"WAIF WOODLAND."-We are sure that many of our readers will thank us for placing before them in this number the modest, gentle, womanly face of "Waif Woodland," who, for many years, sang to them some of the sweetest and purest poetry that has adorned our pages. It was never our pleasure to meet our contributor, but as we read her poetry we built up our ideal, and are glad to find it realized in the portrait that we give of her. It is that of a genuine woman, beaming with maternal and wifely love, satisfied with her home, feeling that she was filling one of earth's highest places in blessing her household, and shedding around her a silent but powerful influence, refining and blessing all who knew her. No lines of restless ambition mar the patient restfulness of those features; she sang for neither fame nor money, but because the song was in her and welled up from a loving, thankful, satisfied heart. She was a sufferer, too, yet drank the cup with patient submission. She has gone to sing sweeter songs among the angels, for which even her picture tells us she was ripe and ready.

The proper name of "Waif Woodland" was Mrs. Caroline P. Blair; she was a resident of the town of Barker, in New York. Her life was marked by no extraordinary features; the lot was such as falls to the common heritage of men and women. She received a good education, commenced the career of teaching, early gave her heart to Christ, and continued a faithful and devout Christian till the Master called her higher. When about twenty years of age she was married to Mr. A. E. Blair, who, with seven children, five of them members of the Church of her early choice, still survives her. She was a sufferer almost from the time of her marriage till her death, yielding at last, like so many other gifted ones, to that fell destroyer, consumption. Her poetry breathes always the spirit of her life, indicating deep-toned piety, sanctified and refined by suffering. We bid farewell to the gifted writer, and sorrowfully dismiss the name and poetry of Waif Woodland from our pages, by giving two of her poems which she finished only a short time before her death, one of which seems almost prophetic of the coming change.

THE SILVER CUP.

Bring your uncle the little escritoir,
Alice, that stands on the oaken drawer!

There. You may unlock it-my hands, you know,
Are weak as a woman's, and tremble so.
Carefully, child! these are links of our fate,
The silver cup, and its pitiful freight.

They are here-all here-there is just a score
Of pale-pink leaves-neither less nor more;
From a tropical land beyond the sea
Your father, my darling, sent them to me;
Like a sigh borne back from a distant land,
Or the last cold touch of a "vanished hand."

You can judge of the night-little I thought
Then of the change which its hours had wrought;
My hair-ah me! 't was a terrible blow-
When the morning broke, was like drifted snow;
And the lines which fell on my youthful brow
Were as deep and long as you see them now.

The ship was stanch, and your father, they said,
"Had skill that would honor an older head;
The ocean for him held its beaten track

Twelve months, and Alice should welcome him back."
Tears darkened her vision, but Hope, too fond
Of brightness, was gilding the dim Beyond.

Bertha, my blossom, too fragile for earth,
Imbibing heaven's purity even from birth,
Reluctantly silenced her heart's protest,
And yielded to try the voyage in quest
Of firmer health. But, alas, for the day!
When Bertha, my beautiful, sailed away.
It was Spring-time-I shall never forget,
There were dews on the early violet,
And the wild white-pink and the arbutus
Smiled the saddest, tearfulest smile for us,
Remembering afterward, I could see
How Nature foreshadowed our destiny.
The sky's soft blue was o'erclouded, and thick
Cold mists hung heavily over the creek,
Whose waters swept with a foam, and a surge,
And a sound, which seemed like a funeral dirge,
But the slow hours passed, and day followed day,
Until weeks and months were worn away.

At length, when Summer was scenting the air
With its new-mown hay and its fruitage rare,
A missive was put in my hands, which bore
The name of a port on a foreign shore.
So fierce was the tumult which shook my heart
That I scarcely could tear the seal apart.

A message from her! just a few sweet words,
Like the first glad ripple of early birds;
Or a carol of Hope, so fresh and wild,
That I wept for joy-like the veriest child.
But a silence came, and a grave meantime
Took its tender trust in a distant clime.

Ah, Alice! we had not woven our plight
In a form of words; but the stars of night
Knew it, and so did the flowers, and the trees,
For Nature had whispered it on the breeze;
The path was not hidden which we had trod,
The angels saw it-and so did God.

Now, dear, you raay gather the rose-leaves up,
And put them again in the silver cup;
They came when the Autumn winds were sighing,
The rose she held in her hand while dying!

A score of years-they are faded and torn,
They came to me, child, the night you were born.

Two gifts on my heart the angels had laid,
One from the dying-one from the dead!
These, from the hand which was wasting to dust,
You, darling-a babe-to be held in trust
For him-my brother-for this they said
Was your mother's prayer on her dying bed.

Alas for the night! just over the way

They showed me the room where his dead wife lay,

Then they told of the new-born babe, for whom
She had given her own sweet life and bloom;
But the tidings which came an hour before
Had stunned me-I could not suffer more.

They were sisters, Alice, and both were gone !
I remember it all, the day's chill dawn,
The empty world, the discomforting sky,
And the ominous rooks that flitted by:
Though I felt no pain, and could shed no tears,
That night had accomplished the work of years.
Yes, dear, you will put our treasures away,
My heart has been pleading for them all day!
Grown weary, perhaps, yet loving its cross,
Your father was never to feel his loss;
No wearing unrest-no pain of rent ties,
Only a struggle and happy surprise.

But the sea is deep and its waves run wild,
So I keep the leaves, and I keep thee, child!
For a tattered sail, and a drifting spar,
And this silver cup, which came from afar,
And a sailor's word, and a tempest's frown,
Are all that told where the ship went down.

IMMORTALIS.

"Passing away !" this solemn truth

Can never more be banished!
One after one, the bright young dreams,
The glowing hopes and golden gleams

Of youth have swiftly vanished.

How strange they look, these silv'ry threads,
Amid my tresses shining!

A furrow here and there which fell
As if by stealth, yet loudly tell
Of life's too quick declining.

And yet it seems but yesterday

Since I, a child, was straying,

With birds and flowers, in thoughtless glee,
Or kneeling at my mother's knee,

The nightly prayer was saying.

Or later still, another scene

On Memory's canvas waking—
A timid bird, mid smiles and tears,
With budding hopes and chilling fears,
From the home-circle breaking.

A changeful sky, a checkered path,
By light and darkness shaded;
O life, how strange a thing thou art!
But stranger still the human heart

When the frail form has faded.
Buoyant, and bright, and youthful still
Its unquenched fires are burning,
Earth's withered blossoms only feed
The deathless flame, and heavenward lead
The spirit's quenchless yearning.

DEATH OF DR. M'CLINTOCK.—The Church has been suddenly called upon to mourn the loss of one of her most gifted sons. On Friday, March 4th, Rev. John M'Clintock, D. D., LL. D., died, after a very brief illness, of typhoid fever, at his home in the President's house of Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, New Jersey. It was startling intelligence even for his nearest friends, many of whom had only a few days before been enjoying his genial presence and society, while to the Church at large the announcement of his illness and of his death was almost simultaneous. His loss to the Church is among the heaviest of the many good and strong men she has been recently called to dismiss from the

earthly struggles to the heavenly rewards. Few men had won so many friends, few possessed such commanding talents and such varied abilities, few had filled so many posts of honor and usefulness, few will leave behind them so large a gap and so hard to fill.

Dr. M'Clintock was born in Philadelphia, in the year 1814, and, therefore, had only reached the ripe age of fifty-six, giving promise of many more years of usefulness to the Church. He was of Irish parentage, and possessed the warm heart and enthusiastic nature of the Celtic stock. He experienced religion early in life, and maintained an unwavering Christian faith amid the temptations of a varied literary career, and a devout Christian heart amid the seductions of a varied social life. He pursued his collegiate course at the University of Pennsylvania, in his native city, and graduated in 1835. He soon after entered the traveling ministry in New Jersey, and was first appointed to Jersey City. He was then elected to a professorship in Dickinson College, Carlisle, where he remained about ten years. In 1848 he was elected editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review, in which position he remained for eight years, till 1856. From 1857 to 1859 he was pastor of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church in New York city, and near the close of 1859 he went to Paris to take charge of the American chapel in that city. He was there during all the hottest part of our recent war, and rendered incalculable service to his country by his inflexible loyalty, and by his eloquent defense of the Government, both in France and England, against the mistakes and prejudices of European and English aristocracy. He returned in 1864, and retired for rest and to prosecute his literary labors to a country residence, near New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1868 he was called to Drew Theological Seminary, where he closed his active and faithful career.

Dr. M'Clintock was a greater literary worker than his published volumes would indicate, as the great work of his life, which has consumed years in its preparation, in association with Dr. Strong, is yet unfinished, the Theological and Biblical Cyclopedia. Besides, he was a very large contributor to his own periodical while editor of the Quarterly. In conjunction with Professor Blumenthal he prepared a translation of Neander's Life of Christ, and with Dr. Crooks, a series of Latin and Greek elementary books. A series of Letters on the Catholic question was also issued in a volume entitled, "Temporal Power of the Pope." He was a great and good man ; ripe as a scholar, eloquent as a preacher and speaker, liberal, yet evangelical as a Christian, genial as a friend, he will be greatly missed from the Church and the world.

DEATH OF BISHOP THOMSON.-And still again Death has thrust in his sickle and cut down one of our richest and ripest sheaves. On the evening of Tuesday, March 22d, while in Jersey City awaiting the arrival of the Bishop who was to preside over our Conference, a telegraphic dispatch informed us of

the sudden death of our beloved Superintendent, who had that morning died of typhoid pneumonia at Wheeling, Western Virginia, where he had been obliged to stop on his way to preside at the session of the Newark Conference. We felt as if we had lost a dear personal friend. Only a few days before we had been in consultation with him on some of his literary plans and purposes for the future. Now his work was ended, and the laborer had suddenly gone to rest and reward. We draped the Church in mourning, opened our Conference with devout prayers to God for his blessing on his Church and on the family of our dear Bishop, renewed our own vows to live more for God and nearer to heaven, and under the superintendence of Bishop Ames pursued our Conference business with the sadness and solemnity of our affliction resting upon us.

Our readers will find an excellent sketch of the Bishop in the March number of the Repository for 1865, and also a very fine portrait. We can only introduce here an outline of his useful and active life. Edward Thomson was born at Portsea, a suburb of Portsmouth, England, in October, 1810. His parents belonged to the wealthier middle class, the family being remotely connected with that of James Thomson, the poet. The circumstances of the family | secured him the advantages of early education, but in 1819, when he was in his ninth year, his father emigrated to America, and two or three years later settled at Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio. Notwithstanding the scarcity of good schools in so new a country, the boy Edward was well trained in the elements of the sciences and the classics, and ranked as a good Latinist. A scientific taste led him first to the medical profession. He received a diploma of medicine in the University of Pennsylvania in 1829 The young doctor returned to Ohio, and opened the practice of his profession at Wooster. At this time he was a skeptic in religion, with an entire disbelief in the Bible and Christianity. With several other able and skeptical young men he formed an Infidel Club, to meet weekly and seriously to read and refute the Bible. The experiment resulted in Thomson's conviction of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and this conviction, strengthened by a powerful sermon from Russel Bigelow, and by the instantaneous death by accident of a friend, resulted in his embracing the faith which he had rejected. He entered the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1833, at the age of twenty-three, began work as a minister in what was then the Ohio Conference. In 1836 he married Maria Louisa, daughter of the Hon. Mordecai Bartley, afterward Governor of Ohio.

The success of Dr. Thomson as a pulpit orator in Detroit, where he was located in 1836, forms one of the most complete and thrilling records of the Church, The family of Governor Cass, and many of the cultured and elite of the city, thronged his ministry. At the end of his first year in Detroit he was called to the Principalship of Norwalk (Ohio) Seminary, which position he occupied for eight years. By the General Conference of 1844 he was elected editor of The Ladies' Repository. In 1845 he was elected first

President of the newly founded Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, the first Methodist College in the State. He remained fifteen years, bringing the institution to the leading position it now holds in the education of the West. His success in the Presidency of that College is in many respects without a parallel in the history of the Methodist Church. In 1860 the General Conference called him to the editorship of The Christian Advocate, in New York, where he succeeded Dr. Abel Stevens, the accomplished historian of the Church. Those were stormy times when Dr. Thomson entered upon this task of editing the Advocate; the advanced wing of the antislavery party in the Church had just gained the ascendency, but the conservative party was still strong and active. But such was the ability and urbanity with which The Advocate was conducted that it came out of Dr. Thomson's hands with a larger subscription list than he found. Few religious journals in the land did the country better service during the war for the Union than The Christian Advocate.

The General Conference of 1864 elected Dr. Thomson to the Episcopacy, with Drs. Clark and Kingsley. He had been a member of every General Conference since 1840, and received the doctorate of divinity from Augusta College, Ky., in 1844, and that of laws from the Wesleyan University, Conn., in 1855. No man ever elected to the Methodist Episcopacy brought to his place a higher reputation either for learning or eloquence. His first work in his high office was to visit the Methodist Missions in Germany, Bulgaria, India, and China. The India Mission he organized into an Annual Conference. On his return he passed in review the work of the Church in California, Oregon, and the new Territories. Since that time he has been actively engaged in his portion of the home work. His first wife dying in 1863, the Bishop, three years later, married Miss Annie E. Howe, whose pen has frequently enriched our pages.

Bishop Thomson was a ripe scholar, and was possessed of a wide range of knowledge, which was always ready for use either by the pen or in the pulpit. His style as a preacher was chaste, clear, tender; his voice was not powerful nor flexible, but it sent forth living thoughts and burning words, and chained the attention of the hearer. His style as a writer is of classic beauty, simple, perspicuous, smooth, and flowing, and his essays will not suffer in comparison with the best prose compositions in our tongue. His published volumes are four; namely, "Educational Essays," "Moral and Religious Essays," "Biographical and Incidental Sketches," and "Letters from Europe." We have now in press two admirable volumes descriptive of his tour through our Oriental mission fields in India, China, and Turkey.

In the death of Bishop Thomson a noble spirit has returned to God. Pure and upright in character, wise in counsel, gentle, patient, amiable as a man and friend, careful, sympathetic, just as a presiding officer, an eloquent preacher, a classic writer, and a model Christian, his loss is great both to the Church and to the world.