spent in a happy home, where peace, purity, and cheerfulness always found a dwelling-place, and no rough wind had touched her until years after she had given her hand to the one who won her trusting girlish heart; then the shadow crept in, gradually growing denser and darker, until she struggled helplessly against the fearful gloom which enshrouded her, and, mourning, turned from her broken dream of happiness in despair. Two years after her marriage, a little son came to gladden the hearts of its parents, and their cup of happiness seemed full to overflowing. Now her little one is laid in the quiet grave, the blue eyes and dimpled limbs at rest till the great resurrection; and none know how the mother's heart aches and yearns for the clinging little arms and the pattering of tiny feet; none witness the bitter tears wrung from her inmost soul, as she looks with loving eyes and brooding pain at the little half-worn frocks, shoes, and toys laid by in the drawer, which no eye but hers ever beholds. Time was when another heart shared her burdens, and a manly love and tenderness had aided in soothing her grief; but now she was alone, alone to bear it all. Where was he? Wait in that desolate room, and you shall know.

Hour after hour drags wearily away, and the quiet watcher pulls together the few dying embers, reflecting with a sigh that there is no more fuel in the house, and her fingers cannot accomplish so much of the unending stitching when they are numb and blue with the cold. But the time of keen anguish and pain is past with her now, and she only wonders, with a vague sense of unrest, how long this state of things will last: hope is almost banished from her heart, and despair sits, like a dread sentinel, upon her hearthstone. Oh! what has wrought this fearful desolation ? Surely some fiend incarnate must have stepped over that threshold to work such utter devastation and ruin. She looks drearily round the room, and gazes vacantly with her mournful eyes at its contents-a broken table, two chairs, a stool, and a bedstead over which is spread a

patchwork counterpane, which her own deft fingers had sewn to cover the worn things beneath. And this is all that remains of her once prettily decorated and well-furnished home. One by one she had parted with each article of furniture to keep the wolf from the threshold; but now all her efforts seemed in vain, for day by day she grows weaker, and her hand now refuses to accomplish the work that must be done to prevent starvation and death entering the door. Hark! the sound of a footstep falls on her ear; not the one she used to lovelight, springing, and bouyant,—but an unsteady, slouching, straggling step, proclaiming the drunkard's return. He enters, and, with a harsh, discordant laugh, asks for "brandy." The woman's face does not even change its expression! No, for it is, alas! an oft-repeated request; and the disfigured, debauched, and wretched man reels on to the bed, and sleeps the inebriate's sleep. Ask her how he fell. I will tell you her story as I heard it from her own lips.

"When I married Harry, he was so handsome and kind—ah, you need not look at him now, and think it impossible; that isn't my Harry lying there, but the thing into which drink has transfigured him-I thought I could never know greater happiness. He had a deep rich, tenor voice, and night after night we sang together, or took walks in the quiet country lanes, until I fancied that nothing but death could ever spoil our treasured happiness and home. Then when Baby came Harry was so proud of him that he said he must try and get a situation in the town, that our boy might be educated well. I willingly acceded, fondly thinking that our happiness was now even more firmly secured than before, and twelve months after, we came here. At first we lived in that pretty house in S street, with every comfort gathered round us; but when we had been there a few months Harry commenced staying out late at night, first making office work his excuse, and then the society of friends; but when I asked him to bring them home and spend the evening here, he laughed at what he termed my silly

notions, saying, 'A man couldn't always be tied to a woman's apronstring, even if she were his wife." Time passed on, and then, night after night, he came in flushed and excited with wine. I pleaded, coaxed, and remonstrated with him; but he turned a deaf ear to all my entreaties. Of course, our income could not stand the continual drain, and week after week he gave me less for household expenses, till, to keep my baby alive, I parted with several articles of furniture to buy food. When he

found what I had done, he, for the first time, swore an awful oath, declaring that he had given a bill of sale on everything in the house. A week after, his employer gave him notice, and shortly he was turned adrift. At the same time our baby was ill, and the doctor said nothing but nourishing things could keep him alive. I sold my watch and weddingring-my other jewellery had gone before-but the money was spent all too soon, and my baby, my darling, daily wasted, until his little blue eyes closed in death, and I thanked God that his sufferings were ended. While he was lying in his little coffin, the man holding the bill, hearing that Harry was out of employment, came and took our furniture, compassionately leaving us the bedstead, chairs, and table. I would not give my child a pauper's burial, and my husband dared me to ask my relations for help, so I sold enough of my wardrobe to bury my darling. Then we lived, or rather, almost starved, for nearly a year, Harry drinking and repenting, until I lost all faith in him. Nearly a year dragged on, and then we received a letter from our family solicitor, stating that my father was dead, He had died suddenly-was well in the morning, and sleeping his last sleep at night. We went home, and when we came into possession of my father's well-stocked farm, Harry again renewed his vows, and for a time all went well, until the fear of his again falling became more dim and indistinct. One day, when he returned from market, I went to the end of the lane as usual to meet him, and he came staggering along, almost

of

grovelling in the dust. I turned and fled into the house, and God help all those who endure what I endured that night! I think my sun earthly hope set then, for that sight blackened my whole life. It was the beginning of the old, wretched life, only, if possible, a wretchedness increased tenfold, and a degradation deeper and more intense. I took these things with me (pointing to the furniture) when we went home, and, when everything else on the farm was sold, I saved these as relics of a happier time. Drink has done it all! Drink has killed my baby, ruinedoh, how irretrievably!-its father, and wrecked my whole life. Do you wonder I don't weep? Ah, God grant you may never live to know that dull aching and anguish which tears will not relieve!"

And she turned, with a convulsive shudder, and gazed, with a gleam of the old tenderness, on him who so ruthlessly had dispelled her life's happiness.

Six months after I saw a pauper's funeral leaving the house, and heard the neighbours saying, as they gathered round the door-"A good thing for her, poor thing; she has known real hard times of it!"

I saw a man leaning against the window, with white face and sunken eyes, and, as I looked upon him, I said, "Whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him."

MARY BASKIN.

Passing Cbents.

MR. THOMAS L. PLANT, of Moseley, near Birmingham, lately forwarded an interesting letter to the editor of the Times on the temperature of the past twenty years. "The average annual temperature has been 48.2, the same as the mean temperature of October. July was the hottest month in eleven of the twenty summers, August eight, and June one. January was the coldest in eleven winters, December five, and February four. The mean temperature of the five months ending March 31st in the twenty years, is 38.9 deg. During

this long period (November to March inclusive) nature is asleep, so far as vegetation is concerned, and is not again brought into active life until under the influence of improved temperature in April or May. The advent of Spring is most uncertain, April being sometimes a really wintry month; this was the case in 1837, 1849, 1861, 1877, 1879. The mean temperature of April 1837 was only 38.5 degrees. Since 1860 we have had three severe winters. The first was in 1870-71; the others were in 187879, 1879-80. Two consecutive winters of great severity seldom occur; the winter of 1878-79 was the most protracted of modern date. In the twenty years we had only four dry, hot summers, and good harvests1863, 1864,1868, 1870. All these were excellent seasons. Nothing has since equalled them, so that it is ten years since the last good harvest." Yet, for all the ways of Providence, shall we not continually bless the Lord?

SIR WM. HARCOURT, the Home Secretary, has been delivering most telling addresses at the opening of a New Coffee Tavern at Derby. The Judges are in the habit of saying strong things on the drinking habits of the people; but their observations only apply to any section of the country they may have visited. Sir Wm. Harcourt speaks as having the matter before him for the whole country. Sir Wm. said: "Nobody, especially any one who, in a public situation, is connected with the control in any way of the police or crime of this country, can be otherwise than most deeply impressed-more deeply day by day-with the immense and intolerable evils of intemperance. The histories of misery and crime that come before me are more terrible than those ever painted in any romance. Although I am not in a position to lay before you at the moment what I consider would be an adequate cure for such a condition of things, you will not, I am sure, think that I am insensible to the evil, or otherwise than most deeply anxious to see if anything can be done to remedy it." In the course of these addresses, Sir Wm. gave a most affecting statement of a man who had just

SPEAKING to a meeting of Teachers of the British and Foreign School Society, Mr. Mundella, the VicePresident of the Committee of Council, urged the encouragement of thrift. After the Franco-German War, the French nation soon recuperated the immense sum they were called upon to pay. M. Gambetta lately remarked: "I believe, in a great measure, the strength of the French nation is in the thrifty habits of the French women." Mr. Mundella thought it was possible for the teachers, as a voluntary act, to inculcate the principle of thrift in the four millions of children with whom they came into contact; and by the use of the postage-stamp system, convert each school into a penny savings' bank. If he could relieve them of some of their duties, to enable them to carry this out, he would gladly do He trusted they would remember that they were doing something in forming the destiny of the greatest nation upon earth.

In reply to resolutions of the Pennsylvanian Peace Society, forwarded to Mr. John Bright, the Right Hon. gentleman replied: "Arbitration is often good, and may be, and I doubt not will be, more and more frequently adopted; but there are cases, and not a few, when it cannot be called in with any advantage. What is wanted is a stronger sense of the evil of war, and of the crime of which it is the cause, and a desire on the part of all Christian men to suppress it.

Then men will look on disputed questions without passion, and will strive to settle them without bloodshed, and will refuse to make the tremendous sacrifices which wars involve, at the bidding of ambitious and wicked rulers and statesmen."

EVERY month will draw us on nearer the time of the meeting of the proposed Universal Congress of Methodists, to be held in September, in City Road Chapel. With Mr. Wm. McArthur as Lord Mayor, and