hood. Side by side they stood now, once again, where the
baptismal service had long since been read for them, and the mother
of the bishop gave the bride away!

THE LITTLE CHILDREN.

IT was Sabbath morning. Soft and silvery, like stray notes from the
quivering chords of an archangel's harp, floated the clear, sweet
voice of the church-bells through the hushed heart of the great
metropolis, while old men and little children--youth in its hope,
and manhood in its pride--came forth at their summons, setting a
mighty human tide in the direction of the sanctuaries, beneath whose
sacred droppings they should hear again the tidings which come to us
over the waves of nearly two thousand years, fresh and full of
exceeding melody, as when the Day-Star from on high first poured its
blessed beams over the mountain heights of Judea, and the song,
pealing over the hills of jasper, rolled down to the shepherds who
kept their night-watches on her plains; "Peace on earth and
good-will to men."

A child came forth with his ragged garments, unwashed face and
uncombed hair, from one of those haunts of darkness and misery which
fill the city with crime and suffering. He was a little child, and
yet there was none of its peace on his brow, or its light in his
eye, as he looked up with a strange, wistful earnestness at the
strip of blue sky that looked down with its serene heaven-smile
between the frowning and dilapidated pile of buildings which rose on
either side of the alley. The sunshine flitted like the
soft-caressing fingers of a spirit over his forehead, and the voice
of the bells fell upon his spirit with a strange, subduing
influence; and the child kept on his way until the alley terminated
in a broad, pleasant street, with its crowd of church-goers, and
still the boy kept on, unmindful of dainty robe and silken vesture
that waved and rustled by him.

He stood at last within the broad shadow of the sanctuary, while far
above him rose the tall spire, with the sunbeams coiling like a
heaven-halo around it, pointing to the golden battlements of the
far-off city, within whose blessed precincts nothing "which defileth
shall ever enter." The massive church doors swung slowly open as one
and another entered, and the child looked eagerly up the long,
mysterious mid-aisle, but the silken garments rustled past--there
was no hand outstretched to lead the ragged and wretched little one
within its walls, and no one paused to tell him