Decatur Democrat, Volume 40, Number 6, Decatur, Adams County, 24 April 1896 — Page 7

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»• CHAPTER XVIII. AH that day Constance kept to her room. The duke was amazed at thia, and late in the afternoon presented himself in his wife’s boudoir. After all, fortune favored him; Alice was there alone. “Where is tho duchess, Miss Greybrook?." he asked quietly. “She is in the adjoining room,” returned Alice, uneasily, “and I —l think she is asleep. Shall I call her?” “No,” returned the duke, “it is to yon I wish to speak. You know, Miss Greybrook, in what high esteem I hold you.” “Your grace, I ” “I should never have left my wife alone,” he continued, “above all in London, if I had not found a holy person like yourself to place by her side, to counsel and direct her. Miss Greybrook, you nave never yet liidden the truth from me.” “Never, I ’’ “You merit some heavenly recompense,” continued the duke, watching her very intently. “Let me beg you to accept this holy cross, brought by me from Rome.” He opened a small packet which he held in his hand and revealed a handsome crucifix. With a smile half of command, half of entreaty, he held this holy gift toward the girl. She hesitated. “For me, my lord?” “Pray take it,” said the duke. She held forth her hand, then with a Ihudder attempted to draw it away. “No, no; I am not worthy,” she cried. “My lord, what are you doing—what do you want?” ” “I want the truth,” returned the duke, who had seized her hand, and was looking almost fiercely into her face. “Miss Greybrook, tell me the name of the man who met the duchess at the ball last night.” With a cry which was half a moan, Alice shrunk away. “If I speak/’ she murmured to herself, “she is lost; if I Me, I lose my soul. Father in heaven,” she cried aloud, “what shall I do?” “It was the Earl of Harrington!” The interruption was so sudden and unexpected tliat they both uttered a cry. The duke dropped the girl’s hand, turned in the direction whence the voice had proceeded, and saw Constance. She was very pale, but quite composed. The duke’s face was black as night. “Then, madam.” he. said, “you have met that man again?” “Yes,” returned Constance, quietly. *T have met my cousin again, and you might have learned the truth without putting Alice to the torture.” “Whom else could I question?” said the duke, sternly. “Me!' returned Constance, proudly. “No one knows better than you, my lord, my frankness and my sincerity. Listen, my lord. I will give you a further proof of my candor; take me away from England, for, although duty reigns supreme in my heart, the love within it can never die. Do not expose me to temptation; do not compel mo to pass through fire, le»t at last my spirit fails. But take me away.” The duke drew himself up proudly. “It is impossible!” he said. “Remember,” cried Constance, “it is for your sake I plead. lam your wife; there is peril here for both of us. Will you take me away?” At that moment a servant entered with a message from Feveral. “I will come to him,” said the duke, and with a low bow to his wife and her friend he left the room. “Alice,” cried Constance, “you see now that what I told you was right. This Mr. Feveral, wiho calls himself the duke's secretary, is the duke’s spy. I am certain now it was he who told the duke of my first meeting with Frank; ho has spoken again, and exposed me to this torture. Well, I know him now, and in future I shall be upon my guard.” There was a hurried knock at the door, i “Come in,” cried Constance, and the door opened admitting Feveral. ; At sight of him Constance seemed to turn to stone, but he came hurriedly and anxiously forward. 1 “Madam,” he said eagerly, “I must speak to you.” • “I will not listen to you,” she cried; “leave me, sir, for I know you; you tried at first to corrupt me by sending me anonymous letters warning me against the duke. 1 have cheated you this time. I myself have told the duke the truth. Now, sir, go; and do« not dare ever again to enter my apartments.” ' “Madam!” cried Feveral, who had been utterly taken aback by this unexpected attack; “let me speak; as you love your life, I conjure you to listen.” Without another word she summoned her maid, and when the girl appeared she said very quietly: “Show Mr. Feveral down.” CHAPTER XIX. For several days Constance, under the pretense of illness, kept to her own apartments, but one evening both Constance and her friend presented themselves at - dinner. Alice, who had dreaded the meeting between husband and wife, was somewhat relieved when she saw t|ie duke walk forward nnd courteously take his” wife’s hand, There were several guests present, and Constance welcomed them all. v The dinner passed off well —so well, indeed, that after the last guest had departed the duke repaired to his wife’s room to thank her for her share in it. “I am more than pleased.” he said. .“If you will preside equally well nt the reception I shall be deliguted.” , “The reception, niv lord?" asked Constance, coldly *

“Assuredly,” returned the duke. “On Tuesday evening next you give a grand reception; the cards have all been issued, everything is prepared, and for yourself I particularly wish you to look your best that night.” The days passed on, and the eventful Tuesday arrived. The reception was to commence at half-past nine o’clock, and when the clocks were striking nine Constance and Alice sat alone in the duchess' boudoir. The house was brilliaiftly illuminated, and the great drawing room was filled with chojee flowers. Both Constance and Alice were dressed for the occasion. Then Constance’s maid entered the room with a letter, which she handed to her mistress. Constance took the letter, opened and read it, then she looked up into the wondering eyes of her friend. “A letter from the duke; he has gone away!” “Gone away!” exclaimed Alice. “Yes. Listen, dear; this is what he says: ‘I am summoned at once to Paris to meet the Spanish Embassador. lam taking Palmatos and Feveral with me. I have made Palmatos communicate with all our guests and put off our reception of this evening.’ What can it mean, Alice?” “I don’t know, dear; is that all he says?" “No, there is more," replied Constance, and lifting the letter again, she continued: “ ‘E or yourself let me beg you not to spend the evening at home, but to go to Lady Mortimer’s liall. 1 have asked Lady Seafield to call for you. Therefore rest quietly nt home until she comes.' ” “Oh, Constance; what shall you do?” cried the girl in terror. “Do?” returned Constance, with a look of fixed resolve. “I shall obey the duke’s command to the letter. At last he has honored me with his confidence, and I shall not betray it.” The first thing to be done was to have the lights extinguished and stay all preparations for the reception. This Constance proceeded to do. When the servants, having received their instructions, had retired, she sat down and looked again at the duke’s letter. Constance," said Alice, eagerly, “do you really mean to go to Lauy Mortimer’s ball?” “Certainly, my dear, since the duke wishes it.” “Butv-do not be angry with me—should your cousin be there?" “Do not fear for me, Alice,” said Constance, stroking the girl’s brown hair. “To-night, remember, I am the representative of my husband, and I will try to do him some slight service. lam going to the. ball for my husband’s sake, at .his wish. It is strange Lady Seafield does not come,” she added, “it is getting so late. Alice, dear, will you send one of the servants to inquire for Lady Seafield? Perhaps she would rather have me call for her.” Alice nodded, and went at once to do as her friend wished, while Constance sank down into a chair beside the window, and remained looking out upon the moonlit park. She fell into a reverie, from which she was aroused by the reappearance of her friend. Alice looked paler than usual, and her manner was full of fear. “Well, dear, have you sent to Lady Seafield?” “No. I took the carriage and went myself.” “Went yourself! Why did you do that?” “I was terrified lest something should go wrong; I am glad that I went; the countess is in deep trouble; her father has fallen suddenly and dangerously ill! She was never asked to come for you; she has received no invitation to the ball! Constance, everything has been done to keep you at home, to-night. I see it all now; you would have waited and waited for the countess and never gone forth at all; there is danger for you here, I am sifl-e of it; I now implore you to go!” “To go!” said Constance, “but who will take me? I cannot go alone? Ah, I have it, Monsieur de Santa Fe! He is the duke’s oldest and nearest relation. Send to him, dear, at once.” “I will not send; I will take the carriage ahd go myself." “Very well, dear. I will remain quietly here until you return." But she was by no means composed. The moment she was alone she talked excitedly up and down the room: wandering whether or not Alice’s suspicions could be correct. Could it be possible that th® duke had deceived her? and if so, for what motive? “It will be always the same,” she cried, “suspected, watched, mistrusted. Oh. wiho will deliver me from this lite of misery ard degradation?" With a sob she threw herself down upon the couch and covered her face with her hands; at that moment the door oi her boudoir opened, and the footman announced— " The Earl of Harrington!” CHAPTER XX. Trembling violently, scarcely able to belieye the evidence of her senses, Constance rose ami looked toward the door. It was no dream, no delusion; there stood Frank, faultlessly attired in evening dress, but looking almost as bewildered as she was herself. • “Frank,” she said in a voice the trembling of which she vainly strove to control, “tell me, what does this mean?” he cried. “I came to your recoption!’’ "To my reception ?” "Certainly," said Frank, whoWMgMnr-

Ing more and more amazed; "did you Bt •end me the invitation?" “I send to you to come here?” ahe cr sd “Oh, Frank, you are mad—or dreamin fl” “Constance,” he cried, “I tell you 1 is true. I received an invitation to cc ne hero this evening. If you did not send it, it came from the duke.” He drew from the breast pocket of iis coat a card, which he held toward ler. She'took it, ami saw that it was a fonpal invitation to her reception, written iby Count PialnnitoK, the duke's nephew. “It was cowardly, contemptible," »he cried; then, turning her flashing eyes upon her cousin, she continued, “I see it <ll, Frank; it is a trap.” “Impossible,”.said Frank; “»trap would be more cunningly laid. If I accepted a formal invitation, where would tny offense be, or yours?" “I tell you I am right; the whole thing has been planned to entrap ns. Leave this house, Frank; 1 am going out.” “So soon,” «aid Frank, “and, Connie, do you send me away like this?” “Oh, do not speak so,” she cried; “I tell you tho ground is undermined beneath us. Frank, I entreat you,” she cried, growing more and more excited. “See how late it is getting. Alice has gone to fetch Monsieur de Santa Fe to take me to a ball. They will l>oth be here directly, but I will pass you through that door and no one will see you go.” She looked at him, but he did not answer her. His face was ghastly pale; he pressed his band against his side and seemed about to faint. “What is the matter?” cried Constance in alarm; “Frank, are you ill?” “Yea, I am a little faint,” he gasped; “my wound.” "Your wound?” “Yes; did you not know? I was stabbed in the fray tho other night; some ruffian had his clasp knife at the throat of a youth. I interposed and was stabbed in the breast—that is all. Constance, give me some water. The pallor of his face grew ghastly. Terrified, scarcely knowing what She did, Constance rushed from the room, returning with a glass of water and a bottle of cologne. Sue held the water to his lips, then she took the scent, and gently bathed his forehead. When he opened his eyes ■he saw that she was crying. “Connie,” he cried, “what is the matter?" “Frank,” she said, “it is nearly midnight. Do not linger now. Since every moment is precious, and Monsieur de Santa Fe does not come, I shall go to the ball alone.” “Alone?” “Yes; I shall slip in unannounced, and no one will know I went without an escort, and I shall, at least, have fulfilled the duke’s commands." “Don't speak of that man, Constance,” Frank cried, “unless you want to drive me to distraction. Ah! I see, your love is dead. lam nothing to you now. Well, perhaps it is better so. Good-by!” Without another look, without a pressure of the hand, he turned and would have loft her. She watched him, and as sh** did so her heart seemed torn in two. “Frank,” she cried, “do you wish to kill me? Do you not see what tortures I suffer? Have you no pity?" , “Then toll me that you still love me." he cried passionately. “Only once and forever avow your love for me, and I will go in peace.” “In peace?” “Yes, and happy, even though I .eave you forever, your words the solace and memory of my life." She drew back as if he had struck her. Then her breast heaving with emotion, her eyes blind with tears, she looked the love she felt; but he staggered back, and, with a wild cry, fell upon the couch. She rushed wildly to his side. “Frank!" she cried, "what ails you? Speak to me! Ah, how pale he is! Frank, van you not hear me? How dreadful ho looks, and bis eyes are fixed. Frank! He is dead, and I have murdered him!” (To be continued.) OLD BIRDS’ NESTS HAVE VALUE Many Feathered Creatures Use the Same Ones Year After Year. “That common expression for worthlessness, 'lt has no more value than a hist, year’s bird’s nest,’ ” said a bird fancier to a New York Press reporter, “is often far from correct. The majority of our birds do leave their nests after raising a brood, but many do not, and their nests are used through a succession of years. I have known some birds to use their nests ten years in succession, and so persistent are they that many times the female will return even after the nest lias been robbed and the mate killed. Among those users of perennial nests are the wrens, some of the swallow family, bluebirds, great crested flycatcher, Some of the owls, eagles, chickadies aud some woodpeckers. “They repair to the nest each year and often build it over. A little wren has made its nest in a hole in a tree in my garden and has occupied it for the last eight years. Each year it has piled on new stuff till tile hole is almost tilled up. Some say that as soon as it becomes crowded the birds will clean it out. I know of a bluebird's nest that has been ocupied for several years. It is the same female year after year, for sh<* has two black wingfeathers aud is lame. “Birds that build in exposed situations, like hangbirds, always build anew each season, and some others build anew for every brood. Some never build: they either lay in the nests of other birds or in the sand. The eagle and the owl make a framework of sticks and slight repairs are needed. Many birds' nests that you find have never been used. For instance, the marsh wren builds several with the idea that in the case of disturbance the male will attract attention to the nests other than that in which the female is brooding and so shield her from enemies." How to Clean Silk. Silk should never be ironed, as the heat takes all the fife from it and makes it papery. The silk .may be sponged and then smoothly rolled on large wooden rollers that'come for the purpose, or. if a roller cannot be obtained, spread papers over the carpet and pin the silk, right side up, to the carpet, drawing it smooth and firm. Let It remain until thoroughly dry. —:—- . Sharing a trouble doubles It

TALMAGE’S SEBMON. AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE ON CHRIST’S EXPATRIATION. The King Who Left a Throne, Cloaed a Palace and Went Forth to Die in a Hoatllc Country — America the Home of the Voluntary Exile. «*» An Imperial Exile. It is wonderful to how many tunes the gospel may be set. Dr. Talmage’s sermon in Washington last Sunday shows another way in which the earthly experience of bur Lord is set forth. His text was 11. Samuel xv., 17, “And the king went forth nnd tarried in a place which was far off." Far up and far back in the history of heaven there came a period when its most illustrious citizen was about to absent himself. He was not going to sail from beach to beach. We have often done that. He was not going to put <fut from one hemisphere to another hemisphere. Mi of us have done that. But he was to from world to world, the spaces unexplored, and the, immensities untraveled. No world has ever hailed heaven, and heaven has never hailed any other worhj. I think that the windows and the balconies were thronged, and that the pearly beach was crowded with those who had come to see him sail out of the harbor of light into the ocean beyond. Out and out and out and on and on and on and down aud down and down he sped, until one night, with only one to greet him, when he arrived, his disembarkation so unpretending, so quiet, that it was not known on earth until the excitement in the cloud gave ihtiinatiou to the Bethlehem rustics that something, grand and glorious had happened. Who comes there? From what port did he sail? Why was this the place of bis destination? I question the ■hepherds. I question the camel drivers. I question the angels. I have found out. He was an exile. But the world had plenty of exiles. Abraham, an exile Haran; John, an exile from Ephesus; Kosciusko, an exile from Poland; Mazzini, an exile from Rome; Emmet, an exile from Ireland; Victor Hugo, an exile from France; Kossuth, an exile from Hungary ’ But this one of whom I->8 peak to-day had such resounding farewell and came into such chilling reception—for not even a hostler went out with his lantern to light him in—that he is more to be celebrated than any other expatriated exile of earth or heaven. An Imperial Exile. First, I remark that Christ was an imperial exile. He got down off a throne. He took off a tiara. He closed a palace gate behind him. His family were princes and princesses. Vashti was turned outof the throneroom by Ahasuerus. David was dethroned by Absalom’s infamy. The five kings were hurled into a cavern by Joshua’s edurage. Some of the Henrys of England and some of the Louis of France were jostled on their thrones by discontented subjects. But Christ was never more honored, or more popular, or more loved than the day he left heaven. Exiles have suffered severely, but Christ turned himself out from throneroom into sheep pen aud down from the top to the bottom. He was not pushed off. He was not manacled for foreign transportation. He was not put out because they no more wanted him in celestial domain, but by choice departing and descending into an exile five times as long as that of Napoleon at St. Helena and 1,000 times worse; the one exile suffering for that he had destroyed nations, the other exile suffering because he came to save a world. An imperial exile. King eternal. “Blessing and honor «and glory 'and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne.” But I go farther and tell you he was an exile on a barren island. This world is one of the smallest islands of light in the ocean of immensity. Other stellar kingdoms are many thousand times larger than this. Christ came to this small Patmos of a ■world. When exiles are sent out they are generally sent to regions that are sandy or cold or hot —some Dry Tortugas of disagreeableness. Christ came as an exile to a world scorched with heat and bitten with cold, to deserts simoon swept, to a howling wilderness. It was the back dooryard, seemingly, of the universe. Yea, Christ came to the poorest part of this barren island of a world— Asia Minor, with its intense summers, unfit for the residence of a foreigner and in the rainy season unfit for the residence of a native. Christ came not to such a land as America, or England, or France, or Germany, but to a land one-third of the , year drowned, another third of the year burned up and only one-third of the year just tolerable. Oh! it was the barren island of a world. Barren enough for Christ, for it gave such small worship and such inadequate affection and such little gratitude. Imperial exile on the barren island of a world. In a Hostile Country. I go farther and tell you that he was an exile in a hostile country. Turkey was never so much against Russia, France was never so much against Germany, as this earth was against Christ. It took him in through the door of a stable. It thrust him out at the point of a spear. The Roman Government against him, with every weapon of Its army, and every decision of its courts, aud every beak of its war eagles. For years after his arrival the only question was how best to put him out. Herod hated him; the high priests hated him; the Pharisees hated him; Judas Iscariot hated him; Gestas, the dying thief, hated him. The whole earth seemingly turned into a detective to watch his steps. And yet he faced this ferocity. Notice that most of Christ’s wounds were in front. Some scourging on the shoulder, but most, of Christ’s woun. . in front. He was not on retreat -when he expired. Face to face with the world’s sin. Face to face with the world's woe. His eye on the raging countenances of his foaming antagonists when he expired. When the cavalry officer roweled his steed so that he might come nearer up and see the tortured visage of the suffering exile, Christ saw it. .'When the spear was thrust at his side, and when the hammqr was lifted for his feet, and when the reed was raised t,o strike deeper down the spikes of thorii, Christ watched th<> whole procedure. When his hands were fastened to the cross, they were wide open still with benediction. Mind you, his head was not fastened. He could look to the right, and he could look to the left, and he could look up, and ho could look down. He saw when the spikes h.-uj 'been driven home, and the hard, round iron heads; were in the palms of his hands,. He saw them as plainly as yon ever saw anything in the ♦aims of your hands. No «tber* no chlo-

reform, no merciful anaesthetic to dull or stupefy; but, wide awake, he naw the obscuration of the heavens, the unbalancing of the rocks, the countenances quivering with rage and the cachinnation diabolic. Oh, It was the hostile as well as the barren island of a world! I go farther nnd tell you that this exile was far from home. It is 95,000,000 miles from here to the sun and all astronomers agree in saying that our solar system is only one of the smaller wheels of the great machinery of the universe turning around some one great center, the center so far distant it is beyond all imagination anil calculation and if, as some think, that great center in the distance is heaven, Christ came far from home when he came here.' Have yon ever thought of the homesickness of Christ?, Some of you know what homesickness is when you have been only a few weeks absent from the domestic circle. Christ was 33 years away from home. Some of you feel homesickness when you are 100 or 1,000 miles away from the domestic circle. Christ was more million miles away from home than you could count if al! yens life you did nothing but count. You know what it is to be homesick even amid pleasant surroundings, but Christ slept in huts, and he was athirst, and he was a-hungered, and he was on the way from being born in another man’s barn to being buried in another man's grave. I have read how the Swiss, when they are far away from their native country, at the sound of their national air get so homesick that they fall into melancholy and sometimes they die under the homesickness. But, oh, the homesickness of Christ. Poverty homesick for celestial riches. Persecution homesick for hosanna. Weariness homesick for rest. Homesick fbr angelic and archangelic companionship. Homesick to get out of the night and the storm ami the world’s execration. Homesickness will make a week seem as long as a month and it seems to me that the three decades of "Christ’s residence on earth must have seemetj to him almost interminable. You have often tried to measure the other ■ pangs of Christ, but you have never tried to measure the magnitude and ponderosity of a Saviour’s homesickness. I take a step farther and tell you that Christ was in an exile which he knew would end in assassination. Holtnan Hunt, the master painter, has a picture in which he represents Jesus Christ in the Nazarene carpenter shop. Around him are the saws, the hammers, the axes, the drills of carpentry. The picture represents Christ as rising from the carpenter’s working bench and wearily stretching out his arms as one will after being in contracted or uncomfortable posture, and the light of that picture is so arranged that the arms of Christ, wearily stretched forth, together with his body, throw on the wall the shadow of the cross. Oh, my friends, that shadow was on everything in Christ’s lifetime. Shadow of a cross on the Bethlehem swaddling clothes; shadow of a cross on the road over which the three fugitives fled into Egypt; shadow of a cross on Lake Galileeras Christ walked its mosaic floor of opal and emerald and crystal; shadow of a cross on the road to Emmaus; shadow of a cross on the brook Kedron, and on the temple, and on the side of Olivet; shadow of a cross on sunrise and sunset. Constantine, marching with his army, saw just once a cross In the sky, but Christ saw The cross all the time. The Doom of a Desperado. On a rough jouriey we cheer ourselves ' with the fact that it will end in warm hospitality, but Christ knew that his rough path would end at a defoliaged tree, without one leaf and with only two branches, bearing fruit of such bitterness as no human lips had ever tasted. Oh. what an exile, starting in an infancy without any cradle and ending in assassination! Thirst without any water, day without any sunlight. The doom of a desperado for more than angelic excellence. For what that expatriation and that exile? Worldly good sometimes comes from worldly evil. The accidental glance of a sharp blade from a razor grinder’s wheel put out the eye of Gambetta and excited sympathies which gained him an education and started him on a career that made his name more majestic among Frenchmen thjjn any other name in the last twenty years. Hawthorne, turned out of the office of collector at Salem, went home in despair. His wife touched him on the shoulder and said, “Now is the time to write your book,” and his famous “Scarlet Letter-” was the brilliant consequence. Worldly good sometimes comes from worldly evil. Then be not unbelieving when I tell you that from the greatest crime of all eternity and of the whole universe, the murder of the Son of God, there shall come results which shall eclipse all the grandeurs of eternity past and eternity to come. Christ, an exile from heaven opening the way for the deportation toward heaven and to heaven of all those who will ace _*t the proffer. ship large enough to take all the passengers that will come aboard it. A Land of Voluntary Exile. For this royal exile 1 bespeak the love and service of all the exiles here present, and, in one sense or the other, that includes all of us. The gates of this continent have been so widely opened that there are here many voluntary exiles from other lands. Some of you are Scotchmen. I see it in your high cheek bones and in the color Tliat illumines your face when I mention the laud of your nativity. Bonny Scotland I Dear old kirk! Some of your ancestors sleeping in Greyfriars churchyard, or by the deep lochs tilled out of the pitchers of heaven, or under the heather, sometimes so deep of color it makes one think of the blood of the Covenanters who signed their names for Christ, dipping their pens intd the veins of their own arm* <tpe ’ for (hat purpose. How every filter of your nature thrills as 1 mention the names of Robert Bruce and the (’amp Ils and Cochrane. I bespeak for this royal exile of my text the love aud thejserviee of all Scotch ex lies. Some of you are Englishinen. Your ancestry served the 1 .uni.. Have 1 not read the "sufferings of the Haymarket? And have 1 not seen in Oxford the very spot where Ridley and Latiiiier mounted the red chariot? Some of yOur ancestors flcard George Whitefield thunder, or heard Charles Wesley sing, or heard John 'Bunyan tell his dream of the celestial city, and the cathedrals under the shadow of which some of yg,y were born had in i their grandest orgatf roll the name of the Messiah. " l I bespeak for the royal exile of my sermon the l o ' re and tho service of all Eng lish exiles. Yes, some of you came from the island of distress over which hunger, on a throne of human skeletons, sat queen. All efforts at amelioration halted by massacre. Procession of famines, procession of martyrdoms marching from northern channel to Cape c’lear and from the Irish

sea across to tho Atlantic. An island not bounded a* geographers tell us, but as every philanthropist knows—bounded on} the north and the south and the east and) the west by woe which no human politics can alleviate and only Almighty God can assuage. Land of Goldsmith’s rhythm, and Sheridan's wir, nnd O’Connell’s eloquence, and Edmund Burke’s statesmanship, and O'Brien’s sacrifice. Another Patmos with its apocalypse of blood. Yet you cannot think of it to-day without hav- ( ing your eyes blinded with emotion, for there your ancestors sleep in graves, soma of which they entered for lack of bread. For this royal exile of my sermon I be-' speak the love and the service of all Irish exiles. Yes, some of you ate from Gert many, the land of Luther, and some ofi yon are from Italy, the land of Garibaldi and some of you are from France, the» land of John Calvin, one of the three! mighties of the glorious reformation. Some of you are descendants of the Puritans, and they were exiles, and some of you are descendants of the Huguenots, and they were exiles, and some of you ar* descendants of the Holland refugees, an< they were exiles. 0 Heaven the Exile’s rfome. Some of you were born on the banks o. the Yazoo or the Savannah, and you are now living in this latitude; some of you on the banks of the Kennebec or at tho foot of the Green mountains, and you are here now; some of you on the prairies of the West or the tablelands, and you are here now. Oh, how many of us far away from home! All of us exiles. This Is not our home. Heaven is our home. Oh, J am so glad when the royal exile went back he left the gate ajar or left it wide open. “Going home!” That is the dying exclamation of the majority of Christians. I have seen many Christians die. I think nine out of ten of them in the last moment say, “Going home." Going home out oi banishment and sin and sorrow and sad> ness. Going home to join in the hilarities of our parents and our dear children who have already departed. Going home to Christ. Going home to God. Going homq tq stay. Where are your loved ones that died in Christ? You pity them. Ah, they ought to pity you ! You ore an exile fat from home. They are home! Oh, what a time it will be for you when the gatekeepsy of heaven shall say: “Take off that rough sandal. The journey’s ended. Put down that saber. The battle's won. Put off that iron coat of mail and put on the robe of conqueror.” At that gate of triumph I leave you to-day, only reading three tender cantos translated from the Italian. If you ever heard anything sweeter. I never did, although I cannot adopt all its theology: ’Twas whispered one morning in heaven How the little child angel May. In the shade of the great while portal, Sat sorrowing night and day; How she said to the stately warden, He of the key and bar: “Oh, angel, sweet angel, I pray you Set the beautiful gates ajar, Only a little, I pray you, Set the beautiful gates ajar. “I can hear my mother weeping. She is lonely; she cannot see A glimmer of light in the darkness When the gates shut after me. Oh, turn me the key, sweet angel. The splendor will shine so far.” But the warifen answered, “I dare not Set the beautiful gates ajar,” Spoke low and answered, “I dare not Set the beautiful gates ajar.” Then up rose Mary, the blessed. Sweet Mary, the mother of Christ, Her hand on the hand of the angel She laid, and her touch sufficed. Turned was the key in the portal, Fell ringing the golden bar, And, 10. in the little child’s fingers Stood, the beautiful gates ajar. In the little child’s angel fingers Stood the beautiful gates ajar. Wooden Defenses. _ Life was very insecure in mediaeval times. It was usual for people to sleep ' on a bed which was surrounded by sides of board, with strong posts at . the four corners. These sides contained sliding doors, which "could be fastened inside. When men retired to rest they took a weapon with them. If attacked in the night, they were aroused by the noise made by the crashing in of their wooden defenses, and were able to defend themselves. When the law became strong enough to protect human life, the sides of the bedstead were gradually dispensed with, but the four ■ posts remained. The box-like bed still survives in the rural parts of Scotland, 1 and is almost necessary where the floors and imperfect ceilings cause much damp. Emily Bronte in ' “Wutherlng Heights,” describes one of these bedsteads in the old mansion as forming a “little closet.” Nothing but Luck. Hard luck is almost a synonym sot laziness. Good luck is the twin brother of hard work. Luck walks while work rides in a 1 carriage. Luch pictures a dollar, while work earns it. Luck dreams of a home, but work , builds one. \ ( To trust to luck is like fishing with a hookless line. , Luck is a disease for which hard work is the only remedy. Luck longs for a dinner, while labor goes out and earns one. * Luch goes barefooted, while work , never lacks for a pair of shoes. ; Luck Is a weather vane with the dis tinguiehing points broken off. t The man who relies on luck is luck)' if lie keeps out of the poorhouse.—New ' York Commercial Advertiser. i ■ Vice President W. Seward Webb, of the New York Central, has decided to 1 build a new marble palace on his prop- ’ erty at ScarbOrough-on-the-Hudson. ‘ He intends to spend about SLSOO.OW I on the house. The style of architecture : will be a modification of the chaieau i renaissance. The house. Including verandas, will be nearly 300 feet long and 130 feet wide. It Is to be situated ’ bn an elevation, surrounded by Italian flower gardens and winding roads, and 1 will command an extended view of ttw Hudson River. A bitter and perplexed “What sbafi n I do?” is worse to man than worst ne b ceasity. —Coleridge. —