when he used to gather flowers for his mother and looking at his keeper with inexpressible sadness, he burst into tears. He never forgot the kindness, however. "It was you who gave me the flowers," said he one day to this same keeper; "I have not forgotten it."

One of the soldiers on guard said one day thoughtlessly, so that Louis could hear, "That boy has not ten months to live!"

Louis did not answer, but a sad smile came to his lips; and some hours after, these touching words escaped from his bursting heart; "And yet I never injured any one!" He never by look or word showed the least impatience. In his case truly, "tribulation worked patience." Through all the sufferings and sorrows of his young life,. he was never known to be impatient. Amidst insults the most cruel, he never retaliated, nor harboured one angry feeling. In the most grievous sufferings he was never heard to murmur. It might indeed be said of this little child of God, as of his great Master, "When he was reviled, he reviled not again," "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter."

He

Meantime, though his jailors were as kind as they dared to be, his captivity continued as rigorous and unrelenting as ever. was still confined to one room, and was denied all medical attendance, though his weakness began to be so extreme, that his keepers could hardly drag him to the top of the tower for a breath of fresh air. Yet he loved to be taken there: for on the battlement of this tower, the rain of ages had hollowed out a kind of basin, in which, whenever Louis came, he saw a little troop of sparrows, that used to come and bathe there. Accustomed to his presence every day, these birds at last grew so familiar, that they did not spread their wings for flight till he came close up to them. He called them his birds; and his first action, when he was led out He would upon the battlements, was always to look for them. stand there motionless, leaning his slight weight against his kinď keepers, and watch them come and go, dip their beaks in the water, and shake their little wings. It was his daily delight to go and watch them, till he was too ill to leave his bed. Even in this state of extreme illness, no one was allowed to stay with him through the night. Once he spoke of feeling "so alone" in the night. The jailor said to him, "Yes, you are alone, and it is very dull, but it is not so bad as when you had the sight of so many wicked people before you." "Oh, I see them still," said Louis, pressing his hands over his eyes as if to keep out the frightful remembrance of what he had seen; "but I see some good people, too," continued he, looking up at his keeper with grateful affection, "and they prevent

my being angry with those who are not so." The jailor told him that one of the officers who had been so cruel to him, had been arrested on some other charge, and put into prison. The child paused a long while, and then said "I am very sorry, for, don't you see, he is more unhappy than I am, for he deserves his misfortunes ?"

How sorry I am to see you suffering so much!" said the jailor one day

"Take comfort," said the child, "I shall not suffer always," and he took the jailor's hand in his, and pressed it to his lips. The poor man, overwhelmed, knelt down by the side of his bed, and prayed earnestly for him, while the child still held his faithful hand, and raised his eyes to heaven with a holy and angelic look.

"I hope you are not in pain just now?" said the kind jailor, as he watched the child lying so calm and still.

"Oh, yes! I am still in pain," answered Louis, "but not nearly The music is so beautiful!"

so much.

'Music!" said the jailor in astonishment; for no music was to be heard, and no sound from without could reach that prison chamber; and bending over the dying child he asked in a gentle voice, 'Where do you hear music?"

"From above," answered Louis, pointing upward. "Have you heard it long?" asked the jailor.

Only since you knelt down," answered the child.

"Do you

not hear it? Listen! Listen!" and he raised his faltering head as if following the heavenly sounds, and his eyes shone bright as if the light of heaven were already dawning on them. His countenance, so lovely in childhood, looked lovelier than ever now, beaming with seraphic joy, He listened for a few moments, and then cried out with rapture, "Amongst all the voices, I can hear my mother's!"

That word, as it left his lips, seemed to relieve him of all suffering; the lines which pain had drawn over his young brow seemed "by some soft touch invisible" to be smoothed away; his eyes, which suffering had dimmed so long, were bright with celestial light, and shone pure as the blue heaven.

"Come nearer," said he to the jailor," I have something to tell you ;" and he leaned his head upon the breast of his faithful friend, fixing his eyes upon him, "Joy unspeakable and full of glory" spread over the sweet face, but no voice was to be heard; the jailor listened, and bent his head close to the parted lips, but in vain-no sound came from thence. God had kept to himself the knowledge of that last thought-the child was dead.

Brighter and brighter grew the sweet calm face. God had wiped

away all tears from his eyes. For him there was no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain. Patience had had her perfect work, and in the face of the dead child shone the peace and purity of an angel.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

M. D.

At this

It was eventide. The sun was going down behind the hills of Galilee, and the western sky was glowing with the fiery red and purple hue that belonged to the climate and the hour. The day was setting upon a land of quiet and repose, where the busy bustling life of modern times and western nations was unknown. hour especially the scene we are now looking on was peaceful and silent, as if it belonged to some world where living thing had never trod, and where man, that disturber and destroyer, was as little known as the denizen of another planet. Yet upon this very scene two of that restless race were now gazing, and their attitude and expression were such as if the quiet spirit of the landscape that they looked upon had been breathed over them also. They lay together upon the mountain side, in the shadow of its ridge, and looking eastwards over a broad expanse of water that was stretched out far beneath them. It was a lake of very considerable size, almost embosomed among surrounding hills, but opening towards the south upon a level expanse of country, through which a river might be seen winding its course like a line of liquid silver, and bearing the waters of the lake far away towards the salt deserts of the land of Moab. The lake itself lay half in the shadow of the mountain girdle on the side of which our two observers lay, and half glowing in the beams of the red globe of light which was fast disappearing below the horizon. Before them, on the other side the water, were hills or mountains rising to a still greater elevation, and reflecting also the warm rays of the descending sun. Along the shores on either side might be seen white villages, with their flat roofed houses, and surrounding walls, but they were too far off to send up their quiet sounds to the spot were these men were sitting, and even they too at that distance looked as still and as silent as the lake and the mountains round them.

If you had seen them, perhaps you would not have remarked the faces of the men we are speaking of, because you too been occupied by the scene they were both gazing on. other time you would certainly have been struck by their

would have But at any expression.

They had not the faces of men that you meet with at every corner of every street, as you pass through the great thoroughfares of life. The lines of deep thought were on the countenance of each: thoughts of things that do not belong to the everyday necessities of life: thoughts that make men better, and wiser, and nobler, than if they had never known such; thoughts which many pass through life, from the cradle to the grave, and yet never dream of. Yet they had not been the same thoughts; and the expression that was stamped upon each brow and shone forth in the eyes of each, was not the same or the like expression, though one expression doubtless was of near kin to the other. For it was the expression of minds between which there was sympathy and understanding: whose thoughts could mingle and compare, and commune, though one should look upon the dark side of the passing cloud, and the other should watch hopefully till it turned its silver lining on the night." They looked like brother men; each standing alone in his separate individuality, but being one in spirit:-having one faith-one hope-one Godone common love of everything noble, beautiful, and good.

No

And thus these two men sat upon the mountain side, and looked down upon the world beneath. One of them, however, seemed as though he saw it not. His thoughts were surely far away. perhaps they were not far away-not fondly turning to the remembrance of 'earlier days, or lingering over the loved features of some fairer land-perhaps they were only turned inwards :-perhaps "his soul" as some old poet sings, was rolled back upon itself." His brow was contracted, and there was a shadow on his face, which told of some want unsatisfied-of some question nnanswered-of some generous shame for his country's backslidings-of some generous grief for his country's degradation. As for the glorious sky, he saw it not. The wide waters were in vain spread out before him in their beauty. His thoughts were dwelling on the inner world, and all the glory of this hour and scene invited them in vain to lose themselves amid the wonders and beauties of the outer one.

His companion seemed to be of another temperament. His thoughts were out of himself. He looked upon the scene around him as if he were himself a part of it. He seemed to drink in its spirit. His soul went out towards it. He forgot himself, and all belonging to himself, as he mingled with the universe around him. He heard a voice in the stillness. The peace, the repose, the warm glow of nature's beauty, seemed to be spread over his countenance, and to shine down into the deep places of his soul.

The two men appeared to have been conversing but a little while ago. They were now silent-each lost in his own thoughts.

At length the first, as he lay still reclining on the ground, lifted his hand towards the sky above him, and exclaimed, "Oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens-that thou wouldst come down-that the mountains might flow down at thy presence! oh that thou wouldst speak once more to the remnant of Israel :—that we might hear thy thunders on the mountain, or thy voice by the mouth of thy prophets!"

There was a little pause of silence before his companion replied to this impetuous outburst of his thoughts. Then he said, "To my fancy, Jehovah speaks to us still, though the thunders are silent, and there is no prophet crying in Israel. I seem to see Him in this world that he has made, in the heavens that are above us, in the moon and the stars that are the work of his fingers. I think his smile is even now upon this broad scene below us :-in that glowing sky where the sun is sinking in his glory :—I hear him in the silence that is around us-the silence of the universe. I hear him in the stillness of my own soul. He is not silent-if we would but listen to his voice;-nor invisible, only that our eyes are holden that we cannot see."

me.

"Aye," replied the other, "you may hear and see all this, but I hear it not, nor does sight of it come nigh me. And trust me, John, there are more men like me in Israel than they that are liké you: and the want I feel, is the want they feel:-and my cry is the same that goeth up day and night from their inmost souls. It boots not to tell me that I must listen for the still voice within I want to hear Jehovah speaking to his people in a living voice-a voice that shall reach the outward ear, and speak in the language of a human tongue. Or, if God would appear unto Israel, my prayer is that he would take a form visible to mortal eyes. I am a man. If God would speak to me, it must be as to a man. I cannot hear a voice that only angels might understand. I must wait for that till I am an angel too. I cannot see that which is invisible, or hear that which has no earthly sound. When of old God spake unto our father Abraham, it was by a voice. When he appeared unto Moses, it was in a fire. When he called to him from the top of Sinai, it was in the roaring of the thunder, and the flash of the lightning, and the blast of a mighty trumpet. And when, in after years, He sought to warn, or rebuke, or comfort his wandering children, it was by the voice of his anointed prophets; and these went to and fro throughout the land, awaking the slumberer, and denouncing the guilty, and warning the double-minded, und proclaiming to all the sons of Jacob, from the king to the shepherd, that God still had his eye upon his people, and that his arm was