he chicken. Their howling and
screaming brought the family upon the scene, and none too soon to save
the lives of my pets. I was shut in a dark closet on bread and water for
the remainder of the day and left to meditate, as my mother charged me,
when I confessed my intentions, on "the naughtiness of mocking serious
things." Thus did I innocently anticipate in my own person that _dies
irae_ which I had prepared for my imaginary town. I took no further
interest in Millerism and in neighbor White's big house and ascension
robe. After this I made new and less destructible worlds which continue
to this day.

But the delusion did not expire by my neglect. It is still cherished as
the candid faith of many readers of scriptural oracles. And now they are
comforted by the astronomers who terrify us with their calculations on
the inexorable cataclysm impending over our trusty and splendid earth.
Never mind; we shall not be at the exit. To the vast future belong all
these disconcerting predictions--and welcome. Time has already inscribed
our urns, and, without mathematics, appointed for each one his separate
and appropriate catastrophe. We who have lived fifteen lustrums have
already witnessed the dissolution of our world. What more could the Rev.
William Miller do for us?

WOODS AND PASTURES

There are many matters in the recollections of our earliest years so
minute that to speak of them is only becoming to second childhood. "The
soul discovers great things from casual circumstances", says Porphory.
Providence provides temporary bridges through life which commonly fall
to pieces after we pass over them and are forgotten. It is not so with
me; one bridge remains whole and more beautified by time--that on which
I return to my native town. I require no daylight or lantern for the
journey. Some men can number their happy days; I more often count my
happy nights, when I soothe myself to repose by recalling the sweet and
tender joys of childhood. I travel the roads and pastures or wade the
brook hand in hand with Launa Probana.

There was no gate out of Bellingham in my childhood. Its confines I
never thought to question, or to suspect that there was anything beyond.
It had its own sun, moon and stars, its river, its pond, its pastures
and woods as full of interests and resources and as exhilarating as any
place discovered later on the map of the world. This concentration and
limitation give to children experiences and illu