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tread as if with iron shoes. heard the mysterious steps.

Who can it be? I saw nothing, only At length the town clock struckone-two; then with his lips close to my ear, as I thought, the watchman chanted with a loud voice:

"Hört ihr Lit, ik will ik saga

D' Uhr hot elfie g'schlaga-elfie-ee g'sclaga-a."

I went to sleep musing over the watchman's song, his music sweetly ringing in my ears. The following is a translation of this song, made by some to me unknown writer:

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A STRONG TOWER.

BY THE EDITOR.

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe." Prov. xviii. 10.

Hugh Miller gives the following singular instance of deliverance from danger by means of prayer:

A Scotch Highlander, who served in the first disastrous war with the American colonies, was brought one evening before his commanding officer, charged with the capital offence of being in communication with the enemy. The charge could not well be preferred at a more dangerous time. Only a few weeks had elapsed since the execution of Major Andre, and the indignation of the British, exasperated almost to madness by the event, had not yet cooled down. There was, however, no direct proof against the Highlander. He had been seen, in the gray of the twilight, stealing out from a clump of underwood that bordered on one of the huge forests which at that period covered by much the greater part of the United Provinces, and which, in the immediate neighborhood of the British, swarmed with the troops of Washington. All the rest was mere inference and conjecture. The poor man's defense was summed up in a few words. He had stolen away from his fellows, he said, to spend a few hours in private prayer.

"Have you been in the habit of spending hours in private prayer?" sternly asked the officer, himself a Scotchman and a Presbyterian.

The Highlander replied in the affirmative.

"Then," said the other, drawing out his watch, "never in your life had you more need of prayer than now; kneel down, sir, and pray aloud, that we may all hear you."

The Highlander in the expectation of instant death, knelt down. His prayer was that of one long acquainted with the appropriate language in which the Christian addresses his God. It breathed of eminent peril, and earnestly implored the divine interposition in the threatened danger; the help of Him who, in times of extremity is strong to deliver. It exhibited, in short, a man who, thoroughly conversant with the scheme of redemption, and fully impressed with the necessity of a personal interest in the advantages which it secures, had made the business of salvation the work of many a

solitary hour, and had, in consequence, acquired much fluency in expressing all his various wants as they occurred, and thoughts and wishes as they arose.

"You may go, sir," said the officer, as he concluded, "you have, I dare say, not been in correspondence with the enemy to-night." "His statement," he continued, addressing himself to the other officers, " is, I doubt not, perfectly correct. No one could have prayed so without a long apprenticeship; fellows who never attend drill always get on ill at review."

During our late civil war a Sunday-school convention was held in Kentucky. The place of meeting was between the contending armies. The delegates had to pass the line of one or the other, yet they held the convention without being molested by either.

An earnest Sunday-school missionary in their employ, since then gone to his reward, was an out and out Union man. He had some difficulty in passing Gen. Bragg's pickets. He had a mortal dread of the rebel Gen. Morgan, and of his savage deeds. On this subject the amiable, godly missionary had decided views. For Morgan no punishment could be too severe, he thought—not even hanging or burning. "Beware lest Morgan will catch you," said

a friend.

"Never you fear, I shall see to that," was his brave reply. But Morgan did catch him.

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He had the rare fortune, for a missionary, of having a valuable fleet horse. To his sorrow he found that, a horse is a vain thing for safety." In trying to pass the enemies' outposts, he was arrested, and of course taken before Morgan, the object of his horror. "Where are you going, sir?" asked Morgan sharply

"To start a Sunday-school at Goose Creek."

"A Sunday-school! That's a likely story! You look like a Sunday-school man! They don't ride that kind of horses, not much. Got anything to show?"

"Yes, sir, here is my commission."

This had been signed by Rev. John McCullagh, who for thirty years had been an earnest Sunday-school worker in the State.

"I don't know anything about these chaps (some of the names on his paper) only old Mack-I know him. I heard him preach when I wasn't knee-high to a duck. Can you sing?"

"Yes, sir."

He begins his song, with a trembling voice; and no wonder. It may be his death-song. Whose heart would not rise into his throat when singing for such hearers? The next minute their rifles may seal his fate. He sings of Jesus, the crucified Saviour. His voice possesses no extra charms, its trembling ceases at the end of a few lines. His soul is on fire with his theme. He sings of a

Saviour's love, and sings for dear life, and should life here end, he'll sing his soul to heaven.

It was a picture for an artist. The rude surroundings of the camp and army. The officers seated on their horses. The rough, hard-looking men, with bronzed faces and weather-beaten garments, standing around in groups, leaning on their rifles. The missionary with hat in hand, laying the bridle on the graceful mane of his horse, soon forgot Morgan and impending death in his sweet theme. The charm of music, and of the simple hymns, the power of association, bringing vividly to mind their Sunday-school memories, their firesides, and groups of children who nightly prayed for dear papa and brother in the army melted the hearts of these Southern warriors, as snow melts before a vernal sun. Even Morgan's eyes moistened and his strong men wept like children.

After the captured missionary had sung for a while, Morgan's shrill voice rang out, "Boys, this chap is all right. Let him go.'

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BAD CHIROGRAPHY.

BY PERKIOMEN.

The "Knights of the Quill" are fast becoming an awkward, blundering order. Even with the aid of improved weapons of steel, gold and diamond, they cannot do as fair execution, by any means, as did their ancestors with the common goose feather. Who ever could not administer a "hair stroke," in those days, never entertained the least hope of being promoted to a higher grade in the ranks. And this was before the race of "Professors in Penmanship." Still the drilling continued day after day, until the graceful curve, the fair proportion, the light and heavy bearing down, and the delicate ascending could be made. Every mark at last appeared full, fair and fit for inspection. How the poor urchins were "knuckled," down in "School House Lane," during those years of apprenticeship. I can still see the tongues gyrate over those honestly framed letters. Still those doubled up and dirty fingers pull the style slowly along. I can yet see the big drops of sweat rolling down, mingled with an occasional tear. Many a copy-book, I am quite sure, to-day bears about itself the marks of a cruel task-master, who had been set over urchins placed in the stocks. But it was not without its good results, this system of Pen-ance. Some of the "best writers in the school" went out there.

Grown-up men are even yet careful to preserve their "Rewards of merit" between the lids of their centre-table books. As beautiful a business hand as Charles Santee is master of, and as typelike as Prof. William M. Nevin's (not the Doctor's, though!) did I see there. The aim and end was largely reached, to write a ready and readable hand.

But this order of Pen-ance has become fearfully demoralized too. A hideous system of Greelyism has completely supplanted the ancient style of chirography. By what code of ethics a man (and just think of a woman attempting it!) can justify a careless and illegible hand-writing, has never been established. Is it inviting to the eye, that your manuscript should look like a marked tea-chest? If our chirography is to resemble the hieroglyphics of the "celestials," then we too are opposed to their importation. Think of a picture so drawn and daubed; of a book page, or newspaper column so outrageously done. Would we have the patience to decipher it? Why then this penchant, to turn our letters even into a puzzle, to be guessed out by our friends? Writers for the Press affect the sphynx of old. And alas, for the compositor who cannot solve the riddle! Now, let it be known, that all those who intend to imitate Horace Greeley in their manuscript, should strive to be like him in equanimity and patience, too, and not go about blowing up the poor printer, in the next issue. Don't blame him for not being able to do what no one else, not even you, can do, i. e., read an illegible thing. See how Horace takes things. What is rendered below he must see again and ever, but only lets it pass with a smile:

HORACE GREELEY'S MANUSCRIPT.

The story of the carpenter who tried all one summer to build a barn for Horace Greeley, and used the letter mailed to him by mistake from the Tribune office, thinking it to be a new fangled plan-that yarn and the other one, which asserts that Horace was invited at a high figure to embark in the tea-chest lettering business by reason of his way of using the pen, we are used to, and have long ago got through laughing over. But the Cincinnati Times out Herods Herod in its story of Greeley's chirography. It is said that the distinguished philosopher recently wrote a letter regarding the proposed removal of the National Capitol from Washington, in which he urged New York as an eligible site for the structure. The Times gives the body of the letter as follows, first premising that it is a little difficult to decipher :

"It is not possible that I ever stole them again. As nudding is a reproach to comic actions, the very gayest conveyances of our cemeteries are untrue, and preserves are bankrupt. Swill your

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