the life-drops from her heart to give up her cherished little one,
yet she felt there was still a great blessing remaining for her.

Time passed on. Autumn came with its ripened fruits and golden foliage;
winter laid his glittering mantle upon the streams and hill-tops, and
spring brought blossoms for little Katie's grave.

Annie, the gentle Annie, where was she?

Firm to her purpose, she had gone onward. At times the struggle was hard
indeed. Then she would go to the spring, and kneel down, and talk with
her Good Father, until the evil feelings had left her heart, and the
cheerful smile came again to her countenance.

At length summer, bright, beautiful summer, beamed over the land once
more, and as it drew to a close it brought the day on which Annie was to
meet her friend at the spring.

It was the close of the Sabbath, and the last rays of the setting sun
streamed through the branches of the trees that surrounded the spring,
and tinged its waters with a rosy light. There sat the old lady, looking
anxiously up the road.

"I wonder why she don't come," said she. "Perhaps the young thing has
forgotten me. Sure 'twould be a sorrow to me if I thought she had."

"No indeed," said a pleasant voice. A light form sprang from a clump of
bushes close by, and she felt a warm kiss upon her cheek. "No, I have
not forgotten you, but I have come to tell you how happy I am. Oh, I
have seen trouble and sorrow _enough_, since I saw you; but for all
that, I am much happier than I was then. You told me that I must learn
to love everybody, and so I did; and now it seems as if everybody and
everything loved me, even our old cat and dog. Strange, isn't it?"

"Heart's dearest!" said the old woman, as soon as she could speak,
wiping away the tears from her eyes with the corner of her apron;
"there's a philosophy in all things, even in baking bread and washing
dishes; but the true philosophy of life consists in loving and doing;
and, blessed be God! that is so plain, that the least of his children
can understand it."

[Illustration]

THE STARVING POOR OF IRELAND.

BY REV. J.G. ADAMS.

A wail comes o'er the ocean,
Though faint, yet deep with woe!
A nation's poor are falling
Before the direst foe!
Grim Famine there hath seized them,
And over Erin's land
The multitudes are perishing
Beneath his blasting hand!

The father gives his morsel
To his imploring child,
Himself implo