which he died! O, the heroines of this war! Their name is indeed legion. For their sake, if for no others, our beloved land must surely be saved. God will count them as the "ten righteous ones and the city will at last, and after many perils be redeemed. You all remember the Western mother, and she a widow, who devoted her only son, a little drummer-lad, to the serviee of his country, leading him by the hand and giving him up with the apology that she was poor, and had nothing else to give to her beloved country. So she gave it the apple of her eye. Noble mother! Verily I say unto you, she has done more than they all who have cast into the Lord's treasury; others of their abundance have cast in much, but she of her penury hath cast in all that she hath." The following most touching lines delineate the greatness of another heroine-mother. DEBORAH KING. Come, women! come pray for a woman! Than Clermont. Who's Clermont? her lad! Not twenty-one yet, to be sure sir, But he is eighteen, sir, and over! And as brave, sir, and strong as young David. He'll fight like a lion or lover. In black and white there, if you're eager ! But glad? there's a blot and a stain. "This Clermont," she writes, "I've no other, He's mine, my one son, and he'll bring The corsent that you want. I'm his mother." Signed valiantly, "DEBORAH KING." "But here's only one name. Just the woman's, There's another must sign it," they said. Clermont King flashed the fire of old Romans Into speech, "For my father is dead." Living FATHER! consent for the SON! In the long hot forced marches support him! In the dark days of overthrow, shield! Let officer never report him A private left dead on the field. Pray, women, for Deborah's Son ! Christ save him from sun-stroke and fever, Save Clermont, this widow's one son ! We are thinking of Nain, Lord; remember Her glory when Peace shall be won." But I forbear to pursue this subject, knowing well that the mind of every reader supplies hundreds of heroines beautiful and true and glorious as those. God give them crowns of glory for their noble and generous devotion. MOTHER, LOOK UP AND SEE ME!" "Mother, look up and see me !" It was the voice of little Walter, full of eagerness, and with a touch of triumph in its tones. He felt that he was quite a man, he could take care of himself, yet with affectionate regard for his mother he wished to assure her often of his safety. "Mother, look up and see me!" And the mother looked up and smiled upon her beautiful boy. The new propeller bore a precious freight that day as she glided through the placid wa ters of the Connecticut. Above and below it was crowded with a happy company of young and old. It was a Sunday School excursion; the day was waning, and they were homeward bound. Such a happy day as they had had! Gladness lighted every face and warmed every heart. They were made better as well as happier by spending a day in the woods, and were returning to their city homes in grateful mood Little Walter was a venturesome child, and his mother was often calling him to her side lest harm should befall him. "I shall not fall into the water, I'll cling tight, mother," he answered once, as he stood on deck, clinging to the railing, then again, as if to reassure her, he called out gaily, "Mother, look up and see me!" Never will the mother forget how her fair child looked at that moment; he seemed the very embodiment of innocent joy, and stran gers, even called him lovely. When least we dream of danger it is often near. They were approaching another boat; they went too near, they hit, and the shock was followed by wild cries of terror, and fran tic running hither and thither. But the boats were little damaged and passed without another shock. In the midst of health, of joy, and apparent safety, death with lightning-like stroke had torn a beloved one from life. The scene was indescribably harrowing. The whole company was plunged into profound grief, and bitter tears supplanted smiles. But the father, the mother, the sister, the brother! our pen falters and cannot portray their anguish. Homeward bound; with one dear child lost, one sweet voice hushed, one beautiful face veiled beneath the still waters. Homeward bound! soon the tired children would calmly sleep on their couches over which fond mothers would soothingly bend, as they thought of young Walter in his cold, deep, unquiet bed. Walter's friends returned to a desolate home. The poor mother was distracted, almost deranged by her terrible sorrow. The thought of leaving the child of her love to sleep in the river was torturing beyond endurance. Alas, grieving mother, on earth there is no balm for thy wounds! Walter's good-night kiss will no more be pressed like a benediction on thy lips, and thy aching heart will ever miss him in the circle of his brothers and sisters. But God is thy comfort; he loves and pities thee. Little Walter did not rest in the river, nor in the grave to which they afterwards bore him Without a pang the smiling, sinless child was taken from the earthly festival to a higher, better, and more glorious festival in heaven. "Mother, look up and see me !" Hearest thou not that voice, sad mother, eager, triumphant and reassuring? Does it not come to thee in the busy day time when his presence is the one thing for which thy soul yearneth? and in the dark night when thou art alone with thy sorrow? itory, has taken us by surprise. Favorably as we had judged of its author we were not prepared for so finished and complete an effort. The plot is elaborate and the interest remarkably sustained to the very close of the volume. The type is excellent, and the characters delineated with no feeble hand, and we congrat} ulate the author on having produced a book that will be read with profound interest and win her multitudes of admirers. Mr. Usher has done his part well, giving the work a handsome and most presentable dress. Success to both author and publisher. Queen Love and the Fairies. By Susan E. Whiston. New York: Henry Lyon, Publisher, No. 476 Broadway, 1862. 61mo. pp. 79. This is a very charming little book, consisting of several sprightly and delightful little stories, calculated to interest and improve the thousand little readers we bespeak for it. Its author is the daughter of one of our able and respected clergymen. The Universalist Almanac for 1863. A. B. Grosh, Editor and Proprietor. Boston: Tompkins & Co. This old and useful annual makes its appearance the present year in good time, and with the usual variety of information. The Almanac presents the only statistics of the denomination, which we have. They have been collected with great pains-taking and care through years of persevering industry, and are worthy of general confidence. Errors, however, in a work of this kind, can be altogether avoided by no efforts or care. Our clergymen are so migratory in their habits that we cannot reasonably expect that a volume which appears only once a year should invariably succeed in tracing them to their present locality. The almanac is a work of great merit and should be found in every Universalist family in the country. The denomination is now represented by one United States Convention; twenty-three State Conventions; eighty-nine Associations; twelve hundred and one churches or Societies; nine hundred and fifteen Meeting Houses, and seven hundred and three preachers. While the British Provinces have one Association, thir teen Societies; nine Meeting Houses, and nine Preachers. For a denomination that took its rise only a little more than eighty years ago, and has fought its way against every form of opposition, this may be regarded as a respectable exhibit. as they go. Why still and steadfast falls its glow,Uppause to mark its standing? They stoop beneath the eaves, and, see, The lordly men, who* kings might be,Are time we read the story, And, greater than the wise men, we, For when it shines on us, we see The This is in allusion to the early tradition of the Church, that they really were kings. According to the legend, they were three in number, a thought suggested doubtless by the three-fold gifts they offered; and their names were Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar. They were supposed to represent respectively, the three groups of mankind; Melchior the family of Shem, or the Asiatics, Balthazar, that of Japhet, or the Europeans, and Gaspar that of Ham. In the art of the Midages. Gasper is depicted as an Ethiop. The fancy of their being Kings, was sanctioned, if indeed it were not suggested, by Is. Lx. 3: "and the THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. NOVEMBER, 1862. MY SECOND THOUGHT. BY MRS. CAROLINE A. SOULE. "There it is done!"—and I dropped my pen nervously and pushed back the ink-stand with such a quick, impatient movement, that I nearly upset its contents upon my sealed letter. Then I left my chair, and clenching my hands till my finger-nails wore half-circles in my palms, and beating my bosom till it was sore and crimson, I paced to and fro in my chamber from midnight until dawn. There was no one to listen to my footfalls, no one to be disturbed by the tramp, tramp, tramp of my busy feet. I dwelt alone in the old farm-house, all alone, save for the watch dog that lay curled upon the tiger-skin before the great front-door, and the cat that nestled down close to the warm ashes of the kitchen hearthstone. I had no relative in the wide world. My grandfather had died three months before. My grandmother had followed him within twenty-four hours. "In death they were not divided." Father and mother I had never known. Both had been taken away from me while I was yet in the tenderest days of baby-hood. Brother or sister, they did not leave me, nor uncle, nor aunt, nor cousin, for both had been only children, and their wedded life but a couple of years. I, an only child, an orphan, was taken to the hearts and hearth of my grandparents, and loved as an only child is loved. Alone in the old farm-house! People I wondered how I could bear to stay there, and pitied me, so lonely, so miserable! Pity! I did not need it; at least, till now, I had not. I had not been lonely. I had not been miserable. Why should I be lonely? Busy people never are, and I was very busy. True, the farmer who dwelt in the red cottage at the end of the lane, took all the care of the farm off my mind, and the farmer's wife tended my dairy, and did my washing and ironing, and on cleaning days, assisted me up stairs and down, with broom and brush, mop and pail. Yet I was busy. I allowed no one to toil in the flower garden, save myself, and to keep it in the order I kept it, took many an hour each week. No weeds struggled for existence through those gravelled walks, none throve in my rich beds and borders. No drooping vines trailed on the grounds, no faded flowers scattered unsightly leaves over the snowy pebbles. I had my grapes and fruit trees, and I pruned and scraped and dug about them every day. I had strawberry beds, and currant bushes, and raspberry vines, and a blackberry arbor, which I weeded and trimmed and plucked. I had my poultry, too, a whole yard full of pets; snowy geese, and brown ducks, and fantailed turkeys, and gay cocks, and gray hens, and brood after brood of tender chicks. I had my cosset lamb, and my snow white heifer, and my bonny black pony, who would let no one saddle him or bridle him but myself. Lonely, indeed! And then, indoors, I had my books, shelf after shelf full; and my weekly mail, with its papers, magazines and latest publications, and my piano and guitar, and-my thoughts, my bright, beautiful, glorious thoughts, for they were so, even when I thought of the dear ones who had passed away, for, to me, they were not dead, only translated, earth exchanged for heaven. Miserable! and wherefore? Those who do good are never miserable, and I, in my feeble way, strove to do good. There was a revolutionary pensioner lived not far from me, a very old man, of course; he was blind, and deaf in one ear, and lame in both legs. He lived with a grandchild, who, burdened with a large family of fatherless children, could not do much for him. True, she kept his clothes neat, and his person clean; and helped him out of bed in the morning, and back again at night, and fed him three times a day. But she had no time to read to him, to talk to him or sing to him. 1, made it a rule, rain or shine, to go to that old man. If a fair day, I helped him out of doors, and to a seat in the little garden. He could not see the glory of the summer-time, but he could feel the genial sunshine, as it streamed over his wrinkled face, and settled in his white hair, and with his one ear he could hear the song of the birds, and the rustle of the winds. I would gather him flowers, and as he smelled them, beg of him a story of the olden time, and make the old man happy by the eagerness with which I listened to him. If the day was cloudy, I drew a chair close to him, and read to him the stirring news of the week, of battle, defeat, or victory, and sung him those patriotic songs, which our loyal Northmen chant in unison, as they go down to their camp grounds, in the fair but guilty South. "God bless you, my little girl," the old man would say, in parting. "you would make a good soldier's wife." Miserable! with that blessing gathered to my heart! There was an old bed-ridden woman in our midst, a poor, feeble thing, who had not stood upon her feet for twenty years. Her son's widow ministered to her in her way; that is, she kept the linen on the bed white as snow, and changed her cap and gown twice a week, and brought her a cup of tea and a dish of simple food three times a day. But she had no time to gather her flowers, no money to buy her fruits, and was too ignorant to read to her. I rifled my garden of my choicest buds and flowers every day, and carried them to that poor woman. I gave her my earliest dish of strawberries, and my first basket of grapes. I talked to her, read to her, sung to her, and when I got a new engraving or picture, hung it on the wall at the foot of her bed, and there till I had a fresh one. you, my dear child," she would say, each day, "you are like an angel to me." Miserable, with that blessing sounding in my ears! let it stay "God bless Our minister's wife was a weakly creature, and with no help and three small children, often at her wits' end how to get along. I did good to her in my way. I would happen along of a Monday morn ing, and snatching up one after another of the bothering little ones, stow them away in my pony carriage, and carry them home and keep them till I knew the last garment was on the line, and the kitchen not only mopped but dry. Of a Tuesday I would call and start her and the minister off in the same carriage, to call on some parishioner, and while they were gone, do up the ironing and baking, being careful always to fill my satchel, before I left home, with sugar, spice, butter and eggs. I took back with me, many a bundle of plain sewing, and sent them, too, some bundles fresh from the store. He had no bills to pay for denominational papers, magazines, or quarterlies; the express man left him many a new book, while his study table was always well sup plied with the best of stationery, and all those little et ceteras that help make writing easy. 'God bless you, you are our dearest friend," they would often say to me; 'but for you, how should we get along?" Miserable, with that blessing on my head! Miserable, when I knew the poor, the sickly, the infirm, the very old and the very young, loved and blessed me! No, I was neither lonely nor miserable. At least, I had not been, until 46 |