The stately senate hall dissolved,

A church rose in its place,
Wherein there stood a man of God,
Dispensing words of grace.

And though he heard the solemn voice,
And saw the beard of gray,

The teacher's thought was strangely wrought:

"My yearning heart, to-day,

Wept for this youth whose wayward will
Against persuasion strove,
Compelling force, love's last resource,
To 'stablish laws of love."

The church, a phantasm, vanished soon:
What saw the teacher, then?
In classic gloom of alcoved room,
An author plied his pen.

"My idlest lad!" the teacher said,
Filled with a new surprise-
"Shall I behold his name enrolled
Among the great and wise?"

The vision of a cottage home
The teacher now descried;

A mother's face illumed the place
Her influence sanctified.

"A miracle! a miracle!

This matron, well I know,

Was but a wild and careless child,
Not half an hour ago.

"And when she to her children speaks
Of duty's golden rule,

Her lips repeat, in accents sweet,
My words to her at school."

The scene was changed again, and lo,
The school-house rude and old;
Upon the wall did darkness, fall,
The evening air was cold.

A dream!" the sleeper, waking, said,
Then paced along the floor,
And, whistling low and soft and slow,
He locked the school-house door.
And, walking home, his heart was full
Of peace and trust and love and praise;
And, singing slow and soft and low,
He murmured, "After many days."

THE SALUTATORIAN.

IN SNOWY lace and satin,

Bedecked with floral glory,

She bows, and reads, in Latin, The class salutatory.

A scarlet rose resembles
Her cheeks aglow with blushes;
Her timid bosom trembles

Like a singing hermit thrush's.
Her charming agitation,
More than any word she utters,
Captivates my admiration;

And my heart excited flutters.

Oh, fair and gentle creature,

Trained in language and belles lettres, I'm very sure no teacher

Than I can love you better.

She has won my heart completely
Spite of faults in Roman grammar,

For she smiled so very sweetly

Just because she chanced to stammer.

She's the flower of the college;

I care not, Sir Professor,

What you say about her knowledge,
She is educated,-bless her.
Though I never saw the maiden
Ere to-night, nor photo' of her,

I shall go away, heart-laden,
Her devoted slave and lover.
Come hither, gracious usher!

Carry these enraptured roses,
And give them to yon blusher,
When her salutation closes.
And, gentle roses, tarry

In her presence like a tutor,
And warn her not to marry
If her suitors do not suit her.

THE COMING MAN.

THE Coming Man I sing: the Coming Man
Evolved in nature since the world began
By Energy Divine: the Man foretold
Forevermore, whom Hope and Faith behold.
All voices shall he hear, all volumes read:
Probe to the heart of every code and creed;
Cut uncut pages of Creation's book;
In life itself for life's deep secrets look;
Intent his heart and vigilant his brain
The seventh essence of the truth to gain.
He shall be humble, yet supremely bold
The scroll of Time's experience to unfold:
Where Science lifts her daring flambeau high
He greets the glowing torch with fearless eye;
Where, past the known, Religion wings her

flight

His solemn gaze pursues her starry light.

Not knowledge only enters in the plan
And consummation of the Coming Man,
And not belief alone, however true:
The best is not to rest, it is to do;
The Coming Man shall be a man of deeds
Employing substance and supplying needs.
His wisest word shall bear a fitting act,
And all his speculation bloom to fact;
The goodness of his ethics he shall prove
By logical results of active love.

THE VENAL VOTE.

AND thou didst sell thy vote, and thou didst buy!
Contempt disdains to point at such as ye.
Slink from the sight of freemen-slink and die.
Name not the name of Holy Liberty.

Stain not your flag by glancing at its stars.
Ye are polluted by a shameful crime;
Ye have no right but right to prison bars:
Go! branded on the forehead for all time.

TO MY WIFE.

WISE, noble, loved and loving wife,

These heart-born songs, a gift, I bring To thee, whose deeds, thy muses, sing The poem of a perfect life.

EMERSON.

The Transcendentalist-he now transcends
The cloud of death to join immortal friends.
The Saadi of the West, the Saint, the Sage,
The north-sprung Plato of an un-Greek age,
Hath changed his habitation. Lo! the shore
Of tine and matter bears his form no more.
On earth he has become that sacred thing
Of living Book for mankind's bettering;
A Book immortal, yet his other ghost
Takes note authentic of the unknown coast.
-The Concord Seer.

GIRLHOOD.

A charm attends her everywhere;

A sense of beauty;

Care smiles to see her free of care;

The hard heart loves her nnaware;

Age pays her duty.

She is protected by the sky;

Good spirits tend her;

Her innocence is panoply;

God's wrath must on the miscreant lie, Who dares offend her.

-The School Girl.

LAURA JACINTA RITTENHOUSE. THE subject of this sketch, Mrs. Laura J. Rit

tenhouse, née Arter, was born in 1841, in an humble but well-provided home in Pulaski County, Illinois, on the crest of forest-crowned hills overlooking the waters of the beautiful and usually placid Ohio river. The strong natural endowments of her parents (Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Arter) were transmitted to the child. Her opportunities to improve these qualities were few and poor, but as good as the sparcely settled country afforded.

On December 31, 1863, Miss Arter was married to Mr. Wood Rittenhouse, a prosperous merchant and honored citizen of Cairo, Ill. She has lived very happily with him, and is the mother of a bright girl and four studious, industrious and promising boys.

For many years after her marriage, the cares of home and the training of her children occupied Mrs. Rittenhouse's time so fully that her literary work was almost abandoned, but for the past two or three years she has had a few hours occasionally to devote to her pen, and that she improves these intervals the columns of many magazines and papers abundantly testify.

A woman pure and fine of character, unflinching in principle, strong in her love of truth and justice, generous, warm-hearted, magnetic, cheery and gifted with large executive power, she has been a natural leader among her kind, first in all benevolent and social enterprises, a tireless worker for home and church and fellow-kind. Her warmest interest has, for years, been given to the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and for that body and its great cause she has worked and written unceasingly.

Although Mrs. Rittenhouse is the author of a number of poems, her best efforts are her stories. She possesses the peculiar faculty of clothing everyday and even commonplace incidents in most attractive garb. She never drifts into the unreasonably sensational. She invests all the topics with which she deals and all the plots she constructs with rare interest to the reader, and her style is at once healthful and elevating. M. B. H.

IN THE COUNTRY.

IN GORGEOUS chaplets on the trees,
No longer flame-like leaves are hung,

And crystal ices flash out where

The mellow fruits of autumn clung. The cedars droop their stately heads,

Bowed down with diamonds pure and bright, And fleecy robes have draped the earth Where flowed the golden summer light.

The wild-briar twines its thorny lengths
Through the rail-fences, rough and old,
And in the fields the dead stalks stand,

Where gleamed the autumn's harvest gold. Within the woods no more the birds

With flutt'ring wings the green leaves stir, And 'round the hives no more the bees Are buzzing with their drowsy whirr.

The royal lily pallid lies,

The frost drank up the roses' blood,
And all the dainty flowers fled

Before the winter's chilling flood.
No clover-breath makes sweet the air,
The moss is covered o'er with snow,
And only scarlet berries flash

Where blushing sweet-briars used to grow.

The roads that wound in summer time,
Like yellow ribbons through the shade
Of forest trees, now seem to be

So many bands of ermine made;
And all athwart the western sky

The rose-tinged clouds are thickly spread; Fold after fold with silv'ry fringe,

Is drawn in festoons overhead.

And in the midst the old house stands,

The dear old house, my home no more; And girlish forms flit through the rooms, And children play around the door. But nevermore beneath its roof

Shall we who made and love it meet; Our hungry hearts can only yearn

Over its memories, old and sweet.

And though to others it may seem
A queer, old-fashioned house at best,
We know how many happy years

It gave us shelter, peace and rest.
And when around us cares spring up,
And Hope withholds her cheering ray,
Our dreary, gloomy thoughts turn to
The dear old home, so far away.

AN OCTOBER MORNING.

THE ruby morn sprang from the close embrace of night,

Her soft wings flutt'ring o'er the drowsy earth, Her bosom throbbing with ten thousand gems

Of pearls and flashing sapphires, and the birth Of loving kisses falling from her nectared lips Upon the slumbering birds and flowers, That slept through all the weary, gloomy night, That they might greet her in her youthful hours.

Her rosy fingers shook with gentle chiding The lazy trees, till every trembling leaf Turned to the sun its many diamonds;

She, taking from her heart a gleaming sheaf Of sunlight, darted in the darkened woods, And, picking up the shadows pinned them high Upon the hills, in lines of softened blue,

Bidding the sunbeams in their places lie.

She walked with loving tread within the orchard, Where the rich, mellow fruit, golden and red, Lay on the hard, white ground, and whispering To them some kindly words, she onward sped, Pausing to bathe her beauteous form

In every glittering, limpid stream; Bending her graceful head but just a moment To see her mirrored face-the gentle gleam That shone from out her eyes,-then flying on She skimmed above the luscious, dusky grapes, And drew her magic lines of light and shade,

And gave e'en to the fleecy clouds their shapes. Then as the noon-tide waves ebbed o'er the world, Without a vain regret or parting sigh,

She kissed her children, folded 'round her azure robes,

And in the ocean sank-content to die.

I KNOW.

I KNOW just how my girlhood's home
Is beautiful to-day;

Just how the spring-time sun sifts down
Its mystic, golden spray.

The orchard trees their snowy foam

Of fragrant blossoms toss;

And threads of light play through the leaves, Like veins of silv'ry floss.

I know just how the yard is filled
With roses sweet and rare;
Just how the honeysuckles spill
Their incense on the air,
The lilacs with their hearts of gold,
The snow-balls pure and white,
The sturdy cedars where the birds
Find shelter in the night.

The old swing in the cooling shade,
Waves idly to and fro-

The swing where words of truest love,
Were spoken long ago.

The maple where the mocking-bird

And bright-winged robin trill, And the wood-lark with its clear, sweet notes, The leaves with rapture thrill.