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JANE CONQUEST.

About the time of Christmas

(Not many months ago), When the sky was black

With wrath and rack,

And the earth was white with snow,

When loudly rang the tumult

Of winds and waves of strife,

In her home by the sea,
With her babe on her knee,
Sat Harry Conquest's wife.

And he was on the ocean,
Although she knew not where,
For never a lip

Could tell of the ship,

To lighten her heart's despair.
And her babe was fading and dying;
The pulse in the tiny wrist

Was all but still,

And the brow was chill,

And pale as the white sea mist.

Jane Conquest's heart was hopeless;
She could only weep and pray
That the Shepherd mild
Would take her child
Without a pain away.

The night was dark and darker,
And the storm grew stronger still,
And buried in deep

And dreamless sleep.

Lay the hamlet under the hill.

The fire was dead on the hearthstone Within Jane Conquest's room,

And still sat she,

With her babe on her knee, At prayer amid the gloom. When, borne above the tempest, A sound fell on her ear,

Thrilling her through,

For well she knew

"Twas the voice of mortal fear. And a light leaped in at the lattice, Sudden and swift and red;

Crimsoning all,

The whited wall,

And the floor, and the roof o'erhead.

For one brief moment, heedless
Of the babe upon her knee,
With the frenzied start
Of a frightened heart,
Upon her feet rose she.

And through the quaint old casement
She looks upon the sea;

Thank God that the sight
She saw that night

So rare a sight should be!

Hemmed in by many a billow
With mad and foaming lip,
A mile from shore,
Or hardly more,
She saw a gallant ship,
Aflame from deck to topmast,
Aflame from stem to stern;
For there seemed no speck

On all that wreck

Where the fierce fire did not burn: Till the night was like a sunset, And the sea like a sea of blood, And the rocks and shore Were bathed all o'er

And drenched with the gory flood.

She looked and looked, till the terror
Went creeping through every limb;
And her breath came quick,
And her heart grew sick,

And her sight grew dizzy and dim; And her lips had lost their utterance For she tried but could not speak; And her feelings found

No channel of sound
In prayer, or sob, or shriek.

Once more that cry of anguish

Thrilled through the tempest's strife,

And it stirred again

In heart and brain
The active thinking life;

And the light of an inspiration
Leaped to her brightened eye,

And on lip and brow
Was written now

A purpose pure and high.

Swiftly she turns, and softly
She crosses the chamber floor,

And faltering not,

In his tiny cot

She laid the babe she bore.
And then with a holy impulse,

She sank to her knees, and made
A lowly prayer,

In the silence there,

And this was the prayer she prayed:

"O Christ, who didst bear the scourging,
And who now dost wear the crown,
I at thy feet,

O True and Sweet,
Would lay my burden down.
Thou bad'st me love and cherish
The babe Thou gavest me,
And I have kept
Thy word, nor stept
Aside from following Thee.

"And lo! my boy is dying!
And vain is all my care;
And my burden's weight
Is very great,

Yea, greater than I can bear!
O Lord, Thou know'st what peril
Doth threat these poor men's lives,
And I, a woman,

Most weak and human,

Do plead for their waiting wives.
Thou can'st not let them perish;
Up, Lord, in Thy strength, and save
From the scorching breath

Of this terrible death
On this cruel winter wave.
Take thou my babe and watch it,
No care is like to thine;

And let Thy power,
In this perilous hour,
Supply what lack is mine."

And so her prayer she ended,
And rising to her feet,

Gave one long look

At the cradle nook

Where the child's faint pulses beat; And then with softest footsteps

Retrod the chamber floor,

And noiselessly groped

For the latch and oped
And crossed the cottage door.

And through the tempest bravely
Jane Conquest fought her way,
By snowy deep

And slippery steep

To where her duty lay.

And she journeyed onward, breathless,
And weary and sore and faint,
Yet forward pressed

With the strength, and the zest,
And the ardor of a saint.

Solemn, and weird, and lonely,
Amid its countless graves,

Stood the old, old gray church
On its tall rock perch,

Secure from the sea and its waves;
And beneath its sacred shadow

Lay the hamlet safe and still;
For however the sea

And the wind might be,
There was quiet under the hill.

Jane Conquest reached the churchyard,
And stood by the old church door,
But the oak was tough

And had bolts enough,

And her strength was frail and poor; So she crept through a narrow window, And climbed the belfry stair,

And grasped the rope,

Sole cord of hope,

For the mariners in despair.

And the wild wind helped her bravely, And she wrought with an earnest will, And the clamorous bell

Spoke out right well

To the hamlet under the hill.
And it roused the slumbering fishers,
Nor its warning task gave o'er

Till a hundred fleet

And eager feet

Were hurrying to the shore.

And then it ceased its ringing,

For the woman's work was done,

And many a boat

That was now afloat
Showed man's work had begun.

But the ringer in the belfry

Lay motionless and cold,

With the cord of hope,
The church-bell rope,
Still in her frozen hold.

How long she lay it boots not,
But she woke from her swoon at last,
In her own bright room,

To find the gloom,

And the grief, and the peril past,
With the sense of joy within her,
And the Christ's sweet presence near;
And friends around,

And the cooing sound

Of her babe's voice in her ear.

And they told her all the story,
How a brave and gallant few
O'ercame each check,

And reached the wreck,
And saved the hopeless crew.
And how the curious sexton
Had climbed the belfry stair,
And of his fright

When, cold and white,
He found her lying there;
And how, when they had borne her
Back to her home again,

The child she left

With a heart bereft

Of hope, and weary with pain,
Was found within his cradle
In a quiet slumber laid;

With a peaceful smile

On its lips the while,

And the wasting sickness stayed.

And she said, “”Twas the Christ who watched it,

And brought it safely through;"

And she praised His truth

And His tender ruth

Who had saved her darling too.

VALLEY FORGE.-HENRY ARMITT BROWN.

Extract from an oration delivered upon the occasion of the first Centenary Anniversary of the Encampment at Valley Forge.

MY COUNTRYMEN:-The century that has gone by has changed the face of nature and wrought a revolution in the habits of mankind. We stand to-day at the dawn of an ex

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