BERKELEY | LIBRARY 1 UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA /09?rtr4*4l /J. \ N'ARKUX N p 3 U F F A LO : CEO, rl. DERBY AND C9 THE SILVER CUP or SPARKLING DROPS, MANY FOUNTAINS FOE THE of EDITED BT MISS C. B. PORTER. "Bright as the dew, on early buds that glistens, Sparkles each hope upon their flower-strewn path." BUFFALO: DERBY AND CO. 1852. IOAN STAGS TO THB FRIENDS OF TEMPERANCE. THE WORLD OVER, If- tittll RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. Jt Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by GEO. H. DERBY AND CO. fa the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Northern District of New York. Stereotyped by BEADLE A BROTHER, BUFFALO. 297 f ttbli01)n'B Sntin WE make no apology for presenting this, volume to the public. The subject, to which a large portion of its articles, relates, is all-important, and can not be too frequently presented, nor too strongly urged upon the consideration of community. To all who desire the peace of families, and the purity and happiness of society, we say, Hand round the SILVER CUP among yourselves, and if, after having tasted of its contents, you find it dashed with the true elixir, drink therefrom to the health of its amiable compiler, and pass the goblet to your neighbors. BUFFALO, August, 1851. PAGE. THE SILVER CUP, 7 Seed Time and Harvest, -------- 12 Sweet Mother, ----------.-33 The Mystic River, - ---..__. 37 There is Hope for the Fallen, -------39 The Happiest Land, -----__._ 5$ Live to do Good, ----------- 57 Emma Alton, ----------- 59, The Last Inebriate, ----------76 Once I was Happy, ---------- 78 Why Come these Mocking Breams, ----- 81 The Drunkard's Daughter, -------- 82 Did God so Will it, 99 Intemperance, ------------ 102 Take the Ruby Wine Away, -------103 The Knight of the Ringlet, 104 The Tree of Death, 123 The Shower, --.---..... 125 I '11 Pay My Rent in Music, -127' Love, --..._ 132 The Irish Boy's Lament, ........ 134 The Rainy Day, -----...... 143 The Family Jewel, ---------- 144 Energy in Adversity, -----_... 145 The Dissipated Husband, 146 A Voice for the Poor, --------- 167 Intemperance, ----..--._ -171 The Broken Hearted, 172 VI CONTENTS. PAGE. What the Voice Said, 178 Wine on the Wedding Night, - - - - - - 181 To the Sons of Temperance, - - - - - - -183 Spirit Guests, --------_._ 195 Memories, ....... 197 Traffic in Ardent Spiritej ...... --200 Water, ---..... 226 The First and Last Prayer, ------- 228 Look at the Bright Side, -----._. 230" The Words of Wisdom, - 231 The Widowed Bride, -------... 232 To My Child, ' .... 246 A Lament, - 248 Song of a Guardian Spirit^ --.-.--249 Jews Cast Off, ----- 250 The Night Cometh, ------..-. 256 The Power of Prayer, ----..... 257 The Hopes of Earth, 260 Extract, .....271 Come to the Fount of Love, --.---271 An Appeal on Temperance,- - - - - - - -272 A World Without Water, 291 The Poor Girl and the Angela, ------ 296 Give, 310 Well Doing, 311 THE SILVER CUP <yf SPARKLING DROPS, t i'iiirn BY M. G. SLEEPER. THE palace of the Duke de Montre was decorated for a banquet. A thousand wax lights burned in its stately rooms, making them bright as mid-day. Along the walls glowed the priceless tapestry of the Gobe- lins, and beneath the foot lay the fabrics of Persia. Rare vases filled with flowers stood on the marble stands, and their breath went up like incense before the life like pictures shrined in their golden frames above. In the great hall stood immense tables covered with delicacies from all lands and climes. Upon the sideboard glittered massive plate, 8 THESILVEBCUP and the rich glass of Murano. Music, now low and soft, now bold and high, Hoated in through the open casement, and was answered at intervals by tones of magic sweetness. All was ready. The noble and gifted poured into the gorgeous saloons. Silks rustled, plumes waved, and jeweled embroid- eries flashed from Genoa velvets. Courtly congratulations fell from every lip, for the Duke de Montre had made a new step in the path to power. Wit sparkled, the laugh went round, and his guests pledged him in wine that a hundred years had mellowed. Proudly the duke replied; but his brow darkened, and his cheek paled with passion, for his son sat motionless before his untasted cup. " Wherefore is this ! " he angrily demanded. "When did my first born learn to insult his father ? " The graceful stripling sprang from his seat, and knelt meekly before his parent. His sunny curls fell back from his upturned face, and his youthful countenance was radiant with a brave and generous, spirit. 01? SPABKLING DEOPS. 9 "Father," he said, "I last night learned a lesson that sunk into my heart. Let me re- peat it, and then, at thy command, I will drain the cup. I saw a laborer stand at the door of a gay shop. He held in his hand the earnings of a week, and his wife, with a sickly babe and two famishing little ones, clung to his garments, and besought him not to enter. He tore himself away, for his thirst was strong, and, but for the care of a stranger, his family would have perished. " We went on, and, father, a citizen of no- ble air and majestic form descended the wide steps of his fine mansion. His wife put back the curtains, and watched him eagerly and wishfully, as he rode away. She was very, very lovely, fairer than any lady of the court, but the shadow of a sad heart was fast falling on her beauty. We saw her gaze around upon the desolate splendor of her saloon, and then clasp her hands in the wild agony of despair. When we returned, her husband lay helpless on a couch, and she sat weeping beside him. " Once more we paused. A carriage stood 10 THE SILVER CUP before a palace. It was rich with burnished gold, and the armorial bearings of a duke were visible in the moonbeams. We waited for its owner to alight, but he did not move, and he gave no orders. Soon the servants came crowding out. Sorrowfully they lifted him in their arms, and I saw that some of the jewels were torn from his mantle, and his plumed cap was crashed and soiled, as if by the pressure of many footsteps. They bore him into the palace, and I wondered if his duchess wept like the beautiful wife of the citizen. "As I looked on all this, my tutor told me that it was the work of the red wine, which leaps gaily up, and laughs over its victims, in demon merriment. I shuddered, father, and resolved never again to taste it, lest I, too, should fall. But your word is law to me. Shall I drain the cup ? " The duke looked wonderingly upon his first born, and then placing his hand, gravely yet fondly, upon his head, answered : " No, my son, touch it not. It is poison as thy tutor told thee. It fires the brain, OF SPAKKLlttG DROPS. 11 du*kens the intellect, destroys tlie soul. Put it away from thee, and so thou shalt grow up wise and good, a blessing to thyself and to thy country." He glanced around the circle. Surprise and admiration were on every face, and, moved by the same impulse, all arose, while one of their number spoke : "Thou hast done nobly, boy," he said, " and thy rebuke shall not soon be forgotten. We have congratulated thy father upon the acquisition of honors, which may pass with the passing season. We now congratulate him upon that best of all possessions, a son worthy of France, and of himself." The haughty courtiers bowed a glowing assent, and each clasped the hand of the boy. But the father took him to his heart, and even now, among the treasured relics of the family, is numbered that silver cup. THE SILVER CUP nb $inu anb BY LUCIUS M. SARGENT. IT must be nearly midnight, thought I, as I walked rapidly along. I had traveled full fourteen miles. The rain descended in tor- rents ; and, finding ready admittance, at a farmer's barn, I climbed upon a hay-mow, and threw myself down, thoroughly wet, weary, and sleepless. What an awful vis- itor it is, thought I, at the poor cottager s fireside ! How forcible and true are the words of Holy Writ. If wine be " a mocker," in the castles of the rich, among the habi- tations of the poor, " strong drink is raging." There was I, at the age of sixteen, turning my back upon my birth-place, upon my home, upon a mother and sister, whom I tenderly loved. As the recollection of all they had endured already, and the anticipation of their future sufferings rushed upon my mind, I had almost resolved to return : but, alas ! what could I oppose to the ungovernable fury of OF SPABKLIKO DBOPS. 13 an unkind husband and an apostate father ! No, thought I, I will fly from that, which I can neither prevent nor endure. I will seek my bread among strangers. By the kind providence of Him, who hath prr\mised to be the Father of the fatherless, and such, in reality, I am, I may win, by honest industry, the means of bringing comfort to her 'vho bore me, when my father's intemperance and prodigality shall have made havoc of all that remains ; and when the last acre of the home- stead shall have passed into the rum-seller's hands. My resolution was fixed. Sleep was gathering over my eyelids. I got upon my knees to commit myself to God in prayer. I could scarcely give form to my scattered thoughts ; it seemed, under the condition of high excitement, in which I then was, that my father was before me, enraged at my de- parture, and demanding who had taught me to pray. It was. he himself, who first set me upon my knees, and placed my infant hands together, and put right words into my mouth, and bade me ask of God to put right thoughts into my heart. How often he had led his 14 THE SILVER CUP little household in morning and evening prayer ! How often, as we walked to God's house, in company together, had he led the way ! How constantly, in our daily labors, had he conducted our thoughts to serious contemplation, by some sensible and devout allusion to those employments, in which we were .engaged ! Lost and gone, degraded and changed, he was ; but he had been once a kind father, a tender husband, a generous neighbor, a faithful friend, a pious and a professing Christian. Rum and ruin, hand in hand, had entered our dwelling together. The peace of our fireside was gone. The rum-seller had laid my poor, misguided father under the bonds of an unrelenting and. fatal appetite ; he had won away the little children's bread ; and converted our once happy home into an earthly hell, whose only portal of exit was the silent grave. It was very evident to me, that we were going to destruction. My father's interest in the welfare of us all, was at an end. Debts were accumulating fast. His farm was heavily OF SPAKKLING DROPS. 15 mortgaged. His habits, long before, tad com- pelled tlie church to exclude him from the communion ; and the severest abuse was the certain consequence, whenever my poor, old mother went singly to the table of her Lord. I could have borne my father's harsh treat- ment of myself and of my poor sister Kachel; but he returned home, at last, constantly in- toxicated ; and, when opposed in any thing, proceeded to swear, and rave, and break the furniture, and abuse my old mother, who bore it all, with the patience of a saint ; I made up my mind, that I c,ould stand it no longer. I waited cautiously, for a favorable oppor- tunity, and asked my father's permission to go to sea. He flew into a terrible rage. The next morning he seemed to be in a better frame of mind, and, as I was chopping wood before the door, he asked me of his own ac- cord, what had induced me to wish to leave home, and go to sea. I hesitated, for some time ; but, as he urged me to speak out, and, at the same time, appeared to be much calmer than usual ; " Father," said I, u it kills me 16 THE SILVER CUP to see you and hear you talk and act so badly to poor mother." He flew into, a greater rage than before, and bade me never open my mouth upon the subject again. Thus matters continued to progress, from bad to worse. Love is said not to stand still. This saying is manifestly true in regard to the love of strong drink. Our domestic misery continued to increase, from week to week. There were intervals, in which, my father was more like himself, more like the good", kind parent and hus- band, whose out goings, in the morning, had been a source of affectionate regret, and whose incomings, at night, had been a sub- ject of joy to the wife of his bosom and the children of his loins. I have seen the faint smile of satisfaction brighten upon my poor mother's pale features, upon such occasions ; and I have marked the sigh, half suppressed, which told the secret of an agonized spirit, and which seemed to say, How precious, how brief is this little interval of joy ! It was indeed like the parting sunbeam, the last, lingering light of a summer day, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 17 which plays upon the cold grave, where the treasure and the heart are destined to slumber together. In such an example of domestic wretched- ness as ours, the operation of cause and effect was perfectly intelligible. Rum excited into action all that was contentious in the nature of ray parent. A keen perception of his own blarneworthiness, notwithstanding the stupe- rying tendency of the liquor he had drunken, increased the irritability of his temper. A word, look, or gesture, from any member of the household, which indicated the slightest knowledge of his unhappy condition, when he returned, at night, under the influence of strong drink, was surely interpreted into an intentional affront. He would often anti- cipate reproof; and, as it were, repay it beforehand, by the harshness of his manners. The habit of drinking, which is invariably the prolific mother of sin and sloth, wretched- ness and rags, is sure to be maintained and kept alive, by the beggarly progeny, to which it has given birth. Whenever my unhappy father was dunned for the interest on his 18 TJ1E811,VKRCUP mortgage, or any other debt, which, at last, he had no means to pay, he was in the habit, almost mechanically, as soon as the creditor had departed, of turning to the jug of rum, for relief and oblivion. The gloom and ill-nature, which had hith- erto been occasionally interspersed with exhi- bitions of kindlier feelings to us all, appeared to have become unvarying and fixed. There was less and less, from week to week, of an April sky. All was chill and drear, like November. One evening, my mother and sister had been busily engaged, as usual, in such housewifery, as might best contribute to keep our poor wreck of a domicil together, as long as possible. I had learned to write a fair hand, and was engaged in copying some papers, for our squire, who paid me by the sheet. It had gotten to be nearly ten o'clock. My mother put on her spectacles, and, open- ing the Bible, began to read. Rachel and I sat by the fire, listening to the words of truth and soberness. My poor mother had fallen upon a portion of Scripture, which, from its applicability to her own situation OF SPARKLING DEOPS. 19 and that of her children, had affected her feelings, and the tears were in her eyes, when the loud tramp upon the door-step announced* the return of my father. His whole appear- ance was unusually ominous of evil. My mother stirred the fire, and I placed him a chair, which he kicked over, and threw him- self down upon the bed, and called for supper. Mother told him, in a gentle manner, that there was nothing in the house but some bread. He told her she lied, and swore ter- ribly. She sat silently by the fire ; I looked up in her face : she wept, but said nothing. " Don 7 t cry so, dear mother," said Rachel. "Wife," said my father, setting upon the edge of the bed, " when will you leave off crying ? " " Whenever you leave off drinking, husband," replied my mother in her kindest manner. My father sprang up, in a hurricane of wrath, and with a dreadful oath, hurled a chair at my mother's head. I sprang forward, and received its full force upon my shoulder. Rachel and my mother fled to a neighbor's house, and my father struck me several blows with his feet and 20 THE SILVER CUP fists ; and, as I made my escape, I left Mm dashing the furniture to pieces, with the fury 'of a madman. I rushed forth to seek shelter amid the driving storm from the tempest of a drunken father's wrath. I went, as speedily as possible, to the squire's house, and begged him to take compassion on my poor mother and sister. Having received his promise, that he would go instantly over to our cottage, I took the resolution, which I have already stated. After I had passed a comfortless night in the farmer's barn, I pushed forward to the city. I had a trifle of change in my pocket ; I bought a biscuit of a traveling baker, and I had no relish for any other than the bever- age of God's appointment, which was near at hand. When I reached the city, I directed my course to one of the wharves, and found no difficulty, as I was unusually stout for my years, in obtaining a voyage, as a green hand, in a ship bound to China. Three days passed, before the ship sailed. I wrote to my mother and sister, bidding them keep up their spirits, and put their trust, as I did, in the God of OF SPARKLING DROPS. 21 the widow and the fatherless, for such, and even worse, was our condition. I asked them to say to father, when he was sober, that, al- though I scarcely expected to see him again in this world, I freely forgave all his ill- treatment to myself. I worked hard and strove to please the captain. I soon found that plowing the sea was a very different affair from plowing the land. I had a good constitution, and a cheer- ful temper. I had been taught, at all times, by my dear mother, and by my poor, un- happy father, also, till he became intemperate, to put the fullest confidence in the promises of God. When we arrived in China, though we had shipped out and home, the voyage was broken up, and the ship sold. The cap- tain settled with the crew to their entire satisfaction ; and I shall always be grateful for his kindness to me. He got me a voyage to England. I laid out my wages by his ad- vice. I could not have followed a shrewder counselor. He was born and bred, so far as regards his land learning, in one of the most thrifty villages in Connecticut. We had a THE 8ILVEE CUP most boisterous voyage from Canton to Liver- pool ; but, whenever I pulled a rope, I always pulled a little harder for the sake of my old mother and sister Rachel. I had saved every penny of my wages, that I could lay by, and my little investment in Canton turned out far beyond my expectations. I do not think I was avaricious ; but I felt it to be my duty, under existing circumstances, to save my earnings for my honored mother. Never- theless, I felt myself authorized to indulge in one luxury, at least ; so, upon my arrival in Liverpool, I went into the first bookstore and bought me a pocket Bible. Five years had now gone by, in which I had sailed many thousands of miles, and vis- ited various corners of the world. During this period, I had gotten together a larger sum of money, than I ever expected to pos- sess at twenty-one ; besides having made several remittances to the squire, for my old mother's use, to whom I wrote upon every convenient opportunity. They all came to hand, as I afterward learned, saving one, in gold, which went to bottom, with poor Tom OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 23 Johnson, who was lost at sea. If I was for- tunate enough to save my hard earnings, just let me say, for the advantage of every brother sailor, that there are four things which I never did ; I never suffered a drop of grog to go down my hatches, blow high or blow low ; I never rolled a stinking weed, like a sweet morsel, under my tongue ; I never crossed hands with a drunken landlord ; and I never bore away from a poor fellow, whose ham- mock was harder than my own. My five years' absence from home might have extended to fifty, but for many re- collections of my mother and sister, which became more forcible, from day to day. My remembrance of my father was of the most painful character: the very recollection of his tenderness, in the days of my childhood, which often brought tears into my eyes, served only to render the image of a cruel and degraded parent more frightful and re- volting. I had shipped, about this time, on board the Swiftsure, from London to Oporto. One afternoon, two or three of us, a day or two S4 THE SILVER CUP before the ship sailed, had strolled over the south side of the Thames, to look at the king's dockyards at Deptfbrd. As I was rambling among the docks, I received a smart slap on the shoulder, and, turning suddenly round, whom should I see but old Tom John- son, an honest fellow as ever broke bread or wore a tarpaulin ! He was born in our vil- lage ; had followed the sea for nearly forty years ; and, once in the course of three or four, he contrived to find his way to the old spot, and spend a few days in the valley where he was born. " Why, Bob," said he, " 1 'm heartily glad to see you, my lad ; so you Ve taken leg bail of the old folks, and turned rover, in good earnest, ey ? " I told him, I hoped he did n't think I 'd left my old mother to shirk for herself, in her old age. " Not a jot," replied the old sailor ; " Squire Seely has told me the whole story, and says he has put the sweat of your brow, more than once or twice either, into the old lady's hand, and made her old weather-beaten heart leap for joy, to hear you was so thoughtful a lad. I saw your mother about a year ago, OF SFAEKLING BED PS, 25 your sister Rachel. " I shook old Tom Johnson by the hand ; I could not restrain my feelings, for this was the first news I had received from home, for more than five years. "Gome, Bob," said the old fellow, "*' do n't be for opening your scuppers and making crooked faces ; though it blows hard enough now, it may get to be calm weather ^affcer all." " How is my father doing now ? w I enquired. " Why, as to that," answered Tom Johnson, " it 's about a twelvemonth since I was thera I told the old lady I might cross your hawse in some part of the world. She has a rough time of it, my boy. The old man holds on to mischief, like a heavy kedge in a clay bottom. The cold water folks began, about a year ago, to scatter their seed in the village, in the shape of tracts, and tales, and newspapers. Some of them were thrown at your father's door, and at the door of old Deacon Flint, the dis- tiller. There, as you may suppose, the seed fell in stony places. Your father was in a great rage, and swore he'd shoot the first person, 'that left another of their rascally 26 THE SILVER GUI publications before his door. I'i/\ afraid it will be a long while, my lad, before the tern- perance folks get the weather gage of the rum-sellers, and ruin-drinkers, in our village. They have had a miserable seed time, and the Devil and Deacon Flint, I am afraid, will have the best of the harvest." As Tom Johnson was to sail, in about a week, for the United States, I sent by him a few lines of comfort and a small remittance for my mother. As I have already stated r they never reached the place of their desti- nation. The Oranoke, of which this poor fellow was first mate, foundered at sea, and the whole crew perished. After our arrival at Oporto, the crew of the Swiftsure were discharged ; and, finding a favorable chance, I shipped for Phila- delphia, where we arrived, after an extremely short and prosperous passage. I directed my course, once more, toward my native hamlet. My feelings were of the most pain- ful and perplexing character. In accumu- lated years, and even in the little property,, which I had gathered, I felt conscious of OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 27 something like a power and influence ; which, by God's grace, I hoped to exert for the protection of my mother. Yet when I re- collected the ungovernable violence of my father's temper, under the stimulus of liquor, I almost despaired of success. At any rate, I could behold the face of her who bore me, and receive her blessing once more before she died. Having sent my luggage forward, I per- formed a considerable part of my journey on foot. I had arrived in the village, adjoining our own. I paused, for an instant, to look at the barn, in which, five years before, I had passed a most miserable night. It brought before me, with a painful precision, the mel- ancholy record of the past. Every mile of my lessening way abated something of that confidence, which I had occasionally cher- ished, of being the instrument, under God x of bringing happiness again into the dwelling of my wretched parents. I had arrived within two miles of the little river, which forms one of the boundary lines of our village. I wa^ passing a little groceiy, 28 THE SILVER CUP or tipplery, and, standing at the door, I re- cognized the very individual, who formerly kept the grog-shop in our town, and from whom my father had purchased his rum, for many years. Although it was already gray twilight, I knew him immediately ; and, how- ever painful to approach a person, in whom I could not fail to behold the destroyer of my father, I could not repress my earnest desire to learn something of my family. I accosted him, and he remembered me at once. His manners were those of a surly and dissatis- fied man. In reply to my enquiries, he in- formed me, that my parents and my sister were alive, and added, with a sneer, that my father had set up for a cold-water man " but," continued he, with a forced and spite ful laugh, "it will take him all his days, ] guess, to put off the old man : they that have gotten the relish of my rum, are not so very apt to change it for cold water." Upon fur- ther enquiry, I ascertained, that there had been a temperance movement in our village ; and that the seed, as poor Tom Johnson said, had been scattered there, with an unsparing OF SPAEKLING DEOPS. 29 hand. I also gathered the information from this ruin-seller, that the selectmen had re- fused to approbate any applicant for a license to sell ardent spirit in our village ; and that he, himself, had therefore been obliged to quit his old stand, and take the new one, which he now occupied. I turned from the dram-seller's door and proceeded on my way. It was quite dark ; but the road was familiar to my feet. It af- forded me unspeakable pleasure to learn, that my mother and sister were alive and well. But I was exceedingly perplexed, by the rum-seller's statement in relation to my father. Can it be possible, thought I, that he has be- come a cold-water man? How true is the rum-seller's remark, that few, who have got- ten a taste of his rum, are apt to change it for cold water ! For. more than twelve years, my father had been an intemperate man ; and, even if he had abandoned ardent spirit, for a time, how little reliance could be -placed upon a drunkard's reformation ! Besides, Tom Johnson had expressly stated, that my 30 THE SILVER CUP father had been exceedingly hostile to the temperance movement, from the beginning. With these and similar reflections, niy mind continued to be occupied, until I en- tered our village. It was about half past nine, when I came within a few rods of the old cottage. A light was still gleaming forth from the window. I drew slowly and silently near to the door. I thought I heard a voice. I listened attentively. It was my father's. My mother appeared not to reply : such was her constant habit, whenever, un- der the influence of liquor, he gave a loose rein to his tongue, and indulged in unkind and abusive language. I drew still nearer and, passing softly into the entry, I listened more attentively, at the inner door. Can it be possible ! thought I. He was engaged in prayer ! in fervent and pious prayer. He prayed, with a trembling voice, for the restoration of an absent son ! There was a pause. From the movement within, it was evident they had risen from their knees. I gently raised the latch, and opened the door. OF SP-AKKLING DEO PS. 31 The father, the mother, the brother, the mister, were locked in the arms of one an- 7 -other ! My regenerated old father fell once more upon his knees ; we all followed his example ; and before a word of congrat- ulation had passed from one to the other, he poured forth such a touching strain of thanks- giving and praise to the Giver of every good ^and perfect gift, for my safe return, as would iave melted the heart of the most obdurate offender. It came directly from the heart of a truly penitent sinner, and it went straight- way to the God of mercy. I gazed upon my poor old father. It seemed like the mo- xal resurrection of one, already dead and buried, in his trespasses and sins. I glanced rapidly about me : all was peace, all was or- der ; where all had been strife and confusion before. The rum-jug no longer occupied its .accustomed place upon the table : the ex- panded volume of eternal life was there in its stead ! I gazed with inexpressible joy, upon the liappy faces about me ; my father, to all out- ward appearance, such as he had been in 32 THE SILYER OFF" better days, sitting in silence, and evidently restraining the emotions^ his soul ; poor Rachel upon rny knee, her features bathed with happy tears ; and ray dear old mothei turning her countenance, full of gratitude and love, alternately toward Heaven and upon a long gone child, returned at last. Six years have now gone by, since a raei- ciful God softened the stubborn soil in ray father's heart. The seed did not fall alto- gether, as Tom Johnson supposed, upon stony places. Some of them have sprung up, as in? our highly-favored heritage, and borne fruit an hundred fold. Let us thank God, then,, who hath enabled us abundantly to gather the HARVEST ; for peace is once more at our fire-side ; the wife has regained he/ husband r and the orphans have found then father. SARGENT'S TEMPERANCE TALES, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 33 Irani -Ifiotfrn. BY MRS. E. 0. JUDSOX. THE wild, south-west Monsoon has risen, With broad, gray wings of gloom, While here, from out my dreary prison, I look, as from a tomb Alas ! My heart another tomb. Upon the low-thatched roof, the rain, With ceaseless patter, falls ; My choicest treasures bear its stain Mold gathers on the walls Would Heaven 'Twere only on the walls! Sweet Mother! I am here alone^ In sorrow, and in pain; The sunshine from my heart has flown, It feels the driving rain Ah, me ! The chill, and mold, and rain. Four laggard months have wheeled their round Since love upon it smiled ; And every thing of earth has frowned On thy poor, stricken child sweet friend," Thy weary, suffering child. 2* 34 THE SILVER CUP I 'd watched my loved one, night and day, Scarce breathing when he slept ; And as my hopes were swept away, I 'd on his bosom wept 0, God ! How had I prayed and wept! They bore him from me to the ship, As bearers bear the dead; I kissed his speechless, quivering lip, And left him on his bed Alas ! It seemed a coffin-bed! When from my gentle sister's tomb, In all our grief, we came, Rememberest thou her vacant room? Well, his was just the same, that day, The very, very same. Then, Mother, little Charley came Our beautiful fair boy, With my own Father's cherished name But 0, he brought no joy! My child Brought mourning, and no joy. His little grave I cannot see, Though weary months have sped Since pitying lips bent over me, And whispered, "He is dead!" Alas! 'Tis dreadful to be dead! <OF SPARKLING DROPS. 35 I! do not mean for one like me, So weary, worn, and weak, Death's shadowy paleness seems to be, Even now, upon my cheek his seal On form, and brow, and cheek. But for a bright-winged bird like him, To hush his joyous song, And prisoned, in a coffin dim, Join Death's pale, phantom throng My boy To join that grizzly throng! O, Mother, I can scarcely bear To think of tkis to-day! It was so exquisitely fair, That little form of clay my heart Still lingers by his clay. And when for one loved far, far more, Came thickly gathering tears, My star of faith is clouded o'er, I sink beneath my fears sweet friend, My heavy weight of fears. O, should he not return to me, Drear, drear must be life's night! And, Mother, I can almost see, Even now the gathering blight my soul Faints, stricken by the blight. * 36 CtHE SILVEK CtTF O, but to feel thy fond arms twine Around me, once again ! It almost seems those lips of thine Might kiss away the pain might soothe* This dull, cold, heavy pain. But, gentle Mother, through life's storms, I may not lean on thee, For helpless, cowering little forms Cling trustingly to me Poor babes I To have no guide but me! "With weary foot, and broken wing, With bleeding heart, and sore, Thy Dove looks backward, sorrowing, But seeks the ark no more thy breast Seeks never, never more. Sweet Mother, for the wanderer pray, That loftier faith be given; Her broken reeds all swept away, That she may lean on Heaven her soul Grow strong on Christ and Heaven. All fearfully, all tearfully, Alone and sorrowing, My dim eye lifted to the sky, Fast to the cross I cling 0, Christ! % To thy dear cross I cling. OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 37 BY H. R. TAYLOB. There's a brightly lucent river Flowing gently, beauty-drest, And a thousand leaflets quiver In the breeze that courts its breast. Far on a hill its fountains leap, The groveling world above; The hill is Faith, (sublimest steep,) And the river's source is Love. And charming banks, all verdure-clad, On either hand are seen, Which render every bosom glad, With their lovely, fadeless green. These banks that bound the mystic stream, Gladden the Sage and Youth, And pleasing like a happy dream, Are types of Friendship and of Truth. Innumerable flowers give Their perfume to the gale, Which the mild voyagers receive, As they travel down the vale. They serve to mark the calm delights 38 THE SILVER CUP That friendship can impart; While Memory their impress writes On the tablet of their heart. On the river's bosom, ever There rests a peaceful shade, And its tranquil rest, oh! never Can the giddy world invade! There's no gloom in all its quiet, ' Tis with cheerful objects fraught (It no man's been known to buy yet,) ' Tis the shade of chastened Thought The limpid ripples as they play For ever there in glee, A likeness to the mind convey, Of the good man's Purity; No darkened thoughts obscure the gleam Of sunshine in this heart, But like the ripple on the stream, He gaily bears his part There white-sailed barques in safety glide, And reek nor shrouds nor rope; Borne by the breeze, how calm they ride- Those little barques of Hope, The breeze is always; though we feel Affliction's heavy rod, Its balmy touch our pain shall heal; The breeze is the breath of God! OF SPARKLING DROPS. 39 Oh ! trace that river to its source ; With meek enquiry go, See whence its glowing waters course, And whitherward they flow; You '11 find its springs are wells eterne, Its beauties never cease; And, gliding down the stream, you'll learn, Its name is the River of Peace. m w lope for tjj? IT was on the morning succeeding a cold, stormy night of November, 18- , that a stage rattled through the streets of the quiet little village of Roseland, rousing the slumbering echoes and sleeping inhabitants, and drew up before the " Traveler's Home." Two persons alighted, and, giving directions concerning their baggage, entered the " bar- room." A bright, blazing fire was burning cheerily, and the benumbed travelers lost not a moment in availing themselves of the vacant seats, which stood so invitingly before it. 40 THE SILVER OTTP Mr. STANLEY, whose " frosted locks," alone, gave evidence of declining years, was of no- ble and majestic mien. Old time liad passed lightly by him, and left not his impress on the broad smooth brow, nor destroyed the pleasing effect of the benevolent smile that, ever and anon, played over his manly features. The dark, lustrous eye, the intellectual brow, and the firm expression of the finely chiseled mouth of HENRY STANLEY bespoke him a son, not unworthy such a father. Half an hour elapsed, during which time they con- versed earnestly and pleasantly together, when the door opened, and a man, whose bloated face, and staggering air fully marked him, the drunkard, entered, and stepped di- rectly to the bar. He was accosted by the attendant, with, " Well, MORDUANT, what will you have, this morning ? " " Oh, any thing, Jenkins, that warms the blood, this miserably cold day ; " he an- swered, shivering as he spoke. Mr. Stanley arose from his seat at the last word, and approaching Morduant, as he OF SPARKLING DROPS. 41 raised the glass to his lip, laid his hand upon his arm. Surprised at the interruption, Morduant paused, and, turning quickly round, beheld Mr. Stanley gazing upon him, with an expression of mingled sorrow and pity. " Friend," said he, in an earnest, but kind tone, " you are selling your soul at a fearful price ! " There was that in the manner and tone of the stranger, which caused Morduant to start and tremble, but, recovering, he angrily asked, " And who are you, that you should dictate to me ? * " A friend, who would save you from ruin, and the drunkard's grave ; " mildly replied Mr. Stanley. Morduant seemed half inclined to listen, but there were those present, drinkers, like himself, and boon companions, and his was no spirit to be convinced of error before them. He became very angry, uttered a terrible oath, struck his clenched hand upon the counter, with a violence that threatened to demolish it, then saying, in a voice choked 42 THE SILVER CUP with passion, " You '11 repent this, sir ;" turned upon his heel,* and strode out of the room. Mr. Stanley sighed deeply as he joined his son, at the window. They watched the re- ceding form of Morduant, and saw him enter a miserable house, far up the street, in the outskirts of the village. Mr. Stanley was a " Son of Temperance,' 7 one of those active and consistent members of the Order, who never omit an opportunity to promote the great cause to which it is de- voted. He was seconded and assisted in his benevolent efforts by his son, who was no less active than himself, though it was only a few months since he had been " initiated." " Henry," said Mr. Stanley, with much em- phasis, after a long pause " Henry, I have it. This is the very place for a 4 Division ;' and I will go, this day, and see if there are not at least ' ten men to save the city,' and thus obtain a Charter/ Henry concurred, joyfully, and they began planning their business for the day. Break- fast was soon announced, when they retired OF SPARKLING DROPS. 43 to the little back parlor of the inn, where we will take leave* of them, for a time, and ac- quaint our readers a little more intimately with Mr. Morduant. Twenty years before the date of our story, he had graduated at college, with hon- ors. He was a handsome man, with fine taste, and brilliant talents was a connoiseur in drawing and painting, an exquisite per- former on the flute and guitar, and was acknowledged, by all, to be a most elegant and fascinating fellow. He was wealthy, and hi gratification of his desires, traveled far and wide, wherever fancy pointed the way. He had stood upon Gibraltar's Rock, and beheld the scene of the " Moor's last sigh" had lin- gered on the banks of the Tiber, and viewed the " city of the seven hills " had traversed the burning plains of Egypt, for a sight of her towering pyramids, and turned upon his homeward path to seek for pleasure in his native land. Here he became intimate with a circle of unprincipled young men of dissi- pated habits. They saw him to be generous, and thoughtless of expense, and were not 44 THE SILVER CUP . long in ascertaining the extent of his pro- perty, or of devising means for transferring it to their own possession. He was unsuspect- ing, and too fond of pleasure to see their design, and they led him on, as they listed, until he was ready to join them in their wildest revels. It was the latter part of summer, as they entered upon a fishing excursion, and tempo- rarily located themselves in the little village of Koseland, which was delightfully situated upon a broad, stream. Here they were well pleased, and remained some weeks, fishing, as inclination prompted, and, by degrees, in- troducing themselves into the quiet, but intellectual, society of the place. Morduant had never been much captivated by fashion- able beauties, they were too much of his own stamp to excite great interest but sweet Alice Leslie more beautiful than the most admired city belle, with such simplicity, such amiability, so much good sense, and refine- ment where might there be found one to compare with her ? and why should not his heart be captured ? He thought her most OF S^ABKLING DftOPS. 45 Wonderfully fascinating, and gave himself up to her charms. Alice was not wealthy. Her father had died some years before, leaving his business in an unsettled state, and now she and her mother were making the best of a bare competency. Morduant was so well pleased with Alice that he lingered many weeks at Roseland, was often in her society, and determined to win her for his bride. He was not unsuccess- ful in his suit, and ere he returned to the city, they had plighted their faith, with full consent of the widowed mother. He wished to take her at once to the city, where, he knew, her beauty and accomplishments, uni- ted to his wealth, would secure her a high place in society. But to this, neither Mrs. Leslie nor Alice could be induced to con- sent so they parted for a time, and he went alone to the city, to make definite ar- rangements for their future home, where they might have life's best luxuries around them. Ere long, he returned to Roseland. He had left all at the cottage bright and cheer- 46 THESILVEBCUP ful, with the sunshine of hope and pros- perity but a heavy cloud had passed over, and their path was darkened. Mrs. Leslie had been rendered helpless by a paralytic stroke, and Alice was overwhelmed with sorrow and anxiety. Morduant strove to comfort them. He had nothing but good to communicate. He had succeeded in pur- chasing a pleasant little villa, just out of the city had given directions for repairs and improvements throughout the house and grounds had selected his furniture, and procured a person of taste and judgment to oversee its arrangement. Mrs. Leslie's faculties were unimpaired by her severe visitation, but all were fearful of another, and fatal attack. The one earnest desire of her heart, was to see her daughter united to Morduant, before she died. She urged it upon her, with almost childish im- patience Morduant seconded her wishes, with an urgency that would take no denial, end Alice consented, though she was very sad. Slight preparations were made, a few choice friends invited in, and the blooming, OF SPARKLING DBOPS. 4? beautiful Alice became the bride of the wealthy Morduant. Directly after the mar- riage ceremony, with a smile on her lip, but a tear in her eye, she knelt beside the sofa, where reclined her helpless, dying mother, and fervently imprinted upon her wan cheek a daughter's bridal kiss. Morduant followed her example, and, with an effort to win all from sadness, playfully urged that he loved her quite as well as Alice, and claimed the affection and standing of a son, for all after life. But the excitement had been too much for Mrs. Leslie, and, ere the few sympathizing guests departed, the dreaded, fearful stroke descended, and the released spirit was borne to its home on high. Time passed on Mr. and Mrs. Morduant repaired to their new home, and the sorrow- ful heart of Alice was cheered by the kind- ness and affection ,of the husband that she loved. He had surrounded her with com- forts, and with luxuries, until nothing earthly was left for the heart to desire. She was a happy wife; and, as Morduant saw her ming- 48 THE SILVER CUP . ling in the gay society of the city, never was there a prouder husband. And they received a new tie to bind them together, and to their happy home. A daughter claimed their cares and awoke within them an unknown fount of joy. Then, indeed, did their lives seem to pass like a dream of fairy-land. The day dawned but in happiness, and the night closed over them in peace. Oh ! the record of these few years of uninterrupted enjoyment should be traced in characters of gold, for they ended, and there came a sad reverse. Morduant's dissipated companions deter- mined not to give him up. From the time of his first acquaintance with Alice until now, he had resisted all their temptations. Though he had often taken, with them, a social glass, he had not joined in their mid- night revels, and had refused again to take his seat at the gaming table. But now, with renewed earnestness, they determined to win him over, and, alas ! too fatally did they succeed. Many long, weary evenings did Alice it OF SPARKLING DROPS. 49 -mlone, beside the crib of her sleeping Ellen ; yet her trusting heart forboded no ill her husband's invariable plea of Imswess was readily believed. But the veil of conceal- ment could not always be worn ; it was withdrawn, and then came sorrow and sore ^anguish. It was evening the clock rung out the lour of ten, and Alice threw down her book, -and casting a mother's look of love upon her sleeping Ellen, approached the window. The stars were smiling in their clear blue depths, the full moon shed a soft light on garden and lawn, seeming to rest with peculiar bright- 'ness on a bower which Morduant, with his own hand, had made so fairy-like and beau- tiful. Alice sighed, as she thought how much -of late he had staid away from his happy home, how his brow had darkened, and his eye grown anxious, when, night after night, he had told her, " business detained him." She wondered if he were perplexed, and in trouble ; and if so, why he did not tell her, that she might strive to lessen his ^anxieties, as well as share his joys. Her 50 THE SILVEK CUP thoughts grew sad, and she turned from the scene without, to the little erib of Tier lovely child. A smile was dimpling her round, healthy cheek. The mother stooped, and, lightly kissing her, exclaimed : " The angels are watching thy slumbers, sweet one ! "" Presently, an expression of delight passed over her, before thoughtful, face, and she said, aloud, " To-morrow is my Ellen's third birth-day, and I had like to have forgotten^ her present." She seated herself at the work- stand, and, with much animation, commenced dressing a large doll, the child's favorite toy. Hour after hour passed on, and Alice grew weary, and oppressed with anxiety. The clock struck two ; and, as its mournful sound died away upon the night air, she stepped out into the broad moonlight, and wandered toward the gate. But, what a sight met her there ! Her husband, who had just been lifted from a carriage by two gentlemen, was- borne toward her. She uttered no cry, nor did she faint ; but surprise, and fear, and suspense, almost overpowered her. In a OF SPAEKLING DEOP8. 51 voice low and hoarse with anguish, she en- quired : " Is he dead ? Do you bring my husband to me, dead ? " They both exclaimed, at once : " No, no ; not dead ; but let us get him to the house." She led the way ; and, as they placed him upon the sofa, and turned to speak encour- agingly to the almost paralyzed wife, he began to mutter, and stammered out "Don't, don't be afraid Al-Al-Alice. It is n't the the wine." Poor Alice ! A strange light broke in upon her spirit. She needed not now to be told what had happened, or why he had been brought home in this way. The gentle- men tried to comfort her with kind words ; but they were themselves too much bewild- ered, by the wine they had taken, to speak sensibly, and, bidding her " good night," re- turned to their carriage. It is useless to attempt a description of that night of sorrow and sore trial. Bitterly did the stricken wife mourn over her fallen husband ! and dark were her fears, that he 52 THE SILVER CUP was irreclaimably A DRUNKARD ! Most earn- estly did she plead with him, and weep over him, when he again became conscious, and many were his promises of reform. It would be an oft-repeated tale> to trace the steps of the fallen man, as he descended to the lowest grade of misery and degrada- tion. Let us advance ten years, and see the result of his life of dissipation. Stripped of their wealth, they have again returned to Roseland, and found shelter in that once comfortable cottage. But, alas ! how changed were they. What a depth of meaning is conveyed in that one sentence a drunken Jmsbamd and father! And was the proud, the gifted Morduant irreclaimable ? " It was supposed so but we shall see. And here, let us return to Mr. Stanley and Henry, whom we left in the little back par- lor of the inn. They canvassed the matter of forming a " Division," and then started out, upon their errand of love. Mr. Stanley really found " the ten," and, with their assist- ance, obtained a " Charter," formed the said OF SPARKLING DROPS. 53 " Division, 1 ' and, in a short time, a " Hall " was fitted up in fine style. At every weekly meeting new members were received, until " The sons "of Temperance" became a popular Order, and the little village of Roseland assumed a new and brighter aspect Again let us leave the plodding present, and advance five years. As we enter Koseland, and look for the uninviting, wood-colored " Traveler's Home," we behold, in its place, a spacious Temper- ance Hotel and instead of the crumbling, time-worn sign-post, there gushes up cheerily a fountain of sparkling . bright water. On the opposite side of the street, where stood that filthy rum-selling grocery, now towers up a splendid edifice, with the motto, " Love, Purity, and Fidelity," traced in bold charac- ters on its front, designating it, at once, as the " Hall " of " The Sons of Temperance." The whole village is greatly improved, as well as enlarged. But, let us call at this beautiful cottage, which nestles so lovingly among the tall elms, and choice, though abundant, shrubbery. 54 TIIE SILVER CUP In the vine-shaded portico are seated two gentlemen ; one of whom we cannot fail to recognize as Mr. Stanley. His whitened head bears evident marks of advanced age, but the same benevolent smile lingers on his no- ble face, and the same kind, earnest voice wins the ear to listen. His companion, you will say you have never seen before, and yet, there is a something about him not wholly unknown. It is the reclaimed, the again refined, talented Morduant. Ask him, what has caused the change, and he will point you to Mr. Stanley as his preserver ; tell you of his admission into the Order of the " Sons of Temperance," and of their untiring efforts to keep him from a second fall. Enter the parlor ; and here you will re- cognize Henry Stanley, in the the gentleman so interestedly gazing upon a fair young crea- ture, sitting at the piano. He seems no less delighted with her, than with her perform- ance and who is she? I hope, "my dear reader, you have not forgotten Ellen Mor- duant, the little girl who smiled in her sleep and was so tenderly cared for by a fond OF SPARKLING DROPS. 55 Another. That mother, bowed down with many sorrows, occasioned by a husband's intemperance, has long since found rest in the grave and Ellen, as the wife of Henry Stanley, enjoys those privileges and luxuries cf wealth which were denied her as the pov- erty-stricken daughter of a drunkard. Thrown over an arm of the sofa is a re- cently finished, white satin banner, with u Love, Purity, Fidelity," most elegantly em- broidered upon it The work of" Ellen's fingers. True happiness and peace beam upon the ^countenances of all, in this quiet, but elegant, home. It is a spot where we would love to linger, until our immortal spirits are called to & holier world ; for here, indeed, we may <eyer believe, " There is hope for the fallen." FLORENCE. ' 56 THE SILVER CUP \}t lanb. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY W. H. LONGFELLOW There sat one day in quiet, 4 By an alehouse on the Rhine, Four hale and hearty fellows, And drank the precious wine; The landlord's daughter filled their cups>. Around the rustic board;. Then sat they all so calm and still, And spake not . one rude word. But, when the maid departed, A Swabian raised his hand, And cried, all hot and flushed with "Long live the Swabian. land! "The greatest kingdom upon earth Cannot with that compare; With all the stout and hearty men And the nut-brown maidens there/ " Ha ! " cried the Saxon, laughing And dashed his beard with wine, "I had rather live in Lapland, Than that Swabian. land of thine t. OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 57 ... "The goodliest land on all the earth, It is the Saxon land! There have I as many maidens As fingers on this hand ! " "Hold your tongues! both Swabian and Saxon!" A bold Bohemian cries; " If there 's a heaven upon the earth, In Bohemia it lies. "There the tailor blows the flute, And the cobbler blows the horn, And the miner blows the bugle, Over mountain gorge and bourn." * * * * * And then the landlord's daughter Up to heaven raised her hand, And said, "Ye may no more contend, There lies the happiest land!" to bn BT O. W. BETHUITE, D. D. Live to do good: but not with thought to win From man reward of any kindness done: Remember him who died on cross for sin 3* 58 THE SILVEK CUP The merciful, the meek, rejected One ; When He was slain for crime of doing good, Canst thou expect return of gratitude? Do good to all: but, while thou servest best And at thy greatest cost, nerve thee to bear, When thine own heart with anguish is oppressed The cruel taunt, the cold averted air, From lips which thou hast taught in hope to pray, And eyes whose sorrows thou hast wiped away. Still do thou good: but for His holy sake Who died for thine, fixing thy purpose ever High as His throne, no wrath of man can shake; So shall He own thy generous endeavor. And take thee to His conqueror's glory up, When thou hast shared the Saviour's bitter cup. Do nought but good: for such the noble strife Of virtue is 'gainst wrong to venture love, And for thy foe devote a brother's life, Content to wait the recompense above; Brave for the truth, to fiercest insult meek, In mercy strong, in vengeance only weak. Si 1 A IMC LIN ft BE OPS, 59 Iltcn. -BY MRS. O. H. BDTI/ER. IT was Emma's bridal morn. I saw lier standing at the door of lier father's cottage ; ^a simple wreath of the pure lily of the val- ley ' entwined amid the rich braids of her auburn hair- the image of innocence and happiness. That morning, fair EMMA ALTON had given her hand where long her young affections had been treasured ; and to those who then saw the fine handsome countenance of Reuben Fairfield, and the pride and love with which he regarded the fair being at his side, it seemed impossible that aught but happiness could follow the solemn rites the cottage had that morning witnessed. The dwelling of my friend, to whose rural quiet I had escaped, from the heat and tur- moil of the city, was directly opposite the neat little cottage of Emma's parents, and, as I sat at my chamber window, my eye was, of course, Attracted to the happy scene before GO .1 u'E SiLVEfi CUP' me. The' morning was truly delightful - scarce a cloud floated o'er the blue vault of heaven-^- now and then, a soft breeze canie % whispering through the fragrant locust blos- soms and proud catalpas, then, stooping to kiss the dewy grass, sped far off in fantastic- shadows over the rich wheat and clover fields. All seemed in unison with the happi- ness so apparent at the cottage the birds- sang - butterflies sported on golden wing bees hummed busily. Many of Emma's* youthful companions had come to witness- the ceremony, and to bid adieu to their be- loved associate, for, as soon as the holy rites- were concluded, Reuben was to bear his fair bride to a distant village, where already a beautiful cottage was prepared, over whicli she was to preside, the charming mistress. There is always, I believe, a feeling of sad- ness commingled with the pleasure with which we regard the young and trusting bride, and as I now looked upon Emma, standing in the little portico, surrounded by the bright and happy faces of her compan- ions, her own still more radiant, I involunta- OF SPAEKLIKG DROPS. 61 rily sighed as I thought what her future lot might be. Was my sigh prophetic f Pres- ently the chaise, which was to convey the new-married pair to their future home, drove gaily to the gate of the cottage. I saw Em- ma bid adieu to her young friends, as they all gathered around her. I saw her fair arms thrown around the neck of her weep- ing mother, and then supported by her fa- ther and Reuben, she was borne to the carriage. Long was she pressed to her fa- ther's heart, ere he resigned her for ever to her husband. " God bless you, my child," at length said the old man : but no sound escaped Emma's lips, she threw herself back in the chaise, and drew her veil hastily over her face Reuben sprang to her side waved his hand to the now weeping assemblage at the cot- tage door, and the chaise drove rapidly away. I soon left the village, and heard no more of the youthful pair. Three years elapsed ere I again visited that pleasant spot, and, the morning after my arrival, as I took my favorite seat, and looked over upon the little 2 T1IESILVEKCUP dwelling opposite, the blithe scene I had there witnessed recurred to me, and I mar- veled if all which promised so fair on the bridal morn had been realized. To my eye, the cottage did not look as cheerful, the air of neatness and comfort which before distin- guished it, seemed lessened. I notice the walk was now overgrown with grass, and the little flower plot, about which I had so ofter seen fair Emma employed, was rank witl> weeds. The blinds were all closely shut and, indeed, every thing about the cottage looked comfortless and desolate. Presently the door opened and a female appeared bearing in her hand a small basket which she proceeded to fill with vegetables, growing sparsely among the weeds and tangled grass. Her step was feeble, and she seemed hardly capable of pursuing her employment. As she turned her face toward me, I started with surprise, I looked at her again, more earnestly is it possible can that be Em- ma, thought I can that pale, wretched looking girl be her, whom I last saw a happy blooming bride ? OF SPARKLING DROPS. 63 \ *s, it was Enima ! Alas ! how soon are the bright visions dispelled ; like those beautiful images which flit around the couch of dreams, they can never be realized. The history of Emma is one which has oft been written, by the pen of truth a tear- ful record of maris ingratitude and folly of womawHs all-enduring sufferance and con- stancy. The first few months of Emma's married life flew by in unalloyed happiness. Reuben lived but in her smiles ; and life, to the young, affectionate girl, seemed but a joyous holiday, and she the most joyous participant. Too soon the scene was changed. Reuben Fairfield was of a gay and reckless nature, fond of convivality, of the jest and song ; he was, consequently, a great favorite with the young men of the village, and there had been rumors that, even before his marriage, he had been too free a partaker of the wine- cup. If this were the case, months certainly passed on after that event, when Reuben seemed indifferent to any society but that of his young wife. Little by little, his old 64 THE SILVER OtTP habits returned upon him, so insensibly too, that even he, himself, could not probably have defined the time when he again found pleasure away from the home of love and Emma. In the only tavern of the village, a room was devoted exclusively to the revels of a band of reckless, dissolute young men, with whom Reuben had at one time been intimate, and it needed but the slightest appearance on the part of the latter to toler- ate once more their idle carousals, than with one consent, they all united to bring back the Benedict to his old habits. They thought not of the misery that would follow the suc- cess of their fiendish plot ; of the crushed and broken heart of the young being who looked up to their victim as her only hope and happiness. It was in the gay spring-time, when Reu- ben Fairfield bore his bride away from the arms of her aged parents ; but what became of the solemn vows he then uttered, to pro- tect and cherish their beloved daughter? For, when next the forest trees unfolded their ten- der leaves, and the orchards were white with OF SPARKLING DROPS. 65 fragrant blossoms, misery and despair fallen, as a blight, upon poor Emma ! The heart of affection is the last to acknowledge the errors of a beloved object, so it was with Emma ; but her cheek grew pale, and her mild blue eyes dimmed beneath their woe- charged lids. Reuben now almost entirely neglected his patient, still-loving wife. In vain she reas- oned, entreated, implored, yet nevw re- proaclied. He was alike regardless ; daily he gave himself up more and more to the insatiate destroyer, until destruction, both of soul and body, followed. And loud rang the laugh, and the glasses rattled, and the voice of the inebriate shouted forth its loathsome jargon from the Tempter's Hell! There were times, it is true, when he would pause in his reckless career ; and then hope once more buoyed up the sinking heart of Emma; and when, for the first time, he pressed their babe to his bosom, while a tear fell upon its innocent cheek, it is no wonder that the young mother felt her sorrows ended. That tear, the tear, as she thought,, of repentance, 66 THE SILVER CUP had washed them all away. But, when vice once gets the ascendency, it reigns like a des- pot, and too soon the holy feelings of the father were lost in the intoxicating bowl. Poverty, with all its attendant ills, now came upon the wretched wife. One by one the articles of her little menage were taken from her by Reuben, to satisfy the cravings of appetite, and, with her babe, she was at last forced to leave the cottage where her early days of married life so blissfully flew by, and seek shelter from the winds of hea- ven in a miserable hut, which only misery might tenant. The unfortunate find few friends, and over the threshhold of poverty new ones seldom pass, and therefore it was that Emma was soon neglected and forgot- ten. There were some, it is true, who re- garded her with pity and kindness, but there were also very many who pointed the finger of derision at the drunkards wife inno- cent sufferer for her husband's vices ! At length the babe fell ill. It died, and poor, poor Emma, pale and disconsolate, knelt by the little cradle alone ; no sympathizing OF SPARKLING DEOPS. G<T hand wiped the tear from her eye ; no kind word soothed her lacerated bosom ; the earthly friend that should have sustained her under this grievous trial, was not at her side, but reveling in scenes of low debauchery. The night was marked by a storm of ter- rific violence ; the rain poured in torrents ; dreadful thunder rent the heavens, the whirl- wind uplifted even the largest trees ; while the incessant lightning-flashes only added tenfold horrors to the scene. But the be- reaved mother, the forsaken wife, heeded it not : with her cheek pressed against the scarce colder one of her dead babe, she re- mained for hours totally unconscious of the wild war of the elements for more com- plete desolation reigned in her heart. At length the door opened, and Reuben entered. With an oath, he was about to throw himself upon the wretched straw pallet, when his eye casually fell upon the pale marble-like face of the little babe. His senses, stupified as they were, aroused at the sight. "What ails the child?" he muttered. "Reuben, our darling babe is dead!" 68 THE SILVER CUP replied Emma, lifting her pallid features to the bloated gaze of her husband. Then ri- sing from her knees, she approached him, and led him to look upon the placid counte- nance of their first-born. We will not dwell upon the scene ; re- morse and grief stirred the heart of Keuben almost to madness. On his knees he implo- red forgiveness of his much injured wife ; he swore a solemn oath that never again would he swerve from the path of sobriety, but that years of penitence and affection should atone for his past abase of life and love. The day came for the funeral. Reuben had promised his wife that he would not again leave the house until the remains of their babe had been given to the earth ; he intended to keep his promise, but as the day wore on the insatiable cries of habit tempted him away. Only one glass, he thought but another followed and then another, until, alike forgetful of himself and his unhappy wife, he became grossly intoxicated. In the mean while a few of the neighbors had assembled ; the clergyman, too, had OF SPARKLING DROPS. 69 arrived, and the funeral rites were only delayed by the absence of Reuben. Minutes wore on. " He will not come," whispered one. " Ah, it is easy to guess where he is," added an- other, and looks of pity were turned upon the heart-stricken mother, as with her head bowed upon the little coffin she hid her grief and shame. The clergyman at length ap- proaching the mourner, in a low tone, asked if the ceremony should proceed. " Has he come ? " eagerly asked Emma. The clergyman shook his head. " O wait, wait, he will be here, he prom- ised me. O yes, he will come ! " But another half hour rolled on, and still Reuben came not. The neighbors now mo- ved to depart, when rising from her seat, her pallid countenance betokening the agony of her heart, Emma signified her assent that the solemn rites should proceed. But suddenly in the midst of that earnest prayer for com- fort and support to the afflicted mother, a loud shout was heard, and Reuben was seen staggering toward the hut. With a brutal 70 THE SILVER CUP oath lie burst into the room, but, happily for poor Emma, she saw him not, the first sound of his voice had deprived her of conscious- ness, and she was placed fainting on the bed. Reuben was overpowered and dragged from the hut the funeral service ended, and leaving the unconscious mother in the care of a few compassionate neighbors, the little procession wound its way to the churcl yard. It was nearly a year after this sad scene, that one evening a stranger alighted from the stage at the inn, announcing his intention to remain there for the night. Entering the bar-room, he ordered a glass of brandy which he was about to carry to his lips, when his eye encountered the wistful gaze of Reuben Fairfield, who now, without means to allay the death- worm upon his vitals, was stretched upon a bench at one end of the room. " I say, neighbor, you look thirsty," ejacu- lated the stranger in a gay tone. "Here, take this, for faith, tliou hast a learn, and hu/ngry look' ! " OF SPARKLING DEO PS. 71 Eagerly seizing it, Reuben drained the glass, and for a moment the worm was appeased ! The stranger made some casual remark, to which Reuben replied in language 30 well chosen, and evidently so far above his apparent station in life, that the former was astonished, and by degrees a lively con- versation took place between them, during which Reuben more than once partook of the young man's mistaken kindness. While conversing, the stranger several times drew from his pocket a handsome gold watch, and the chink of silver fell upon the famished ears of Reuben with startling clearness. Ap- parently, with that feeling of ennui which so often seizes upon the solitary traveler, the stranger now strolled from the bar-room into the hall, a door leading into a room opposite was open, and sounds of loud merriment attracted his eyes in that direction. A com- pany of young men were playing at cards without ceremony he entered, and advancing to the table, appeared to watch the game with some interest. He was invited to join them, and after some hesitation accepted. THE SILVER CUP Reuben had followed the young man into the room, and now eagerly watched the pile of silver, and an occasional bank note, which rather ostentatiously, as it would seem, the stranger displayed. The evening wore away, and with a promise from Reuben that he would awaken him betimes, to visit a singu- lar cave in the neighborhood, the stranger retired to rest. Not so, Reuben. A fiendish plot entered his brain that money must be Ms and even at that moment when rob- bery, perhaps murder, was at his heart, he dared to think of the pure minded, innocent Emma as a sharer of his ill-gotten wealth ! All night he paced the dark forest contigu- ous to his abode, where long after midnight the feeble lamp shone upon the haggard fea- tures of the once lovely girl, as she strove with trembling fingers to render the apparel of the inebriate decent for the morrow. As the day was breaking, Reuben passed softly into the cottage, for he knew that Em- ma now slept ; approaching the bedside, something like a shade of pity stole over his countenance. She smiled in her sleep OF 8PAEKLING DEOPS. 3 and called upon Ms name this was. too much for the miserable man. Hastily open- ing a table-drawer, he drew forth a sharp knife which he concealed beneath his coat, muttering, as he did so "I may need it,' 7 -and then, without daring to cast his eye again toward the bed, left the house and proceeded to the inn, where the stranger already awaited his arrival. With each point of view, as they pro- ceeded on their route, the latter expressed Jbimself delighted, particularly as his guide endeavored to give interest to every scene, by the relation of .some anecdote or history attached. At length they reached the neigh- borhood of the cavern. Here the river, which before had rolled so gently along, reflecting the varied hues of autumn in its translucent depths, suddenly changed its course, and leaping over a precipice some thirty feet in height, pursued its way for some distance between huge masses of shelv- ing rocks, crowned on either side by dark .gloomy forests. After a laborious descent they arrived at the mouth of the cave, 74 THE SILVEE CUP situated about midway down the bank Reuben entered first, the stranger was about to follow, when turning suddenly upon him with a blow of giant strength, Fairfield hurled him from the precipice, and he fell senseless upon the jagged rocks below ! Leaping quickly down, Reuben rifled the pockets of the unfortunate man of both money and watch, and then drew him, still breathing, up the ragged cliff and far into the cave. More than once as he saw life yet stirred the limbs of his victim, his hand was upon the knife but lie drew it not forth! Covering the body with fragments of rock and under wood, he left the hapless man to his fate, certain that even if consciousness returned, his efforts to extricate himself from the mass would be unavailing, and as he had taken the precaution also to closely bind his mouth, he could utter no cry for assistance. Returning now to the village, he boldly entered the inn, and stating to the landlord that the stranger had been tempted by the fineness of the morning to pursue his journey a few miles on foot, proceeded to hand him OF SPAKRLINO BBOPS. 75 a sum of money which he said he had charged him to deliver as equivalent to the amount due for supper and lodging. This all appeared every reasonable, and no ques- tions were asked. But ere the day was over, some boys, who had strayed in the vicinity of the cave, came running home pale and frightened, declaring they had heard dread- ful groans issue thence, and that many of the rocks around were stained with blood ! Im- mediately every eye was turned to the spot where a moment before Reuben Fairfield had been standing, and although no one spoke, probably the same terrible conviction flashed through the minds of each ; but guilt is al- ways cowardly. Reuben had disappeared. A party of villagers immediately set forth to search the eave. The result may be im- agined the stranger was discovered, still alive, although but for this timely aid, a few hours would have determined his fate. Reu- ben attempted to make his escape, but was soon overtaken and delivered up to justice found guilty, and sentenced to ten years' hard labor in the State Prison ! 76 THE SILVER CUP This sad history I learned from my friend ; and now poor Emma had come back to die ! Come back to that home she had left with so many bright visions of happiness before her, a heart-broken, wretched being. It was not long, ere through the same little gate, whence, but a few years before, I had seen her led a happy, blooming bride, I saw her coffin borne to the still grave-yard ! " Ah ! " thought I, as the hot tears gath- ered, " thou art but another victim . at the shrine of Intemperance ! " Rest thee in peace, poor Emma ! BY MBS. C. L. HENTZ. Alone he lies on blasted heath, Accursed of man and God No verdure near his fiery breath Curls withering o'er the sod. Last of his race a countless race Their graves are heaving round, OF 8PAKKLING DKOPS. Their drowning path in floods we trace, Their ashes strew the ground. Their ghosts come rustling in the gale, Then- bones the wayside pave, They bleach upon the sunny vale, They gleam 'mid ocean's wave. How died they? that unnumbered race Of plague, or fire, or sword ? Did the destroying angel pass, In vengeance from the Lord? They died in sin they died in shame Each suicidal hand Hurl'd at the heart as sure an aim As guides the battle brand. And he, the last and lonely, quaffs The tempter's burning bowl, While, as he drinks, the demon laughs, And claims his drowning soul. Dash down the bowl, poor maniac, dash Save, save thy drowning soul; Heaven's wrathful lightnings round thee flash, Eternal thunders roll. Fly to a covert from the storm, An angel bids thee come; 78 THE SILVER OTTP Behold her fair, emerging form, A rainbow 'mid the gloom. She smiles the blasted heath is green Pure fountains murmur near Blending in shade, the young leaves lean, The streamlet's song to hear. The waters gush in countless rills They toss their silvery spray The wave that fiery goblet fills, And laves its dregs away. Flow on, ye cleansing waters, flow Where'er the fiend has trod The source of ruin and of woe, The scourge of man and God. u (H)tw K mas BY MARIA -WOODRUFF. The day is done, and with its silent close Come recollections of the varied past. The memory of long-lost early friends, Who shared with me bright childhood's sunny hours, Steals o'er my heart in softly-whispered tones OF BPAEKLING DROPS. 79 And makes me feel their angel-presence near. In those joy-kindling days how happy were we ! Then there was beaming sunshine in our hearts, The world to us was a love-hallowed scene ; And in the circle of its far off years, We only read a brightly welcome fate. Suns rose, and shone their busy day, and set And childhood's fleeting summer passed away; Then came gay youth, with all its busy dreams Of pure and unalloyed heart-happiness. I meet my Henry in this gladsome hour; And was he not all my proud heart could wish, Of nobleness, and love, and faith, and truth? His soulful eyes were deep and strangely light; His high, pure mind was written on his face; And I lived on in the blest consciousness Of being*loved and loving in return. Years still rolled on, and " we were happy ! " yes Such bliss as those few, transitory years Brought on their silent, swift, love-laden wings, Can only be remembered with a pang Of 'blighting anguish, that they fled so soon. Fled ? yes, they fled ! for he who was my guide, My inner life, the soul within my soul, Was tempted to forego the light of home, To taste upon the wine-cups sparkling brim, The joy that must baptize his soul in woe! 80 THE SILVEK CUP And now what have I left? my early friends Have, one by one, gone to a dreamless sleep! And those, who blessed my father's cherished home, 1 left, to link my fate with one whose name Was woven with the fibres of my heart, And whose pure love was all I asked of bliss. That love has died. And must I gather back My wealth of crushed affections, to corrode Within the silent temple of my soul'? On such an eve as this, spirits that love Go out on love's swift errand. But, alas! Blooms there on earth a flower that sheds for me The incense that is lent by Heaven, to cheer The weary, desolate, and broken heart? I know he did not mean to wrong my trust; But some dark spirit beckoned him away,. Away from joy, and peace, and home, and me, And I am left to wander on alone ! No cheering sympathy, no trust, no hope. Why have I lived to see this bitter day? Why daily gaze on these sun-lighted hills, Yet, know my heart is dark, and drear, and lone! But, is there then no hope this side the grave? May not some guardian angel still be near, To pluck his footsteps from the toilsome snare? Kind angel! draw him back to LOVE to OF SPAEKLING DEOPS. 81 Come \\)m forking Irmms? BY MRS. H. S. DE GROVE. Why come these mocking dreams at eventide ? To haunt my aching heart, and gath'ring throw A fading gleam o'er desolations wide A deeper gloom to spread o'er present woe. Oh ! there are hours when to the lone one's ear Is borne, as echo from the void within, The moan of phantom thoughts still hov'ring near, Like murdered spirits o'er some blood-stained scene. Where are the dreams which, in my hours of pride, Were rear'cl as castles in some fairy land ? With sunny landscapes girting every side, And golden harps in many an angel hand ? What, though the poisori'd cup be decked with flowers The draught be sweetened with each rare perfume Shall we not, quaffing, tell in bitter hours, Its stinging pathway to the opening tomb ? As blight of years falls on the trustful heart, And sweeps the garniture of hope away, Life stands unveiled our fancy-dreams depart And drooping spirits mourn each broken stay. 4* 82 THESILVEKCUP Cjje lrnnkarb'5 Danger BY CHARLES BURDETT. " THERE, take that then, you little hussy, and see if it won't teach you to remember better next time," and a blow from the per- son speaking felled the one addressed to the floor. " Oh, father ! " sobbed the little girl, for it was a father whose brutality was thus exhib- ited. " Oh, father, you hurt me dreadfully indeed you do hurt me," she said, rising from the floor as with an effort " Don't strike me ; indeed I will do any thing you say, but don't strike me, dear father." " I will strike you, if I choose," the brute replied, in rough tones. "Ill beat the breath out of your body, if you dare to disobey me," and he proved the sincerity of his threat, and his ability to carry it into execution, by seizing the unresisting girl by the arm and boxing her ears, until all power of resistance and even of crying was gone. OF SPAEKLING DROPS. 83 " There," he exclaimed, when fatigued with his brutal occupation, as his child sank al- most senseless at his feet. " There, take that and learn to disobey me the next time, will you," and he staggered out of the room, leaving the half-dead girl lying on the floor. A very few words are necessary to intro- duce, more particularly, father and daughter to the reader : JAMES MAXWELL was a widower, his wife having died about two years prior to the opening of my tale, leaving Ellen, the daugh- ter and only child, to his care, she being, at the time of her mother's death, ten years of age. He w^as a mechanic a good mechanic, and, during the lifetime of his wife, had worked steadily and faithfully, earning the best wages. Then, he was a sober, industri- ous man kind to his wife attentive to the wants of his little family, and happy in the possession of an affectionate wife, a duti- ful child, health and strength to pursue his daily labor, and the esteem of all who knew him. A few months after the death of his wife, 84 THESILVERCUP a sad change came over Ms manners, habit * y and conduct. He commenced visiting por- ter-houses, and his evenings were now passed with boon companions, drinking and gam- bling away his daily wages, while his child was suffering from actual want at home, uncared for by the debased parent. In a short time he lost his situation, and, of course, the means to gratify his debased passion for liquor. But, piece by piece, his furniture was disposed of, and without a thought upon the sufferings of his motherless girl at home, he continued to drink and gamble away his hours, returning home always in a state of intoxication. Ellen, his little daughter, had found em- ployment at the artificial flower trade, and was earning enough daily to provide food for herself and wretched parent, when he came home to partake of it. He had, on the morning of the day in which my story commences, before he left the house, told her that she need not prepare any supper for him, as he should not be home. He did come however, at an earliei OF SPARKLING DROPS. 85 hour than was usual, and as usual he was intoxicated, and his first enquiry was for his supper. Ellen reminded him of what he had told her in the morning, but with the stubbornness of intoxication, he denied it, and the blow which felled her to the ground was the answer to her remonstrance. Ellen remained on the floor some time af- ter her brutal father had left the room, sob- bing as if her little heart would break. She- could forget every thing but this vio- lence, for he had ever been kind to her. With difficulty she managed to crawl up to her little dingy room in the attic, where she cried herself to sleep. In the morning she went down stairs, intending to go to her work as usual, although feeling sore from the inhuman treatment of the previous night, but she was seized with a sudden faintness, and was forced to lie down on her father's bed. A kind-hearted woman, who resided in the same house, chanced to come into the room where she was lying, and seeing that the poor child was seriously ill, sent for a physi- cian, a young practitioner, who had just 86 THE SILVER CUP taken tip his residence in their immediate neighborhood. He obeyed the summons with the prompt- itude generally displayed by the members of his profession, and as soon as he cast his eyes upon the little sufferer, he pronounced her seriously ill, and forbade her being removed from her bed on any account. Learning, from the woman who had caused him to be called in, that she was entirely alone, and had the care of a drunken father, he saw that, unless from himself she must receive little attention ; having therefore procured for her the medicine which her sickness demanded, he administered it himself, and left the house, promising to return early on the fol- lowing morning, but giving particular orders that she should on no account be removed, and if possible kept in the most perfect quiet. Ellen, soon after his departure, sank into a profound slumber, and was left alone. She was awakened, however, soon after dark, by the entrance of her father, who, as usual, staggered into the room, and struck a light with some matches. OF SPARKLING DBOPS. 87 " Why the has n't that girl got any fire ? " he muttered, as he shivered, (for it was a bitter cold night,) forgetting that there was nothing with which she could make a fire, and that he had never provided for her the means of procuring fuel. " I wonder where she is," he hiccupped, staggering toward his bed. "Ah, there you are is that the way you use your father, you little hussy ? To let him come home in the cold, and have no fire for him to warm himself, and you too lazy to make one. Come, get out of bed, you lazy hussy get out, and make up a fire." Ellen was too feeble to speak she was in a raging fever, and was unable to stir a limb. " Come, do you hear me ? " exclaimed the drunken brute " get up, I say, or shall I help you ? " Ellen in vain essayed to speak she could not, but tears forced themselves from her eyes, and coursed down her flushed and and fevered cheeks. "Always crying when I come home. 88 THE SILVER CUP That's just the way with you. I never find any thing ready for me, as I used to. JSTo supper, no fire nothing but crying, for ever. Come, I say, do you hear me get up." Still Ellen did not, for she could not stir, nor could she reply to his brutal demand. " Well, since you won't help yourself, I '11 help you," and the brute dragged her from the bed, letting her fall with stunning violence to the floor. " There," and he raised her up, placing her roughly in an old arm- chair, which stood near the chimney " sit there as long as you choose. I 'm going to bed, and see that you have a fire made and breakfast ready for me when I get up." So saying, the drunkard threw himself into the bed, and was soon buried in the deep sleep of intoxication. Poor Ellen was too weak to speak, or cry for help, and there she sat, cold, sick, and suffering from intense pain. At length, when her father was buried in a sleep so profound, she knew she should not awaken him, she managed to crawl to the bedside, and take OF SPARKLING DEOP8. 89 thence one of the coverings, which she threw across her shoulders, and staggered back to her chair. And thus she passed, the dreary night not a sound did she hear but the deep, heavy breathing of her drunken and debased pa- rent, who lay snoring there, while she was half perished with the cold. In the morning, the physician, who knew the serious character of his young patient's disease, called to see her, and, without ma- king any noise, for he hoped to find her asleep, entered the chamber where he had last left her. His surprise was almost too great for utterance, when, on entering the apartment, he saw his patient, who he knew was in a really critical situation, demanding the utmost care, seated on a large chair, with a blanket thrown around her shivering form. " Good heavens ! my girl, what are you doing here ! " he exclaimed, as he saw, by the hectic flush on her cheek, despite her shivering, that she was yet in a raging fever. "Why are you not in bed? You are not able, and ought not to sit up. How could 90 THE SILVER OTJP you be so heedless you must obey my directions more closely." A glance at the bed was all the reply El- len could give, for her choked utterance. " How long have you been sitting up ? " " All night, sir," she replied, in feeble tones. " Have you had no fire ? " "No, sir." " Nor any light ? " " No, sir." " And have you taken any of the medicine I left for you ? " " I could not get up to get it, I was so weak, and there was no one to give it to me." " Do you mean to tell me," exclaimed the physician, with an air of incredulity, " that you have been seated here all night, without a light or fire, and without a single human being to attend you are you telling me the truth?" " Yes, sir." " And how, in the name of Heaven, did it happen ? " exclaimed the young man, every feeling of his nature aroused by this exhibi- OP SPAEKLING DEOPS. 91 tion of inhumanity ; " you ought to be in bed now. This imprudence may cost you your life." The poor girl's tears broke out afresh, as she replied, in feeble tones, half choked by sobs and tears, "Father came home tipsy, sir, and pulled me out of bed ! He is asleep there now." To drag the stupid, half-sobered brute from his lair, was the work of a single in- stant, for the vigorous arm of the young physician, and planting him on his feet, facing himself, he addressed him, " You miserable, drunken, inhuman brute 1 Did you dare to make that poor sick girl stay in that chair all night, without a fire or light, cold and sick, while you were snoring off your drunken fit ? " and the young man, losing all patience, shook the now affrighted wretch, as though he were but a bundle of straw. " Answer me, you villain ! Do you know what you have done ? If that girl dies, I will, so help me Heaven, have you indicted for murder, you miserable scoundrel ! Look at her look there ! " and he dragged the now sobered 92 THE SILVER CUP man directly in front of the shivering, suffer- ing child, who sat there motionless, the tears coursing down her cheeks, while her lips fairly chattered with the cold " look at her, and if there is a single spark of man- hood left in you if every sense is not stu- pified by the liquor you have swilled go on your knees and thank God she is not a corpse ! " The sight of the trembling, suffering, shiv- ering Ellen, his only child, recalled to the miserable man, the occurrences of the pre- vious evening, and the feelings of the father rose at once victorious. " Oh, father," mur- mured the suffering girl, as she saw the agony depicted in his countenance, but she could say no more. It was enough, however, for the grief- stricken parent, who, sinking on his knees grasped the hot, feverish hand of the suffer- ing, ill-used child, and sobbed as if his heart was breaking. " There, there," said the young physician, wiping from his own eyes the tears which he could not restrain. " She must not be exci OF SPAKKLING DROPS. 93 ted. Place her in bed gently there, softly," and gently they raised up the suffer- ing, but now happy girl. " Oh, father ! " she said, feebly, throwing her arms around his neck, as he laid her on the bed, while the hot tears fell from his blood-shot eyes, " Oh, father ! do n't cry so ; I shall soon get well, now you are so kind to me." " Kind to you, my child ! " he exclaimed, and sinking on his knees beside her bed, he vowed before Heaven, if his child was spa- red to him, never again to yield to the ine- briating cup, and never again to be recreant to his duty as a father. " Now, then," he said, arising and turning to the physician, "what must be done for her?" But the young physician was engros- sed with something which was hanging over the mantel-piece in a frame. " Do you mean to say that you are entitled to this ?" he asked, doubtingly, turning to the father, for it was a certificate of membership to an Order, which, in brighter days, the sober, industrious man had been proud to exhibit. 94 THE SILVER CUP " I did, sir," replied Mr. Maxwell, with a blush, of shame mantling his cheek, " I did, sir, but " " You have been expelled. Is it so ?" " Yes, sir, and very justly, too." " You may well say 'justly,' if this has been your course of conduct. But come, I will not reproach you now. I grieve to see a Brother so debased and fallen, but I hope yet to see you worthy of being reinstated." " Oh, sir, befriend me now save me from myself, and I swear never again to forfeit the regard of those who have so long been ashamed for me," exclaimed the conscience sticken wretch. " Befriend you ! To be sure I will. Am I not bound to befriend every fellow being in distress ? and though you have forfeited your claim to Brotherhood, you are a Brother still. But come, let us attend to Ellen here. She needs all your care ; first of all, you must have a fire. Have you no wood ?" " No, but I have some money left from the sale of my bureau. I can soon get some." " Make up a fire at once, and then get this OF SPAEKLIKG DROPS. 95 medicine, and see it given according to the directions," he said, handing him a prescrip- tion. " Every thing shall be done as you say, but sir " and he hesitated. " Go on ; what is it you wish to say ?" " You will not desert me now that I need a friend so much. I am going to try to get work will you let me say, you know I will keep sober ?" " I will ; for I believe you to be now sin- cere, and it is only by adhering to your vow, you can prove worthy of my friendship. I will say I believe you to be sincere God knows you have cause enough for sincerity." The fire was made, and the medicine admin- istered as directed, and Ellen was left with the kind woman who had discovered her the pre- vious day, and who was made happy in the assurance of the drunken father's promised reformation. Having seen all his daughter's wants cared for, he started out in quest of work, and without a wish to stop, passed by the very porter-house, in which he had spent the previous day, As he looked within, and 96 THE SILVER CUP saw groups of his associates pouring down the sure but tempting poison, he inwardly raised his heart to God in thankfulness, that he was now enabled to resist the temptation which had so long mastered him, and which had wrought such misery. He went directly to the establishment for which he had been accustomed to work, but his eyes, blood-shot with long-continued dissipation, and with weeping over his daughter's suffering, and his own shame, were very much against him. " Mr. A.," said he, boldly, approaching the proprietor, " I have quit drinking now, for ever, and I want you to let me come back to work. You know I was always a good workman when I was steady." " Your eyes do n't look much like it novr, James," replied Mr. A., kindly. " I know you were a good workman, but I fear you will not long remain a sober man." " But I will, sir, so help me Heaven. I nearly killed my only child last night, but I am sober now, and, please God, I mean to stay so." 'OF SPARKLING DROPS. 97 '*' Is there any one, James, who will vouch ifor you ?" " Yes, sir ; Dr. W.," said James. " I>r. W. !" exclaimed Mr. A., in surprise, ""why, he belongs to our Order. Will he vouch for you ? How did he come to know you ?" " Yes, sir, he will;" and James briefly nar- rated the occurrence of the morning. " Well, you may go to work, and I will see the Doctor this morning. If you have got so good a friend as Dr. W., you are in good hands." James went to work with a cheerful heart, but his associates were, at first, rather shy of him. They knew how recklessly dissipated he had been, and they regretted his return among them, for they feared his example among the younger hands. He noticed, too, their distant behavior, but in the confidence that his own good conduct would soon wear that oft^ he worked on in silence, and worked o well, as to draw forth the merited appro- val of the foreman. 98 THE SILVEK CUP When the work of the day was closed,, and as the men were preparing to return to- their homes, James spoke out : " Boys, you all know what I have been before I turned a drunkard. Now, I'm a sober man, and I hope you are not going to dishearten me, by not believing me. So help me God, I am never going to drink again." There was an honest sincerity in his countenance as he spoke, which carried conviction with his words, and every hardy hand was stretched out to him in warm congratulation. In answer to questions as to his little daughter, whom they all knew, as she used to bring his dinner to him, he very frankly related all the occurrences of the night and morning, and when he mentioned that she was sick, and alone, a dozen kind voices^ promised that their wives should come around and see her. And, what is more r they did come, and, thanks to a father's kindness, and their neighborly attention backed by the skill of the kind Dr. W., El- len was soon restored to health. As she brought her father's dinner, as usual, to him r OF SPABKLING DKOPS. 99 on the first day she was able to go out, she was received by all the honest, hard-working men, with as much kindness as though she were a child of their own. True to his promise, Dr. W. did see James Maxwell reinstated, and on the following week thereafter, James brought home a new certificate, which he hung up in the place of the one Jie had forfeited, and thenceforward he remained true to his pledge. I hoped in glimmering consciousness, that all this torture was a dream; Yet life is oft so like a dream, we know not where we are. TUPPER. lib dnh so mil it? BY ELIZA COOK. Did God so will it ? Truth is in the tone That so arraigns the evil deeds of man, And worshipers at the Eternal Throne Will breathe it forth in face of mortal ban, We note dark scenes that crowd upon our eyes, Rousing the bosom but to chafe and chill it ; 100 THE SILVEK C TJ P Oh, who shall gaze, nor feel the question rise Did God so will it? The holy word, typed by the gentle bird Of holy peace, is often yelled around As a fierce war-cry scaring while 't is heard, Baiting and baying where bold thought is found. " Be merciful," is the divine behest ; Priests with the mission, how do ye fulfill it ? Even as tyranny and strife attest Did God so will it? The red-skinned savage holds his hunting field As Nature's heritage by human law, Content with what the bush and river yield, His rugged wigwam and his tawny squaw. But the smooth white-face drives him back and back , Let his voice tell of right, and might shall still it, Till his free steps are thrust from their own track Did God so will it? The heirs of fortune eat, drink, laugh, and sleep, Scarce knowing winter's cold from Summer's heat; Strange contrast with the lank pinched forms that With roofless heads, and bleeding, hearthless feet. While sated Wealth reclines to cull and sip, Where the full feast is decked with flowery Wonder and Hunger ask with moody lip Did God so will it? OF SPARKLING DROPS. 101 ' T is a fit question when the coward hand Deals needless anguish to the patient brute ; Proud upright thing of clay, thou had'st command To rule, but not to torture the poor mute. When thou would'st urge the brave steed to a task, Knowing the mean, inhuman work will kill it, Hearest not thou the voice of conscience ask Did God so will it ? Crime clothed in greatness holds a wondrous claim On the world's tenderness 't is few will dare To call foul conduct by its proper name When it can prowl and prey in golden lair ; But let the pauper sin Virtue disgraced, Rears a high seat, and Vengeance stern must fill it. Justice, thy bandage is not fairly placed Did God so will it? ' T is a fit question to be put to man When he would trample hearts already sad, Reckless what pressing trials crowd the span Of others' days so that his own is glad. ' T is a broad taxing but the chainless mind Will dare to raise the doubtings that shall thrill it, Enquiring oft, 'mid factions base and blind, Did God so will it? Who can look out upon the earth and see Much that is there, without a startling fear That Man has darkly set the upas tree 102 THE SILVER CUP Where Nature gave him vineyard fruits to rear ? Sorrow, oppression, carnage, madness, pain Read the world's record note how these shall fill it Shrink not, but question straight with heart and brain, Did God so will it ? I gazed upon the tattered garb Of one who stood a listener by; The hand of misery pressed him hard, And tears of sorrow swelled his eye. I gazed upon his pallid cheek, And asked him how his cares begun - He sighed, and thus essayed to speak; " The cause of all my grief is rum." I watched a maniac through the gate, Whose raving shook me to the soul; I asked what sealed his wretched fate, The answer was " the cursed bowl" I asked a convict in his chains, While tears along his cheek did roll; OF SPARKLING DROPS. 103 What devil urged him on to crime His answer was " the cursed bowL" I asked the murderer when the rope Hung round his neck in death's hard roll; Bereft of pardon, and of hope His answer was u the cursed bowL" iw Imaq, Bring me forth the cup of gold, Chased by Druid's hands of old, Filled at yonder fountain's breast, Where the waters are at rest; This for me in joyous hour, "This for me in beauty's bower, This for me in manhood's prime, This for me in life's decline. Bring me forth the humbler horn, Filled by hunter's hand at morn, From the chrystal spring that flows Underneath the blooming rose, Where the violet loves to sip, Wliere the lily cools her lip; 104 THE SILVER CUP' Bring me this and I will say, Take the ruby wine away! Dip the bucket in the well, Where the trout delights to dwell . Where the sparkling water sings, As it bubbles from the springs, Where the breezes whisper sweet, Where the happy children meet, Draw, and let the draught be mine- Take away the rosy wine ! Inigtrt of % JUnglrt. BY GIFTIE. IF to be seated, on a bright winter's day,, before a glowing fire of anthracite, with one's feet on the fender, and one's form half buried in the depths of a cushioned easy-chair, hold- ing the uncut pages of the last novel, be in- deed the practical definition of happiness^ then EMMA LESLIE was to be envied as she- sat thus cosily, one afternoon, listening to the- animated discussion going on between ar& OF SPARKLING DROPS. 105 elderly lady and gentleman on the opposite of the fire place. The discussion ran on a grave subject a very grave subject one which has puzzled the heads of wise men, and turned the wits of weak ones. But though the argument grew every moment more close and earnest, the fair listener had the audacity to laugh, in clear, silvery tones, that told there was not one serious thought in her mind, as she said, " Nay, good uncle, a truce to these gener- alities. If, as I imagine, all this talk upon woman's duties has been for my special edifi- cation, pray be more explicit and tell me what part I am to play in the general reform you propose ?" The gentleman thus addressed looked up at this interruption, and replied, in a tone slightly acidified, " For your benefit also has been your Aunt Mary's clear position of what woman may, and should be. Perhaps you will profit as much by her suggestions as you seem to do by mine." " Do not give me up as incorrigible just 106 THE SILVER CUP as I am coming to be taught how to be good," said Emma, with mock gravity. "With regard to this subject of temperance, of which you were just speaking, and upon which you say woman has so much influence, what shall I do ? How can I reclaim the drunkard ? while I move in a circle where the degraded creatures are not admitted. They will not be influenced by a person who has no feelings or sympathies in common with them, even were it proper for me to descend to their level, in order to help them." " That may be. The tide of gay and fashionable life sweeps over and buries in oblivion the ruin its forms and ceremonies help to make. Yet there are some you might reach. Some who are just beginning to sink, and whom men cannot influence because they are too proud to own their danger." " How less likely, then, would a woman be to influence them," replied Emma. "You know how men try to conceal their vices and foibles from us." "True, but yet men do not suspect the SPARKLIKO DROPS. 107 of doubting their power to reform themselves, aad are therefore more willing to '4>e advised and pursuaded by them to aban- don their bad habits, which have not yet become fixed, vices. Woman's intuitive per- ception of what should be said, and the Tight moment to say it, men rarely possess ; ^and this gives your sex a superiority over <ours in the work of reform. Yet, alas ! how often is this influence employed to lure the wandering feet further and further from the path of virtue" " Beware, uncle, 1 7 11 have no slander, 77 re- plied Emma, half vexed. "It is not slander. How often have I ; seen you, Emma, with smiles and gay words, sipping that which, however harmless to you, is poison to some of your thoughtless com- panions. Were you pure in word and deed "from all contamination in that behalf, how different would be your influence. Yet you refused to join the Temperance Society I am endeavoring to establish in our neighbor- hood." 41 But you know," said Emma, with a proud 108 Tffff SILVER C0F curl of her ruby lip, " that I am in no danger. Why, should my name be mixed with the common herd f "That is false pride, un worth a true- hearted woman. To refuse to aid a reforming movement that will assist thousands, simply because it will not benefit you, because you: do not need its help. I did not need its help* I did not think you so selfish." " I am not selfish. You shall not call me such ugly names," replied the niece, striving to turn the conversation from the serious turn it had taken. " You know very well it i only my humility that speaks. I do n't think Women have any right to form societies and make laws. All that honor and glory I am willing to leave to men, and only ask for my sex the liberty of doing as they please in the humble station assigned to them by the lords of creation. You may rule the world, and give orders, and we will break them." " Yes," said her uncle, rising to go, " you will break them, indeed break all laws of justice, honor, and humanity in your giddy course" OF SPARKLIKG DROPS. 109 " Nay," Emma said, rising and holding his hands in hers as he was about to leave the room, " Put down your hat, do n't take your atick, Now, prithe, uncle, stay. "I will not let you go thinking me so naughty and saucy. Do n't look so sober, or I shall certainly cry, and you know you hate such scenes. I am really half convinced by your arguments, but were I to sign the pledge, what good would it do ? I have no desire to go about with a sermon on my brow, to bestow on all luckless wights who touch, taste, or handle. It is not genteel to scold, and I fancy they might think me impertinent were I to advise. Who is there among my acquaintance who would not resent my inter- ference with their habits in this respect ? " "There is your cousin, Edward," replied her uncle, seating himself again. " You know well how to lead him in your train through all kinds of fun and folly ; perhaps you might induce him to sign the temperance pledge ? " lit) t THE SILVER CUP " But Edward is strictly temperata He rarely takes even wine." " True, and I do n't think him in danger of becoming less so. But his position in society gives him great influence over the young men with whom he associates ; and some who follow his example in refusing to sign the pledge, are unable to follow him in controlling their appetites." " There is young Saville, too," said Aunt Mary. " It is whispered among his friends, that unless something arrests his course, he will ere long be ruined." A flush passed over Emma's beautiful face as, in a tone of surprise and horror, she ex- claimed, " What, George Saville ! with his genius and eloquence is he a slave to that vice V " They say," replied her aunt, " that much of his fiery eloquence arises from the fumes of brandy, and the sparkling wit that makes him so delightful is caught from bubbles that dance on the wine-cup. When the excitement, thus produced, passes away, he ^s dull and spiritless." OF SPARKLING DKOPS. Ill " And will no one warn him no one Bave him ? " said Emma, thoughtfully. " Who can do it so well as yourself ?" said her uncle. " Is he not one of the worshipers at your shrine ? Of what avail is it to be young and beautiful and wealthy, if the in- fluence such accidents give, be not employed in the cause of truth and virtue ?" Emma did not reply, and her uncle left the .room, where she remained a long time in deep thought, roused and startled by the new ideas presented to her mind, for giddy and thoughtless as she seemed, she possessed a mind and heart capable of deep feeling and energetic action. The same evening she was seated by the piano, drawing thence a flood of melody, while her Cousin Edward and George Saville stood beside her. But the attention of the latter seemed more absorbed by the fair musician than by the sweet sounds produced by her flying fingers ; and directing his com- panion's attention to the soft brown hair that fell in long shining ringlets around her pure 112 THE SILVER CTTP brow, and over her snowy neck, he said, in a tone intended to reach his ear alone " What would you give to possess one of those curls 2" Low as were the words, Emma heard them, and pausing suddenly, said, "What would you give ?" " Any thing every thing," said the young man eagerly. "Would you give your liberty would you bind yourself to do my bidding ?" asked the maiden in a tone which playful gayety strove to hide a deeper feeling. "The liberty to disobey your will, lady, has long been lost," replied Saville, with a glance that well-nigh destroyed Emma's self- possession. "It were a small matter to acknowledge it by my vow." " On that condition it is yours," said Em- ma, while the rich blush that mantled her cheek and brow, made her more beautiful than ever as she severed from her queenly head one of the longest of the luxurient tresses with which nature had adorned it. " Ma belle Emma," interposed Edward as OF SPARKLING DROPS. 113 she did this, " I cannot allow of such par- tiality. Let me take the oath of allegiance and gain an equal prize." "Will you dare?" replied Emma, gayly. u Will you bow your haughty spirit to do my bidding ? Beware, for when you have vowed you .are completely in my power." " And a very tyrant you will be, no doubt, fair queen, yet I accept the vow. Royalty needs new disciples when there are so many deserters." "Kneel, then, Cousin Edward, and you also, Mr. Saville, and rise Knights of the Ringlet, bound to serve in all things the will of your sovereign lady." So saying, she placed half of the ringlet on the shoulder of each gentleman, as they knelt in mock humility before her. Some unutterable feel- ing seemed to compel Saville to look the thanks he would have spoken, but Edward with a conscious privilege, seized her hand, and kissing it, exclaimed, as he threw himself into " an attitude," "Thy will, and thine alone, For ever and a day, 114 THE SILVER CUP By sea and land, through fire and flood, We promise to obey." About a month after, Edward and his cousin found themselves listening to the elo- quent appeals of a well known temperance lecturer. He dwelt upon the woes and ruins of intemperance, and the responsibility of every one who did not do all in his power to remedy the evil. At the close of the lecture the pledge was passed among the audience. When it came to where they were sitting, Emma took it, and offering Edward her pen- cil, whispered, " Let the Knight of the Ring- let perform his vow." He looked at her enquiringly. She traced her own name be- neath those written there, and bade him do the same. For an instant he hesitated, and was half offended with her for the stratagem, but good sense and politeness both forbade a refusal, and he complied. It was a more delicate task to exert the same influence over the proud and sensitive Saville, but at length the opportunity oc- curred. OF SPARKLING DBOPS. 115 One evening, as he mingled with the groups that filled the splendid drawing- rooms of the fashionable Mi's. B , one of his acquaintances came up and filling two glasses with wine that stood on the marble side-table, offered one to him. As he was raising it to his lips, a rose-bud fell over his shoulder into the glass, and a voice near him said, in low, musical tone, "Touch it not Knight of the Ringlet, I command you by this token ;" and turning, he saw Emma standing beside him. As she met his gaze, she passed her delicate hand through the dark curls that shaded her lovely face, and shaking her finger at him impressively, was lost in the crowd. Saville stood looking after her with a bewildered air, as if lost in thought, until the laugh of his companion brought him to himself. " Excuse me," he said, putting down the glass. " You saw the spell flung over me, I am under oath to obey the behests of beauty. 1 ' Emma watched him through the evening, but he seemed to avoid her, and appeared thoughtful and sad. They did not meet 116 THE SILVER CUP again until at a late hour ; she was stepping into her carriage to return home, when sud- denly he appeared at her side and assisting her into it, entreated, " Fair queen, permit the humblest of your most loyal subjects the honor of escorting you to the palace." She assented, and the carnage had no sooner started than in a voice, trembling with earn- estness, he added, " and permit me to ask if your command this evening was merely an exercise of power, or did a deeper meaning lie therein ?" " I did mean to -warn you," said Emma, gently, " that there was poison in the glass slow, perchance, but sure." " And do you think me in danger, Miss Leslie ?" " I think all in danger who do not adopt the rule of total abstinence ; and pardon me, if I say that with your excitable temper- ament, I imagine you to be in more than ordinary peril." There was a long pause. When he spoke again his tones were calmer. "I did not imagine I could ever become OF SPARKLING DROPS. 117 a slave to apptite. Often while suffering from the fatigue induced by writing, I have taken brandy, and been revived by it. Some- times before going to speak in public I have felt the need of artificial stimulus to invigor- ate my shattered nerves. Do you think that improper indulgence ?" " Do you not find," said Emma, " that this lassitude returns more frequently, and re- quires more stimulus to overcome it than formerly 2" " It is true," said he, thoughtfully ; " I often speak with more fluency when under such excitement than I can possibly do at other times." " Once it was not so," said Emma, kindly. " Very true, but this kind of life wears on my system. I cannot get through with my public duties without help of this kind." " Does not this show," replied Emma, " that you have already somewhat impaired those noble powers with which you are endowed ? "Would it not be better, nobler, as well as safer to trust solely to yourself than to de- pend on the wild excitement thus induced ?" 118 THE SILVER CUP " It does, indeed ; fool that I have been to think myself secure. But, thank heaven ! I am yet master. I can control myself if I choose." By this time they had arrived at the door of Miss Leslie's mansion. " Let me detain you one moment," said Sa- ville, as they stood upon the steps, " to ask you if you have heard others speak of this. Tell me truly," he added, as she hesitated. " Do the public know that I am not always master of myself?" a I have heard it intimated you were injur- ing yourself in this way," replied Emma, in a low voice, doubtful how the intelligence would be received. " And you," said the young man fervently, " you were the kind angel who interposed to save me from the precipice over which I have well nigh fallen. Be assured the warning shall not be in vain. A thousand thanks for this well-timed caution," he added, more cheerfully, as they parted, " the Knight of the Ringlet will not forget his vow." For a few moments the joyous excitement OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 119 of his spirit continued, as he thought of the interest in him which her conversation and actions had that evening evinced. But when the door closed and shut her fairy form from his sight, a shadow fell over his heart. Other feelings arose and whispered that, after all, it was but pity that actuated her. Love would she not rather despise his weakness that had need of such a caution ? Then came a sense of wounded pride, an idea that his confession had humbled him before her, and ere he reached his home he had become so deeply desponding that he was meditating taking passage for England, and doing a thousand other desperate things, so that he never again might see the gentle monitress who, he had persuaded himself, regarded him with pity that was more akin to disgust than love. A letter received the next morning, calling him into the country for a week, prevented his executing his rash designs ; but a feeling, unaccountable even to himself, made him shun the places where he was accustomed to meet Emma, and made him miserable, till three or 120 THE SILVER CUP four weeks afterward, merely by accident, hi found himself seated opposite to her at a concert. Was it fancy, or did she look sad and thoughtful ; and why did her eye roam over the crowd, as if seeking some one it found not. So he thought to himself, till suddenly, in their gazing, his eyes met hers. Instantly she turned away, and then, in a moment after, gave him an earnest, enquiring glance, full of troubled thought At that look, the demon which tormented him van- ished and a flood of inexpressible love filled his soul. He could not go to her, hemmed in as he was by the audience ; but he did not cease looking at her through the evening. In vain, she gave no second look or sign of consciousness of his presence. " She is offended with me," he soliloquized, as he went homeward ; " and no wonder ; how like a fool I have acted. I will go to her to-morrow and tell her all." In the morning he called, but others had been before him, and the drawing-room was well supplied with loungers. He staid as long as decency would permit, but Miss OF SPARKLING DROPS. 121 ^Leslie was not at all cordial in her manner toward him, "and the dear five hundred friends " kept coming and going, so that no opportunity offered for the explanation. " I will go again this evening," said he to him- self; and so he did. Emma stood at the window, beside a stand of magnificent plants, whose blossoms filled the room with fra- grance. The lamps had not been lighted, and the moonlight fell in a halo of glory around her, as she stood in sad reverie that cast a pensive shade over her face, usually so brilliant in its beauty. So absorbed was she, that she did not hear the door open, and was unconscious of Saville's presence till he was at her side. " You received me coldly, fair lady, this morning, so that I came back to see if you are offended with me," said he, as she turned to receive him. " And I, in my turn, ask you the same question, or else why have you absented yourself so long ?" " I was not offended ah, no !" said Sa- ville, dropping the tone of forced gayety in 122 THE SILVER OTTF which he had at first spoken, " but can yot* not understand why I have thus exiled my- self ? Did you not know it was that I feared you might despise me you from whom r more than from any one else, I desired, esteem, admiration love" The last word was spoken in a lower tone, and he looked at her appealingly, as if to ask forgiveness for having uttered it. For one instant he met the gaze of Emma's dark blue eyes, and he must have read something there he did not expect to find, for the expression of his own changed into one so hopeful and earnest that Emma's sunk beneath its light. And when he drew Emma into a seat beside him, and in a few rapid words told her what, in, fact, she knew before,, how long and how well he had loved her, I don't know what she said, for, reader, I came away then. But I do know that one morning, six months after, some carriages went from Mr, Leslie's mansion to the church, and came back with a party looking most auspiciously happy, and that some hours after, as Edward was conducting his Cousin Emma to a OF SPARKLING DROPS. 123 traveling carriage, which stood at the door, he said, " So you and Saville have changed positions and you are henceforth to obey. What a tyrant I would be were I in his place. Pray does this morning's act cancel former obligations ?" " The contract is unbroken," said Saville, answering for his bride, and producing a locket containing the ringlet " here is the token that renders the vow perpetual." <hf Cm of o BY ELIZA COOK. Let the king of the grave be asked to tell The plant that he loveth best, And it will not be the cypress tree, Though 'tis ever the churchyard guest; He will not mark the hemlock dark, Nor stay where the nightshade spreads; He will not say 'tis the sombre yew, Though it springs o'er skeleton heads; He will not point to the willow branch, Where breaking spirits pine beneath; 124 THE SILVER CTJP For a brighter leaf sheds deeper grief, And a fairer tree is the tree of death. But where the green, rich stalks are seen, Where ripe fruit gush and shine, "This, this," cries he, "is the tree for me The vine, the beautiful vine! I crouch among the emerald leaves, Gemmed with the ruby grapes; I dip my spear, in the poison here, And he is strong that escapes. Crouds dance round, with satyr bound, Till my dart is hurled from its traitor sheath; When I shriek with glee no friend to me Is so true as the vine, the tree of death." Oh! the glossy vine has a serpent charm, It bears an unblest fruit; There's a taint about each tendrilled arm, And a curse upon its root. Its juice may flow to warm the brow, And wildly lighten the eye, But the phrenzied mirth of a reveling crew Will make the wise man sigh; For the maniac laugh, the trembling frame, The idiot speech and pestilent breath, The shattered mind, the blasted frame, Are wrought by the vine, the tree of death. Fill, fill the glass, and let it pass; But, ye who quaff ! oh, think OF SPARKLING DROPS. 125 That even the heart that loves must loathe The lips that deeply drink. The breast may mourn, o'er a close link torn, And the scalding drops may roll; But 'tis better to mourn o'er a pulseless form Than the wreck of a living soul. Then a health to the hemlock, the cypress and yew, The worm- hiding grass, and the willow-wreath; For, though shading the tomb, they fling not a gloom, So dark as the vine, the tree of death. BT EEV. R. HOYT. In a yalley that I know Happy scene! There are meadows sloping low, There the fairest flowers blow, And the brightest waters flow, All serene; But the sweetest thing to see, If you ask the dripping tree, Or the harvest-hoping swain, Is the Rain! Ah, the dwellers of the town, How they sigh, 126 THE SILVER CUP How ungratefully they frown, And when the cloud-king shakes his crown, And the pearls come pouring down From the sky! They descry no charm at all Where the sparkling jewels fall, And each moment of the shower, Seems an hour! Yet there's something very sweet In the sight, When the crystal currents meet In the dry and dusty street, And they wrestle with the heat In their might! While they seem to hold a talk With the stones along the walk And remind them of the rule, To "keep cool!" But in that quiet dell, Ever fair, Still the Lord doth all things well, When his clouds with blessings swefl And they break a brimming shell On the air; There the shower hath its charm* Sweet welcome to the farms, As they listen to its voice, And rejoice! SPARKLING DROPS. 127 $mtin So sang our gifted American songstress, in the name of the thrush ; and so let the voice of all human beings respond, in their own behalf. Not solely in the music produced by keys, and strings, and curious mechanism ; not even in the sweet tones of that higher instrument, the human voice ! for mere sounds, however melodious they may be, can never discharge the solid indebtedness iv^hich most of us are under as tenants of society. Are you a suffering invalid, requiring much care and unpleasant services from those around you ? " Pay your rent in w the " mu- sic" of a patient, cheerful spirit, a placid countenance, self-control from immoderate, exhibitions of distress under acute suffering, and endeavor to avoid giving trouble, and as far as you are capable, an agreeable deport- anent and entertaining society. Of many has 128 THE SILYEE CUP' it been said, while they were subjects of long-continued sickness, that it was a pleasure- to attend upon them, so patient, so grateful, so agreeable, were they. " Pay your rent in music," while you occupy the sick chamber, and you greatly lighten the task of others,., as well as your burden, and secure to your- self ready and abundant services. Are you aged, infirm, decrepit, helpless t u Pay your rent in " the same " music " which enlivens the sick-room, and in that of gar- nered-up experience and wisdom, of those stories of " old times " which the young love- so well to hear ; the instructive or remark- able incidents which have stamped a long life, and in an endeavor to yield somewhat to changing times, and so avoid those disa- greeable failings sometimes attendant upon age ; these, when kindly and cheerfully put forth by the aged, are music of the heart to* those that attend upon them, and tend to encircle them with an atmosphere of har- mony. (Yet were I here speaking to the young, I would say, respect and defer to> the fixed habits of the aged, and remembeor OF SPARKLING DROPS. 129 that it is emphatically your duty to yield in your intercourse with seniors, as well as superiors.) You are a busy toiling mother and mis- tress of a family. Create music in your habitation, by a contented spirit patience you can not do without a genial kindness of manner, and benevolent care for all who are dependent upon you ; sympathy in the little troubles and pleasures of children, and readiness to further the happiness of all within your influence. So shall you have overpaid your rent, in music of the choicest kind, and have tuned the strings of all the hearts whose beatings you command. Are you a daughter ? You can " pay rent in music" which shall cause a father's and mother's heart to sing for joy. The docile, confiding, grateful spirit, the sprightliness and elasticity, and grace of youth, joined with the gentleness and delicacy which are woman's glory, the assiduity to lighten the toils, as well as sweeten the cares of life, for those who toil and care for you, all of which a daughter, worthy of the name, will 130 THE SILVER CUP exemplify in herself these will see and keep in tune a harp of a thousand strings. You are a sister, too ; and the strain of music which you awaken, will be caught by a brother, and will constitute a.charm, attach- ing him to home a young man's safest refuge from the world's enticements. Do you owe nothing to him ? And the son and brother in the vigor and activity of youth, and yet with manliness of purpose, and uprightness of principle, how may he give out and evolve the richest tones of the heart, and fill the domestic circle with the noblest strains ? He is the respectful yet unrestrained companion of his father, the sympathizing counselor and ready aid of his mother, the confidential and strong arm of his sister, the common ally, the playmate, and the protector of all the younger mem- bers of the domestic flock. Then the children surely, they " pay their rent in music." Aye, they pay it in noise, most certainly ; and if it be not in real music, it is, or has been, the parent's fault. Full of life and glee they are ; hopeful and OF SPARKLING DROPS. 131 lielpral, if they are not perverted ; and with smusic in their hearts, music in their faces, -music on their lips, and music in all their motions, they pay their rent, and make the iiouse better, for having been its inmates. Does the father and husband owe no rent ? and can he make no music in payment ? Ah ! sad and marred will be the harmony in that household where its chief member awakes &o strain, or touches only jarring notes. And what thrilling vibrations of tender, joy- ous music can he send through eveiy fibre of that heart which has given itself to his keeping, by a well-timed manifestation of forbearance, by affection and caresses. Where firm, abiding love exists between man and wife, and manifests itself by those little acts of love and kindness towards each other which so become the heads of a family, there will always be found a peaceful and happy household. 182 TBTE SILVER CUV BY M. A. BROWNE. There is a love so fond, so true, No art the magic tie can sever; ' T is ever beauteous, ever new ; Its chain once linked is linked for even- There is a love, but passion's beam, Too fond, too warm, too bright, to last,- The phrenzy of a fevered dream, That burns a moment, then is past, 'Tis like the lightning's lurid glare, .That streams its blaze of fatal ligluv Flames for an instant through the air f Then sinks away in deepest night. There is a love whose feeling rolls In pure, unruffled calmness on, The meeting of congenial souls, Of hearts whose currents flow iii one. It is a blessing that is felt But by united minds that flow, As sunbeams into sunbeams melt, To light a frozen world below. OF SPARKLING DROPS. 133 There is a love that o'er the war Of jarring passions pours its light, And sheds its influence like a star That brightest burns in darkest night. It is a love best known to those Who," hand in hand, amidst the strife, Together have withstood their foes, Together shared the storms of life. It is so true, so fixed, so strong, It parts not with the parting breath; In the soul's flight 'tis borne along, And holds the heart-strings e'en in death. 'Tis never quenched by sorrow's tide; No, 'tis a flame caught from above, A tie that death can not divide; ' T is the bright torch of wedded love. But there is one love, not of earth, Though sullied by the streaming tear, It is a star of heavenly birth, And only shines unshaken there. 'Tis when this clay resigns its breath, And the soul quits its frail abode, That, rising from the bed of death, This love is pure the Love of God! 134 THE SILVER CUP lament. O, thin, do n't shut the door awhile, won't some of ye listen to me, for 't is a sorrowful story I Ve to tell ! The shining beams of the blessed heaven on yer head, my lady ! and let me spake a minite, while the hunger leaves me strength. Och ! little I thought I 'd ever be driven from the stranger's o thrashal. For I was n't always houseless and friendless. It was n't long since I was "happy an' continted in my father's house in the mountains bey ant, but wirra true 't is impty an' desolate now. The fire has gone out on our hearth stone, an' my hand will never be strong enough to kindle it agin. Many a night I sat by it, listening to ould stories, or hearing my mother sing ; and the red light dancing up and down her face, an' her voice rising an' falling so beautiful, till in spite o' me, my eyes filled up wid tears. That was the pleasant crying ; but many is the bitter one from 'em since. OF SPARKLING DROPS. The blight of the hard year fell on our crops, my lady, an' thin come starvation where full an' plenty were afore. A woe- some change come over us all ; every thing was sold to gather the rint ; even my own little goldfinch ; sure 't is n't that I grudged it. Mother did n't sing thin, and when she tried to spake joyful, to cheer my father up, there was a shake in her voice, and her lip trembled ; and they both had a frightened look ; no wonder, wid famine staring 'em in the face. For we'd be a whole day, an' more, maybe, widout tasting food, an' couldn't get it any how ; an' I 'd go to bed sick an' fainting like ; but I did n't mind myself at all, only my little sister Norah. In all the country round there was n't a prittier child, wid her cheeks of pink and snow, an' her white forehead, wid the yellow hair on it, like goold rings, only a softer dale ; an' shining eyes, the color of the sky in June. O, dear ! the hunger bore heavy on the innocent child, an' rubbed out all the dimples in her face, and faded the red blush an 7 her eyes sunk back in her head, as if all 136 THE SILVER the tears she cried put out the light in 'em An' oh, lady ! it would have gone to youi heart to see her hold out her long, thin hand, an' hear her young, small voice, that used to be laughing all day, axing for bread, an' none to the fore. Thin mother, 'uld soothe her to sleep, an' her face working all the time. The sob would be on Norah's heart, an' she asleep. But one night, after being stupid-like a long while, she roused up to say, 4 1 'ni very hun- gry ;' an' before the words were out of her mouth, she stretched herself out on mother's lap and died. Well, I tuk on greatly at that ; but mother said God had taken her from the misery, an' she woul'n't be hungry agin, for the angels in heaven were feeding her. Thin I thought, only for mother, I 'd like to go too. Father berrid her widout a coffin. She was the first I iver saw die ; but 't was n't to be long a strange thing to me. My father got work at last, but the power to do it was going fast. An' mother 'ud keep the last bite an' sup in the house for him, when he'd come in, and make him believe that OF SPARKLING DKOP8. 137 she ate afore, and pretind she was giving him her lavings, an' laugh and joke wid him. Och ! but her laugh had a quare sound thin, just like the crushing of her heart ; it 'ud make my flesh creep : but you wor always minding everybody, barring yourself, mother deal* ! I heerd 'em say no one could dhrive a spade deeper nor my father once, but Imnger is stranger nor the strong mem ; when that is tugging at the inside, thin the arm is very wake. He fainted over his spade, an' was soon lying down in the fever. We wor out of the doctor's way, an' the priest was always out, an' a weight of sickness on my father, an' nothing to quinch the thirst that was perishing him, barring a can of cold wather from the strame afore the door. Day an' night mother sat beside the whisp of straw that kept him from the floor. O ! but his face was hot and red, his two eyes like lightling coals, an' a puff of his breath 'ud burn ye, an' he saying such out o'-the- way things in his wandherings. Well, we thought he was getting cool ; but sure enough, 't was Death's own cold fingers upon 138 THE SILVER CUP Mm. For lie got quite sensible, and said to mother, 'Norah, acushla ma cliree, put yer hand under my liead an' raise me ;' an 1 thin lie died off quite aisy, just as the day dawns ; an' the spirit died in me too, but I could n't lielp staring at mother. As soon as she had stroked the body, she sated herself forninst it, and hardly stirred for two days maybe. I thought all her tears were used up ; for her eyes wor dry as dust. Them were the sorrow- ful days. There was food in the house thin, but we could n't taste it ; 't is very aisy to give the body enough when the heart is full. On the third day she wrapped him in her ould clook and called me to help her ; so we carried him to the grave ourselves, without shroud or coffin, for the neighbors were too hard put to it to keep themselves alive, to mind us or our dead. Sure 't was the great God gave strength to mother that day, for nothing was too hard for her. We scraped out the earth and berrid him. Mother did n't spake all the time, only shivered, and put her face atune her hands and thin she got up quite OF SPARKLING DROPS. 139 stout, and walked home so fast that I could scarcely keep up wid her. No sooner wor we in than she fainted away ; an' whin she come to, 4 Thank God he's berrid !' says she ; ' whin I 'm gone, mavourneen, if ye wor to go on your bended knees to the neighbors, make 'em put me down beside him. That won't be long,' ses she, ' for I hear him calling me.' I thought maybe she was tired, an' enthraited her to ate, but she would n't. Thin she put her arms round me, an' drew me to her, and called me her fair-haired son, her fatherless boy, and said the orphan's God would pur- tect me. I forgot the pulse of her heart stopped whin father laid low, and whin she said, ' Go to sleep, darlint, for ye need it sore.' I slept in her bosom, for I was rale tired. When I woke, my forehead was agin something cold. Och ! 't was mother's neck, an' the hand I held was stiff. She was dead ! A hard sorrow was rasping her heart, an' it fluttered like a bird in a light grip, and at last it got away. Thin I was alone. Thin come the grief and the heart th rouble in tirely. Though I could hardly crawl, I got 140 THE SILVER CUP to the next house, and brought 'em to see if she was dead all out, for, though 't was plain enough, I would n't believe she was gone in airnest, an' thought it might be weakness, an' she 'd get the better of it. But whin all failed, thin, by a dale of coaxing, I got a man to put her beside my father. I think she would n't rest aisy any where else ; an' when she rises from the grave she '11 see I kept her word. Och ! lady, did n't I feel bitterly whin she was covered up from me, an' I lost the hand that used to stroke down my hair, an' the loving words, an' the sweet smile? I always stay beside the grave, except whin hunger, that has no nature in it, drives me away. Those fine bright days do n't agree wid me at all. Once I used to like to see the sun dazzling, and the strames looking up so good naturedly at him ; but now everything seems swimming before my eyes, full of blinding tears, an' the sky seems laughing at me, an' the little birds in 'em seem to be making game of my grief. But, sure, they have no feeling that way, the crathurs ! An' the only OF SPARKLING DROPS. 141 thing that gave me any comfort, was this morning, when I saw a little flower in the grass, wid the dew on it. I do n't know why, but it seemed sorry for me ; it looked like a blue eye full of tears. No one else spoke kindly to me since my mother died, but it ; for, did n't it spake ? Yes, it told me the great God made it, an' sent it there to com- fort me ; an' to say He 'd mind me, the lest on the stem. So I thanked Him on my knees, although I do n't know much about Him at all. I wish I did. Thin, whin I looked up, I thought of No ah, an' how happy she was ; looking down inaybe, wid her face covered over wid sun- ihine ; and I felt a sort of gladness ; but tfhin I remimbered my father an' mother, ".he pain shot through me agin. For they say ;hey 're in purgaihory, and must stay there dong time, for dying widout the clergy. Chat 's what kills me infcirely ; to think of ny poor father, that nivir said an ill word to ne, and my own gentle-tempered, sofb-natured nother, that would sooner lift a worm than thread on it, to be in such burning pain ? 142 THE SILVER CUP my head burns when I think of it. I'd rather live any way, for I could n't bare to be .there looking at mother's suffering; an' I know I would n't go to heaven, because I 'm not innocent, like Norah. If I'd only strength, I'd wear my knees out, praying round the ' stations,' to get 'em out ; but that will niver be, for my heart-strings wor tied round my mother, an' they 're pulling me into the grave, for death could n't loose 'em. I was a child afore all the woe happened to me. I do n't feel like a child now, though it is not many months since, for, oh ! lady, my heart is grown ould. I did n't break my fast since yesterday ; but whin I try to ax fer something, the blood comes into my face, and my tongue won't spake for me. An' whin I do tell my story, 't is too common a one to be minded, an' they wo'nt belave I 'm telling the truth ; for they do n't know how heavy my heart is, or the squeezing in my heart. People ar n't pitiful at all now ; noth- ing shuts up the heart like famine ; it has cruel and wonderful power, for it puts mother out of my head. Some times I 'm OF SPAEKLIKG DROPS. afraid 1 'm too weak to get back to the grave. I would n't lave it at all, only for fear of the purgathory. Lady, your speech is gintle, and your eyes are full, like the flower in the grass. Ye say ye will shelter an' feed me. O, if ye could give me back my darling mother ! and ye say she is n't in purgathory ; but, maybe, God's good Son took her to Himself. Bless- ings on yer fair head, my lady, 't is kindly meant. O, if I could belave that I An' ye say I may go straight there, too ? It would raise my head to think so. If ye '11 only teach me now, I '11 live to sarve ye. I '11 go to the world's end to do yer bidding. I '11 die to sarve ye ; yes, twice over, for yer sake. aq BY H. \7. LONGFELLOW. The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the winds are never weary; The vine still clings to the moldering wall, 144 THE SILVER CUP But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And the day is dark and dreary. My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the winds are never weary; My thoughts still cling to the moldering past. But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, And the days are dark and dreary. Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; Behind the cloud is the sun still shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. iennl. BY J, CLEMENT. Radiant little household treasure, Magnet of the ingle side! Not a star in night's broad cluster Shines with softer, purer lustre, Fondest parents' hope and pride! Words, though passion-lit, and burning, Might not breathe the joy they feel, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 145 That their lives, in one united, By thy smiles are daily lighted, Love connubial's golden seal-! x Pure as in thy primal setting In thy parents' love enshrined, Be thou long their spotless treasure, Source of hope and sacred pleasure, Pearl of truth, by grace refined. Then shall He, the great Refiner, When, ere long, his eye shall roam Through the earth for "jewels," beaming 'Fresh in light from glory streaming, Snatch thee to his bosom home. n BY MRS. CASK. ONWARD! hath earth's ceaseless change Trampled on thy heart? Faint not, for that restless range Soon will heal the smart. Trust the future time will prov Earth hath stronger, truer love. 7 146 THE SILVER CUP Bless thy God, the heart is not An abandoned urn, Where, all lonely and forgot, Dust and ashes mourn ; Bless Him, that his mercy brings Joy from out its withered things. Onward, for the truths of God! Onward, for the right! Firmly let the field be trod, In life's coming fight: Heaven's own hand will lead thee on, Guard thee till thy task is done! t HORACE STANHOPE bore his young bride to Ms own splendid home, and lie gratified her warm heart by making her mother a sharer of that home ; the mother and child dwelt together. CONSTANCE was much sought after in society, but her husband found her ever ready to sacrifice gayety abroad, to a quiet evening with Mm. His heart was OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 147 touched by her true and entire devotion, his leisure hours were passed at home, he rarely went into society except with her. In very truth, Stanhope feared to trust himself, he knew the power of old liabits, old associations] the boundry once passed, perchance he could not, if he would, return. And Constance was happy aye ! upon that sunny brow there never hovered a cloud. The dark and tender eyes were never dimmed by a tear, save when the heart-, too full of happiness, could not find vent in words ; and around the dimpled mouth, there were ever-playing smiles, and a spirit of entire content. Time rolled on, one year, and yet an- other. Constance was a mother, and Horace Stanhope loved the boy, and his wife ; yet, there were days when he was not there * long nights when he came not ! The charm of novelty was over ; he had gratified self all the days of his life, old feelings came back again, old habits were resuming their sway. One morning he came down late to break- fast. Constance and her mother had waited long ; he looked pale and harassed. 148 THE SILVER CtTl> "Are you ill?" said Constance, and her tones were sad and low " are you ill, my husband ?" Stanhope looked up " Should I not ask you that question ?" he said, earnestly " you look far from well, Constance?" She made no reply, and Mrs. ELLERTON, her mother said : " I fear she is ill ; for many days she has looked thus. Do n't you think a journey to the country would do you both good ? Con- stance is not used to the confinement of the city in warm weather. He native air would recruit her." Constance looked anxiously upon her husband while her mother spoke, but her heart sunk when there was no reply. It so happened that the arrangement inter- fered with some plans of his own, laid the night before. He expressed the utmost wil- lingness that Constance should go, but re- gretted his own utter inability to accompany her. Mrs. Ellerton sighed heavily, as she rose up and left the room. There was an awkward silence ; Stanhope walked to the window, and looked out, apparently much engaged with what met his eye. A soft - OF SPAEKLI'NG DROPS. 149 hand was laid upon his arm, and gently Constance said: " Unless my husband is anxious I should leave him, I will not go this journey without him." " Anxious ! what could have put such a thought into your head, my Constance ?" and he kissed the pale cheek beside him, but as he did so, his conscience smote him, for that cheek was cold and colorless ; yet he made no offer to accompany her, nor did he again allude to the journey. A few weeks after this, Stanhope returned unexpectedly from the country, where he had been for several days. It was a quiet summer afternoon, not so warm as it had been, and Constance had gone out to ride. Not knowing this, Stanhope sought her in the room she usually occupied. It was in a retired part of the house, and looked out upon a fairy spot, that Constance loved for the sake of the flowers, so filled with remem- brances of her childhood ! She was not there, but her mother was ; and over that mother's face tears had been pouring fast and 150 THE SILVER CUP warm. There was no time for concealment. Stanhope was in the room, ere she heard his step ; he looked uneasy. " Has any thing occurred to distress you, Mrs. Ellerton ? Can I be of any service ?" he said. " It is better, perhaps, that you have thus surprised me," she replied " otherwise, I might never have gained courage to mention that which is wearing away my heart. Oh ! Horace, it is of Constance I would speak !" " Of Constance !" and the dark eye- brows almost met, for the frown that gathered over his forehead was heavy and haughty, and when he spoke, it was in the resolved and stern tone of one whose deter- mination was taken " It is well say on F " Not thus, I entreat you ! Do not hear me thus. It is for my child !" and the mother covered her face, while tears forced their way through the long thin fingers ; but the hour of self-abandonment was brief: " You once promised me, in time long past Horace, to be to me in all things a son. Nobly have you redeemed that promise OF SPARKLING DROPS. 151 but you made wnotlier, holier by far, ten- derly to cherish her who has garnered all her hopes of earthly happiness in the con- tinuance of her love. Have you been faith- ful to that solemn promise ? Is the wife like unto the bride ? the color is gone from her cheek ; her eye is heavy and sad ; she rarely smiles ; it is months since I have heard the glad laugh, that was music to my soul. Turn to her you have forsaken, Horace, for- saken for the wine cup, and the reveler's club ! Turn to her, or she will go down in her youth and beauty to the grave." She was silent, but her heart grew cold and dead within her. Upon the rigid and stern countenance before her, she could trace no ray of hope, no shadow of relenting. Slowly and deliberately, he said : " You knew my character, my habits ; knowing these, why did you give me your child?" The sharp cry, wrung from the sore heart of the mother, told more than words. Relentlessly he went on : "I will tell you wliy you sacrificed your daughter to your own ambition. Now, teach her to 15,2 THE SILVER CUP bear with a lot, neither you, nor she, can alter. Such as I am, you have taken me for a son ; and it would be wise, Mrs. Ellerton, to make the best of what you cannot amend. Hundreds of women, situated like Constance*,, console themselves for neglect in the glitter- ing round of worldly pleasure teach her to do the same ;" and without further word or look, he passed from the room. Mrs. Ellerton did not stir, she sat quite still, as one deprived of sense or motion. Not a single tear escaped from the burning lid, over that cheek so white with agony. The lips were closed, save when they parted with a sad, strange sound that came hollow and gaspingly from her bosom. At length her full heart found vent in words : " He was right yes ! it was my work. I gave thee to him, my bright one to him, so little worthy, so lost to himself, so false to thee ! False to thee ! my child ! my inno- cent !" and long and bitterly she wept the tears of unavailing remorse. As she grew calm, and reviewed the past, she felt that Horace had been unnecessarily stern, and she OF SPABKLING DEO PS. 153 * did not doubt it was to prevent all further interference on her part. And silently she resolved never again to interfere ; she felt that it was not for her to reproach Stanhope ; and in her heart there was a sustaining hope, that if his home was ever a happy home, the love of Constance must win him back all her own. Mrs. Ellerton knew that men are never won from the path of evil, by words of harshness or reproach, and least of all would Horace Stanhope be thus won. Her determination was rare, as it was excellent, to unite with Constance and by acts of gen- tleness and affection win him back to the home he was deserting. Late in the afternoon Constance returned, and learned with surprise her husband's arrival. Tea waited a long time, Constance still urging : " He will soon come very soon, now. Do n't you think he will, dear mother ?" Mrs. Ellerton thought it doubtful ; he might be engaged elsewhere ; they had better not wait longer. And with a long-drawn, heavy sigh, Constance acquiesced. Mrs. Ellerton 7* 154 THE SILVEll CUP strove to enter into cheerful conversation with her daughter ; she had the child brought in, now a year old, and its happy face, and sunny smiles, had their wonted power to beguile the young mother from the contemplation of her own sorrows. And now, one hour, and another, and yet another, went by, those long, heavy evening hours and yet he came not ! They retired to rest. In her own chamber, the deserted wife gave way to the feelings that oppressed her. Slowly and surely the conviction was strengthening in her heart, that her husband was faithless and this side the grave there is no pang so bitter ! She could not sleep ; there is no sleep for the wretched. She took the light in her hand, and stole with a noise- less step to the drawing-room, to watch till he came ! She sat her down in the arm-chair he loved, and, clasping her small, white hands tightly together, listened intently, as though that would hurry his footsteps. Minutes were as hours oh ! she would have given worlds to have hastened the course of time. There was a weight upon her heart, dull and OF SPARKLING DROPS. 155 heavy ; cold, shivering fits would pass over her, and she would look around her, as though she expected to see the air peopled with the terrors that filled her imagination. Slight sounds fell upon her ear, like the roll of thunder afar off. In the dead stillness of the night, it was terrible ! At length the key turned, there was a step upon the stair : way another moment and Stanhope en- tered the apartment. She stood up, with a wild, affrighted gaze, and would have fallen, if he had not caught her in his arms. " Cruel !" she exclaimed, " cruel, to desert ine thus ! Unkind !" and she wept such tears as should never fall upon the bosom of a husband. He held her closely to his heart, he almost trembled to look upon her. " Con- stance," he said, flatteringly, "why did you not go to rest ?" She raised herself slowly, and with pain, and looking up into his face, she exclaimed, passionately : " My husband ! the lone watches of the night are terrible to the sleepless." Teal's started into the eyes of Stanhope ; he was 15& THE SILVER CUP deeply moved ; fondly lie kissed hei pale cheek. " Be happy, Constance ; we will o to- morrow to the country ; and I will remain with you, dearest, until you are entirely well." They went ; and for two months Horace Stanhope devoted himself unremittingly to his wife, feeling fully rewarded in the health and happiness his attention bestowed. The child was with them, and Mrs. Ellerton saw with delight the growing fondness the father manifested for him. He was a fair*, and gentle boy, of much beauty and promise, and very like his mother. The love of the father was now fully awakened in the heart of Stanhope, and there was no fairy vision of the future in which that boy did not hold the brightest place. They returned to the city. There had been no reformation in the character of Stan- hope ; his heart had been moved by the deep sorrow of Constance ; and for her sake, he had turned aside awhile. When again ex- posed to temptation he yielded ; and this OF SPARKLING BKOPS. 157 time there was a sense of wrong done to Constance, that caused him to shrink from her society. Coldness and alienation sprang up between them ; the golden link of confi- dence was severed, and there were moments of shame and remorse, when Horace Stan- hope felt, in his inmost heart, that his own hand had dealt the blow. He clung to the child with a deeper love, as he became more estranged from his wife ; the pale counte- nance of the mother seemed to reproach him ; the welcome of cheerfulness had be- cOme dear to him, and he loved the sunny smiles of his boy. Yet, his own conduct had destroyed the gentle gayety of manner, once so beautiful in the character of Constance. She could not smile when her heart was breaking ! About four months after their return from the country, Stanhope mentioned his inten- tion of joining a party, who were to spend some days in a neighboring city. It was one of which Constance very much disapproved, and she urged, with more than usual earnest- ness, her desire that he would remain. 158 THE SILVER CUP Stanliope refused her far more harshly than was his wont, for the simple reason that he felt she was right ; that it was a party dis- creditable in every way for him to accom- pany. That night, their child was taken ill, and deeply wounded as Constance had been, she conquered herself sufficiently to ask him once more not to leave her, when the boy was sick. Stanhope visited the child, said nothing of consequence was the matter, and he should go ; and when she implored him to remain, he replied in bitter anger, that she made a pretext of the child's illness to de- tain him, when she knew in her heart there was not the slightest cause for alarm. Con- stance burst into tears. His eyes flashed, but he rose up and left the room without further comment. He started early next morning. The child grew rapidly worse, its disease, the measles, putting on the worst form. Many cases in the neighborhood had proved fatal, and the heart of Constance was full of agitating fears. A few days and there was no hope ! Yet the wife did not forget her husband ; OF SPARKLING DROPS. 159 She. sent an urgent message entreating his immediate return. It was night, and the mother watched her child. There was another watcher there, who felt as a mother unto both but, watch- ing, and care, and fervent love, will not save from the tomb ; already the finger of death had moved over the face of the child, and the fair and delicate features had shrunk as he touched. Strong, and pure, and steadfast is a moth- er's love, unsullied by " the trail of the ser- pent," which has dimmed all else. In the hour when his body was racked with Buffer- ing, his mind filled with the mighty thoughts of a world's salvation our Saviour remem- bered that love. Unto the disciple he loved best, he said, " Son, behold thy mother !" From that hoar to this, the strong arm of oppression has been lifted from the neck of woman. The mild and equalizing doctrines of Christianity, are raising her to the station the Creator intended she should fill. The same love that filled the heart of her, who was " last at the cross," was full to overflowing 160 THE SILVER CUP in the warm, and gentle, and generous nature of Constance Stanhope. Her boy, that in the long hours of deser- tion, had hovered like an an^el of li^ht on ' O O her pathway, that had so often brought for- getfulness, that blessed boon to the wretched, to her sad and weary spirit. Oh ! could it be ? her beautiful ! The large tears that had gathered in the eyes of Constance, as she bent over him, rolled down her face, and fell upon his motionless features. He stirred his eyes opened he knew her ! Her heart throbbed wildly ; she clasped the soft, little hand, gently between her own, murmur- ing, " My baby ! " There was an expression of distress upon the countenance of the child, for a single instant ; but it changed ; calm it grew, and gentle. There was an ef- fort to speak it was but a single word " Mother !" and the long, loving gaze, fixed in that expression that is so fearful. The sight grew dim, and ere the mother could realize the truth, he slept the sleep that is forever ! With a cry of anguish, almost of despair, Constance threw herself into the OF SPARKLING DROPS. 161 arms of Mrs. Ellerton "Take me away, mother ! away from this splendid home ! He has deserted me my baby is dead ! Take me away P Closely that mother clasped her to her bosom ; but her own agony was voiceless ; in her heart there was supplication to Him, who is mighty to save. " Upon my head, oh God.! be the punish- ment ; not upon hers !" Oh ! ye who would sacrifice your children for the gold- that availeth not pause while there is yet time. The diamond upon the brow can not bring peace to the heart ; and, to the wretched, splendor is but a false, and hollow mockery. Mrs, Ellerton had risked the happiness of her child, to serve her pres- ent station, and now, she would have given life itself, to have had Constance free and happy, an inmate of her old cottage-home. The morrow came ; heavily the hours wore on ; yet Constance took no note of time. There was but one engrossing thought, of which she was conscious. Her baby was dead ! gone from her, who had no hope savo iri him. The first violence of grief was 1G2 THE SILVER OJ. over ; and, as she lay upon the sola, her eyes closed in the heavy troubled slumber of ex- treme exhaustion. Mrs. Ellerton, who had been watching by her side, rose up, and with a noiseless step, left the apartment. She longed to look once more upon the face of her grandson. She did not weep, when she looked upon the. boy, clothed in pure white, fit emblem of the robe the immortal part puts on ; but, there was anguish on the brow, suffering and sorrow on the saddened lines of her countenance. Hers was a grief, chas- tened by a sense of her own great error. As she left the room, she heard a step upon the stairway ; she turned, it was Stanhope ; and she knew as she looked, he was uncon- scious of his loss. He approached her eagerly " Is our boy quite recovered ?" he said. " Did you meet no messenger 3" and she spoke calmly. "No, to be sure not," and he changed color, though suspicion of the truth did not cross his mind. Mrs. Ellerton laid her hand upon his arm, and he followed, as she OF SPARKLING DROPS. 163 returned to the apartment she had just left. They both walked to the bedside, and Mrs. Ellerton threw down the covering. It was done for good purpose, but the shock was dreadful. " My boy ! My beautiful ! " burst in tones of deepest agony from the unhappy man, as he wrung his hands, and walked to and fro, in uncontrollable agitation. "Better that it should be so," said Mrs. Ellerton, and her tones rang, stern and clear, like the voice of a prophetess. " Better that he should die, in the sinless time of his child- hood, ere the polluting example of a father had sent him to the grave in degradation and shame. He died, when the voice of that father mingled in the reveler's shout, over the red wine-cup ! But he died before knowledge had become a curse !" " No more in mercy !" he said, shudder- ingly ; and silently, Mi's. Ellerton turned and left the room. In the passage she met Con- stance, who had heard the voice of Stanhope, and had come forth to meet him. Mrs. EH erton wound her arms around her 164 THE SILVER CUP " Come back with me, my cliild ! you can not bear further agitation." " Let me go, mother !" said Constance, as the tears rolled down her cheeks. " Let me go he parted from me in anger, he may think he has no claim to my sympathy and oh ! mother, it is terrible to bear sorrow alone !" And woman is ever thus ! true to the last, and faithful. Stanhope was sit- ting by the bed ; he had bent down his head upon the pillow, until it touched the cold face of his child. He felt an arm thrown over him, and the low, faltering tones of his wife fell on his ear : " Be comforted, my hus- band !" When he rose up, and looked upon the face of Constance he shuddered ; wan, and pale, and worn with watching and sor- row, it looked like the face of the dead ! She trembled and seemed scarcely able to stand. He lifted her in his arms, and bore her to a sofa, and then he knelt down by hei side, and asked forgiveness for the past. Oh ! how entire was that forgiveness ! warm from the heart of Constance, it came with tears and blessings, and words of passionate love ! Oi? S^AUKLI^ T G DROPS. 165 And Stanhope was moved by a power too mighty to resist ; lie laid his head upon his knee, and the strong man wept aloud. " Oh ! love and life are mysterie^ both blessing, and both blest; And yet how much they teach the heart, of trial and unrest." When the morning come, Horace Stan- hope was very ill. It was an illness of many weeks, and there were long days and nights when he had no hope of life. He saw his past conduct in its true light. Remorse preyed heavily upon him ; but the low tones of love were ever breathing in his ear, and the hand of affection was ever ready to smooth the pillow his own crimes had made a troubled one. Oh ! how he blessed her - his own Constance ! How he prayed, that he might live to reward her true and stead- fast love to one so little worthy ! Ofttimes the tears would fill his eyes, as he watched her anxious efforts to relieve him. Gently and tenderly Constance strove to draw away his thoughts from the past ; she could not 166 TttE SILVER CtTP bear that lie should suffer for that which had caused her such utter wretchedness. It was a quiet afternoon. The invalid was in the drawing-room, still feeble, but evi- dently regaining strength. He was lying upon the sofa, when Constance entered. She looked very beautiful ; upon her fair cheek there was a slight color, and her dark eyes sparkled with the light of returning happi- ness. She held in her hand a blight rose, which she had just gathered : " See, dearest, what I have 'brought you the first rose from my hot-house plant is it not beautiful ?" He took the rose, and drawing her gently to him, said : " Oh ! Constance, how unworthy I am of such affection of such entire forgiveness. Yet it must be sweet to you, to feel that you have saved your husband from further guilt. So deep was my own sense of the wrong I had done you that had you deserted me, as I deserved, I must have continued in dissipa- tion as a resource against the horrors of con- science. Oh ! if men were always wooed from the dark and troubled path of sin, by OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 1G7 woman's love and tenderness, few would stray therein. Bless you, my beloved, for your cheerful and generous trust it restores to me confidence in myself. The gratitude I feel, will mingle with the love I bear you, flowing on with the stream of time, until the grave shall close over it ? w And Constance Stanhope was blessed, through all the days of her after life, with the unchanging love of her thoroughly re- formed and devoted husband. As sunlight to the earth, is that of love to the heart of wo- man, who has linked her fortunes, and bound up hrr happiness, in the truth of another. for tin o Blow the fire cherrily, Bid the flames merrily Crackle and glow; Hear how the winds without, Keep up their dismal shout, the sleet about, Tossing the snow. 168 THE SILVER CUP Here it is cherry warm, Why should we heed the stoiin? We have a fire; See the flames glancing, Sparkling and prancing, Merrily dancing Higher and higher! Still, it is bitter cold! God help the poor and old On this drear night} Freezing and sighing, Chilled and half crying, Stiffening and dying: What a sad sight! See how they gather, Closer together, Bemoaning the weather, QmVring with pain. How their teeth chatter With a dull clatter Just like the patter Of merciless rain. Ah me! how very numb Finder and stiffened thumb! O Yet the blue lips are dumb, Utt'ring no groan: OF SPAKKLING DEO PS. 16t - Limbs growing rigid, Breath all too frigid Even to moan! What a soul sick'ning sight, On this relentless night, Savage with Storm! Father and mother, Sister and brother, Hugging each other All to get WARM! Ah, 'that it should be so, *God of the cold and snow ! Would He might help their woe; He only can. Dying by inches! How the cold pinches! Every nerve flinches In the stern man. Horrid! but must they die! Is there no other nigh, None but the God on high. Help to bestow? Does he not tell us WE should be zealous, Yea, even anxious, Pity to show? 8 170 THE SILVER CTJF Shall we sit idly by, Seeing them freeze and Yet from our apathy Feeling unchid? Frozen eyes staring, Wild and desparing, Horribly glaring From the stiff lidT \ 'twere insanity, Wild inhumity, Startling barbarity, Conduct like this! Unworthy our stations, Our mutual relations, Deserving whole nations* Perpetual hiss! Let us act nobly then; Let us be Christian men, Striving with voice and pen r Warmth to secure. To those who ever Will bless our endeavor, Holy and pure; Pleading together, w Oh, in the cold weather, Remember the poor I" OF SPARKLING DROP9 n h nt p n a tm 171 BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. Parent! who with speechless feeling, O'er thy cradled treasure bent, Every year new claims revealing, Yet thy wealth of love unspent; Hast thou seen that blossom blighted, By a drear, untimely frost? All thy labors unrequited? Every glorious promise lost? Wife with agony unspoken, Shrinking from affliction's rod, Is thy prop thine idol broken Fondly trusted next to God? Husband! o'er thy hope a mourner, Of thy chosen friend ashamed, Hast thou to her burial borne her, Unrepented unreclaimed ? Child ! in thy tender weakness turning To thy heaven-appointed guide, Doth a lava-poison burning, Tinge with gall affection's tide? Still that orphan-burden bearing, 172 THE SILVER CUP Darker than the grave can show, Dost thou bow thee down despairing To a heritage of woe? Country! on thy sons depending, Strong in manhood, bright in bloom, Hast thou seen thy pride descending, Shrouded to the unclouded tomb ? Rise! on eagle pinions soaring Rise! like one of god-like birth And Jehovah's aid imploring, Sweep the spoiler from the earth. 1 have seen the infant sinking down, like the stricken flower, to the grave the strong man fiercely breathing out his soul upon the field of battle the miserable convict stand- ing upon the scaffold, with a deep curse quiv- ering upon his lips I have viewed death in all his forms of darkness and vengeance, with a tearless eye, but I never could look on woman, young and lovely woman, fading OF SPARKLING DROPS. 173 away from the earth in beautiful and uncom- plaining melancholy, without feeling the very fountains of life turned to tears and dust. Death is a? ways terrible but, when a form of angel beauty is passing off to the silent land of the sleepers, the heart feels that something lovely in the universe is ceasing from existence, and broods, with a sense of utter desolation, over the lonely thoughts, that come up like spectres from the grave to haunt our midnight musings. Two years ago, I took up my residence for a few weeks in a country village in the east- ern part of New England. Soon after my arrival, I became acquainted with a lovely girl, apparently about seventeen years of age. She had lost the idol of her pure heart's purest love, and the shadows of deep and holy memories were resting like the wing of death upon her brow. I first met her in the presence of the mirthful. She was indeed a creature to be worshiped her brow was garlanded with the young year's sweetest flowers her yellow locks were hanging beautifully and low upon her 174 THE SILVER CUP bosom and she moved through the crowd with such a floating and unearthly grace, that the bewildered gazer almost looked to see her fade into the air, like the creation of some pleasant dream. She seemed cheerful and even gay ; yet I saw that her gayety was but the mockery of her feelings. She smiled, but there was something in her smile which told that its mournful beauty was but the bright reflection of a tear and her eye- lids, at times, closed heavily down, as if struggling to repress the tide of agony, that was bursting up from her heart's secret urn. She looked as if she could have left the scene of festivity, and gone out beneath the quiet stars, and laid her forehead down upon the fresh, green earth, and poured out her stricken soul, gush after gush, till it mingled with the eternal fountain of life and purity. Days and weeks passed on, and that sweet girl gave me her confidence, and I became to her as a brother. She was wasting away by disease. The smile upon her lip was fainter, the purple veins upon her cheek grew visible, and the cadences of her voice became daily <OF SPARKLINO DUOPS. 175 -more weak and tremulous. On a quiet eve- ning in the depth of June, I wandered out with her a little distance in the open air. It was then that she first told me the tale of her passion, and of the blight that had come down like mildew upon her life. Love had been a portion of her existence. Its tendrils had been twined around her heart in its ear- liest years ; and, when they were rent away, they left a wound, which flowed till all the springs of her soul were blood. " I am pass- ing away," said she, " and it should be so. The winds have gone over my life, and the bright buds of hope, and the sweet blossoms -of passion are scattered down, and lie wither- ing in the dust, or fading away upon the chill waters of memory. And yet, I can not go down among the tombs without a tear. It is hard to take leave of the friends who love me it is very hard to bid farewell to these dear scenes, with which I have held communion from childhood, and which, from day to day, have caught the color of my life -and sympathized with its joys and sorrows. .Tbat little grove, where I have so often 176 TITE SILVER U R strayed witli my buried Love, and where, at. times, even now, the sweet tones of his voice seem to come stealing around me, till the whole air becomes one intense and mournful melody that pensive star, which we used to watch in its early rising, and on which my fancy can still picture his form looking do wa upon me, and beckoning me to his own bright home: every flower, and tree, and ; rivulet, on which the memory of our early love has set its undying seal, has become dear to me, and I can not, without a sigh,, close my eyes upon them for ever." I have lately heard that the beautiful girl,, of whom I have spoken, is dead. The close of her life was calm as the falling of a quiet stream gentle as the sinking of the breeze,, that lingers for a time around a bed of with- ered roses, and then dies " as 't were from very sweetness." It can not be, that earth is man's only abi- ding place. It can not be, that our life is a bubble cast up by the Ocean of Eternity, to float a moment upon its waves, and sink irto- darkness and nothingness.. Else why r? it^ OF SPARKLING DROPS. 177 that the high and glorious aspirations, which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts, are for ever wandering abroad unsat- isfied ? Why is it, that the rainbow and the cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off and leave us, to muse upon their faded loveliness ? Why is it, that the stars, which " hold their festivals around the midnight throne," are set above the grasp of our limited faculties for ever mocking us with their unapproachable glory ? And, finally, why is it, that bright forms of human beauty are presented to our view and then taken from us leaving the thousand streams of our affections to flow back in an Alpine torrent upon our hearts ? We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth. There is a realm, where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread out be- fore us, like the islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beautiful beings, which here pass before us, like visions, will stay in our presence for ever. Bright creature of my dreams, in that realm, I shall see thee again. Even now, thy 8* 178 THE SILVER CUP lost image is, sometimes, with. me. In the mysterious silence of midnight, when the streams are glowing in the light of the many stars, that image comes floating upon the beam that lingers around my pillow, and stands before me in its pale, dim loveliness, till its own quiet spirit sinks, like a spell from heaven, upon my thoughts, and the grief of years is turned to dreams of blessed- ness and peace. tjj* Maddened by earth's wrong and evil, "Lord!" I cried in sudden ire, "From Thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire! "Love is lost, and faith is dying; With the brute the man is sold; And the drooping blood of labor Hardens into gold. " Here the dying wail of famine, There the battle's groan of pain; <OF SPARKLING DROPS 179 And, in silence, smooth-faced mammon, Reaping men like grain. "*" Where is God, that we should fear Him?' Thus the earth-born Titans say; "* God ! if thou art living, hear us !' Thus the weak ones pray. ^ Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding," Spake a solemn voice within; ~" Weary of our Lord's forbearance, Art thou free from sin? **' Fearless "brow to Him uplifting, Canst thou for His thunders call, Knowing that to guilt's attraction Evermore they fall? *** Know'st thou not all germs of evil In thy heart await their time! Not thyself, but God's restraining, Stays their growth of crime. * Couldst thou boast, oh ! child of O'er the sons of wrong and strife, Where their strong temptations planted In thy path of life? "Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing From one fountain, clear and free, 180 THE SILVEE <JUF But by widely-varying channels Searching for the sea. "Glideth one through greenest valleys,, Kissing them with lips still sweety- One, mad-roaring down the mountains; Stagnates at their feet. "Is it choice whereby the Parsee Kneels before his mother's fire? In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire? "He, alone, whose hand is bounding Human power and human will, Looking through each soul's surrounding Knows its good or ill. 'For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter What the heart must feeL * Earnest words must needs be spoken, When the warm heart bleeds or burnr With the scorch of wrong, or pity For the wronged, by turns. "But, by all thy nature's weakness, Hidden faults, and follies known, OF SI' ARK LIN G DKOPS. 181 Be tliou, in rebuking evil, Conscious of thine own. ' Not the less shall stern-eyed duty To thy lips her trumpet set, But with harsher blasts shall mingle Wailing of regret." Cease not, voice of holy speaking, Teacher sent of God, be near, Whispering through the day's cool silence, Let thy spirit hear! So when thoughts of evil-doers Waken scorn, or hatred move, Shall a mournful fellow-being Temper all with love. ine on fy* Ebbing Htgjjt woman, had'st thou known The witchery of that cup, Thou ne'er thy husband would'st have urg'd, To sip, to drink it up; Upon thy bridal night, 182 THE SILVER CUP Amid the festal throng, You pressed the poison to those lips, That had refused so long. He drank, for thee he drank, And madness fill'd- his brain! That gleam of joy, that lit thine eye, Was followed quick by pain. He drank, for thee he drank, And fled thy prospects bright! O! bitter were the tears you shed, Upon that bridal night. But bitterer far at morn, And through succeeding years; You weep for him you caused to fall, Nor can you dry your tears; At morn, at noon, at eve, When stars are bright above, And through the long and stilly night, You weep for him you love. But he returns again To his devoted bride! May joy be yours, and may you long With your lost one abide. But never tempt again, Thy husband, dear, to sip The sparkling wine-cup, never, no, Nor let it touch thy lip. OF SPARKLING DEOPS. 183 woman, given to man To cheer him on his way, Beware, lest through your means, his feet Should ever learn to stray. ona of titmmm BY REV. U. CLARK. IT is scarcely a quarter of a century since the Temperance Reform had its commence- ment. In its original forms it accomplished all that could have been expected ; but the work was delayed to receive new im- pulses from Washingtonianism. Its name founded upon the Father of our country a name this day and for ever dear and glo- rious in the memory of every American bosom its name, animated by the life-giv- ing power of moral principle and love, found its way home to the bleeding and outcast inebriate. Its messengers seemed, like the lowly Nazarine and the fishermen of Galilee, going forth after the lost and fallen, with 184 THE 8ILVEB CUP nothing but simple tales of suffering, and words of brotherly affection, and tears of sympathy. O ! it was a melting scene to behold that crowding throng of miserable beings that came up from their ruin, and reached out their hands for a brother's grasp, and shook off their filth, and wiped away the great salt drops from their burning and quiv- ering faces, and with trembling fingers signed their names, and swelling hearts made their sorrowful confessions, and then ran home to throw themselves at the feet of their once wretched wives, and mothers, and offspring ! WASHINGTONIANISM ! be that name forever associated, in its purity, with HTM who shall remain dear in the hearts of his countrymen down to the latest generation of mankind. But in time, the want of a proper organi- zation in Washingtonianism, and the conse- quent lack of fidelity to its principles, made it apparent that some new system was requi- site to the salvation of the Temperance Re- form. A stronger moral and social power, a closer fellowship was needed, and a deep family interest must become awakened The OF SPARKLING DROPS. 185 prosperity and influence of other beneficial Orders, not open to the idle curiosity of the world, suggested the present organization of the Sons of Temperance ; and the first Divi- sion was opened in the city of New York, September 29th, 1842. Since that time, the Order has reached almost every state in the Union has in- creased in numbers and influence with a rapidity unprecedented in the annals of human reformation, and it has gone far be- yond the most brilliant hopes of its founders. On the list of our Order, are now enrolled many names of the wisest, and best, and most philanthropic of our age and country. This fact alone, should be sufficient to quiet the groundless fears of the uninformed in regard to a dangerous abuse of our associa- tion. It may be expected that the opponents of Temperance Reform if there are any should make the most serious objections, and endeavor to create the wildest alarms. They may term our Order a secret confederacy, cliqued together for the purpose of muzzling the people, and gaining political or sectarian 186 THE SILVER CUP ascendency; but we have too much confi- dence in the liberality and intelligence of community to believe that such insinuations will be received with either credit or ap- plause, by those who are acquainted with the prominent members of our Order. Yet, per- haps, there are objections which are offered in seriousness, and are entitled to attention, because they are entertained by those whose judgment on other subjects, we may regard with becoming defference. It is possible that the best measures of Reform may have been opposed by honest men. No innovation in science, philosophy, or human improvement, has passed without a violent opposition. And it may not have been expected that this form of the Temperance movement should have escaped the violence of that conservatism which has ever maintained an opposing attitude. But we direct our ap- peals in behalf of the Sons of Temperance, only to the candid, liberal, and intelligent Men who are determined to remain uncon- vinced in regard to the propriety and benefi- cence of our Order, may elicit more of our OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 187 charity than disapprobation. With confi- dence in the triumph of our cause, we main- tain a position too elevated to indulge in ridicule or abuse against those who may stand in opposition. On this, as upon every other theme, we only ask for investigation. Let the principles, the objects, the bearings, and the benefits of our institution be Bxam- ined in the light of truth and experience, and we stand or fall by the decision. If we tell you on the honor and veracity of men and citizens, that there can be no reasonable objections against the nature of our private doings, may we not expect to be credited upon the ordinary rules of evidence ? And this we do. Our Order permits noth- ing that would cause a blush to mantle the cheek of the purest modesty or religion. Ask those brothers in whose virtue and in- tegrity community reposes a grateful confi- dence. We have our forms and pass-words, to protect ourselves from the imposition of the unprincipled, but these are of a character that require no violation of the strictest honor or religion. Our private business 188 THE SILVEE CUP transactions belong not to the world, but to ourselves alone. If we are condemned for this, we may condemn every man, or firm, or company, or family, or council, or jury, that acts with closed doors, and proclaims not its doings- upon the housetops. Our secrets, what are they ? Love, and Purity, and Fidelity. Is an unworthy candi- date proposed for membership ? We are not permitted to proclaim his refusal to the world, or brand him, or the brother who warns us against him, with disgrace. Is a brother reduced to want, by sickness or mis- fortune ? We humble him not, by exposing his dependent condition to the world, or pub- lishing abroad our deeds of charity. The cold left hand of fellowship may know not what our right hand doeth ; but the God that seeth in secret, shall tender the open reward. Does a tempted brother break that holy pledge of honor ? We gather around him in brotherly love and sympathy to ex- postulate. We tell not of his shame and fall. We load him with no public infamy, that shall sink him deeper into disgrace and OF SPARKLING DROPS. 189 despair. His error is lodged in bis own soul, and lies hard upon the hearts of his brethren. He is made to feel his own fault, and to feel that he has wounded the honor of his fra- ternity. We throw around him all the influences of kindness, and reason, and for- bearance, and when the hot tears of peni- tence roll down his blushing face, we take him by the hand, again to forget and forgive. We save him, if possible, but if he must go, it is ours to follow him with blessings instead of curses. The exalted influence our Order is calcu- lated to exert, can no longer remain a subject of doubt. The Temperance Keform had assumed that aspect in the history of nations, which demanded a strong and permanent organization. Since the first reform arose to stay the tide of Intemperance, the public mind has been growing into the belief, that no single evil needed a mightier check than this. It has hurled nations and individuals from their loftiest pinnacles, and carried mill- ions along in its engulphing stream. It is not alone that the family hearth has been 190 THE SILVEE CUP turned into desolation, and its fires extin- guished not alone that the wife, and mother, and offspring, of the indigent have been robbed and beggared, and sent away shrieking and howling before the scourge, with haggard faces and lean hands, to plead for bread, and protection from the dernonized father not alone that youth, and beauty, and virtue have fallen, and in the starless night, and storm of passion, have drowned the deep sense of remorse in the burning ocean of Intemperance. The brave and the mighty amid the world's constellations have gone down that dreadful malstroom whose vortex feeds upon human prey, and whose waves have cast their bleachen wrecks upon every shore, and washed away the fabric of empires. Upon the altars of Bacchus and Silenus have been slaughtered more victims than have fallen before Mars' rolling car of war, and rapine, and murder. The Northern Sons of Odin and Valhalla came to worship upon this burning altar, and with the Gre- cian and Roman Bacchanalians perished in the wild delirium of the quaffed cup. The OF SPAKKLING DROPS. genius of a Homer and Hafiz, Anecreon and Johnson, and Byron, and Voltaire, became dregged, and steeped, and inflamed in this soul-consuming element. The young, disgus- ted Cyrus flung the damning eup from his grasp, as he beheld its beastly power over princes and monarchs. The ancient Lacede- monians played the mimic drunkard to in- spire their youth with abhorrence of the curse of Intemperance. No marvel that Na- ture itself has burst out in spontaneous com- bustion to consume the inflated mass of human bodies drugged to a living hell. It is to assist men in governing themselves, that we throw around them all our moral and social influence. We go out into society and find that man who has been long since aban- doned. Old friends have forsaken him, and he is left exposed to all the wiles of evil. He has tried again and again to abandon his habits, but his family and friends have des- paired. We take him by the hand, and he stands in the Halls of the Sons of Temper- ance. And who are these that stand around him, with cheerful smiles, and open hearts* 192 THE SILVER CUP and the warm grasp of friendship, to wel- come ? Brothers ! yes, brothers ! And as he there takes that solemn pledge upon his lips, and is made to feel that all these will cling by, and sympathize with him, the holiest purposes are nourished within his soul. How can he feel that he shall ever willfully violate the confidence of that band, which hails him as a brother ? He is bound by that golden chain whose links bind hea- ven and earth ; and if he breaks this, he is made to realize that he has broken the mightiest and most sacred of human ties. All that is endearing in home, and heaven and humanity, as if in the presence of the all-seeing eye of God, hallows that solemn obligation which he has assumed, and makes it more omnipotent over his moral nature than penal laws, or bolts, or bars, or dun- geons, or the thunders of fearful denunciation. That man who was once lone and neglec- ted in society, now starts into a new life of hope and joy, as he sees himself surrounded by friends who can take him by the hand and call him brother. And when the wild OF SPABKLING DROPS. 193 Storm of evil, and sorrow, and sickness, and distress, howls over his head, and the dark waves are rolling on to engulph him, an un- called host rush to his rescue, to relieve his distresses, and shed the halo of sympathy around that darkened scene. That tender wife and mother watch not alone around the bedside, to feel that the world has forgotten, in the hour of calamity. That husband has now become more deeply endeared to her, End her once famishing children. She re- members all that she has endured in the days of his fall, and now that he has become himself again, she keeps her night vigils with a more anxious and throbbing heart. The well of her affection has never been dry, but now it is watered anew, and she is made to feel that she loves one who is loved and re- spected by a band of faithful brothers, who gather around him in the hour of need ; and when death comes it is robbed of half its terrors. She walks not down to the grave a lonely, and indigent, and neglected mourner, ^but she is followed by those who go to pay their last rites over the remains of a brother. 9 194 THE SILVER CUP Let the power of unfaltering " Fidelity " to our principles, mark the progress of our Heform, and onward, onward to glorious conquest is ours ! With " Purity " written upon our hearts and lives, and "Love" wa- ving upon our banners, ours shall "be the thousand captives of love and liberty. Love, ascending to God embracing brethren and streaming out over the wide surface of humanity, shall be the element in which the demon of man shall lose its power. Before thee f oh, Love ! thou winged messenger of the Almighty, that sang above the plains of Bethlehem, and triumphed over man in the mission of Jesus ! before thee shall the king- doms of darkness and depravity crumble, and the enslaved arise to life and liberty. Thy tears, oh, Love ! shall fall like angels of mercy upon the cold and desolate heart, to melt and soften its iciness. Thy hand shall lead the wayward back to virtue, and wipe away the big tears of sorrow and penitence that roll down the haggard and care-worn countenance. Thy light shall shine like the beacon of hope to the mariner that straggles OF SPAEKLIKG DROPS. upon the wrecks of a howling night. Rank on rank, and file on file, Shall move on thy mission, oh, Love, until the mountain of the Lord shall spread abroad its Lebanon branches, for the overshadowing of the na- tions. Thine shall be the power to nourish and invigorate that tree of immortal liberty, upon which blooms ambrosial fruits and flowers, but upon which man once looked in proud and scornful defiance. " But Heaven beheld and blest Its branchy glories, spreading o'er the West. No summer gaude, the wonder of a day, Born but to bloom, and then to fade away, A giant oak, it lifts its lofty form, Greens in the sun, and strengthens in the storm. Long in its shade shall children's children come, And welcome earth's poor wanderers to a home. Long shall it live, and every blast defy, Till Tune's last whirlwind sweeps the vaulted sky." 196 THE SILVER CtfP BY MISS E. M. ALLEN. There are shadows, flitting, flitting O'er the sunlight of this heart, In their wildness ever fitting To the outward counterpart; i)aring dreams of proud ambition, Darkened by the flight of years., Moments, joyous in fruition, Yielding to an age of tears. There are whispers, thrilling, thrilling All this anxious, eager soul, With a strange, sweet impulse filling Till it brooks not my control; Whispers of the pure and holy, Calling to a far-off" shore, Where the shade of melancholy Flits across the soul no more. There is music stealing, stealing From the flow'rets trembling bell, Soft its vesper chimes are pealing In the spirits' cloistered cell; J T is the hour of sweet devotion, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 197 Hence, unhallowed doubts and fears! Grief is ours on life's dark ocean, But the haven hath no tears. There are visions, cheering, cheering As the chilling shadows creep, At the twilight hour appearing When the heart is prone to weep; Visions, varied, truthful, tender, O'er the spirit clouds they rise, Hallowed by a dreamy splendor, Gathered only from the skies. BY MBS. M. L. BAILET. Oh! pleasant are the memories Of childhood's forest home, And oft, amid the toils of life, Like blessed dreams they come: Of sunset hours when I lay entranced, 'Mid shadows cool and green, Watching the winged insect's glance, In summer's golden sheen: 198 THE SILVER CUP Their drowsy hum was a lullaby To Nature's quiet sleeping, While o'er the meadow's dewy breast The evening winds were creeping: The plowman's whistle heard afar, To his humble home returning; And faintly in the gathering shade The firefly's lamp was burning. Up in the old oak's pleasant shade, Where mossy branches swing, With gentle twittering, soft and low, Nestling with fluttering wing, Were summer birds, their tender notes Like love's own fond caressing. When a mother folds her little flock, With a whispered prayer and blessing. The cricket chirps from the hollow tree To the music of the rill, And plaintively echoes through the wood The song of the whipporwil. Tinged with the last faint light of day, A white cloud in the west Floats in the azure sea above, Like a ship on ocean's breast. OF SPAHKLING DROPS. 199 The evening star as a beacon shines On the far horizon's verge, And the wind moans through the distant pines Like the troubled ocean's surge. From lowly vales the rising mist Curls up the hill-side green, And its summit, 'twixt the earth and sky, Like a fairy isle is seen. Away in the depths of ether shine The stars, serenely bright, Gems in the glorious diadeni Circling the brow of night Our Father! if thy meaner works Thus beautiful appear, If such revealings of thy love Enkindle rapture here, If to our mortal sense thou dost Thy treasures thus unfold; When death shall rend this earthly vail, How shall our eyes behold Thy glory when the spirit soars Beyond the starry zone, And in thy presence folds her wings, And bows before thy throne! 200 THE SILVER CUP in Irhnt If into, BY ALBERT BARNES. IN proving this proposition, I shall take for granted two or three points which are now conceded, and to establish whieh would lead me too far out of my way. The first is,. that this i& not an employment in which the properties of the article are unknown. The seller has as good an opportunity to be acquainted with the qualities of the article,, and its effects, as the buyer. There is no concealment of its character, and tendency ; there can be no pretense that you were deceived in regard to those qualities, and that you were unintentionally engaged in the sale of an article which has turned out to be otherwise than you supposed it to be. For, alas ! those properties are too well ascer- tained : and all who are engaged in this employment have ample opportunity ta know what they are doing, and engage in it with their eyes open, OF SPARKLING -DROPS. 201 The effects of this traffic are well known. The public mind has been, with remarkable intensity, directed to this subject for ten years in this land, and the details have been laid before the American public. It is believed that no vice has ever been so faith- fully guaged, and the details so well ascer- tained, as the vice of intemperance in this nation. It is far better understood than the extent of gambling, or piracy, or robbery, or the slave trade. It is established now beyond the possibility of debate, that ardent spirits is a poison, as certain, as deadly, and destructive, as any other poison. It may be more slow in its effects, but it is not the less certain. This is established by the testimony of all physicians and chemists who have expressed an opinion on the subject. It is not necessaiy for the welfare of man as an ordinary drink. This is proved by the like testimony, by the example of many thou- sands who abstain from it, and by the fact, that, before its invention, the Eoman soldier, the Scythian, and the Greek, were as hardy and long lived as men have been since. Its 9* 202 THE. SILVER CUP direct tendency is to produce disease, poverty, crime, and death. Its use tends to corrupt the morals, to enfeeble the intellect, to pro- duce indolence, wretchedness and woe in the family circle ; to shorten life, and to hurry to a loathsome grave ; to spread a pall of grief over families and nations. It is ascer- tained to be the source of nine-tenths of all the pauperism, and nine-tenths of all the crimes in the land. It fills our streets with drunkards, our alms-houses with loathsome wretches, our jails with poor criminals, and supplies our gibbets with victims. It costs the land on which we live more than 100,- 000,000 of dollars annually, and renders us no compensation but poverty, want, curses, loathsomeness, and tears. In any single year in this Union, could the effects be gath- ered into one single grasp, they would pre- sent to the eye the following affecting details. An army of at least 300,000 drunkards not made up of old men, of the feeble, but of those in early life ; of our youth, of our men of talents and influence ; an enlistment from the bar, the bench, the pulpit, the OF SPARKLING DROPS. 203 homes of the rich, and the fire-sides of piety ; the abodes of the intelligent, as well as the places of obscurity, and the humble ranks all reeling together to a drunkard's grave. With this army Napoleon would have over- run Europe. In the same group would be no less than 75,000 criminals made such by the use of ardent spirits criminals of every grade and die, supported at the ex- pense of the sober, and lost to morality, and industry, and hope the source of lawsuits, and the fountain of no small part of the ex- penses of courts of justice. In the same group would be no less than 200,000 pau- pers, in a land abounding in all the wealth that the richest soil can give, and under all the facilities which the most favored spot under the whole heaven can furnish for acquiring a decent and honest subsistence. Paupers supported at the expense of the so- ber and the industrious, and creating no small part of our taxes, to pay for their indolence, and wretchedness, and crimes. And in the same group would be no less than 600 insane persons, made such by intemperance, in all 204 THE SILVER CUP the horrid and revolting forms of delirium the conscience destroyed, the mind obliter- ated, and hope and happiness fled for ever. And in the same group there would be no less than 30,000 of our countrymen, who die annually, as the direct effect of the use of ardent spirit. Thirty thousand of our coun- trymen sinking to the most loathsome and dishonored of all graves, the grave of the drunkard. This is just a summary of the obvious and sure effects of this vice. The innumerable woes that it incidentally causes ; the weeping and groans of the widow and the fatherless ; the crimes and vices which it tends to introduce into abodes that would, but for this, be the abodes of peace, are not, and cannot be taken into the account. Now this state of things, if produced in any other way, would spread weeping and sackcloth over nations and continents. Any sweeping pestilence that could do this, would hold a nation in alarm, and diffuse, from one end of it to the other, trembling and horror. The world has never known any thing else like it. The father of mischief has never OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 205 been able to invent any thing that should diffuse more wide-spread and dreadful evils. It is agreed further, and well understood, that this is the regular effect of the traffic, and manufacture, and use of this article. It is not casual, incidental, irregular. It "is uniform, certain, deadly, as the sirocco of the desert, or as the malaria of the Pontine marshes. It is not a periodical influence, returning at distant intervals ; but it is a pestilence, breathing always diffusing the poison when men sleep, and when they wake by day and by night, in seed time and harvest attending the manufacture and sale of the article always. The de- stroyer seeks his victim alike in every hogshead, and in every glass. He exempts no man from danger that uses it ; and is al- ways secure of prostrating the most vigorous frame ; of clouding the most splendid intel- lect ; of benumbing the most delicate moral feelings ; of palsying the most eloquent tongue ; of teaching those on whose lips senates hung, to mutter and babble with the drunkard ; and of entombing the most 206 THE SILVER CUP brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to drink. The establish- ment of every distillery, and every dram- shop, and every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man will thereby become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the world. The traffic is not only occasionally and incidentally in- jurious, but it is like the generation before the flood in its effects, evil, and only evil continually. Now the question is, whether this is an employment in which a moral man and a Christian man ought to be engaged ? Is it such a business as his countrymen ought to approve? Is it such as his conscience and sober judgment approve ? Is it such as his God and Judge will approve ? In examining this, let it be remembered that the reason why this occupation is en- gaged in, and the sole reason, is to make mo- ney. It is not because it is supposed that it will benefit mankind ; nor is it because the man supposes that duty to his Creator re- quires it ; nor is it because it is presumed OF SPARKLING DBOPS. 207 that it will promote public health, or morals, or happiness ; but it is engaged in and pur- sued solely as a means of livelihood or of wealth. And the question then is reduced to a very narrow compass ; is it right for a man, for the sake of gain, to be engaged in the sale of a poison a poison attended with destruction to the property, health, hap- piness, peace, and salvation of his neigh- bors producing mania, and poverty, and curses, and death, and woes innumerable to the land, and to the Church of God ? A question this, one would think, that might be very soon answered. In answering it, I invite attention to a few very obvious, but undeniable positions. 1. It is an employment which tends to counteract tJie very design of the organization of society. Society is organized on a benev- olent principle. The structure of that organ- ization is one of the best adapted instances of design, and of benevolence, any where to be found. It is on this principle that a law- ful employment an employment fitted to produce subsistence for a man and his family, 208 THE SILVER CUP will not interfere with the rights and happi- ness of others. It may be pursued without violating any of their rights, or infringing on their happiness in any way. Nay, it may not only not interfere with their rights and happiness, but it will tend to promote di- rectly their welfare, by promoting the happi- ness of the whole. Or, for example, the employment of the farmer may be pursued not only without interfering with the lights or privileges of the mechanic, the physician, or the merchant, but it will directly contrib- ute to their welfare, and is indispensable to it. The employment of the physician not only contributes to the support of himself and family, but to the welfare of the whole community. It not only does not interfere with the rights and happiness of the farmer and mechanic, but it tends directly to their advantage. The employment of the mer- chant in lawful traffic, not only contributes to his support, but is directly beneficial to the whole agricultural part of the commu- nity ; for, as has been well said, " the mer- chant is the friend of mankind." He injures OF SPARKLING DROPS. 209 no man, at the same time that he benefits himself; and he contributes to the welfare of the community, by promoting a healthful and desirable exchange of commodities in different parts of the land, and of various natures. The same is true of the mechanic, the mariner, the legislator, the book-maker, the day-laborer, the schoolmaster, the lawyer, the clergyman. Now, we maintain, that the traffic in ar- dent spirits, as a drink, is a violation of this wise arrangement. It tends to sap the foun- dation of the whole economy. It is solely to benefit the trafficer, and it tends to evil, evil only, evil continually. If every man should act on this principle, society could not exist. If every man should choose an employment that should necessarily and always interfere with the peace, and happiness, and morals, of others, it would at once break up the organization. If every manufacturer should erect a manufactory, as numerous as our distilleries and dram-shops, that should neces- sarily blight every farm, and produce sterility in its neighborhood, every farmer would 210 THE SILVER CUP regard it as an unlawful employment ; and if pursued, the business of agriculture would end. If a physician could live only by dif- fusing disease and death, who would regard his as a moral employment ? If a mariner could pursue his business from this port to Calcutta or Canton, only by importing the plague in every return voyage, who would deem it an honorable employment ? If an apothecary could pursue his business only by killing nine persons out of ten of those with whom he had dealing, who would deem it a lawful business ? If a man can get a living in his employment only by fitting out a privateer and preying upon the peaceful commerce of the world, who will deem it a lawful employment ? If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes of Africa, and to tear away parents from their weeping children, and husbands from their wives and homes, where is the man that will deem this a moral business ? And why not ? Does he not act on the same-principle as the man who deals in ardent spirits a desire to make money, and that only ? The truth OF SPAKKL1NG DHOPS. 211 is, that in all these cases there would be a violation of the great fundamental law on which men must agree to live together in society a violation of that great, noble, and benevolent law of our organization, by which an honest employment interferes with no other, but may tend to diffuse blessings in the whole circle of human engagements. And the traffic in ardent spirits is just as much a violation of this law, as in any of the cases specified. 2. Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to render a valuable considerar tion for that which he receives from others. A man who receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is under obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He receives the fruit of toil ; he receives that which is of value to himself ; and common equity requires that he return a valuable consideration. Thus the merchant renders to the farmer, in exchange for the growth of his farm, the productions of other climes ; the manufacturer, that which is needful for the clothing or comfort of the agriculturist ; 212 THE SILVER CUP the physician, the result of his professional skill. All these are valuable considerations, which are fair and honorable subjects of ex- change. They are a mutual accommodation ; they advance the interest of both parties. But it is not so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the property of his fellow-men, and what does he return ? That which will tend to promote his real welfare ? That which will make him a happier man ? That which will benefit his family ? That which diffuses learning and domestic comfort around his family circle ? None of these things. He gives him that which will pro- duce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. He asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that which is established and well known as the source of no good, but as tending to produce beg- gary and wretchedness. Now if this were practised in any other business, it would be open fraud. If in any way you could palm upon a farmer that which is not only worth- less, but mischievous that which would certainly tend to ruin him and his family, OF SPAEKLING DROPS. 213 could there be any doubt about the nature of this employment ? It makes no difference here, that the man supposes that it is for his good ; or that he applies for it. You know that it is not for his benefit, and you know what is the only material point under this head that it will tend to his ruin. What- ever he may think about it, or whatever he may desire, you are well advised that it is an article that will tend to sap the foundation of his morals and happiness, and conduce to the ruin of ^his estate, and his body, and his soul ; and you know, therefore, that you are not rendering him any really valuable consid- eration for his property. The dealer may look on his gains in this matter on his houses, or mortgages, or lands, obtained as the result of this business with something like these reflections : " This property has been gained from other men. It was theirs, honestly acquired, and was necessary to promote their own happi- ness and the happiness of their families. It has become mine by a traffic which has not only taken it away from them, but which 214 THE SILVEK CUP has ruined their peace, corrupted their mor- als, sent woe and discord into their families, and consigned them, perhaps, to an early and most loathsome grave. This property has come from the hard earnings of other men ; has passed into my hands without any valu- able compensation rendered ; but has been obtained only while I have been diffusing want, and woe, and death, through then abodes." Let the men engaged in this traffic look on their property thus gained ; let them survey the woe which has attended it ; and then ask, as honest men, whether it is a moral employment. 3. A man is bound to pursue such a business as shall tend to promote tlie welfare of the whole community. This traffic does not. We have seen that an honorable and lawful employment conduces to the welfare of the whole social organization. But the welfare of the whole cannot be promoted by this traffic/ Somewhere it must produce poverty, and idleness, and crime. Even granting, what can not be established, that it OF SPARKLING D~R P S . may promote the happiness of a particular portion of the community, yet it must be at the expense of some other portion. You may export poison to Georgia, and the imme- diate effect may be to introduce money into Philadelphia, but the only important enquiry is, what will be the effect on the whole body politic ? Will it do more good than evil on the whole ? Will the money which you may receive here, be a compensation for all the evil which will be done there ? Money a compensation for intemperance, and idle- ness, and crime, and the loss of the health, the happiness, and the souls of men ! Now we may easily determine this matter. The article thus exported will do as much evil there as it would if consumed here. It will spread just as much devastation some- where, as it would if consumed in your own family, and among your own friends and neighbors. We have only to ask, what would be the effect if it were consumed in your own habitation, in your neighborhood, in your own city ? Let all this poison which is thus exported, to spread woes and death TSE SILVER CTJP somewliere, be concentrated and consumed where you might see it, and is there any man who will pretend that the paltry sum which he receives is a compensation for what he knows would be the effect of the consump- tion 1 You keep your own atmosphere pure it may be, but you export the pestilence, and curses, and lamentation elsewhere, and receive a compensation for it. You sell disease, and death, and poverty, and nakedness, and tears to other families, to clothe and feed your own. And as the result of this current of moral poison, and pollution, which you may cause to flow into hundreds of other families, you may point to a splendid palace, or to gay apparel of your sons and daughters, and proclaim that the evil is hidden from your eyes. Families, and neighborhoods, and states may groan and bleed somewhere, and thousands may die, but your gain is to be a compensation for it all. Is this an honorable traffic ? Suppose a man were to advertise consump- tions, and fevers, and pleurisies, and leprosy, for gold, and could and would sell them ; -OF SPARKLING DROPS. 21? what Would the community say to such a traffic ? Suppose, for gain, he could trans- port them to distant places, and now strike -down, by a secret power, a family in Maine, and now at St. Mary's, and now at Texas, and now at St. Louis ; what would the com- munity think of wealth gained in such a traffic ? Suppose he could, with the same ^ease, diffuse profaneness, and insanity, and robberies, and murders, and suicides, and should advertise all these to be propagated through the land, and could prevail on 'men to buy the talisrnanic nostrum for gold what would the community think of such a traffic as this ? True, he might plead that it brought a vast influx of money that it en- riched the city, or the country that the 'effects were not seen there ; but what would be the public estimate of a man who would be willing to engage in such a traffic, and who would set up such a plea ? Or suppose it were understood that a farmer from the interior had arrived in Philadelphia with a load of flour, nine-tenths of whose barrels contained a mixture, more or less, of arsenic^ 10 218 THE SILVER CTTF and should offer them for sale ; what would be the feelings of this community at such & traffic? Time, the man might plead that it would produce gain to his countiy ; that they had taken care to remove it to another population ; that his own family was secure; Can any words express the indignation which would be felt ? Can any thing express the horror which all men would feel at such a transaction as this, and at the cold-blooded and inhuman guilt of the money-loving farmer ? And yet, we witness a thing like this eveiy day, on our wharves, and in our ships, and our groceries, and our inns, and from our men of wealth, and our moral men, and our professed Christians and a horror comes through the souls of men, when we* dare to intimate that this is an immoral business ! 4. A man is bound to pursue such a course of life as not necessarily to increase tlie burdens and the taxes of the community. The pauperism and crimes of this land grow out of this vice, as an overflowing fountain. Three-fourths of the taxes for prisons, and OF SPARKLIKG DttOPS. 219 houses of refuge, and alms-houses, would be cut off, but for this traffic, and the attendant vices. Nine-tenths of the crimes of the countiy, and of the expenses of litigation for crime, would be prevented by arresting it. Of 653 who were in one year committed to the house of correction in Boston, 453 were drunkards. Of 3,000 persons admitted to the work-house in Salem, Massachusetts, 2,900 were brought there, directly or indirectly, by intemperance. Of 592 male adults in the alms-house in New York, not 20, says the Superintendent, can be called sober ; and of 601 women, not as many as 50. Only three instances of murder, in the space of fifteen years, in New York, occurred, that could not be traced to ardent spirit as the cause. In Philadelphia ten. This is the legitimate regular effect of the business. It tends to poverty, crime, and woe and greatly to increase the taxes and burdens of the com- munity. What is done, then, in this traffic ? You are filling our alms-houses, and jails, and penitentiaries, with victims, loathsome and 220 THE SILVER CTTP burdensome to the community. You are engaged in a business which is compelling your fellow-citizens to pay taxes to support the victims of your employment. You are filling up those abodes of wretchedness and guilt, and then asking your fellow-citizens to pay enormous taxes, indirectly to support this traffic. For, if every place where ardent spirits can be obtained, were closed in this city and its suburbs, how long might your splendid palaces for the poor be almost un- tenanted piles ! How soon would your jails disgorge their inmates, and be no more filled ! How soon would the habitations of guilt and infamy, in every city, become the abodes of contentment and peace ! And how soon would reeling loathsomeness and want cease to assail your doors with importunate plead- ings for charity ! Now we have only to ask our fellow-citi- zens, what right they have to pursue an employment tending thus to burden the community with taxes, and to endanger the dwellings of their fellow-men, and to send to my door, and to every other man's door, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 221 hordes of beggar's, loathsome to the sight, or to compel the virtuous to seek out their wives and children, amidst the squalidness of poverty, and the cold of winter, and the pinchings of hunger, to supply their wants ? Could impartial justice be done in the world, an end would soon be put to the traffic in ardent spirits. Were every man bound to alleviate all the wretchedness which his busi- ness creates, to support all the poor which his traffic causes, an end would soon be made of this employment. But, alas ! you can dif- fuse this poison for gain, and then call on your industrious and virtuous countrymen to alleviate the wretchedness, to tax themselves to build granite prisons for the inmates which your business has made ; and splendid palaces, at an enormous expense, to extend a shelter and a home for those whom your em- ployment has turned from their own habita- tions ! Is this a moral employment ? Would it be well to obtain a living in this way in any other business ? 5. The business is inconsistent witli the law of God, which requires us to love our 222 THE SILVER CUP neighbor as ourselves. A sufficient proof of this would be a fact which no one could deny, that no man yet, probably, ever under- took the business, or pursued it from that motive. Its defense is not, and can not, be put on that ground. No man in the commu- nity believes that a continuance in it is re- quired by a regard to the welfare of his neighbor. Every one knows that his welfare does not require it ; and that it would be conferring an inestimable blessing on other men, if the traffic was abandoned. The sin- gle, sole object is gain ; and the sole question is, whether the love of gain is a sufficient motive for continuing that which works no good, but constant ill to your neighbor. There is another law of God which has an important bearing on this subject. It is that golden rule of the New Testament, which commends itself to the conscience of all men, to do to others as you would wish them to do to you. You may easily conceive of your having a son, who was in danger of becom- ing a drunkard. Your hope might center in him. He might be the stay of your age. OF SPARKLING DROPS. 223 41x* may be inclined to dissipation ; and it snay have required all your vigilance, and prayers, and tears, and authority, to keep him in the ways of soberness. The simple ques- tion now is, what would you wish a neighbor to do in such a case ? Would it be the de- sire of your heart, that he should open a fountain of poison at your next door ; that he should, for gain, be willing to put a cup into the hands of your son, and entice him to the ways of intemperance ? Would you -be pleased if he would listen to no remon- strance of yours, if he should even disregard your entreaties and your tears, and coolly see, for the love of gold, ruin coming into your family, and your prop taken from be- neath you, and your gray hail's coming down with sorrow to the grave ? And yet, to many such a son may you sell the poison ; to many a father, whose children are clothed in rags ; to many a man, whose wife sits weep- ing amidst poverty and want, and dreading to hear the tread and the voice of the hus- band of her youth, once her protector, who now eomes to convert his own habitation into 224 THE SILVER C U F a hell. And there are not a few men of fmk standing in society who are engaged in this ; and not a few oh! tell it not in Gath who claim the honored name of Christian, and who profess to bear the image of Him who went about doing good. Can such be a, moral business ? 6. The traffic is a violation of that law* wliich requires a man to honor God. Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And yet, is this a business which was ever engaged in, or ever pursued, with a desire to honor God ? Is it an employment over which a man will pray ? Can he ask the God of heaven to give him, success ? Let him then, in imagination, fol- low what he sells, to its direct result ; let him attend it to its final distribution of poverty, and woes, and crimes, and death, and then kneel before heaven's eternal King,, and render thanksgiving for this success ! Alas ! it can not be. Man pursues it, not; from a desire to honor God. And can the man who is engaged in a business on which; he can not implore the- blessing of Heaven OF SPARKLING DROPS. 225 who is obliged to conceal all thoughts of it if he ever prays ; who never engaged in it with a desire to glorify God, or meet his approbation can he be engaged in a busi- ness which is lawful and right ? I might dwell further on these points. But I am now prepared to ask, with empha- sis, whether an employment that has been attended with so many ills to the bodies and souls of men ; with so much woe and crime ; whose results are evil, and only evil contin- ually ; an employment which cannot be pur- sued without tending to destroy the very purposes of the organization of society ; without violating the rule which requires us to render a valuable consideration in busi- ness ; without violating the rule which re- quires a man to promote the welfare of the whole of the community; which promotes pauperism and crime, and imposes heavy burdens on your fellow-citizens ; which is opposed equally to the love of man and the law of God whether this is a moral, or cm immoral employment ? The question is submitted. If moral, it 10* 226 THE SILVEK CUP should be driven on with all the power of American energy ; with all the aids of wealth, and all the might of steam, and all the facilities of rail roads and canals ; for our country and the Church calls the man to the honorable employment ? But if it be immoral and wrong, it should be abandoned on the spot. Not another gallon should ever pass from your store, if it be evil, only evil, and that continually. Where does the water spring, gladsome and bright? Here in the leafy grove, Bubbling in life and love, Born of the sunshine, up-leaping to light, Waked in its pebbly bed, When the still shadows fled, Gushing, o'erflowing, down-tumbling, for flight. Where does the water flow? where glides the rill? Now 'neath the forest shade, Then in the grassy glade, Otf SPARKLING DROPS. 227 ^Dancing as freely as child of the hill. Bright cascades leaping, Silver brooks creeping, ^Wearing the mountains, and turning the mill. "Where does the water dwell powerful and grand-? Here where the ocean foam Breaks in his rock-ribbed home, Dashing, land-lashing, up-bounding, wrath-spanned^; Anon, sweetly sleeping, Soft dimples o'er-creeping, iLike a babe on its mother's breast, soothed by her hand. "Where smiles the dew-drop the night-shadows woo? Where the young flowrets dip, Laving each perfumed lip; 'Close in the rose's heart, loving and true; Poised on an emerald shaft, Where never sunbeam laughed, Deep in the dingle the beautiful dew! "Where glows the water pledge, given of old? 'Tis dropped down from God's throne, When the shower is gone, A chain of pure gems, linked with purple and gold; In Eden hues blushing, With infinity gushing, A line from the Book of Life, its lore half untold. The bright bow of promise; the signet of power; The crown of the sky; The pathway on high, 228 tHE SILVER CtTF Whence angels bend to usy when darksome clouds Iow3r $ Breathing so silently, Kindly and truthfully Oh ! then* wings for a shield, in the wrath-bearing hour! Then we'll love the threads lacing our beautiful world,, Tangling the sunbeams, Laughing in glorious gleams; I'he wavelets all dimpled, and spray-tresses curled: The tear on the flower's breast; The gem in the ocean's crest; And the ladder of angels, by rain-drops impearlecL /mi unb last "Pray for me, Mother! pray that no blight May come on my hopes and prospects bright; Pray that my days may be long and fair Free from the cankering touch of care; Pray that the laurels I grasp at now May live ere long around my brow; And pray that my gentle lady love May be fond as the nightingale, true as the dove." The mother knelt by her own hearth stone, With her hand on the head of her only son; OF SPAIIKMXO DP. OPS. 229 And lifting up her glistening eye, Prayed for all blessings fervently; And then she took one lock of hair From his manly forehead, smooth and fair, And he kissed her cheek, and left her side With a bounding step, and a smile of pride. "Pray for me mother! pray, that ere long My soul may be free as a wild bird's song, That away on the wings of the wind is driven, And goes to rest with them in heaven: Pray for it, mother! nay, do not weep! Thou wast want to bless my infant sleep; And bless me now with thy gentle breath, Ere I sink away in the sleep of death." The mother knelt by his side again Oh! her first prayer had been all in vain ! His lady love had been false to him His fame in slander's breath was dim; She looked on his altered cheek and eye, And she felt 't was best that he should die ! Then she prayed for his death, in his fond despair, And his soul passed away with that last wild prayer ! 230 THE SILVEtt CUP ttttjje Urigjit Look at the bright side! The sun's golden rays All nature illumine, and the heart of man cheereth; Why wilt thou turn so perversely to gaze On that dark cloud which now in the distance appeareth ! Look at the bright side! Recount all thy joys; Speak of the mercies which richly surround thee, Muse not for ever on that which annoys: Shut not thine eyes to the beauties around thee. Look at the bright side! Mankind, it is true, Have their failings, nor should they be spoken of lightly ; But why on their faults concentrate thy view, Forgetting their virtues which shine forth so brightly ? Look at the bright side! And it shall impart Sweet peace, and contentment, and grateful emotion, Reflecting its own brilliant lines on thy heart, As the sunbeams that mirror themselves in the ocean. Look at the bright side! Nor yield to despair: If some friends forsake, yet others still love thee; And when the world seems mournful colors to wear, Oh, look from the dark earth to heaven above thee. OF SPARKLING DROPS. 231 BY MAKTIX F. TUPPEB, No lovely thing on earth can picture all their beauty; They be pearls flung on the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion, Which Dilligence loveth to gather and hang around the neck of Memory; They be white-winged seeds of happiness, wafted from the islands of the blest, Which Thought carefully tendeth, in the kindly garden of the heart: They be drops of the crystal dew, which the wings of seraphs scatter, When on some brighter Sabbath, their plumes quiver most with delight. Life-giving be they and glorious, redolent of sanctity and heaven : As the fumes of hallowed incense, that veil the throne of the Most High; A.S the beaded bubbles that sparkle on the rim of the cup of Immortality: ALS wreaths of the rainbow-spray, from the pure cataracts of Truth: Juch, and so precious, are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter. 232 THE SILVER CUP t LOUD blew the wind in the dreary month of November, when a large party were as- sembled around a glowing fire in the hospi- table mansion of Dr. D - , late resident physician of the Lunatic Asylum. Music and dancing were laid aside, and all eyes were bent, in eager expectation, on the doctor, who held in his hand a book contain- ing several lovely portraits. "Did you indeed know the original of this ? " exclaimed one of the group, pointing to a beautiful girl, apparently about eighteen, splendidly attired in a robe of white satin, ornamented with pearls and orange flowers ; " but how strange that black crape veil looks over that elegant wreath ! " " Yes, my dear girl, I knew her well, and hers, alas ! is a sad, sad tale ; and now I recollect, it was twenty years ago this very day that I first became acquainted with her." OF SPARKLING DROPS. 233 "Pray tell us how, dear Dr. D- ," exclaimed a half dozen voices at once. And thus petitioned, he began : " Well, then, it is just twenty years ago this very evening that I was aroused from a gentle slumber, into which I had fallen in my easy chair, by the entrance of a servant with a note, which merely contained these words : ' Dr. D - is entreated to lose no time in hastening to the Inn, to meet a patient destined to the Asylum, but who is now too ill to proceed unless it be under his care.' This inn was about sixteen miles from my residence, situated on a dreaiy moor many miles in extent, to reach which I should have to traverse a most unfrequented road. It was, therefore, in no good humor that I proceeded to do the bidding of the unknown writer ; for in his haste (the note had evidently been written hurriedly) he had forgotten to add his signature. The rain was descending in torrents, and the wind howled fearfully ; indeed, so terrific was the storm that, at first, my horses refused to brave it, but by dint of spurring and flogging 234 THE SILVER CUP we at last set off. Faster and faster fell the rain, higher and higher rose the tempest, yet still we journeyed on ; when suddenly the progress of the carriage was arrested, and the postilion informed me that the lights were out, and he could not see a step. What was to be . done ? To return was useless, especially, as with the numerous cross-roads by which our path would be intersected, it would scarcely be possible in the dark to take the right one ; and there we were, on the borders of a wide common, without a light or guide, and my servant totally igno- rant of the country, having been in my service only a few weeks. "'You must trust to the horses,' I ex- claimed ; ' I remember I baited them at this inn once, though it is now a long time since.' " Slowly, and step by step, we proceeded ; now splashing through what were once rivu- lets, or, at least, but brawling brooks, but which the floods had swollen into torrents ; then coming in contact with branches of trees, which the blast had riven, for the storm still raged with unabated fury, and it OF SPARKLING DROPS. 235 must have been past midnight when my ser- vant descried a light in the distance. ' Make for it,' was my order, and, with what haste he could, he obeyed. The light, which was at first very faint, gradually became more dis- tinct, and at last we discovered ourselves near a cottage, which my recollection told me was about five miles from my destination. As we drew near, a sudden thought darted across my mind had not dark tales of darker doings reached me about this very dwelling ? I would fain have passed, but procure a light we must ; there was, now, no help for it, and I bade my servant arouse the inmates. A few knocks, and a man's voice gruffly asked : " ' Who 's there ? ' " ' Dr. D ,' I replied, thinking it bet- ter at once to let them know who I was : ' I am on my way to a patient, and if you will give my servant a light, I shall be obliged to you, as my lamps are gone out.' " c A light was soon procured, and he bade us a surly c Good night,' but not before I had discerned the sturdy figures of two or three 236 THE SILVEK C UJP ill-looking fellows peering at me through the half-open door. Great caution was necessary in crossing the heath, for, even by daylight, it was dangerous to do so ; and slowly we pro- ceeded on our dreary way. Unwilling to alarm my servant, yet feeling how necessaiy it was for him to be on his guard, I was just about to bid him keep a good look-out, when, amid the howling of the storm I heard a faint whistle, and, in a few seconds, I fancied it was returned. 4 Report, then, has not wronged these villians,' I mentally exclaimed, and my first step was to order the postilion to drive for his life, my next to bethink me of some weapon of defense. I had none, but a case of surgical instruments, which, by mere chance, I happened to have about me ; but what were these against well-armed ruffians ? At that instant the horses were suddenly seized, the postilion knocked off, and two men presented themselves with loaded pistols at each door of the carriage. Resistance, I saw at a glance, would be useless nay, madness ; and I felt the necessity of obeying their command to deliver up my- purse, when OF SPARKLING DROPS. 237 the tramp of horses' feet was heard, and the sound of voices reached us ; nearer and nearer they came ; and my assailants, fearful, (for conscience makes cowards of us all,) hur- ried off, and left me at the mercy of the new comers. Fortunately, they proved to be two persons sent from the inn to expedite my ar- rival, as, from the delay, they feared that some accident had occurred, or that I had lost my way. Under their guidance I soon reached the inn, and was met at the door by a venerable old man, whose silver locks floated in the cold night wind, and whose furrowed cheek was coursed by many a tear. " ' My child ! oh ! save my child ! ' broke from his trembling lips, as, with a convulsive grasp, he seized my hand, and hurrying me into the house, threw open the door of a small room,- where, reclining on a sofa, was a being beautiful as thought. Her jet-black tresses were scattered in rich profusion over the humble pillow which supported her death-like form ; and, though the pallor of death cast its marble hue over her counte- nance, nought could surpass its loveliness. 238 THE SILVER CTTP " ' Save ! oil ! save my child ! ' again and again groaned the old man, 4 and I will bless you ; give me back my loved, my only one.' " But there she lay, motionless and appa rently lifeless ; and, in answer to my queries, I learned that she had been in that state for nearly twelve hours. At first, they thought she had fainted, but, as the usual remedies had been resorted to without effect, it was deemed desirable to send for me. An elderly female attendant, who replied to my ques- tions, watched with great anxiety my counte- nance, as I examined the pulse of my patient, and, by a sign, gave me to understand that she had some thing to communicate. An opportunity soon presented itself, and she in- formed me with great emotion that the mind of her young lady was affected. ' Yet, he can not believe it,' she said, c and it is only through the solicitations of his friends, and at the earnest request of her medical atten- dants, that her father has consented to her being removed from home. Every doctor in London, of any skill, has been consulted, and all say that the Asylum is the OF SPARKLING DROPS. 239 only place for her. It lias cost my master many thousands, and I 'm sure he would not mind as many more could Miss Lucy I mean Mrs. Ventnor recover.' " ' Mrs. Ventnor ! ' I exclaimed, ' surely she is not married ! so young, too ; poor girl ! ' " i Yes, sir,' said the old nurse, ' she is very young, hardly nineteen ; and she was not eighteen when she was married.' "'But how came this dreadful calamity to befall her ? ' I asked ; ' not ill-treatment, I hope?' " ' Oh, no ! doctor, for he loved the ground she walked on ; but he died suddenly the day they were married, and her brain has been turned ever since.' " Here our conversation was interrupted by the frequent repetition of my name, and I hastened to return to the room from which I had heard it. I soon perceived the cause of the summons, in the altered appearance of my patient. A slight flush tinged her cheek, and she sighed heavily ; and though no ray of intelligence beamed from the half-open eye, still any change was better 240 THE SILVER CUP than the lethargic state in which she had so long lain. " 4 She lives ! she breathes ! ' exclaimed the doatirig father. ' Lucy, my hope, my pride, the solace "of my old age, speak to me one word, only one, to bless and cheer me ! ' and the old man sank on his knees and sobbed like a child. " After a short interval, I considered it ad- visable that the invalid should reach her resting place as soon as possible, and, accord- ingly, we commenced our journey home- ward. Pitying the distress of Mr. Beverton, I requested him to become my guest for a few days, until he had, in some little measure, overcome his reluctance to leave his daughter with strangers. For the first few days, Lucy lay in an unconscious state, heeding nothing, and seemingly ignorant of any change in the persons or things about her ; but by degrees, her accustomed wildness of manner returned, and on paying my usual morning visit, I one day found her arrayed exactly as described in this portrait, with a cheek as hueless as the flowei*s that bound her raven hair. A OF SPARKLING DROPS. -241 White satin robe fell in massy folds around -her perfect figure. It was her bridal dress ; and yet, as if, even in her madness, a gleam -of the sad truth had burst forth, she had thrown a widow's veil over her wreath of orange flowers. " ' See, see ! ' she whispered in a mysterious manner, ' this is my wedding-day, and this,,' -extending her delicate finger on which she wore a plain wedding-ring, ' is his gift ; my own Charles placed it there ; ' and kissing it fondly, she murmured, l we will never, never part. Is not this beautiful ? ' she continued, drawing frem her bosom a silken bag, -which ^contained a small piece of paper, from which -she read, in a low, sweet tone, the following iines : "'There's not a word thy lip hath breathed, A look thine eye hath given, That is not shrined within my heart Like to a dream of heaven. There's not a spot where we -have met, A favorite flower or tree; There's not a scene by thee beloved ITbat is not prized by me. t 242 THE SILVER CUP Whene'er I hear the linnet's song, Or the blithe woodlark's lay, Or mark upon the golden west The rosy clouds decay; Whene'er I catch the breath of flowers, Or music from the tree, Thought wings her way to distant bowersy And memory clings to thee,' "As she concluded these beautiful l!nes> rendered still more touching by her impas- sioned manner, she paused, and a shade of sadness flitted over her lovely face ; then tittering a fearful shriek, which the lapse of years has not effaced from my recollection, she seized my arm and screamed forth in accents of terror : at They shall not tear thee from me ! I will cling to thee while I have life ! Charles I Charles ! do you not hear me ? ' T is Lucy r thine own Lucy, who calls thee, and bids thee stay. See ! see ! they mock at my des- pair ! fiends, devils, furies, all the powers of earth shall not wrest him from me ! Father! father ! help ! for God's sake help ! ' OF SPARKLING DROPS. 243 " For hours after this sad scene the unfor- tunate girl lay in the same state as when I first saw her. Vainly did I resort to every possible restorative, and I indeed feared that the bruised and wounded spirit had quitted its earthly abode ; but it was not so. Slowly and sadly the long hours of that dreary night wore on, and the solemn stillness was broken only by the sobs of the poor old man, watching with a parent's love for the slightest ray of hope ; but as the gray dawn appeared, poor Lucy gave some signs of re- turning life, and at last she murmured forth some indistinct words. Having again success- fully administered further restoratives, I left left her to the care of her nurse, enjoining quietude, and promising to see her again in two hours. As I approached her chamber, the full, rich, mellow tones of a female voice burst on my ear, now swelling to its fullest extent, now dying on my entranced senses with an unearthly sweetness. Oh ! never, never had I heard so wild, so sweet, a strain. The words for as I drew near I could distinguish them were these : 44 THE SILVER CtJt> 'They bid me forget thee, they tell me that The grave damp is staining that beautiful brow; But thy gay laugh returns in the silence of sleep t And I start from my slumbers to listen and weep>' ".'Doctor, doctor,' eagerly exclaimed the father, as I gently opened the door, l there is hope I see, I feel there is hope for she weeps.' " And so it was ; her own sad, sweet mel- ody had opened the flood-gates of her grief, and she wept long and violently; indeed, so unrestrained was her emotion that I dreaded its effects on her delicate frame. " * Father ! dear father ! ' she at last said, in a low, faint voice, ' come nearer, closer, yet closer. Where am I, father 2 not in my own loved home ! Father ! dear father ! tell me.' "The old man struggled to repress his emotion, (for I whispered ' Be calm, for God's sake, be calm ! any excitement will destroy her,') and said : " ' You are with your friends, dearest, with those who love and cherish you ; compose yourself, my own one. You have been ill, OF SPARKLING DEOPS 245 very ill; but the Almighty has hear my prayers and restored you to me.' " t Oh, father ! I have had a fearful dream. I thought it was my bridal-day, and that, leaning on your arm, I stood before the altar. Charles, too, was there ; and when I gave him my hand, liis hand was cold, icy cold ; and when he should have spoken, his lips were motionless ; and there, standing by his side, was a skeleton form, which wound its arms around him, and bore him from me. Oh ! so fearful was it, that now, even now, I can scarcely doubt its dreadful reality.' "At that moment, her eye fell on her strange attire the black veil falling in folds over her snowy dress, and the bridal token glittering on her finger then, with a piercing shriek, which rose higher and higher, till it ended in the yell of a maniac, she fell senseless in the outstretched arms of her father. Life was indeed extinct, and her pure spirit had taken its everlasting flight; the silver cord, which had been too highly strung, had snapped in twain, and the Wid- owed Bride lay motionless and dead. 246 THE SILVEE CUP " Would that I had been spared the sight of that old man's grief ; there he knelt, sup- porting the lifeless form of his only child. His whole frame shook with emotion, and cold drops of agony burst from every pore. '"My child! my child!' at length he groaned ; 'my pride, my joy, the bright star of my existence, my beautiful, my true ; would that I had died for thee, my child, my child!' " His voice grew fainter, and fainter, his grasp grew less firm, the eyes became fixed. I looked : he was dead ! Yes, they who had loved so well and truly in life, in death were not separated. They sleep together in the family vault, in Church, and this simple inscription alone marks her monument 'THE WIDOWED BRIDE.'" BY MRS. E. J. EAMES. Come back to me, my child! I call thee ever, All the day long I listen for thy voice, The ringing laugh that made my heart rejoice; OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 247 I miss it 'midst life's languishment and fever! For thy blue eyes of love and light I pine, Thy twining arms thy frequent soft caress: Like balmiest summer, stole thy lips to mine. Oh! at still eve, my heart how didst thou bless! Come back, my child! I wander hopeless-hearted Where'er thy little feet have dancing stray'd; Sad is the home whence thy sweet face hath parted Silent the nursery where thou'st prattling played! Earth wears for me but one unvaring gloom, O'ershadowed by the thought that thou art in the tomb! Come back to me, my child! though but in dreams Thine angel- image let me clasp once more! If haply, o'er my couch still slumber gleams, The night-time may thy rosy lips restore, Thy downy cheek laid lovingly to mine. Thy sweet "my mother," in thy dreaming sleep While thy small arms around me closer twine. My idol-boy ! I wake to weep, Never again on earth shall I behold thee! Thou'st left my side, and gone to other rest! My child ! I know the Saviour's arms enfold thee, I know thou leanest on his pitying breast, A blessed lot! my child! oh, ask for me, That where thy home is, mine ere long may be! 248 THIT SILVER CUP BY MISS PHEBE CAREY. Once in the season of childhood's joy,, Dreaming never of life's great ills, Hand in hand with a happy bay, I walked about on my native hills. Gathering berries ripe and fair, Pressing them oft to his smiling lip Braiding flowers in his sunny hair, And letting the curls through my fingers slips. Watching the clouds of the evening pass Over the moon in our home of blue; Or chasing fireflies over the grass, Filling our feet with the summer dew*, Now I walk on the hills alone, Dreaming never of hope or joy, And over a dungeon's floor of stone,. Sweeps the curls of that happy boy_ And every night where a rose hedge springs Up from the ashes of a sunset's pyre, And the eve-star folding her golden wings,. Droops like a bird in. the leaves of fire*. OF SPARKLING DROPS. 249 I sit and think how he entered in, And farther and farther every time, Followed the downward way of sin, Till it led to the awful gates of crime. I sit and think till my great despair, Rises up like a mighty wave; How fast the locks of my father's hair, Are whitening now for the quiet grave. But never reproach on my lip has been, Never one moment can I forget, Though bound in prison, and lost in sin, My brother once, is my brother yet. nngof a (laarbian Iptrtt BY MRS. HEMAXS. Near thee, still near thee ! o'er thy pathway gliding, Unseen I pass thee with the wind's low sigh ; Life's veil enfolds thee still, our eyes dividing, Yet viewless love floats round thee silently ! Not midst the festal throng, In halls of mirth and song; But when thy thoughts are deepest, When holy tears thou weepst, Know then that Love is nigh! 11* 250 THE SILVEU CUP "When the night's whisper o'er harp-strings creeping. Or the sea-music on the sounding shore, Or breezy anthems through the forest sweeping, Shall move thy trembling spirit to adore; When every thought and prayer We loved to breathe and share, On thy full heart returning, Shall wake its voiceless yearning; Then feel me near once more! Near thee, still near thee! trust thy soul's deep cfreaming Oh! love is not an earthly rose, to die! E'en when I soar where fiery stars are beaming, Thine image wanders with me through the sky. The fields of air are free, Yet lonely, wanting thee; But when thy chains are falling, When heaven its own is calling, Know then thy guide is nigh! JESUS stood upon Mount Olivet, and, look ing down upon the holy city, wept, and said, " How offc would I have gathered you but OF SPARKLING DROPS. 251 ye would not." Again, as he drew near he cried, " O that thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things that belonged to thy peace, but now are they hid from thine eyes." " The days shall come in which thine enemies shall compass thee on every side, and lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee." Thirty years had now elapsed since these prophetic words were uttered, and still upon Mount Zion stands Jerusalem the pride and boast of Israel. Her massive walls, her glittering turrets, and lofty colonnades are glorious still. Her temple-gates are thronged with worshipers, who, from the farthest cor- ner of Judea's realm, have here assembled to celebrate the feast. But hark ! what sound is that which swells upon the breeze, and echoes from the neigh- boring mountains. 'Tis not the solemn chant of praise ascending to the God of Israel, for naught but harsh and jarring discord meets the ear. ' T is even true ; within those sacred walls Are fighting, murder, and contention fierce. 252 THE SILVER GTTF Still, all without Jerusalem is peace. Na- ture seems hushed to silence. There is Si- loam's shady fountain ; the Mount of Olives, and the hallowed garden stretch beyond in all their loveliness ; and here, beneath the lofty battlement runs Kedron's murmuring stream. But soon the scene is changed. A nation, swift and mighty, comes from far and now the Koman eagle flaps his dark and deadly pinions over the fair heritage of Ju- dah's children. Now do the little band of Christ's disciples remember his prophetic warning. They hasten to the mountains, and thus escape the dread destruction poured upon the guilty. Vengeance waits no longer. Now had the day of desolation fully come. For five months had the army of Titus en- compassed this devoted city, while within its walls, faction, famine, and pestilence had car- ried on the work of death. But now the cup of their iniquities was filled. Prophets for them had spent their lives in toil and suffering, praying for them that God would spare his judgments, though so richly mer- ited. But they had killed the holy men. OF SPARKLING DKOPS. 253 At length God sent his Son, but him they had despised, scorned, and rejected, though he did among them works which none before had ever done. They brought the blessed Jesus to the Roman judgment bar. Here crowds gathered round him, and the mur- derers cried, " O, crucify him ! crucify him ! and let his blood be on us and on our chil- dren." That prayer ascended to the throne, of Him who sits upon the heavens; and answer was not long denied. A change comes over Palestine. " Jerusa- lem is compassed round with armies." For many days unearthly sounds were heard, and fearful signs and wonders in the sky ap- peared. A " flaming sword," suspended in the heavens seemed to threaten vengeance. Still did these deluded Jews believe that their deliverance was sure. They thought the God of Israel would soon appear to help and save, and trusted, ere another night, the Roman legions would be slain, even as were the hosts of proud Assyria, before " the Lord's destroying angel.'' As the last morning dawns upon their 254 THE SILVER CUP glorious city, crowds are seen rushing to the temple. The unholy priests kneel round the altar, but even this is not a refuge. God's house is not a Sanctuary, for he has left it, and the bright- winged messengers of mercy all have fled from this polluted place. The troops of Titus now have gained the citadel ; its lofty walls have given way, and trampling on the famished troops, the infuriate soldiers rush with madness toward th.A temple-porch. The holiest is polluted with unhallowed foot- steps, and, round the consecrated, strown, are seen the mangled bodies of unholy men. Even now the flames are tow'ring from the mountain, up toward heaven. Loud shrieks and lamentations rend the air. The beau- tiful and holy temple is enveloped in the flames. Not all the efforts of the mighty Roman could avail to spare this glorious building for God had said, " one stone shall not be left upon another." Oh ! Jeru- salem ! it is hi vain for thy deluded sons to plead for mercy, or to seek the place where God once met to bless thee. Thou need'st not now cry unto Him, whom thou hast so OF SPARKLING DROPS. 255 long scorned. Turn not thy eyes toward the place where late thy temple stood, as if ex- pecting aid from thence. Thy God has left thee, and thou art cast off to be destroyed. The work of desolation now is completed. The Roman turns and looks upon the scene of conquest. Well may he exclaim, "had not our helper been the mighty God, these walls had not been turned from their founda- tions. Even now Jerusalem had been the praise of all the earth." Centuries have since gone by, and Judah lies a " field of ruins " "a curse devours it," and even now " it mourns for the iniquities of them that dwelt therein." A remnant of the chosen still survive, but scattered over all the earth ; and to this day remain a " bruised and persecuted people," without an " ephod, teraphim, and sacrifice." Still they call our God their Father and shall they own the Prince of Glory, even Jesus, as their King ? And can it be that unrepented sins shall always shut on them the door of mercy ? Ah, no ! the promise of a faithful God is pledged, his covenant is 256 THE SILVER CtJP sure. " They shall repent," and He will yet restore his long-lost, chosen people. The mists of unbelief shall flee before the beams of the Sun of Righteousness ; and in the new Jerusalem above, angelic choirs shall louder swell their notes of praise, when God's first chosen one shall stand before his throne with all the ransomed throng. " Then shall they serve Him in his temple day and night, and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them." BY J. CLEMENT. man! the day is sunny, And its censer full of balm; The air is bland and bracing, And it nerves the brawny arm. Then while the light is streaming On the whitened fields around, And the voices of the reapers Like a holy anthem souad, Into the golden harvest Thrust the sickle with thy might, OF SPARKLING DROPS. 257 For fast the day is waning; And cometh soon the night. O worn and weary worker, Whose sun is in the West, Thy labor, nearly ended, Will sweeten coming rest. O And great shall be the honor Of thy spirit, truly just, When the task of life is finished And thy body lies in dustj For the toilers in the vineyard Of the glorious God of love, For ever rest from labor In the palaces above. nf A widow knelt, at eventide, in the holy act of prayer, Amid the young and sireless band entrusted to her care : Meekly and trustfully she sued before the Power divine, Yet closed each prayer with these deep words, " Lord, not my will, but thine." She prayed her little ones drew near for all th.a fatherless* 258 THE SILVER CUP And, with clasped hands, besought our Lord her tender flock to bless, And "with the needed strength to nerve her faint and err- ing heart, To train them in the way from which they never might depart. She prayed her voice grew tremulous for one who long had been A reekless wanderer from her arms, a reveler in sin, Her first-born son, who scorned alike her prayers and her reproof, And from his home and God, for years, had coldly kept aloof. She prayed ; and the warm eloquence of stung but hoping love Bore on ite swift and fervid wings these heart-wrung words above : " Lord ! my Lord ! thou yet wilt have compassion on my tears, Nor turn to dust the lone desire of all my widowed years. "He is my child, he was the first fair blossom from thy hand, Pure as the snow-drop, when the spring first breathes upon the land : He seemed to love thee, ere the blight had fallen on his soul, Or vile companions had enticed to drain the maddening boivl. OF SPARKLING DROPS. 259 u ! by the holy water poured upon his infant brow, When with rapt soul I breathed to Heaven the dedicating vow, By all my heavy, darkened days, by all my sleepless nights, When striving with this cankering woe, that every pleas- ure blights, By the last boon his father craved, J mid dissolution's pangs, I pray thee, snatch my dying child from out the tempter's fangs. u Call home the prodigal, a feast of love awaits him still; Yet pardon this weak heart, if aught it asks against thy will. Oh ! frenzied is a mother's love, such frenzied love is mine; Yet shall it yield its strength to thee : " Lord, not my will, but thine." A cry is heard : a loathsome form in tattered garb draws ne.tr ; A sobbing voice breathes, * Mother,' in the widow's startled ear! 0, doth the mighty God at last her sad petition heed ? He doth, he doth, and answers it, in this her hour of need. The wanderer weeps upon her neck, hot, penitential tears ; He had come back, with calous heart, to bid farewell for years; 260 THE SILVER CUP When that wild prayer his bosom pierced, like lightning from the heaven ; And now, as when a little child, he prays to be forgiven. Oh ! ye who mourn o'er blighted hopes, o'er loved ones gone astray, Do ye, like him who craves for bread, importunately pray ? Though many blessed gifts are ours without our anxious thought, There are some boons that with our prayers and tears alone are bought. i lopes of BY MBS. D. E. GOODMAN. How fleeting, how transient are the dreams of life, and yet, how beautiful ! How bright and gladsome is this fair earth, with its bold mountains reaching to heaven, its gentle, ver- dant hillocks, its towering trees, its rippling rills ; and then the music of its singing birds oh, how soothingly it falls upon the ear ! Spring, glad, merry, delightful spring, how the eye kindles and the cheek glows, as the chained rivulets burst their OF SPARKLING DROPS. 261 long and weary confinement, and spring forth, frolicking and dancing, like a child of the wild-wood : and then to see in every nook and glen, by eveiy murmuring stream, and over each verdant meadow, tiny, modest, beautiful buds and flowers starting to birth, as if some angel's breath had fanned the whole earth. Oh, it is so enchanting. But who has not mourned to see these bright things wither, to see the green, thick foliage turn pale, and fall helplessly to be trodden under foot, to listen to the last trembling note of that fairy song, whose melody had soothed the heart full oft ! And it is even so with earth's fairest dreams. Happy he whose only source of grief, whose only cause for weeping, has been the death of a favorite flower, or the loss of a cherished bird ! For will not spring return, with added loveliness to the sleeping earth, will not her flowers bloom again, and her songsters fill the air with their quivering, melting, strains ! But the bright dreams of childhood, the visions of early youth, once crushed and withered, when will tliey again gladden the heart ? Never ! 262 THE SILVER OtTP I knew a fair young girl, who dwelt witK in a happy home, the pride, the joy, of fond indulgent parents, and the fairest blossom that threw its light across their pathway. Gentle, loving, beautiful, she had won the love of all who knew her, and on her youth- ful head, were showered the blessings of young and old. It was a sweet retired spot, the house of her happy childhood a fairy abode in the bosom of New England. No strife or contention dwelt within its borders, and hers was the sunny face, and hers the joyous laugh that chased the cloud from every brow, and brought peace to every heart. It was a glad spring morning, and the cottage windows were open to admit the morning breeze. Its snowy sides nearly con- cealed by clambering vines, whose slender tendrils had wound themselves together, forming, with the glossy leaves, a beautiful, shadowy curtain ; and the drooping branches of the stately trees bent with their cluster- ing foliage shelteringly over the low roof. Bright, lovely flowerets peeped out from their grassy beds, while from their fragrant OF SPARKLING DROPS. 263 bosoms the pure sunbeams kissed the silver dew-drops. Oh, how surpassingly fair was all without, as if no mildew were there to blight, no rude, cold breath to wither, and within the rural cot were joy and grief com- mingled. It was ADA'S wedding morn. Meekly she stood before the venerable pas- tor, whose hand had placed upon her infant brow the sacred seal, and whose kindly beaming eyes had watched her budding charms with all a father's fondness in their expression. Calmly she stood there, with her dark, soft eyes smiling, yet cheerful, her cheek a little paler than usual, and a slight tremor on her red lip. A pure, snowy, half- opened rose-bud, gleamed out from among the heavy braids of her raven hair, and a few natural, glossy curls fell from her white broad forehead over her neck, resting in pleasing contrast upon the plain white muslin dress which hung gracefully about her form. By her side, and clasping her slender fin- gers, was the chosen of her young heart a manly, noble youth, with a dark, high brow, and a thousand ringlets clustering above it, 364 THE SILVEK CUP yes, whose passionate, earnest depths told the love he bore the gentle creature he was - soon to call his own. A sorrowful yet happy group surrounded the youthful pair. There was a white-haired sire, with his lofty, in- tellectual forehead wrinkled by age and browned by exposure, eyes moistened yet beaming with love and gratitude, and a heart fresh and loving as a youthful maiden's. Leaning upon his shoulder was an aged ma- tron, upon whose truthful, soul-lit face were visible the deep and various emotions which stirred her maternal bosom. Nearer the youthful bride, and gazing into her calm, serene face was a young creature, scarcely less lovely, with the same deep, dreamy eyes, &nd open brow, the same dimpled mouth and jetty tresses. A brother too, just stepping into manhood, with the unsullied light of youth's fair hopes undimmed, and several little ones, with faces like an April sky, tear- ful and sunny, hovered near the loved, the idolized. That morning saw the new-made bride depart for a far distant home a home in the Western wilds. ' Light was the *>F SPAKXLING DEO PS. 265 lieart and blissful were the dreams that went *with the youth and his own Ada from that cottage, and the groups of yearning kindred, 'who wept to see them depart. But, alas ! for the hopes of earth ! Two years had swiftly fled, and the second returning spring brought to the old man's dwelling a bowed ;and stricken form. The husband of their dead child had returned with the heavy hand of anguish on his heart, and hope's bright -garland withered. In his arm he bore a cherub boy, on whose dimpled cheek was the rich glow of health, and in his dark eye the oul of his angel-mother beamed. The wea- ried husband told the gathered mourning band how the flower had faded and died upon his bosom ; and of the holy smile ^vhich lingered on the cold lips after the spirit had left its clay tenement. He told them how his trembling fingers had parted the damp curls from her marbk forehead, and twined among the glossy, shining tresses a shriveled rose-bud the same that had nestled there on her bridal morn and how her green grave, with its simple monument 12 2ot> THE SILVER OUF of snowy marble, on which was only insert bed, 4 Ada,' was sheltered by a weeping wil- low, whose long, drooping boughs waved above her head. That long weary summer passed away, and when the autumn frosts had changed the fresh, green leaves of the forest trees to their pale hue, they gently fell upon his resting place. The youthful hus- band had followed his lovely bride to that home above ' that house not made with hands/ where pain and parting are no more. Another form comes up before me now : it is that of a youthful maiden. I knew her well. She had culled earth's fairest flowers^ and found them thornless ; she had dreamed earth's brightest dreams, and cherished earth's fondest hopes, and never, never had a cloud of darkness hung upon* her brow. One day, when the face of Nature was smil- ing and blushing beneath the warm, pure rays of an autumn sun, and the' deep blue of autumn skies, she went forth from her pleas- ant, happy home a bride. Oh, who may tell the visions of gladness and joy which rose, dim and shadowy, in the distant future ! OF SPARKLING DROPS. 267 Who may know the blissful, trembling emo- tions of her soul, and the hopes which crowded her youthful bosom ! Months passed away, and she was still blessed still happy. But a dark day was drawing on, a shadow of awful darkness hov- ered about her pathway : yet she knew it not. The sunny light of hope and love was on her brow, and in the depths of her heart. She had bowed before an earthly shrine, and poured her deepest, intensest feeling upon an earthly object ; but the cloud above her head thickened, and when least expected burst upon her. Wildly she hung above the death-bed of the stricken one, and prayed oh, how fervently, for the life of him who was her all her idol. Slowly, but surely, the tyrant approached, and at last his icy fin- gers moved among the tender heartstrings, and they ceased to vibrate his cold breath passed over the marble brow and it was chil- led. Desparingly she gazed upon the still features whose beauty death itself could not destroy, and with her trembling, white fingers laid the chesnut curls back from the pale 268 THIS SILVER CUP forehead. Who shall tell the thoughts of agony that crowded through her torn bosom. Oh, who may know the unutterable anguish of her heart ! Days and weeks passed away, but the free sunlight of her early dreams came not again. There was a fixed grief at her heart's core, a settled melancholy upon her pale face, which told that in the low grave of her soul's idol were buried all her earthly hopes. I never see a fairy girl, with health's glow npon her cheek, and love's light in her beam- ing eye I never hear her silvery laugh, and listen to the echo of her sweet voice, but I think of the darkness of coming years. I have seen so many a beautiful thing wither and fall to the grave, I have watched the overthrow of so many earthly schemes, and noted the death of so many earthly hopes, that I tremble for the trusting, warm heart, which I know must ere long bleed over some faded dream or withered idol. I have stood by the low, calm resting place of age, where the man, with snowy locks, was sweetly sleep- but I shed no tear over his fate. For OP SPARKLING DKOPS. 269 must it not be pleasant, after a long life of care and toil, and it may be of suffering, to lie down at last in the grave, to bid adieu to the changing world, and welcome the joys of everlasting life ? But my teara have watered the fresh sod beneath which slumbered the young, the gay, the beautiful. I have wept, Heaven knows how bitterly, how agonizingly, over the blighting of youthful loveliness over the faded wreath of earthly love. But amid all the gloom, all the decay around, there comes a soft, sweet whisper a low, gentle breath- ing, as from an angel's lips, soothing the heart, and pouring into the bleeding bosom the balm of consolation. An unforeseen finger seems pointing us to a realm of peace, an asylum pure and bright, where hope never expires, and death, and parting are unknown. The spirits of the de- parted seem hovering near us,, and spreading over us their snowy wings, while, in tones like the spring zephyr, or the music of a far- off bird, they tell us of a home beyond the 270 THE SILVER CUP skies, where the bright and lovely never die, and the flowers never fade. How soon the dreams of earth depart! Its hopes, oh! what are they? How often from the doting heart They fade and melt away! Like the soft cloud that gently floats Across the summer sky, Or dew-drops glistening 'neath the sun, Earth's fairest visions die. The heart 't is strange what feelings move Its tender, hidden strings How strong the cord that earthly love, About it softly flings. 'Tis well perhaps that all its hopes Thus rudely should be riven, To tell us of a purer clime A brighter home in heaven. ' T is well but oh, how hard to bow In meek and holy trust, When pallid cheek and marble brow Are laid beneath the dust. When from the fond and yearning breast Is coldly borne away The worshiped one, too good and pure In this dark world to stay. SPAHKLING DROPS. r We live m deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 2n feelings, not in figures on a dial. "We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives, Who thinks most; feels the noblest: acts the best. And he whose heart beats quickest lives the longest; Xives in one hour more than in years do some, '"Whose slow Mood sleeps as it slips along their veins. 'Life is but a means unto an end; that end, ^Beginning, mean, and end' to all things God. tjit /otint nf lotul JKneel where the gem of faith is ever gleaming, Kneel where the pearl of hope is always bright, (Kneel where the eye of charity is beaming, Kneel, gentle pilgrim, and receive thy sight. Kneel, and thy soul shall prove a well of gladness, Kneel, and eternal life will soon be thine, JXneel, and forget in joy thy spirit's sadness, JSLneel, and thy heart shall never more repine to the fount of LOVE! 2T2 THE SILVER CUP" nn BY E. NOTT, D. D. FATHERS, mothers, heads of families, if not prepared r at this late hour to change your mode of life, are you not prepared to encour- age the young, particularly your children, to- change theirs ? Act as you may, yourselves,, do you not desire that they should act the part of safety ? Can you not tell them, and truly tell them, that our manner of life is attended with les peril than your own ? Can you not tell them, and truly tell them, that however innocent the use even of pure wine may be, in the estimation of those who use it, that its use in health is never necessary ; that excess is always injurious, and that in; the habitual use of even such wine, there is always danger of excess ; that of the brand- ied and otherwise adulterated wines in use, it can not be said, in whatever quantity, that they are innocent ; that the temptation* to adulterate is very great, detection v OF 8PABKLING D 11 OP 8. 273 difficult and that entire safety is to be found only in total abstinence ? Will you not tell them this ? And having told them, should they, in obedience to your counsel, relinquish at once the use of all intoxicating liquors, would their present condition, you yourselves being judges, would their present condition be less secure, or their future prospects less full of promise, on that account ? Or would the remembrance that the stand they took, was taken at your bidding, either awaken in your bosoms misgivings now, or regrets here- after ? Especially, would it do this as life declines, and you approach your final disso- lution and last account. Then, when stand- ing on the verge of that narrow isthmus, which separates the future from the past, and connects eternity with time ; then, when casting the last lingering look back upon that world to which you are about to bid adieu for ever, will the thought that you are to leave behind you a family trained to temper- ance not only, but pledged also to total absti- nence, will that thought, then, think you, plant one thorn in the pillow of sickness, or 12* 274 THE SILVER CUP add one pang to the agonies of death ? O ! no, it is not this thought, but the thought of dying and leaving behind. a family of profli- gate children, to nurture other children no less profligate, in their turn to nurture others, thus transmitting guilt and misery to a re- mote posterity ; it is this thought, and thoughts like this, in connection with another thought, suggested by those awful words, "For, I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation, of them that hate me," it is thoughts like these, and not the thought of leaving behind a family pledged to total abstinence, that will give to life's last act a sadder coloring, and man's last hour a denser darkness. Be- tween these two conditions of the dying, if held within our offer, who of us would hesitate ? Ye children of moderate drinking parents ; children of so many hopes, and solicitudes, and prayers ; the sin of drunkenness apart, the innocence of abstinence apart, here are two classes of men, and two plans of life, < F SPARKLING DROPS. <each proffered for your approbation, and sub- knitted for "your choice : The one class use intoxicating liquor, moderately indeed, still they use intoxicating liquor in some, or many of its forms ; the other class use it in none of them : The one class, in consequence of such use of intoxicating liquor, furnish all the drunkenness, three-fourths of all the pauper- Ism, and five-sixths of all the crime, under the accumulating and accumulated weight of which, our country already groans. Yes, in consequence of such restricted use of intoxi- cating liquors, the one class pays an annual tribute in muscle and sinew, in intellect and virtue, aye, and in the souls of men ; a mighty tribute, embodied in the persons of Inebriates, taken from the ranks of temperate drinkers and delivered over to the jail, the mad house, the house of correction, and even the house of silence I The other class pays no such tribute ; no, nor even a portion of it The other burthens of community they share indeed, in common with their brethren ; a portion of their earn- ings goes even to provide and furnish those 276 tf-BTE' S-riVEB CUP abodes of woe and death, which intoxicating: liquors crowd with inmates ; but the inmates ; themselves are all, all trained in the society, instructed in the maxims, molded by the cus- toms, and finely delivered up from the ranks of the oppOv v , party ; the moderate drinking party. Now, beloved youth, which of these two modes of life will you adopt ? To which of these two classes will you attach yourselves ? Which, think you, is the safest, which most noble, patriotic, Christian ? In one word, which will ensure the purest bliss on earthy and afford the fairest prospect of admission into heaven ? For the mere privilege of using intoxica- ting liquors moderately, are you willing to contribute your proportion annually to peo- ple the poor-house, the prison-house, and the grave-yard ? For such a privilege, are you willing to give up to death, or even to deli- rium tremens, a parent this year, a wife, a child, a brother, or sister the next, and the year thereafter a friend or neighbor ? Are you willing to do this, and having done it, OF SPARKLING DROPS. are you further willing, as a consequence, to hear the mothers', the wives', the widows', and the orphans' wailings, on account of mis- eries inflicted by a system deliberately adop- ted by your choice, sustained by your example, and perpetuated by your influence ; nor to hear alone; are you willing to see also the beggar's rags, the convict's fetters, and those other and more hideous forms of guilt and misery, the product of intemper- ance, which liken men to demons, and earth to hell ! That frightful outward desolation appa- rent in the person and the home of the inebriate, is but an emblem of a still more frightful inward desolation. The comfortless abode, the sorrow-stricken family, the tattered garments, the palsied tread, the ghastly coun- tenance, and loathsome aspect of the habitual brutal drunkard, fills us with abhorrence. We shun his presence, and shrink instinct- ively from his polluting touch. But what are all these sad items, which affect the outer man only, in comparison with the blighted hopes, the withered intellect, the debased S78 THE SILVEK CUP propensities, the brutal appetites, the demo- niac passions, the defiled conscience ; in one word, in comparison with the sadder moral items which complete the frightful spectacle of a soul in ruins ; a soul deserted of God, possessed by demons, and from which the last lineaments of its Maker's image have been utterly effaced ; a soul scathed and riven, and standing forth already, as it will hereafter stand forth, frightful amid its ruins, a monument of wrath, and a warning to the universe. Be not deceived, nor fear to take the di- mensions of the evils that threaten, or to look that destroyer in the face, which you are about to arm against yourselves. Not the solid rock withstands for ever the touch of water even, much less the living fibre that of alcohol, or those other and intenser pois- ons mingled with it, in those inebriating liquors of which a moiety of the nation drinks. The habitual use of such liquors in small quantities, prepares the way for their use in larger quantities ; and yet larger quantities progressively, till inebriation is OF SPARKLING DROPS. 279 produced. Such is the constitu^on of na- ture ; it is preposterous therefore to calculate upon exemption. Exceptions indeed there may be ; but they are exceptions merely. The rule is otherwise. If you live an ha- bitual drinker of such liquors, you ought to calculate to die a confirmed drunkard : and that your children, and your childrens' child- ren, should they follow your example, will die confirmed drunkards also. And if life shall be prolonged to them, and they so live, they will so die, unless the course of nature shall be changed. In the view of these facts and arguments which the subject before you presents, make up your minds, make up your minds deliber- ately, and having done so, say whether you are willing to take along with the habitual moderate use of intoxicating liquors, as bought and sold, and drank among us, the appalling consequences that must result therefrom. Are you willing to do this ? and if you are not, stop, stop while you may, and where you can. In this descent to Ha- des there is no half-way house, no central 280 . THE SJLVER CTJP resting place. The movement once commen- ced, is ever onward, and downward. The thirst created is quenchless, the appetite in- duced insatiable. You may not live to com- plete the process but this know, that it is naturally progressive, and that with every successive sip from the fa,tal chalice, it ad- vances, imperceptibly indeed, still it advances toward completion. Yon demented sot, once a moderate drinker, occupied the ground you now occupy, and looked down on former sots, as you, a moderate drinker, now look down on him, and as future moderate drink- ers may yet look down on you, and wonder. "Facilis decensus averni." Let it never be forgotten that we are social beings. No man liveth to himself; on the contrary, grouped together in various ways, each acts, and is acted on by others. Though living at the distance of so many generations, we feel even yet, and in its strength, the effect of the first transgression. Now, as for- merly, it is the nature of vice, as well as vir- tue, to extend and perpetuate itself. Now, as formerly, the existing generation is giving OF SPARKLING J>ROPS. 28-1 the impress of its character to the generation which is to follow it and now % as formerly, parents are by their conduct, and their coun- sel, either weaving crowns to signalize their offspring in the heavens, or forging chains to be worn by them in hell. Hearer, time is on the wing, death is at hand : Act now, therefore, the part that you will in that hour approve, and reprobate the conduct you will then condemn. It has not been usual for the speaker, as it has for some others, to bespeak the influ- ence of those who constitute the most numer- ous, as well as most efficient part of almost every assembly, where self-denials are called for, or questions of practical duty discussed. And yet, no one is more indebted than my- self, to the kind of influence in question. Under God, I owe my early education, nay, all that I have been, or am, to the coun- sel and tutelage of a pious mother. It was, peace to her sainted spirit, it was her moni- tory voice, that first taught my young heart to feel that there was danger in the intoxica- ting cup, and that safety lay in abstinence* 232 THE SILVER CUP And as no one is more indebted than my- self, to the kind of influence in question, so no one more fully realizes how decisively it "bears upon the destinies of others. Full well I know, that by woman came the apostacy of Adam, and by woman, the recovery through Jesus. It was a woman that imbued the mind, and formed the char- acter of Moses, Israel's deliverer It was a woman that led the choir, and gave back the response of that triumphal procession, which went forth to celebrate with timbrels, on the banks of the Red Sea, the overthrow of Pharaoh It was a woman that put Sis- era to flight, that composed the song of De- borah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, and judged in righteousness, for years, the tribes of Israel It was a woman that defeated the wicked counsels of Hainan, delivered right- eous Mordecai, and saved a whole people from utter desolation. And not now to speak of Semiramis at Babylon, of Catharine of Russia, or of those Queens of England, whose joyous reigns con- stitute the brightest periods of British OF SPARKLING D ft OPS. 283 history, or of her, the young and lovely, the patron of learning and morals, who now adorns the throne of the sea-girt Isles ; not now to speak of these, there are others of more sacred character, of whom it were admissible even now to speak. The sceptre of empire is not the sceptre that best befits the hand of woman ; nor is the field of carnage her field of glory. Home, sweet home, is her theatre of action, her pedestal of beauty, and throne of power. Or if seen abroad, she is seen to the best ad- vantage when on errands of love, and wearing her robe of mercy. It was not woman who slept during the agonies of Gethsemane ; it was not woman who denied her Lord at the palace of Caia- phas ; it was not woman who deserted his cross on the hill of Calvary. But it was woman that dared to testify her respect for his corse, that procured spices for embalming it, and that was found last at night, and first in the morning, at his sepulchre. Time has neither impaired her kindness, shaken her constancy, or changed her character. 284 THE SILVER CUP Now, as formerly, she is most ready to en- ter, and most reluctant to leave, the abode of misery. Now, as formerly, it is her office, and well it has been sustained, to stay the fainting head, wipe from the dim eye the tear of anguish, and from the cold forehead the dew of death. This is not unmerited praise. I have too much respect for the character of woman, to use, even elsewhere, the language of adula- tion, and too much self-respect to use such language here. I would not, if I could, per- suade those of the sex who hear me, to become the public, clamorous advocates, of even temperance. It is the influence of their declared approbation ; of their open, willing, visible example, enforced by that soft, per- suasive, colloquial eloquence, which, in some hallowed retirement, and chosen moments, exerts such controling influence over the hard, cold heart of man ; especially over a husband's, a son's, or a brother's heart ; it is this influence, which we need ; an influence, chiefly known by the gradual, kindly trans- formation of character it produces, and OF SPAHKLIKG D II OPS. 285 which, in its benign effects, may be compared to the noiseless, balmy influence of spring, shedding, as it silently advances, renovation over every hill, and dale, and glen, and islet, and changing throughout the whole region of animated nature, winter's rugged and un- sightly forms, into the forms of vernal loveliness and beauty. No, I repeat it, I would not, if I could, persuade those of the sex who hear me, to become the public, clamorous advocates of temperance. It is not yours, to wield the club of Hercules, or bend Achilles' bow. But, though it is not, still you have a heaven- appointed armor, as well as a heaven-appro- ved theatre of action. The look of tender- ness, the eye of compassion, the lip of entreaty, are yours ; and yours too, are the decisions of taste, and yours, the omnipotence of fashion. You can therefore, I speak of those who have been the favorites of fortune, and who occupy the high places of society ; you can change the terms of social inter- course, and alter the current opinions of community. You can remove, at once and 286 THE SILVER CtTP for ever, temptation from the saloon, the drawing-room, and the dining-table. This is your empire, the empire over which God and the usages of mankind have given you do- minion. Here, within these limits, and with- out transgressing that modesty, which is Heaven's own gift, and woman's brightest or- nament, you may exert a benign and kindly but mighty influence. Here you have but to speak the word, and one chief source of the mothers', the wives', and the widows' sorrows, will, throughout the circle in which you move, be dried up for ever. Nor, through- out that circle only. The families around you, and beneath you, will feel the influence of your example, descending on them in bles- sings, like the dews of heaven that descend on the mountains of Zion ; and drunkenness, loathsome, brutal drunkenness, driven by the moral power of your decision, from all the abodes of reputable society, will be compeled to exist, if it exist at all, only among those vulgar and ragged wretches, who, -shunning the society of women, herd together in the bar room, the oyster cellar, and the groggery OF SPARKLING DROPS. 287 This, indee'd, were a mighty triumph, and this, at least, you can achieve. Why, then, should less than this be achieved ? To purify the conscience, to bind up the broken-hearted, to remove temptation from the young, to minister consolation to the aged, and kindle joy in every bosom y throughout her appointed theatre of action, befits alike a woman's, and a mother's agency, and, since God has put it in your power to do so much, are. you willing to be responsible for the consequences of leaving it undone ? Are you willing to see this tide of woe, and death, whose flow you might arrest, roll onward by you to posterity, increasing as it rolls for ever ? O ! no, you are not, I am sure you are not ; and if not, then, ere you leave these altars, lift up your heart to God, and in his strength, form the high resolve, to purify from drunk- enness this city. And, however elsewhere, others may hesitate, and waver, and defer y and temporize, take you the open, noble stand, of ABSTINENCE ; and having taken it, cause it by your words, and by your d*eeds, 288 THE SILVER U to be known on earth and told in heaven, that mothers have dared to do their duty, their whole duty, and that, within the pre- cincts of that consecrated spot, over which their balmy, hallowed influence extends, the doom of drunkenness is sealed. Nor mothers only ; in this benign and holy enterprise, the daughter and the mother, alike are interested. Ye young, might the speaker be permitted to address you, as well as your honored pa- rents, and those teachers, their assistants, whose delightful task it is to bring forward the unfolding germs of thought, and teach the young idea how to shoot, might the speaker, whose chief concernment hitherto, has been the education of the young, be per- mitted to address you, he would bespeak your influence, your urgent, persevering in- fluence, in behalf of a cause so pure, so full of mercy, and so every way befitting your age, your sex, your character. O ! could the speaker make a lodgment, an effectual lodgment, in behalf of temper- ance* within those young, warm, generous, \>F SPARKLING -DROPS. 589 Active hearts within his hearing, or rather within the city, where it is his privilege to speak, who this side Heaven could calculate the blessed, mighty, enduring consequence? Could this be done, then might the eye of angels rest with increased complacency on this commercial metropolis, already signalized by Christian charity, as well as radiant with intellectual glory ; but then lit up anew with fire, from off virtue's own altar, and thus caused to become, amid the surrounding desolation which intemperance has occasioned, more conspicuously than ever, an asylum of mercy to the wretched, and a beacon light of promise to the wanderer. Then from this favored spot, as from some great central source of power, encouragement might be given, and confidence imparted to the whole sisterhood of virtue, and a redeem- ing influence sent forth through many a dis- tant town and hamlet, to mingle with other ^nd kindred influences, in effecting through- out the land, among the youth of both sexes, that moral renovation called for, and which, 13 290 THE SILVER OUF when realized, will be at once the earnest and the anticipation of millennial glory. O! could we gain the young, the young who have no inveterate prejudices to combat, no established habits to overcome ; could we gain the young, we might, after a single gen- eration had passed away, shut up the dram shop, the bar room, and the rum-selling gro- cery, and by shutting these up, shut up also the poor house, the prison house, and one of the broadest and most frequented avenues to the charnel house. More than this, could we shut up these licensed dispensaries of crime, disease, and death, we might abate the severity of mater- nal anguish, restore departed joys to conjugal affection, silence the cry of deserted orphan^ age, and procure for the poor demented sui- cide, a respit from self-inflicted vengeance. This, the gaining of the young to absti- nence, would constitute the mighty fulcrum r on which to plant that moral lever of power> to raise a world from degradation. O ! how the clouds would scatter, the pros pect brighten, and the firmament of hope OF SPARKLING DROPS. 291 clear up, could the young be gained, intoxi- cating liquors be banished, and abstinence with its train of blessings introduced through- out the earth. BY MISS MARY ANN BROWNE. Yesternight I prayed aloud, In anguish and in agony ; Up-starting from the fiencush crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me. COLRIDGE. I had a dream" in the dead of night, A dream of agony; I thought the world stood in affright, Beneath the hot and parching light Of an unclouded sky; I thought there had fallen no cooling rain For months upon the feverish plain, And that all the springs were dry: And I was standing on a hill, And looking all around: I know not how it was but still Strength in my limbs was found, As if with a spell of three-fold life My destinies were bound. 292 THE SILVER OUP Beneatli me was a far-spread heath, Where once had risen a spring, Looking as bright as a silver wreath In its graceful wandering: But now the sultry glance of the sun, And the glare of the dark blue sky, Had checked its course, no more to run In light waves wandering by. And farther on was a stately wood, With its tall trees rising high: But now like autumn wrecks they stood Beneath a summer sky: And every leaf, though dead,- did keep Its station there in mockery; For there was not one breath to sweep The leaves from each perishing tree; And there they hung, dead, motionless; They hung there day by day, As though death were too busy with other things To sweep their corpses away. Oh, terrible it was to think Of human creatures then ! How they did seek in vain for drink, In every vale and glen; And how the hot, scorched foot did shrink As it touched the slippery plain; And some had gathered beneath the trees, In hope of finding shade; OF SPARKLING DROPS. 293 But, alas! there was not a single breeze Astir in an} 7 glade! The cities were forsaken, For their marble wells were spent; And their walls gave back the scorching glare Of that hot firmament: But the corses of those who died were strewn In the street, as dead leaves lay, And dry they withered and withered alone They felt no foul decay; Night came. The fiery sun sank down, And the people's hope grew strong: It was a night without a moon, It was a night in the depth of June, And there swept a wind along; T was almost cool: and then they thought Some blessed dew it would have brought. Vain was the hope! there was no cloud In the clear dark blue heaven; But, bright and beautiful, the^crowd Of stars looked through the even. And women sat them down to weep Over their hopeless pain; And men had visions dark and deep, Clouding the dizzy brain; And children sobbed themselves to sleep, And never woke again! 294 THE SILVER OUP The morning came not as it comes Softly 'midst rose and dew Not with those cool and fresh perfumes That the weariest heart renew; But the sun sprang up, as if eager to see What next his power could do! A mother held her child to her breast, And kissed it tenderly, And then she saw her infant smile; What could that soft smile be? A tear had sprung with a sudden start To her hot, feverish eye; It had fallen upon that faint child's lip That was so parched and dry. I looked upon the mighty sea; Oh, what a sight it was! All its waves were gone, save two or three, That lay, like burning glass, Within the caves of those deep rocks Where no human foot could pass. And in the very midst, a ship Lay in the slime and sand; With all its sailors perishing, Even in sight of land; Oh, water had been a welcome sight To that pale dying band! *>F SPARKLING DROPS. 295 Oh, what a sight was the bed of the seal The bed where he had slept, Or tossed and tumbled restlessly, And all his treasures kept For ages: he was gone; and all His rocky pillows shown, With their clustering shells, and sea-weed pall, And their rich gems round them thrown. And the monsters of the deep lay dead, With many a human form, That there had found a quiet bed, Away from the raging storm; And the fishes, sodden in the sun, Were strewn by thousands round; And a myriad things, long lost and won, Were there, unsought for found. I turned away from earth and sea, And looked on the burning sky, But no drop fell, like an angel's tear The founts of heaven were dry: The birds had perished every one} Not a cloud was in the air, And desolate seemed the veiy SUB, He looked PO lonely there! And I began to feel the pang, The agooy of thirst; 296 THE SILVER I had a scorching, swelling pain, As if my heart would burst: My tongue was parched; I strove to speak * The spell that instant broke; And, starting at my own wild shriek, In mercy I awoke! nor <f irl cn& tjp ** Sleep, saintly poor one! sleep, sleep, on, And waking, find thy labors done." CHARLES LAMB. WE never remember seeing any notice of the dear old legend we are about to relate,, save in some brief and exquisite lines lay Charles Lamb ; and yet, how simply and quaintly it confirms our childhood's faith,, when heaven seemed so much nearer to earth than it had ever been since ; and we verily believed that angels watched over the good and pure of heart ! Once upon a time, in a far off country- place, a girl, whose name we shall call Alice^ lived with an aged and bed-rid mother,, dependent upon her exertions for their solo* OF SPARKLING DROPS. 297 support. And although at all periods they fared hardly enough, and sometimes even wanted for bread, Alice never suffered her- self to be cast down, placing her whole trust in Him who " tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." And when better days came again, who so glad and thankful as that young girl? It may be all very pretty and picturesque for poets and artists to picture to themselves calm, peaceful scenes of rural loveliness ; in the foreground of which* they place some happy village maid, sitting in the cottage porch, at the sunset hour, and singing mer- rily at her wheel ; even as bright-eyed and glad-hearted damsels of our own times take up their sewing, only as a pleasant excuse to be silent and alone, that they may indulge in sweet and gentle musing. But let us not for- get that which is as a pastime to the few, may be to the many a weary and never-end- ing toil, engrossing the day that seems so long, and yet is not half long enough for all they have to do ; breaking into the quiet hours set apart by nature for rest, and 13* 298 THE SILVER OUP mingling even with their troubled dreams. Thus it was oftentimes with our heroine and yet she sang, too, but generally hymns, for such sprang most readily to her lips, and seemed most in harmony with her lonely and toilsome life while her aged mother would lie for hours, listening to what seemed to her a gush of sweet and prayerful music, and not questioning but the songs of the good on earth might be heard and echoed by the angels in heaven ! Poor child ! it was sad to see th*e toil so hard but beau- tiful to mark thy filial devotion and untiring love thy thankfulness to have the work to do, otherwise both must have starved long since ! Thy trust in Providence, that for her sake it would give thee strength for thy la- borious tasks the hope that would not die, of better times the faith that grew all the brighter and purer through trials the store of sweet and pious thoughts that brought thee such pleasant comfort, and gave wings to many a weary hour of earthly toil. For years Alice had contrived to lay by enough to pay the rent of their little cottage 'OF SPARKLING DBOPS. 299 ready against tke period when it should be- come due ; but now, either from the wid- ow's long illness, or the hardness of the times, which ever presses in seasons of na- tional or commercial difficulty most heavily upon those least able to struggle against its additional weight, the day came round and found her unprepared. It so happened that the old landlord was dead, and his successor Dne of those stern mea, who without being actually hard-hearted, have a peculiar creed of their own with regard to the poor, which they are never weary of repeating ; holding poveity to be but as another name for idle- ness, or even crime I a baneful error which lias done much to plunge its unhappy victims into their present fallen condition ; and yet even lie was touched by her tears, and meek deprecating words, and consented to give her one week's grace, in which she reckoned to have finished and got paid for the work she then had in the house. And although the girl knew, that in order to effect this, she must work day and night, she dared not ask 300 THE SILVER CUP a longer delay, and was even grateful to him for granting Iier request. " It will be a lesson to her not to be be- hind-hand in future," thought her stern land- lord, when he found himself alone ; " no doubt the girl has been idling of late, or, spending her money on that pale-colored hood, she wore, (although, sooth to say, no- thing could have been more becoming to her delicate complexion,) instead of having it ready as usual." And yet, sleeping, or wa- king, her grateful thanks haunted him strangely, almost winning him to gentler thoughts we say almost, for deep-rooted prejudices such as his, were hard very hard very hard to overcome. Alice returned home with a light heart. " Well ? " said the widow, anxiously. " All right, dear mother ; with God's bles- sing we will keep the dear old cottage in which you tell me you were born." "And hope to die" " Not yet not yet, dear mother ! " ex- claimed the girl, passionately. " What would OF SPARKLIKG DROPS. 301 become of your poor Alice, if she were to lose you ? " "And yet, I am but a burden on your young life " " No, no a blessing rather ! " Alice was light ; labor and toil only ask an object something to love, and care and work for, to make it endurable, and even sweet ! And then kissing her mother, but not saying a word of all she had to do, the girl took off the well-preserved hood and cloak, which had given rise to such unjust animadversions, and putting them carefully aside, sat down, in a hopeful spirit, to her wheel. The dark cloud which had hiing over her in the morning, seemed already breaking, she could even fancy the blue sky again in the distance. All that day she only moved from her work to prepare their simple meals, or wait upon the helpless but unselfish invalid, who, but for the eyes of watchful love ever bent upon her, would have striven painfully to perform many a little duty for herself, rather than tax those willing hands, always so ready 302 THE SILVER CUP to labor in her behalf. And when night came, fearing to cause that dear mother need- less anxiety, Alice lay down quietly by her side, watching until she had fallen asleep ; and then rising noiselessly, returned to her endless tasks. And yet, somehow, the harder she worked, the more it seemed to grow be- neath her weary fingers ; the real truth of the matter was, she had over-rated her own powers, and was unaware of the much longer time it would take for the completion of the labor than she had allowed herself. But it was too late to think of all this now ; the trial must be made, and Heaven, she doubted not, would give her strength to go through with it. Oh ! happy thrice happy ! are they who have deserved to possess this pure and child-like faith, shedding its gentle light on the darkest scenes of life. Morning broke at length over the distant hills ; and Alice, flinging open the casement, felt refreshed by the cool breeze, and glad- dened by the hymning of "the birds already up and at their orisons ; exchanging a kind of good morrow with the peasants going OF SPAHKLIKG DROPS. oOo forth to their early labor. No wonder that those rough, untutored men, gazing upward on her pale calm face, and listening to her gentle tone, felt a sort of superstitious rever- ence in their hearts, as though there was a blessing in that kindly greeting which boded of good. The widow noticed with that quick-sight- edness of affection, which even the blind seem gifted with, in the presence of those they love, that her child looked, if possible, a thought paler than usual ; and for all the bright smile that met hers every time, Alice, feeling conscious of her gaze, looked up from her work, marked how wearily the heavy eyelids drooped over the aching eyes, and yet she never dreamed of the deception which had been practised in love, to soothe and allay her fond anxiety ; and the girl was well content that it should be so. It so happened, that about noon, as she sat spinning in the cottage porch, the new landlord passed that way on horseback, and was struck with her sad and wearied looks for of late she had indeed toiled beyond her 304 THE SILVER CUP strength, and this additional fatigue was al- most too much for her. But still that stern man said with himself, " It is ever thus with the poor, they work hard when actually obliged to do so, and it is a just punishment for their improvidence and idleness at other times. And yet," he added a moment after, as he turned his horse's head, half-lingeringly, " she is very young, too." Alice looked up at the sound of retreating footsteps, but too late for her to catch that half-relenting glance, or it might have en- couraged her to ask an extension of the time allotted her aye, even if it were but one single day but he had passed on ere the timid girl could banish from her mind the fearful remembrance of his former harshness. Another weary day and sleepless night glided on thus, and the third evening found her still at her spinning, with the same smile on her lips, and hope and trust in her breast, " Is there nothing that I can do to help you, my Alice ? " asked her mother, who grieved to see her obliged to toil so hard. " Nothing unless, indeed, you will tell OF SPARKLING DROPS. 305 me some tale of old times, as you used to years ago, when I was a child." " Why, you are but a child now," said the widow, with a mournful smile : and then in- wardly comparing her lot with that of other girls of her age, she relapsed into a train of sad and silent musings, and Alice knew that they were sad, by the quivering lip and contracted brow. u Come, mother, dear ! " said she, " I am waiting to hear your story." And then the widow began to relate some simple reminiscences of by-gone times, pos- sessing a strange interest for that lonely girl, who knew so little of life save in these homely and transient revealings, falling asleep in the midst through weariness, for she ever grew weak and exhausted as night came on ; but presently awoke again half- bewildered. " Where was I, Alice ? " asked the invalid, gently. " Asleep, dear mother ! I was in hopes J* replied her companion, with a smile, 300 THE SILVER CUP " Oil ! forgive me, I could not help it. But you will not sit up very long ? " " No, no ! good night." " Good night, and God bless you my child ! " said the widow ; and a few minutes afterward, Alice was again the only wakeful thing in that little cottage, if indeed she could be called so with half-closed eyes, and wander- ing thoughts, although it is true the busy fingers, toiled on mechanically at fheir task. The very clock ticked with a dull drowsy sound, and the perpetual whizzing of her wheel seemed like a lullaby. Presently the girl began to sing in a low voice, in order to keep herself awake, hymns as usual low, plaintive, and soothing ; while the widow heard them in her sleep, and dreamed of heaven. But all would not do, and she arose at length and walked noise- lessly up and down the room, trying to shake off the drowsy feeling that oppressed and weighed down upon her so heavily. And then opening the casement, she sat by it to catch the cool breath of night upon her fe- vered brow, and watch the myriad OF SPARKLING DROPS. 307 looking down in their calm and silent beauty upon earth. How naturally prayer comes at such times as these. Alice clasped her faded hands involuntarily, and although no words were uttered, her heart prayed ! We have called her in our love, pure and innocent ; "but she, of her holier wisdom, knew that she was but a weak and erring creature after all, and took courage only from remembering that there is One who careth even for the very flowers of the field, and how much more for the children of earth. But grad ually as she sat thus in the pale star-light, the white lids drooped over the heavy eyes ; her hands unclasped and sunk slowly and listlessly down ; the weary and toilworn frame had found rest at last ! And then the room seemed filled on a sud- den with a strange brightness, and where poor Alice had sat first while at her wheel, is an angel with shining hair, and white and radiant as a sunbeam ; while another bends gently over the slumberer, and looking first at her, and then on her companion, smiles pityingly ; and the girl smiles too in her 308 THE SILVEE CUP sleep ; and, as if still haunted by her favorite hymn tunes, sings again very faintly and sweetly, until the sounds die lingeringly away at length upon the still night air. Fast and noiselessly ply these holy ones at their love task, while the whizzing of the busy wheel, accompanied by a gentle rushing sound, as of wings, alone disturbed the pro- found silence of that little chamber. And now morning broke again over the earth, and their mission performed, they have sped away to their bright home rejoicingly ! Alice awoke trembling from her long and refreshing slumber, thinking how she must work doubly hard to redeem those lost hours. She drew her wheel toward her she looked wildly at it, rubbing her eyes to be sure she was not dreaming ; then gazed around the quiet apartment where all re- mained just as she had left it ; but the task for which she had marked out four more weary days and nights of toil, and feared even then not having time enough to complete it, lay ready finished before her ! But after a little while the girl ceased to wonder, on OF SPARKLING DROPS. 309 remembering to whom she had prayed on the previous night ; guided by an unerring instinct she knelt down and poured out her full heart in a gush of prayerful thanks- giving to Heaven ! And we can almost fancy the angels standing a little way off smiling upon each other and on her, even as they had done before, and rejoicing -in their own work. We are told in the legend, that from that hour the widow and her good and pious child never knew want again. It may be, that Alice's employer was pleased with her diligence and punctuality ; or the stern landlord, shamed out of his prejudices by the unlooked-for appearance of the glowing and happy face of his tenant, three days before the appointed time, with the money ready and many grateful thanks beside, for what she termed his kindness in waiting so long for it ; or there was a charm in that web woven by holy hands, which brought Alice many more such tasks, with better payment, and longer time to complete them in. The only thing that makes us sad in 310 THE SILVER CtJP this simple and beautiful legend is, that th< age of such miracles should have passed away. And yet, fear not, ye poor and suffer- ing children of toil ! Only be gentle and pure-hearted as that young girl trust as she trusted pray as she prayed and be sure that Heaven in its own good time will deliver you. I. "Give to him that asketh." IP the poor man pass thy door, Give him of thy bounteous store; Give him food and give him gold, Give him shelter from the cold; Aid him his lone life to live, For 'tis angel like to give. Though world-riches thou hast not, Give to him of poorer lot; Think thee of the widow's mite In the holy Master's sight, It was more, a thousand fold, Than the rich man's hoard of gold. OF SPAKKLING DROPS. 311 Give, it is the better part, Give to him, "the poor in heart;" Give, of love in large degree, Give, of hope and sympathy; Cheer to them who sigh forlorn, Light to him whose lamp is gone. Give the gray-haired wanderer room, Lead him gently to the tomb; Let him not in friendless clime, Float adown the tide of time; Hear the mother's lonely call, She, the dearest one of all. And the lost, abandoned one, In thy pathway do not shun; Of thy kindness she hath need, Bind with balm the bruised reed; Give, and gifts above all price, Shall be thine in paradise. oing, BY K. ELLIOTT. "He does well who does his best;" Is he weary? let him rest: Brothers! I have done my best; THE SILVER CUP I am weary let me rest. After toiling oft in vain, Baffled, yet to struggle fain; After toiling long to gain Little good, with mickle paini Let me rest, but lay me low, Where the hedgeside roses blow, "Where the little daisies grow, When the winds a-Maying go. Where the footpath rustics plod; Where the breeze-bowed poplars nod, Where the old woods worship God, Where His pencil paints the sod, Where the wedded throstle sings, Where the young bird tries its wings, Where the wailing plover swings Near the runlet's rushy springs! Where at times the tempest's roar, Shaking distant sea and shore, Still will rave old Barnesdale o'er^ To be heard by me no more! There, beneath the breezy West, Tired and thankful, let me rest, Like a child, that sleepeth best On its gentle mother's breast THE END.