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for a front window insolently demanded if I was the man who had lately managed the Equitable Loan Society? because, if so-but I did not wait to hear the remainder of his ill-bred jargon, but incontinently broke off my negotiation, determined to have nothing more to do with him. Foiled in my (by no means unprecedented) device of supporting myself on three-and-sixpenny and five-shilling subsidies extracted from cooks, clerks, ladies' maids, companions, governesses, &c., I remembered with gratitude a means that had not before struck me, and to which I immediately applied. vious to the closing of the Equitable' I had, by an oversight consequent to the confusion of the establishment at the time, put paid to divers of the bills standing in the Society's books, at the same time transcribing them into one of my own, without this little memorandum attached; and in my present exigencies (for I had got through a great part of my property in building and other speculations which I could no longer go on with) I determined to test the efficacy of this fortuitous arrangement. So, copying out two or three of the accounts, I dropped in upon the debtors, and where ten pounds were due I desired them to pay me eight; where eight, six, and so on, giving them a receipt in full, besides relieving them from the expense of fines, &c., consequent on not having kept their instalments regularly paid. In this way I contrived to live for some time; but the Equitables' having got hold of it, drove me from this resource also, and hurried, I have no doubt, the crisis of my disasters. With the power of drawing realities from idealism, had departed the means of paying workmen, or of purchasing materials for finishing the houses I had in hand; besides being heavily in arrears with the architect, who, having found out how matters stood with me, seized upon the buildings the very day I had succeeded in mortgaging them, with the intention of taking a passage by the Great Western, and trying my fortune in the New World. Instead of which," added Mr. Baltimore Smith, with a dolorous sinking-down of voice, and lengthy expression of counterance, "I find myself an inmate of this objectionable place,-a German professor of the cornopean for my chum, and but small hopes of speedily obtaining my certificate-time, opportunity, and health, all wasting-for to a man of my active habits, this sedentary life is dreadful; and though, to be sure, I have the option of taking exercise in the yard, there is no knowing who one might meet there; and to be recognised hereafter as a Fleet prisoner-faugh!" And the gentleman's disgust shivered every fold of his well-worn

dressing-gown. "I cannot reconcile it to my prejudices. What is it to me, sir, that the nephew of my Lord Littlegood is my neighbour on the one hand, and an honourable lord himself on the other. That will not soften, in the estimation of honest men, the ill repute the felonious sound-the name of prison carries with it! But I beg pardon," he continued, inserting a few slender sticks into the dirtiest of grates, beneath the foulest of tin coffee-pots," you will share my simple beverage; I find the lightest diet the best adapted to my inactive habits." And, on hospitable cares intent,' Mr. Baltimore Smith set forth two odd cups, and a pink packet, marked soluble cocoa,' from a corner cupboard, and was about to ring for two rolls from the kitchen, when all unexpectedly to him, the sentence, All out! All out!' sounded through the gloomy length of the coffee gallery; and the attorney, who had offered not a single comment on the history he had heard, laid his hand (as in duty bound) on that of his client, and departed. C. W.

6

YE THREE VOYCES.

Y glasse was at my lippe,
Clear spyrit sparklinge was;

I was about to sippe,

When a voyce came from y glasse-
"And would'st thou have a rosie nose?
A blotched face and vacant eye?
A shaky frame that feebly goes ?
A form and feature alle awry ?
A body rack'd with rheumy paine?
A burnt up stomach, fever'd braine?
A muddie mind that cannot thinke?
Then drinke-drinke-drinke!"

Thus spoke y voyce and fledde,
Nor any more did say ;
But I thought on what it saide,
And threw ye glasse awaye.

Y pipe was in my mouthe,

Ye first cloude o'er me broke ;

I was to blow another,

When a voyce came from y° smoke!

Come, this must be a hoaxe ;-
Then I'll snuffe if I may not smoke;
But a voyce came from y' boxe,
And thus these voyces spoke :-

"And would'st thou have a swimmie hedde,
A smokie breath and blacken'd toothe ?
And would'st thou have thy freshness fade,
And wrinkle up thy leafe of youthe?
Would'st thou have thy voyce to lose its tone,
Thy heavenly note, a bagpipe's drone?

If thou would'st thy health's channels choke,
Then smoke-smoke-smoke!

The pipes of thy sweet musick stuffe,
Then snuffe-snuffe-snuffe!"

Thus spoke, and fledde they both.

Glasse, pipe, boxe, in a daye,
To lose them was I loath,

Yet I threw them alle awaye.

O, would we be alle health, alle lightnesse,
Alle youth, alle sweetnesse, freshnesse, brightnesse,
Seeing through everything,

With mindes like y crystal springe !
O, would we be just right enough!
Not drinke-not smoke-not snuffe;

Then would our forward course

To ye right be as naturall

As it is withouten force,

For stones downwarde to falle.

R. L.

THE RELIGION OF INDUSTRY.

THERE is a religion in industry that if more recognised would sanctify and ennoble the working class, and exalt labour, as attractive, honourable, and sacred. An old prose poet writes truly "God is well pleased with honest works; he suffers the labouring man who ploughs the earth to call his life most noble : if he is good and true he offers continual sacrifice to God, and is not so lustrous in his dress as in his heart.'

To labour is to pray. Industry is cultus, culture, worship. Works material as well as spiritual are acceptable to the common Father and Mother-God and Nature. The legislation of God

and the laws of Nature are one. By them are the industrious benefited. By them are the idle condemned. The laws of Nature ever reward obedience to God's legislation, ever punish disobedience to the Divine Lawgiver. Do nothing and thou shalt rot. Lie still and the vultures shall hover over thee as over a corpse. But, up and be doing! and thy shadow shall grow long. That road which thou treadest shall remember thy full stature. That silvery-leaved larch may darken thy shadowy shape for a while; but while that stayest thou shalt go on. Each step that thou takest into the purple evening from that golden noon shall make thy shadow grow more vast until black night comes.

Prayer is not confined to words. The true liturgy is daily effort. That rubric of every-day virtuous endeavours is the brightest page of thy missal. Prune and train that buddy vine aright upon the sunning wall, and thou actest a prayer for grapes in purple clusters. Thy wine-vats full and richly flavoured, and thy goblets for thee and for thy friends, bubbling up bright red beads to the brim, shall be God's answer to thy rightly prayed prayer. Go also into that garden and dig. Every spadefull that thou diggest shall thus pray :— "Oh, Divine Seedsman ! Grant by this effort that the seed which may be here may flourish; that it may swell and pulp; that it may sprout and grow; that its plumula may rise upward, and its radicle tend downward; that its leaves may open to daylight; that it may bud and blossom, and that it may seed again, and supply all thy children with bread, oh, Common Parent!"

Such is the true and beautiful prayerfulness of industry. They who can receive this can understand the grand affirmation of those old monks who established agriculture throughout Europe Laborare est orare. "To labour is to pray.

While musing on the religion of industry, I saw a vision as in the sky. There seemed first one reading a Bible, and one came to him begging, yet he raised not his eyes from the book to give to him that begged. And I heard a voice exclaim, "The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive.”—“Faith without works is dead." And a dull leaden cloud passed over. There appeared again in the sky like one in a market-place giving to a beggar, while many looked on. And I heard a voice exclaim, thief, thou art giving that which is not thine, but which thou hast stolen from that beggar. Justice before charity!" And a light vaporous cloud flitted past. And once more I saw in the sky a company as of one family, brothers and sisters, working together

"Thou

in a garden without hedge or pale, and eating together of the fruits of the garden. And there was no beggar, nor thief, nor selfish one. And I heard a voice exclaiming, "This is the Paradise of works; these are my beloved in whom I am well pleased." And the sun arose and shone in splendour over all the earth.

Belfast.

GOODWYN BARNSBY.

MARIANA RESTORED.

AGAINST the marble balustrade,

The peacock dipped his purple train
The fountain o'er its basin made
A gentle shower of cooling rain;

;

Through pleasant bowers, with jasmine starred,
Blue spaces oped, to glance and wink ;
And here and there, with merry chink,
The blithe grasshopper thrilled the sward.
Each day the chambers of the hall,

With light and frequent step she trod;
The portraits on the panelled wall
Seemed greeting her with friendly nod;
To lick her hand, as she pass'd by,
The greyhounds left their sunny nook,
And not a thing she touched but took
A beauty from her company.

The window, where at eve she leaned,
Lay open to the crimson west,
Where hills of noble outline screen'd
The broad sun as he sunk to rest;
The turrets of a busy town-

The tall tops of a forest nigh-
And a bounding river met her eye,

When from her window she look'd down.

Yet sometimes she would live, in sleep,
The whole life of her sorrows o'er-
Would see the poplar's shadow creep
Athwart the grange's moonlit floor;
And watch the morn, with sickening light,
Weigh'd with her long day's store of grief;
And wake-to find that day too brief
For the notation of delight!

M.