THE TRAVELLER'S HYMN FOR ALL SAINTS' DAY. BY ARTHUR P. STANLEY, DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. WHERE is the Christian's Fatherland? Where pilgrim hosts have rushed to lave Where is the Christian's Fatherland? Earth's shadows with the Light Divine? Or is the Christian's Fatherland Where, with crowned head and croziered hand, The Ghost of Empire proudly flits, Where is the Christian's Fatherland? Or is there yet a closer band,- Of the Prince of Wales and Dr. Lyon Playfair it is told that they were once standing near a caldron containing lead, which was boiling at white heat. "Has your Royal Highness any faith in science?" said the doctor. "Certainly," replied the prince. "Will you then place your hand in the boiling metal and ladle out a portion of it?" "Do you tell me to do this?" asked the prince. "I do," replied the doctor. The prince then ladled out some of the boiling lead with his hand, without sustaining any injury. It is a well-known scientific fact that the human hand may be placed uninjured in lead boiling at white heat, being protected from any harm by the moisture of the skin. Should the lead be at a perceptibly lower temperature, the effect need not be described. After this let no one underrate the courage of the Prince of Wales. DON'T KISS THE BABY. [From the Scientific American.] THE promiscuous kissing of children is a pestilent practice. We use the word advisedly, and it is mild for the occasion. Murderous would be the proper word, did the kissers know the mischief they do. Yes, madam, murderous; and we are speaking to you. Do you remember calling on your dear friend Mrs. Brown, the other day, with a strip of flannel round your neck? And when little Flora came dancing into the room, did you not pounce upon her demonstratively, call her a precious little pet, and kiss her? Then you serenely proceeded to describe the dreadful sore throat that kept you from the prayer-meeting the night before. You had no designs on the dear child's life, we know; nevertheless you killed her! Killed her as surely as if you had fed her with strychnine or arsenic. Your caresses were fatal. Two or three days after, the little pet began to complain of sore throat too. The symptoms began to grow rapidly alarming; and when the doctor came the simple word "diphtheria" sufficed to explain them all. To-day a little mound in Greenwood is the sole monument of your visit. Of course, the mother does not suspect, and would not dare to suspect, you of any instrumentality in her bereavement. She charges it to a mysterious Providence. The doctor says nothing to disturb the delusion; that would be impolite, if not cruel; but to an outsider he is free to say the child's death was due directly to your infernal stupidity. These are precisely his words; more forcible than elegant, it is true; but who shall say, under the circumstances, that they are not justifiable? Remember, "Evil is wrought by want of thought It would be hard to tell how much of the prevalent sickness and mortality from diphtheria is due to such want of thought. As a rule, adults have the disease in so mild a form that they mistake it for a simple cold; and as a cold is not contagious they think nothing of exposing others to their breath or to the greater dangers of labial contact. Taking into consideration the well-established fact that diphtheria is usually, if not always, communicated by the direct transplanting of the malignant vegetation which causes the disease, the fact that there can be no more certain means of bringing the contagion to its favorite soil than the act of kissing children, and the further fact that the custom of kissing children on all occasions is all but universal, it is not surprising that, when the disease is once imported into a community, it is very likely to become epidemic. It would be absurd to charge the spread of diphtheria entirely to the practice of childkissing. There are other modes of propagation, though it is hard to conceive of any more directly suited to the spread of the infection or more general in its operation. It stands to diphtheria in about the same relation that promiscuous hand-shaking formerly did to the itch. It were better to avoid the practice. The children will not suffer if they go unkissed; and their friends ought for their sake to forego the luxury for a season. A single kiss has been known to infect a family; and the most careful may be in condition to communicate the disease without knowing it. Beware, then, of playing Judas, and let the babies alone. MR. ALCOTT, who is a hard rider of the vegetarian hobby, once said to Dr. Walker, of Harvard College: "I think that when a man lives on beef he becomes something like an ox; if he eats mutton he begins to look sheepish, and if he eats pork, may he not grow swinish?" "That may "" be, said Dr. Walker; "but when a man lives on nothing but vegetables, I think he is apt to be pretty small potatoes." I saved, I destroyed, But ne'er sat on a throne; Was what I seemed not, A price on my head, Though gently she dressed me, She never caressed me, I live not, I die not, But tell you I must, That ages have passed Since I first turned to dust. This parody: whence this This splendor? Say, was I a thing, or a silly Fathom the mystery deep Was I man? An angel imperial? A demon infernal ? Tell it who can ! IT'S MIGHTY IMPROVIN'. THE Irish peasantry have tales of a parabolic character, -stories which, by means of some striking action or circumstance, set forth a hearty moral. On hearing such, their usual phrase is, "Oh, it is mighty improvin'." Malone, a say, — and And that, too, is what Molly worthy washer-woman, used to say almost invariably, — after hearing a ser [Lines addressed to a young girl who was complainthe bitterest should have fallen upon her birthday.] mon on Sunday. One day, however, her ing that of all the snow-storms of this stormy winter, clergyman, who was not quite content with this generality, spoke to her respecting his discourse, and Molly suddenly became what they call in Ireland a little bothered. Nevertheless, she got out of her difficulty with one of those parabolic answers which are such favorites with her class, and which, while it completely evaded the question, satisfactorily replied to it. Rev. Well, Molly, you liked the sermon, you say? Molly. Well, sure, sir, I liked every part. Rev. But I suppose there was some portion of it that you were more struck with than you were with others. Molly. In troth, please your riverence, I don't remember any part exactly, but altogether 't was mighty improvin'. Rev. Now, Molly, how could it be improving if you don't remember any part of it? Molly. Well, your riverence sees that linen I've been washing and drying on the hedge, there? Rev. Oh, certainly. IF this white benediction of the snow If never sorrow should come near thy heart, Or look for Hope's best harvest from above. Unbroken sunshine and perpetual heat Shelter no gardens; and thine eyes, my Must know what tears are, fond eyes to remain. THE story is told of a Western woman who freely used her tongue to the scandal of others, and made a confession to the priest of what she had done. He gave her a ripe thistle-top, and told her to go about in various directions and scatter the seeds one by one. Molly. Was n't it the soap and wather Wondering at the penance, she obeyed, then made the linen clane, sir? Rev. Of course they did. returned and told her confessor. To her amazement, he bade her go back and gather Molly. And is n't the linen all the better the scattered seeds; and when she objected for it? Rev. Oh, no doubt of that, Molly. Molly. But not a dhrop of the soap and water stays in it. Well, sir, it's the same that it was impossible, he replied that it would be still more difficult to gather up and destroy all the evil reports which she had circulated about others. LAURA BRIDGMAN. [From a letter to the Christian Union.] charge of her, and commenced an animated conversation, by the manual alphabet, easily understood by one who has practised it; but the sleight-of-hand by which the fingers of the friendly hostess, manipulating on Laura's slender wrists, communicated with that living consciousness shut in there without one perfect sense except to taste and touch, was something mysterious, inscrutable, to my duller sense. Yet that the communication was definite, quick, incisive, so to speak, was manifest enough, for Laura's face beamed, and she was all alert. Partly by the letters and partly by signs she said a great deal to me. She "ought to be at home to be company for mother," she said; and once or twice she fashioned the word mamma very distinctly with her lips. With regard to this vocal expression, Dr. Howe says: "she has attained such facility for talking in the manual alphabet that I regret that I did not try also to teach her to speak by vocal organs or regular speech." She asked if I knew a member of her family, now dead, and said, “That was a long year after Carl died." She seemed brimming over with things to tell me, and wanted me to know about her teaching some of the blind girls to sew, which is part of her daily em 66 LAURA BRIDGMAN, Dr. Howe's pupil, born blind, deaf, and dumb, still lives at her home near the institution for the blind at South Boston. If any one supposes that by reason of her deprivation she is queer or awkward in person or manners, he is altogether in error. There is nothing at all singular in her appearance. When I entered the parlor a member of the family with whom she lives was playing on the piano, and close beside her, on a low seat, there was a very slight, very erect, quiet, self-possessed looking girl, who seemed to be listening to the music, while her hands were busy over some crocheting or similar work. She would have been taken for a guest who was nimbly fashioning some pretty article while being entertained with music. The expression of her face was bright and interesting, and one watching her satisfied look would have been slow to believe that she did not hear. The green shade over her eyes indicated that she was one of the blind. She had on a brown dress, a blue ribbon at the neck, a gold ring and chain, and a watch or locket in her belt, -a neatly-attired, genteel, lady-ployment in the school near by, and which like person, looking about thirty-five, though her age is really not far from forty-four, with soft, brown hair, smooth and fine, a well-shaped head, fair complexion, and handsome features. That was Laura. Dr. Howe spoke of her as comely and refined in form and attitude, graceful in motion and positively handsome in features," and of her "expressive face," which, indeed, in sensibility and intelligence is above instead of below the average. As soon as the information was conveyed to her that she had a visitor from her native State, who knew people in the town where her nearest kindred live, she came swiftly across the room, leaving her work on the centre-table as she passed it, and grasped my hand, laughing with the eagerness of a child. Then she sat down face to face with the lady who has she takes great pride in, threading the needles and making her pupils pick out their work if it is not done nicely. She is a good seamstress herself, does fancy work, and can run a sewing machine. Next, she caught hold of my hand and led me up two flights of stairs to her room to show me her things, but the first movement was to take me to the window, where she patted on the glass and signified that I should see what a pleasant prospect there was from it. And there she, who had never seen or heard, waited by my side in great content while I looked and listened. The sky was blue, with white clouds floating over it, and birds were singing. It was a perfect April day, but she could get no consciousness of it except in the softness of the air. Yet her face was radiant, and she stood there as though she |