. I parted with my benefactor with a heart deeply moved. My

children wept with me for joy when I showed them the bond. "See," said I, "this light piece of paper was the heaviest burden of my life, and now it is generously canceled. Pray for the life and prosperity of our deliverer !"

January 16.-Yesterday was the most remarkable day of my life. We were sitting together in the forenoon; I was rocking the cradle, Polly was reading aloud, and Jenny was seated at the window with her needle, when she suddenly jumped up, and then fell back again, deadly pale, into her chair. We were all alarmed, and cried, "What is the matter?" She forced a smile, and said, "He is coming!"

The door opened, and in came Mr. Fleetman in a beautiful traveling-cloak. We greeted him right heartily, and were truly glad to see him so unexpectedly, and, it appeared, in so much better circumstances than before. He embraced me, kissed Polly, and bowed to Jenny, who had not yet recovered from her agitation. Her pale looks did not escape him. He inquired anxiously about her health. Polly replied to his questions, and he then kissed Jenny's hand, as though he would beg her pardon for having occasioned her such an alarm. But there was nothing to be said about it, for the poor girl grew red again like a newly-blown rose.

I called for cake and wine, to treat my guest and benefactor better than on former occasions; but he declined, as he could not tarry long, and he had company at the inn. Yet, at Jenny's request, he sat down and took some wine with us.

As he had spoken of the company which had come with him, I supposed that it must be a company of comedians, and inquired whether they intended to stop and play in C, observing that the place was too poor. He laughed out, and replied, "Yes, we shall play a comedy, but altogether gratis." Polly was beside herself with joy, for she had long wanted to see a play. She told Jenny, who had gone for the cakes and wine. Polly inquired whether many actors had come with him. "A gentleman and lady," said he, "but excellent players." Jenny appeared unusually serious. She cast a sad look at Fleetman, and asked, "And youwill you also appear?" This was said in that tone peculiarly soft, yet very penetrating, which I have seldom observed in her, and only upon rare occasions, and at most serious moments.

Poor Fleetman himself trembled at her tone, so like the voice of the angel of doom. He looked up to her with an earnest gaze, and appeared to struggle with himself for an answer, and then advancing toward her a step, he said, "Miss, by my God and yours, you alone can decide that!"

an impressive appearance of emotion exclaimed, "Then I am indeed unhappy!"

Polly could hold out no longer. With a comical vivacity, she looked from one to the other, and at last cried out, "I do believe that you are beginning to play already!"

He pressed Polly's hand warmly, and said, "Ah! that it were so !"

I put an end to the confusion by pouring out the wine. We drank to the welfare of our friend. Fleetman turned to Jenny and stammered out, "Miss, in earnest, my welfare?" She laid her hand upon her heart, cast down her eyes, and drank.

Fleetman immediately became more composed. He went to the cradle, looked at the child, and when Polly and I had told him its history, he said to Polly, with a smile, “Then you have not discovered that I sent you this New-Year's present?"

We all exclaimed, in utter amazement, "Who! you?" He then proceeded to relate what follows: "My name," said he, "is not Fleetman. I am Sir Cecil Fairford. My sister and myself have been kept out of our rightful property by my father's brother, who took advantage of certain ambiguous conditions in my father's will, and involved us in a long and embarrassing lawsuit. We have hitherto lived with difficulty upon the little property left us by our mother, who died early. My sister has suffered most from the tyranny of her uncle, who was her guardian, and who had destined her for the son of an intimate and powerful friend of his. But my sister, on the other hand, was secretly contracted to the young Lord Sandom, whose father, then living, was opposed to their marriage. Without the knowledge either of my uncle or the old lord, they were secretly married. The little Alfred is their son. My sister, under the pretense of benefiting her health, and availing herself of sea-bathing, left the house of her guardian, and put herself under my protection. When the child was born, our great concern was to find a place for it, where it would have the tenderest care. I accidentally heard a touching account of the poverty and humanity of the parish minister of C, and I came hither to satisfy myself. The manner in which I was treated by you decided me.

"I have forgotten to mention that my sister never returned to her guardian; for about six months ago I won the suit against him, and entered into possession of my patrimony. My uncle instituted a new suit against me for withdrawing my sister from his charge; but the old Lord Sandom died suddenly a few days ago of apoplexy, and my brother-in-law has made his marriage public. So that the suit falls to the ground, and all cause for keeping the child's birth secret is removed. Its parents have now come with me to take the child away, and I have come to take away you and your family, if the proposal I make you shall be accepted.

"During the lawsuit in which I have been

family, has remained unoccupied. I have at my disposal this situation, which yields over £200 per annum. You, sir, have lost your place. I shall not be happy unless you come and reside near me and accept this living."

God only knows how I was affected at these

words. My eyes were blinded with tears of joy. I stretched out my hands to the man who came a messenger from Heaven. I fell upon his breast. Polly threw her arms around him with a cry of delight. Jenny thankfully kissed the baronet's hand. But he snatched it from her with visible agitation, and left us.

My happy children were still holding me in their embraces, and we were still mingling our tears and congratulations, when the baronet returned, bringing his brother-in-law, Lord Sandom, with his wife. The latter was an uncommonly beautiful young lady. Without saluting

us, she ran to the cradle of her child. She knelt down over the little Alfred, kissed his cheeks, and wept freely with mingled pain and delight. Her lord raised her up, and had much trouble in composing her.

When she had recovered her composure, and apologized to us all for her behavior, she thanked first me, and then Polly, in the most touching terms. Polly disowned all obligation, and pointed to Jenny, who had withdrawn to the window, and said, "My sister there has been its mother!"

The

Lady Sandom approached Jenny, gazed at her long in silence, and with evidently delighted surprise, and then glanced at her brother with a smile, and folded Jenny in her arms. dear Jenny, in her modesty, scarcely dared to look up. "I am your debtor," said my lady, "but the service you have rendered to a mother's heart it is impossible for me to repay. Become a sister to me, lovely Jenny; sisters can have no obligation between them." As they embraced each other, the baronet approached. "There stands my poor brother," said my lady; as you are now my sister, he may stand nearer to your heart, dear Jenny, may he not ?" Jenny blushed, and said, "He is my father's benefactor."

"Will you not be," replied the lady, "the benefactress of my poor brother? Look kindly on him. If you only knew how he loves you!"

The baronet took Jenny's hand and kissed it, and said, as Jenny struggled to withdraw it, "Miss, will you be unkind to me? I am unhappy without this hand." Jenny, much disturbed, let her hand remain in his. The baronet then led my daughter to me, and begged me for my blessing.

"Jenny," said I, "it depends upon thee. Do we dream? Canst thou love him? Do thou decide."

She then turned to the baronet, who stood before her, deeply agitated, and cast upon him a full, penetrating look, and then took his hand in both hers, pressed it to her breast, looked up to heaven, and softly whispered, "God has decided."

I blessed my son and my daughter. They embraced. There was a solemn silence. All eyes were wet.

Suddenly Polly sprang up, laughing through her tears, and flung herself upon my neck, while she cried, "There! we have it! The NewYear's present; bishops' miters upon bishops' miters!"

Little Alfred awoke.

It is in vain-I cannot describe this day. My happy heart is full, and I am continually interrupted.

PULP AND ESSENCE.

FROM RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

PENCILED passages accumulate upon our hands; massive thoughts, gems of beauty; flowers, exotic and indigenous. We bring a few of them together here; in the language of Montaigne, a nosegay of culled flowers, claiming nothing as our own, but the string

that ties them.

LIFE AT SEA.

EMERSON thus graphically sketches human existence on board ship:

"I find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives. The confinement, cold, motion, noise, and odor, are not to be dispensed with. The floor of your room is sloped at an angle of twenty or thirty degrees, and I waked every morning with the belief that some one was tipping up my borth. Nobody likes to be treated ignominiously, upset, shoved against

the side of the house, rolled over, suffocated with bilge, Imephitis, and stewing oil. We get used to these annoyances at last, but the dread of the sea remains longer. The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look what egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one, like ours, filled with men in ecstasios of terror, alternating with Cockney conceit, as the sea is rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery? In our graveyards we scoop a pit, but this aggressive water opens mile-wide pits and chasms, and makes a mouthful of a fleet. To the geologist the sea is the only firmament; the land is in perpetual flux and change, now blown up, like a tumor, now sunk in a chasm, and the registered observations of a few hundred years find it in perpetual tilt, rising and falling. The sea keeps its old level; and 'tis no wonder that the history of our race is so recent, if the roar of the ocean is silencing our traditions. A rising of the sea, such as has been observed, say an inch in a century, from east to west on the land, will bury all the towns, monuments, bones, and knowledge of mankind, steadily, and insensibly. If it is capable of these great and secular mischiefs, it is quite as ready at private and local damage; and of this no landsman seems so fearful as the scamau. Such discomfort and such danger as the narratives of the captain and mate discloso are bad enough as the costly fee we pay for entrance to Europe; but the wonder is always new that any sane man can be a sailor. And here, on the second day of our voyage, stepped out a little boy in his shirt sleeves, who had hid himself, while the ship was in port, in the bread-closet, having no money, and wishing to go to England. The sailors have dressed him in Guernsey frock, with a knife in his belt, and he is climbing nimbly about after them, likes the work first rate, and, if the captain will take him, means now to come back again in the ship.' The mate avers that this is the history of all sailors; nine out of ten are runaway boys; and adds, that all of them are sick of the sea, but stay in it out of pride. Jack has a life of risks, incessant abuse, and the worst pay. It is a little better with the mate, and not very much better with the captain. A hundred dollars a month is reckoned high pay. If sailors were contented, if they had not resolved again and again not to go to sea any more, I should respect them.

"Of course the inconveniences and terrors of the sea are not of any account to those whose minds are preoccupied. The water-laws, arctic frost, the mountain, the mine, only shatter Cockneyism; every noble activity makes room for itself. A great mind is a good sailor, a great heart is. And the sea is not slow in disclosing inestimable secrets to a good naturalist.

""Tis a good rule in every journey to provide some piece of liberal study to rescue the hours which bad weather, bad company, and taverns steal from the best economist, Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig. I remember that some of the happiest and most valuable hours I have owed to books, passed, many years ago, on shipboard. The worst impediment I have found at sea is the want of light in the cabin."

SWEET HOME.

CHARLES READE, in "a matter of fact Romance," the scene of which is partly laid in Australia, describes a visit made by some Englishmen in that far-off land, one Sunday, to the house of a country woman, who had brought with her "from home" an English Lark. They came many miles to hear him sing:

"Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But at last, just at noon, when the mistress of the house had warranted him to sing, the little feathered exile began, as it were, to tune his pipes. The savage men gathered round the cage that moment, and, amid a dead stillness, the bird uttered some very uncertain chirps; but after a while he seemed to revive his memories, and call his ancient cadences back to him one by one, and string them 'sotto voce.' And then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at home, came glowing down on him here, and he gave music back for it more and more; till at last, amid breathless silence and glistening eyes of the rough diggers hanging on his voice, out burst in that distant land his English song. It swelled his little throat, and gushed from him with thrilling force and plenty; and every time he checked his song to think of its theme, the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he first soared from, and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh from many a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how tight the listeners had held their breath to hear him: and when he swelled with song again, and poured with all his soul, the green meadows, the quiet brooks, the leafy clover, and the English spring, the rugged mouths opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one drop trickled from fierce, unbridled breasts, down bronzed and rugged cheeks. Dulce domum! And these shaggy men, full of oaths, and strife, and cupid. ity, had once been curly-headed boys, and some had strolled about the English fields with little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard, and they were full of oaths, and drink, and lusts, and remorses; but no note was changed in this minstrel's song. And so, for a moment or two, years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone out in the song-shine; they came back, bright as the immortal notes that Highted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the cottage, the old mother's tears when he left her without one grain of sorrow; the village church and its simple chimes, ding dong bell, ding dong bell,

ding dong bell; the clover field hard by, in which ho lay and gamboled while the lark praised God overhead; the chubby playmates that never grew to be wicked: the sweet, sweet hours of youth, and innocence, and home."

ELOQUENCE.

LORD BROUGHAM, in the "Oratorical Articles," which make up a large portion of the three volumes recently published, under the general title of "Contributions to the Edinburgh Review," thus speaks of Demosthenes :

"The greatest of all orators never regarded the composition of any sentence worthy of him to deliver, as a thing of easy execution. Practiced as he was, and able surely, if any man ever was by his own mastery over language, to pour out his ideas with facility, he elaborated every passage with almost equal care. Having the same ideas to express, he did not, like our easy and fluent moderns, clothe them in different language for the sake of beauty; but reflecting that he had upon the fullest deliberation adopted one form of expression as the best, and because every other must needs be worse, he used it again without any change, unless further labor and more trials had enabled him in any particular to improve the workmanship."

Of the French pulpit orators BROUGHAM greatly prefers Massillon, esteeming him by far more Demosthenian than his rival, BosSUET. Here are specimens from both these eminent men. The first is from Massillon's sermon on the small number of the elect; a passage which, it is said, made his hearers start to their feet:

"I figure to myself that our last hour is come; the heavens are opening over our heads. Time is no more and Eternity has begun. Jesus Christ is about to appear, to judge us according to our deserts; and we are here awaiting at his hands the sentence of everlasting. life or death. I ask you now-stricken with terror like yourselves-in no wise separating my lot from yours, but placing myself in the situation in which wo all must one day stand before God our Judge-if Christ, I ask you, were at this moment to come to make the awful partition of the just and the unjust; think you that the greater number would be saved? Do you believe that the numbers would be equal? If the lives of the multitude here present were sifted, would he find among us ten righteous? would he find a single one ?"

From BossUET's sermon on the Day of Judgment, the following is selected:

"The assize is opened; the Judge is seated. Crim-ina!! come plead your case. But you have little time to prepare yourself! O God, how short is the time to unravel an affair so complicated as that of your reckoning and your life. Ah, why address superfluous cries! Ah, why do you bitterly sigh after so many lost years; vainly, uselessly! There is no more time to you. You enter the region of eternity. See, there is no more visible sun to commence and finish the days, the seasons, the years. It is the Lord himself who now begins to measure all things by his own infinity. I see you astonished and horror-struck at the presence of your Judge; but look also at your accusers, those poor who are raising their voices against your inexorable hardness."