And the child's face pales with terror,

And his blossoms drop to the ground. He is up the bank in a moment,

And, stealing through the sand,
He sees a stream not yet so large

As his slender, childish hand.
Tis a leak in the dike! He is but a boy,

Unused to fearful scenes;
But, young as he is, he has learned to know

The dreadful thing that means.
A leak in the dike! The stoutest heart

Grows faint that cry to hear,
And the bravest man in all the land

Turns white with mortal fear.
For he knows the smallest leak may grow

To a flood in a single night;
And he knows the strength of the cruel sea

When loosed in its angry might.
And the boy! He has seen the danger,

And, shouting a wild alarm,
He forces back the weight of the sea

With the strength of his single arm!
He listens for the joyful sound

Of a footstep passing nigh;
And lays his ear to the ground to catch

The answer to his cry.
And he hears the rough winds blowing,

And the waters rise and fall,
But never an answer comes to him,

Save the echo of his call.
He sees no hope, no succor,

His feeble voice is lost; Yet what shall he do but watch and wait,

Though he perish at his post. So, faintly calling and crying

Till the sun is under the sea,
Crying and moaning till the stars

Come out for company;
He thinks of his brother and sister,

Asleep in their safe, warm bed;
He thinks of his father and mother,

Of himself as dying--and dead; And of how, when the night is over,

They must come and find him at last: But he never thinks he can leave the place

Where duty holds him fast. The good dame in the cottage

Is up and astir with the light,

For the thought of her little Peter

Has been with her all night.
And now she watches the pathway,

As yester-eve she had done;
But what does she see so strange and black

Against the rising sun?
Her neighbors are bearing between them

Something straight to her door;
Her child is coming home, but not

As he ever came before.
He is dead!” she cries; “my darling!

And the startled father hears,
And comes and looks the way she looks

And fears the thing she fears:
Till a glad shout from the bearers

Thrills the stricken man and wife-
"Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,

And God has saved his life !"
So, there in the morning sunshine

They knelt about the boy;
And every head was bared and bent

In tearful, reverent joy.
'Tis many a year since then; but still,

When the sea roars like a flood,
Their boys are taught what a boy can do

Who is brave and true and good.
For every man in that country

Takes his son by the hand,
And tells him of little Peter,

Whose courage saved the land.
They have many a valiant hero

Remembered through the years;
But never one whose name so oft

Is named with loving tears.
And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,

And told the child on the knee,
So long as the dikes of Holland

Divide the land from the sea.

THE SINGER'S ALMS.

In Lyons, in the mart of that French town,

Years since, a woman, leading a fair child, Craved a small alms of one who, walking doirn

The thoroughfare, caught the child's glance and smiled

To see behind its eyes a noble soul;
He paused, but found he had no coin to dele.
His guardian angel warned him not to lose

This chance of pearl to do another good;
So, he waited, sorry to refuse

The asked-for penny, then aside he stood, And, with his hat held as by limb the nest, He covered his kind face and sang his best. The sky was blue above, and all the lane

Of commerce where the singer stood was filled, And many paused, and, listening, paused again

To hear the voice that through and through them thrilled; I think the guardian angel helped along That cry for pity woven in a song. The singer stood between the beggars there

Before the church; and overhead the spire,
A slim, perpetual finger in the air

Held toward heaven, land of the heart's desire,
As though an angel, pointing up, had said,
“Yonder a crown awaits the singer's head.”
The hat of its stamped brood was emptied soon

Into the woman's lap, who drenched with tears
Her kiss upon the hand of help. 'Twas noon,

And noon in her glad heart drove forth her tears.
The singer, pleased, passed on, and softly thought
“Men will not know by whom this deed was wrought."
But when at night he came upon the stage,

Cheer after cheer went up from that wild throng,
And flowers rained on him. Nought could assuage

The tumult of the welcome, save the song
That for the beggars he had sung that day
While standing in the city's busy way.
Oh! cramped and narrow is the man who lives

Only for self, and pawns his years away
For gold, nor knows the joy a good deed gives,

But feels his heart shrink slowly, day by day,
And dies at last, his band of fate outrun;
No high aim sought, no worthy action done.
But brimmed with molten brightness like a star,

And broad and open as the sea or sky,
The generous heart. Its kind deeds shine afar,

And glow in gold in God's great book on high ;
And he who does what good he can each day
Makes smooth and green, and strews with flowers, his way.

THE WATER-MILL.-D. C. McCallum.

Oh! listen to the water-mill, through all the live-long day, As the clicking of the wheels wears hour by hour av. ; How languidly the autumn wind doth stir the widered

leaves, As on the field the reapers sing, while binding up the

sheaves! A solemn proverb strikes my mind, and as a spell is cast, * The inill will never grind again with water that is past." The summer winds revive no more leaves strewn o'er earth

and main, The sickle never more will reap the yellow garnered grain; The rippling stream flows ever on, aye tranquil, deep and

still, But never glideth back again to busy water-mill. The solemn proverb speaks to all, with meaning deep and vast, "The mill will never grind again with water that is past." Oh! clasp the proverb to thy soul, dear loving heart and true, For golden years are fleeting by, and youth is passing too; Ah! learn to make the most of life, nor lose one happy day, For time will ne'er return sweet joys neglected, thrown away; Nor leave one tender word unsaid, thy kindness sow broad

cast"The mill will never grind again with water that is past.” Oh! the wasted hours of life, that have swiftly drifted by, Alas! the good we might have done, all gone without a sigh; Love that we might once have saved by a single kindly word, Thoughts conceived but ne'er expressed, perishing unpennel,

unheard. Oh! take the lesson to thy soul, forever clasp it fast, "The mill will never grind again with water that is past.” Work on while yet the sun doth shine, thou man of strength

and will, The streamlet ne'er doth useless glide by clicking waterNor wait until to-morrow's light beams brightly on thy way, For all that thou canst call thine own, lies in the phrase

"to-day:" Possessions, power, and blooming health, must all be lost at

mill;

Soon will this fight of life be o'er, and earth recede from

view, And heaven in all its glory shine where all is pure and true. Ah! then thou'lt see more clearly still the proverb deep and

vast. "The mill will never grind again with water that is past.”

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.-J. G. HOLLAND. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching; how many of them? Sixty thousand! Sixty full regiments, every man of which will, before twelve months shall have completed their course, lie down in the grave of a drunkard! Every year during the past decade has witnessed the same sacrifice; and sixty regiments stand behind this army ready to take its place. It is to be recruited from our children and our children's children. Tramp, tramp, tramp-the sounds ome to us in the echoes of the footsteps of the army just expired; tramp, tramp, tramp-the earth shakes with the tread of the host now passing; tramp, tramp, tramp-comes to us from the camp of the recruits. A great tide of life flows resistlessly to its death. What in God's name are they fighting for? The privilege of pleasing an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of filling sixty thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses with felons, of detracting from the productive industries of the country, of ruining fortunes and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul in hell before their time.

The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every department of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So lorig as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condition, it will cost America the sacrifice of sixty thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable froin the cause. The cost to the country of the liquor traffic is a sum so stupendous that any figures which we should dare to give would convict us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of industry sacrificed, the