His aching flesh, his fevered eyes
      His piteous stomach, craving meat;
    His features, nipt of tenderness,
      And most, his little frozen feet.

    Oft, by my fireside’s ruddy glow,
      I think, how in some noisome den,
    Bred up with curses and with blows,
      He lives unblest of gods or men.

    I cannot snatch him from his fate,
      The tribute of my doubting mind
    Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill,
      That skirts the ways of humankind.

    But, as my heart’s desire would leap
      To help him, recognized of none,
    I thank the God who left him this,
      For many a precious right foregone.

    My mother, whom I scarcely knew,
      Bequeathed this bond of love to me;
    The heart parental thrills for all
      The children of humanity.

EARTH’S WITNESS.

BY ALICE B. HAVEN.

    That Poet wrongs his soul, whose dreary cry
      Calls “winds” and “waves,” and “burning stars of night”
      To bring our darkness nature’s clearer light
    On that just sentence, “Thou shalt surely die;”
    To track the spirit as it leaves its clay
      To bring back surety of its future home,
      Or echo of the voice that calleth “come,”
    To prove that it is borne to perfect day. 
    Say rather, “winds,” who heard the Master speak,
      And “waves,” who by His voice transfixed were stayed,
      And stars that lighted Christ’s deep shade—­
    Your confirmation of our trust we seek. 
      Ye know how shadowy Death’s dreary prison,
      Because ye witnessed Christ our life, up risen.

THE WILLOWS, 1858.

THE NEW ENGLAND THANKSGIVING.

BY THE REV.  HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.

When cellar and barn and storehouse were filled with food for the coming winter, our pious New England forefathers used their first common leisure to make public and joyful acknowledgment of their blessings to the God of sunshine and of rain; to Him, who clothes the valleys with corn, and the hills with flocks.  Almost universally, they placed the meeting-houses, where these thanks were rendered, on the hill-top commanding the widest view of the fields from which their prosperity sprung, and nearest to the sky, whence their blessings came.  Their modest homes were sheltered from the winds by the barns that held their wealth and overshadowed their low dwellings.  The earth was precious in their eyes, as the source of their living.  They could spare no fertile or sheltered spot, even for the burial-ground, but economically laid it out in the sand, or on the bleak hill-side; while they threw away no fencing on the house of God, but jealously preserved that costly distinction for their arable lands and orchards.  They were farmers; and it