ed to become suddenly transformed and to be endowed with something of the strength and spring of the tiger. When marching towards the enemy he was always in his place, his step was quick and firm, his little grey eyes glittered with a strange light, and his pale wrinkled face was lit up with the fires of indomitable courage. No matter how rapid the march, Jake kept up though loaded down with his big knapsack and other accoutrements, and when the battle opened he handled his gun with the rapidity and precision of an expert and the steadiness of a veteran. All down the Chickahominy through seven days of flame and carnage while many strong men succumbed to sheer exhaustion Jake held out and was borne onward with the bloody tide. On the swift march around Chancellorsville Jake, bending under the load he carried and panting for breath, yet kept pace all day with the rushing column.

From a moral and physical standpoint there were two peculiarities about Jake which deserve special mention. In battle he would emphasize his well aimed shots with oral imprecations on the enemy, which would not look well in print. He seemed to feel that these added force to the balls that sped from his gun. Then after the battle was over, his strength and courage both completely collapsed. He fell out of ranks and made his way back to camp by easy stages. Sometimes he was fortunate enough to get a place in an ambulance or army

wagon, but when this was impracticable, he would follow at his leisure the track of the regiment and sooner or later would reach the camp.

When the long march to Gettysburg began Jake, as usual, was in ranks. He waded the Potomac, tramped through Maryland, climbed and descended the mountains of Pennsylvania, and fell in the charge on the stone fence in that bloody wheat field, in the suburbs of Gettysburg, and died almost without a groan. And there his frail bones now rest among those of the unknown dead who fought and fell on that far-famed field.

Poor Jake! Your death did "not count in the news of the battle," and the world hardly knows now that you lived and died. But I see your pale, sad face to-night through the mists and shadows of thirty-five years and I feel the power of that strange glitter in your eyes I honor your memory, and salute you with love and admiration.

DISCOURAGEMENTS.

This strange life of ours is full of discouragements. They come in with the cradle and their lengthening shadows extend along the journey till lost in the darkness of the grave. No rank nor sex, age nor condition, has either a monopoly or an exemption. The discouragements of the child, when measured by its capacities and surroundings, hang as dark and heavy over its young heart as any that

ever darkened the pathway of conquest, or balked the world-wide schemes of ambition.

We know not whither to steer the life-boat nor how to turn its keel in order to avoid the dense fogs that wrap it in darkness and the head-winds that beat it back on the voyage; for life's seamen have never yet found on the chart of the great ocean a path laid down through safe and silent waters, leading to the safe and silent harbor.

So, let not Fate be accused of injustice, nor Fortune of partiality, for all have a common inheritance. Some appear to tread the radiant paths of prosperity and happiness with never a cloud to darken the prospects, and others to dwell in the lowgrounds of disappointment and sorrow, beset with gloomy shadows and haunted by the ghosts of departed hope and brooding despair. But it is all an illusion, unreal as the phantoms that pass before our vision in troubled dreams by night, or that sometimes people our weird reveries by day. It is all because we do not know and cannot see. Each heart knoweth its own bitterness but never has known and never can know the bitterness of another.

If it were permitted us to look into the hearts of others, to hide ourselves in some nook of their inner life whence we could look out upon their soul-struggles and measure all their deep unsatisfied longings and all their blighting failures and disappointments, no matter how the outer life glared and glittered in

the sunlight, we should be astounded at what our eyes had seen and our ears had heard, and should return to our earthly tabernacle sadder, perhaps, yet wiser, and more deeply impressed than ever before with the Creator's wisdom and goodness and with the brotherhood and equality of all mankind.

The husbandman battles with the contingencies of his calling the storms, the droughts, the frosts, the prices and often his heart is ready to sink under the heavy burden of anxiety and disappointment; the merchant carries a weight that rests like lead on his spirits, in the shape of dead stock, of bad accounts, of declining trade, of falling prices, of threatening ruin; the poor man struggles with all the ills of his poverty and stands aghast before the prospect of want that shall sap his strength and dry up the life blood of his wife and little ones; the millionaire is sleepless on his bed of down, haunted by visions of loss, burdened with the care of his possessions and oppressed with the anxiety of their management and disposal; the young man learns his first lessons of life in failures that chill his aspirations and, it may be, wring his heart with grief and shame; the gay young maiden weeps in secret over a betrayed trust, broken friendship, or unrequited love; and so we are all in the same big ship, battling with wind and tide.

It is all right. In the wise economy of God disappointments and sorrow hold the balance against triumphs and joy. In the development of human

character, disappointment is as necessary as triumph; sorrow as helpful as joy. Sunshine promotes growth, but cold and storm and darkness nurture strength. Heroes come out of battles, and strong men and noble women come out of the unceasing conflict with the trials and disappointments of life— out of the deep gloom of sorrow-out of the valley that borders the regions of despair.

LIFE AND DEATH.

The

Life and death are coeval and coexistent. dawn of life came in skirted by the grim shadow of death, and the two opposing powers entered the arena like paired gladiators and began the battle for supremacy. There has never been a time of rest for the hostile forces-never a moment's surcease from the struggle-never an ebb in the swelling tide-and there never will be till death shall conquer life and time shall hurl his dart at death.

The human heart longs for the durable, the immutable, the eternal, and man conscious of his mortal nature, yet reaches out in his hopes and aspirations towards infinity. Beyond the close of this earthly life he fondly hopes to live in the memories of those who are to come after him; and in his efforts to lay hold of something that is durable, and do something that will not be subject to chance and change, he builds lofty monuments of marble and granite, and fondly dreams that they will stand for