“The saddest thought,” said Aunt Rachel, as we turned away from that gloomy edifice, “the saddest thought connected with that building is, that so large a number of its unhappy inmates have brought their misery upon themselves, are the victims of their own irregular and indulged passions.”

As we turned and looked upon her smooth brow, her serious and serene eyes and her sweet, calm mouth, we marked a look of subdued suffering mingled with an expression of Christian triumph; and we knew that she had felt “the ploughings of grief;” that she had learned “how sublime a thing it is to suffer and grow strong;” but, though we wondered deeply, we never knew in what form she had been called “to pass under the rod;” but we heard a voice that said,

“Fear not; when thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.”

  Nay, fear not, weak and fainting soul,
  Though the wild waters round thee roll,
  He will sustain thy faltering way,
  Will be thy sure, unfailing stay.

  And though it were the fabled stream
  Whose waves were fire of fearful gleam,
  He still would bear thee safely through
  The fire, but cleanse thy soul anew.

COMETH A BLESSING DOWN.

  NOT to the man of dollars,
    Not to the man of deeds,
  Not to the man of cunning,
    Not to the man of creeds,
  Not to the one whose passion
    Is for a world’s renown,
  Not in a form of fashion,
    Cometh a blessing down.

  Not unto land’s expansion,
    Not to the miser’s chest,
  Not to the princely mansion,
    Not to the blazoned crest,
  Not to the sordid worldling,
    Not to the knavish clown,
  Not to the haughty tyrant,
    Cometh a blessing down.

  Not to the folly-blinded,
    Not to the steeped in shame,
  Not to the carnal-minded,
    Not to unholy fame;
  Not in neglect of duty,
    Not in the monarch’s crown,
  Not at the smile of beauty,
    Cometh a blessing down.

  But to the one whose spirit
    Yearns for the great and good;
  Unto the one whose storehouse
    Yieldeth the hungry food;
  Unto the one who labours,
    Fearless of foe or frown;
  Unto the kindly-hearted,
    Cometh a blessing down.

THE DARKENED PATHWAY.

“TO some the sky is always bright, while to others it is never free from clouds.  There is to me a mystery in this—­something that looks like a partial Providence—­for those who grope sadly through life in darkened paths are, so far as human judgment can determine, often purer and less selfish than those who move gayly along in perpetual sunshine.  Look at Mrs. Adair.  It always gives me the heart-ache to think of what she has endured in life, and still endures.  Once she was surrounded by all that wealth could furnish of external good;