who would discredit the Scriptures, because some things are not now as they were described three thousand years ago, are founded on misconception and ignorance. They resemble those formidable-looking pistols carried by the Arabs, which only maim the man who uses them. In the hollows among the mountains there are little bits of fields cultivated. These are generally very fertile, as all the fatness of the surrounding hills has been washed down into them. In one of these a pair of little black oxen are ploughing. The yoke is a piece of wood laid evenly across both their necks, slightly curved towards each extremity, so as to fit to the part of the animal which it touches. A piece of wood passing down through the yoke in each side of the neck. keeps it in its place, or it is sometimes made fast by thongs passing under the chest of the animal. The beam of the plough, which is attached to the yoke, comes up between the animals like a carriage-pole. See how evenly those two animals move along under the same yoke! They look into each other's large dark eyes, as if they wished to keep their wills in perfect accord; and they go, turn, and return together, turning up the gravelly soil, the perfect emblem of quiet, sustained union and resolute strength. These true yoke-fellows." And what an effective sermon that yoke preaches, on united and cordial action, to all who labour in the Lord's work! And may not that command of Christ's, to take are DAMASCUS 21 STRAIGHT STREET. his yoke, which is wrapped up with the promise of rest to all who labour and all who bear, point to the perfect union, actively and passively, that should subsist between Christ and his disciple ! Learning from his meekness in labour and lowliness in suffering, the disciple shall do and endure under Christ's easy yoke, and find rest to his soul in united service. We are "joint-heirs with Christ," and fellow-labourers with him; and as the yoke can only be laid upon two, and as the essential idea of yoke (Čvyóv) is that which joins two together, we trust that this suggested interpretation, which, fully believed, would lighten our labour and sustain us in sufferings, may not appear too "far fetched.” The sun went down behind Sidon with one of those rare gorgeous sunsets seldom seen in this land, but which, when seen, rouses memories of home, like some old strain of music, or pleasant perfume with which we were once familiar. We soon had less pleasant memories of home, for the rain came down without the long home twilight to give us time to finish our journey. Our host and his horse, familiar with the road, dashed on before, and we galloped blindly after, over rocks and through water, illustrating fully the definition which describes walking as a series of leaps and falls." We were soon, however, in "the prophet's chamber," receiving the warm welcome of a body of men, backed up by an outer circle of women and children. All on his head, and hands, and feet, Fresh were the wounds he bore. Behold," he cried, "for thy sweet sake I faint, and groan, and bleed; No enemy could stop the way, Nor suffering break my speed; Thou never shalt be left alone, Nor helpless in thy need." And ere the midnight lamp was spent, I spread a couch for aching head, And I did sup with him. I bathed his feet with tears; I gazed For sweetly every absent friend I there could clearly trace, When suddenly the songs of angels Rose, and shook the place. The earth was heaven, the man was God, And at his feet did fall All tribes and tongues, and praising hosts Of creatures great and small; And lo! my absent friend was loudestForemost of them all! It was a dream-the cold gray morn I found the Lover I had lost, With morning birds I poured forth praise, Within Tron Walls. A TALE OF THE LATE SIEGE OF PARIS. BY ANNIE LUCAS. T. D. A CHAPTER VI. TOO LATE! "Too late!-the curse of life! Could we but read Engraven deep, those words of saddest sound T last that brilliant column of picked troops came to an end. Little did we think they had that day begun their death-march almost as a body; for few indeed were the survivors of those devoted regiments after the fearful fields on which they at least so well and nobly upheld the old traditionary fame of France. While the stirring strains of the band that brought up its rear were still sounding proudly in our ears, Uncle Lucien put us in our carriage, and asked us if he should tell the man to drive home. Madame de l'Orme bent forward, eagerly exclaiming "No, no; to Notre Dame." And the order was given accordingly. Presently she said, through her tears: "You ANON. will not mind, Renée; you need Our Lady's grace and help for your brother. And in her own stately cathedral-at whose hallowed shrines so many sainted knees have been bent, so many royal heads have been bowed, so many costly offerings have been made-she will surely hear and pity us. And her altars shall not want for the costliest gifts I can bring, if she will watch over my Henri, and bring him back to me. Will she not remember how the sword pierced her own sacred heart when she watched in faithful love all through her Son's awful death-agony?" So we stopped at the hoary cathedral, and went up the time-worn steps, through the massive doors, into the solemn gloom of the grand old pile. Others were there before us: a mass was being said at the high altar as we went for-like quiet that drops like a pall over a household ward and knelt before it. from which a dearly-loved member has lately departed, even at hours when the lost presence was not wont to gladden us? We seem to speak with bated breath, and to move with noiseless steps-as we do when the journey taken has been the last one, and cold and still in its darkened brother, brother, friend. Madame de l'Orme remained so long on her knees that I grew restless and uneasy. I was anxious about my mother-left so long alone in the first hours of her sorrow. I tried vainly to repeat a certain number of Ave Marias, but invariably lost count, and found my thoughts hope-chamber lies what was, but is no longer, parent, lessly wandering-Léon, mamma, Nina, all came between me and the prayers I would fain have repeated. It was nothing new: many a penance had I endured for the same fault. But the thought that those prayers might have helped Léon, if I could only have said them acceptably, was very painful. I knew my mother said enough, but then it was all that was left me to do for him; and I could not help thinking that surely, if the Holy Virgin did remember her own earthly sorrows, she must know how hard it was, when every nerve and fibre was strained to the utmost, to repeat a certain number of fixed words with no wanderings of heart. Then I shuddered at my presumption. Altogether that visit to Notre Dame was no comfort to me-very much the reverse. Madame de l'Orme seemed to find it such; but then she had made so many good prayers, and given an offering-which, from the priest's manner, I felt sure was a costly one-and I had done neither; only, I knew, drawn a penance on myself for wandering and presumptuous thoughts next time I went to confess. For I could not help a suggestion that seemed to force itself into my mind, that perhaps, after all, it would not matter my trying. I had apparently no vocation for religion; and if Our Lady would not help of her own free will and sympathy, I certainly could not deserve her favour. Madame de l'Orme did not seem very sure of it, in spite of her far greater merit. My unkindness to Nina, too, weighed upon me. Would the Blessed Virgin, with her pure, loving mother's heart, listen to, or care for, one who had been so harsh to the orphan girl who had never known a mother's gentle love and training? I left Madame de l'Orme at her lonely and desolate home, and returned to my own, on which a strange stillness seemed to have fallen. Do we not all know the curious sense of hush and grave Nina had not returned. I found my mother lying, faint and exhausted, on her couch, opposite a picture of the Virgin that always hung in her dressing-room, with a crucifix clasped to her breast. I knew she had taken no food that morning, and her time had been entirely spent in prayer. When she had taken the wine I brought her, she said, - "We must leave our dear Léon to the good God, Renée. The Blessed Mother's heart will be touched with our anxiety and sorrow, for hers has known and felt grief greater than ours. She will plead for us with her Son.-And, Renée," she continued, after a time, "I do not think it can be so difficult as many seem to think, for her to induce the Lord Christ to listen to her and help us. Those who have gone through the bitterest sufferings sympathize best with even the little pains of others; and surely none have suffered as much as he did on his dreadful He must have loved us, Renée, or he would not have done it; for it was for us he died. So I think he must be ready to listen to his mother's pleading for us, when she tells him of our need and sorrow. But, of course," she added sadly, "it is our great unworthiness and sinfulness that make it so difficult. He cannot love us till our sins are subdued; and so few have grace to conquer them!" cross. Then I told her of our visit to Notre Dame, and my trouble about the prayers; and she answered, "I know it is so sometimes; and then I think it is best to speak to Our Lady in our own words. I think she must care for them as much as the Latin, which does not seem to mean half so much, or, indeed, to express at all what we wish to say. Of course, in the public worship all due form and ceremonial must be observed; but when we are alone, it appears to me it is best to remember it is a woman's heart with which we have to do. And I do not think she will be offended at us thinking her too kind and too good. When people count upon our kindness, does it not make us feel bound to help them if possible-us, who are so weak, and narrow, and selfish? How much more, then, One who is all goodness, and purity, and kindness? With God it is different. His majesty is so terrible, it would indeed be presumption to approach him otherwise than in the forms our Holy Mother the Church gives us. But it is hard to know what is right, Renée." And she sighed a long, weary sigh. Ah, my mother! hard, indeed, for those from whose straining sight the only pure and living Fountain of light is sealed. Hard for those whose eyes are blinded with the gathered dust of long ages of human error, and pride, and folly-whose minds are fettered with the iron chains of priestly arrogance and presumptionwhose hearts are weighed down with the crushing burden of a servile and loveless faith-on whose ears the faintest echoes of the glad tidings of great joy have never fallen. And such were ours then,-mine, and my gentle, pious mother's. And hers most. With feet lingering still on the slopes of Jordan, with the dark stream flowing ever full in her sight, her eyes were straining through the thick darkness -darkness that might be felt, indeed-her helpless hands were stretched out imploringly, her shrinking spirit breathing ever its voiceless prayers for help and guidance, to those whom the false teachings of a delusive creed had taught her possessed those attributes of love and tenderness and pity which belong to Him alone of whom we then thought only vaguely as the Virgin's Son, or the terrible Judge of an awful day to come. But, blessed be his name! no darkness, no ignorance, no shrouding curtain drawn by mortal hands, can come between the purposes of his grace and love, or rob him of the joy of seeing "of the travail of his soul," and being "satisfied." When he wakens the need and yearning of the soul, as he alone can do, he will never-no, never-fail to supply it. And I doubt not many of those whose suns have set in clouds and darkness will rise to the brightness of ever lasting day. Would he reject such faint glimmerings of faith and hope as breathed even then in my mother's words, "He must have loved us, Renée, or he would not have done it"? His Word says, "The bruised reed will He not break, nor quench the dimly-burning flax;" "as many as touched the hem of His garment were made perfectly whole." And to me those words are enough. As the magnet attracts the needle, so I believe he will draw all hearts, asking truly in their depth of need, "What must I do to be saved?" to himself. Very faint may be the light, very dim and shrouded and interrupted the vision, very feeble and fearful the hope; but the love, the power, the salvation are all in him. "Salvation is of the Lord;" he is the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." But alas for those who are lulled to the charmed sleep of false security on the Delilah lap of Rome, heart and conscience alike deadened, and with no friendly voice to break in upon the fleeting dream of time with the solemn realities of eternity! And doubly alas for those on whose careless ears the gospel message falls unheeded, or only as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument"! My mother and I were still alone when Nina returned. Madame de Salmy left her at the door, and she entered the house alone. We heard her voice speaking gaily to Louis, and then her quick light foot on the stairs. She came into the room bright and joyous, with gay words of greeting on her smiling lips. But our grave, sorrowful faces were enough; no need of the words that were so slow to come. She turned deadly white; stood a few seconds, fixed and silent, in the centre of the room, not heeding, apparently not hearing, my mother's gentle words; then slowly and silently left it. I was about to follow her at once; but mamma drew me back, saying-" Leave her alone, for a little time only, Renée. It will be better soPoor child! it is very trying for her. I wish I had prevented her going yesterday; but I never supposed she would remain the night." "O mamma," I exclaimed, "it was my fault. I might have persuaded her; but I was angry and vexed with her, and did not. regret it now!" Mamma soothed me in her own tender way. But she little knew how much cause I had for self-reproach, as Léon had asked me not to tell her of what had passed between him and Nina, saying she would have enough to trouble her about him without the knowledge of his disappointment added to it: our troubles and sorrows -we had not known many then-were so entirely hers. Oh, how I for the heart's most passionate cry. And even while I wept with Nina, and pitied from my heart the remorseful grief from which I might have saved her, I felt that perhaps this might be the very lesson she needed to begin the cure of her waywardness; for from the broken words she sobbed out to mamma when she sought to comfort her, I learned that, even as I feared, she had only gone to Madame de Salmy's out of sheer contradiction of Léon's wishes. She had been asked in his presence to join the party, he had ventured to beg her not to go, as his time was so short, and, in the wilful waywardness she so sadly deplored, she had given her promise to do so-and kept it, though haunted with the foreboding that Léon might be ordered off next day. But she had not anticipated the possibility of his leaving in her absence; and it was not until the message had been despatched that she found that Madame de Salmy, requiring her carriage for other purposes, had determined to retain her for the night. In a few minutes she sent me to Nina. Receiving no answer to my inquiry whether I might come in, I opened the door. She was lying, dressed as she was, with her face buried in the cushions of her couch. She did not look up until I went to her, and kneeling by it, put my arm round her, and spoke some tender, soothing words. Then she raised her poor white face, and gazed piteously into mine. "Darling Nina," I said, "do not grieve so very much. You did not know that Léon would leave to-day, and he did not blame you. He bid me say farewell for him." Either the sight of my tears or the mention of his name broke down the unnatural calm of her face, and, with a smothered cry, she flung her arms passionately round my neck, and broke into a fit of hysterical tears. Poor child! she had yet to learn control in a hard school. It was not until she was quite exhausted with the violence of her emotion that I could give her Léon's message of forgiveness. At last I did so, but without alluding to the terrible contingency of which he had spoken, but of which I dared not think myself; and even then a fresh outburst followed. To all my attempts at consolation, she answered by the wailing cry, "Oh, you do not know, Renée; you do not know." "I do know, Nina," I answered. "No, no; not all, not all. He would not tell you all—even you; I know him too well. If you did, you would hate me, Renée. Oh, if that day could but come back again! But it is too late now!" Too late! ah, too late! Yes; the spilt wine can never be gathered again into the broken chalice, and lost opportunities can never return now Poor Nina! she was very humble and broken that night; but next morning, though her cheek was pale and her eyes heavy, she was quiet and composed, and from that time rarely spoke of Léon-I think, never voluntarily—and in a few days she appeared, outwardly at least, her old bright self, only a little more subdued and gentle. I was no longer doubtful as to her real feelings; but I judged it best to leave things to take their course. CHAPTER VII. BATTLE TIDINGS. News of battle! news of battle! AYTOUN'S Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. VERY quiet were the days after Léon left us— quiet, at least, to our saddened perceptions. We had fewer visitors, as most of Léon's friends had gone to the front. It seemed long since the war had been declared, and people were already impatient to hear of something having been done. The delay of the Emperor's departure, and the tardiness of military operations, were the chief subject of conversation. Twice we had brief |