ces she never more might see; listened for tripping
little feet she never more might hear; but, dear children, peace came
gently down upon her heart, like dew upon the closed flowers, and she
said, with bowed head, "'Tis well."

NEW-YORK SUNDAY.

Dear children: There is the bell for church; but Sunday is not
_Sunday_, here in New-York. I wish I were going to church in the
country with you, where everything is quiet, and sweet, and
holy,--where people go to church to worship God, and not to see and to
show the fashions. No, it is not Sunday here, if the bells _do_ say so.

Why? Because there's a woman, at the corner of that street, spreading
out on her stall, apples and candy, and bananas, and oranges, and
cookies, and sugar-toys, and melons, and cocoa-nuts, and ginger beer;
because there's a cigar shop--(the shutters, closed to be sure,) but
with the door wide open, and the owner already beginning to trade with
customers; because, there's a man selling bouquets, and a
confectioner's saloon open, and people eating ice-creams in it; and
little ragged news boys, who have been screeching ever since day-light,
"New York Herald--Times--Sunday Despatch--dreadful collision and _lass
o' life_--Times, Despatch, and Herald"--and drunken men whom you meet
at every few blocks, and people going everywhere but into the church
doors.

Well, you go into a city church,--it is not like _yours_ in the
country, where the blessed sunlight shines cheerfully in, and the sweet
breeze wafts through the open windows the breath of clover blossoms and
new mown hay; where the minister preaches to poor people, who are not
forced to carry a _dictionary_ to church; where people don't frown and
hastily button the pew door when a stranger comes in; where neighbors
smile kindly on each other, and never gather up the folds of their
dress lest it should sweep against a shilling de-laine; where good "Old
Hundred" and "St. Martins" are sung, instead of twistified, finical,
modern tunes, that old-fashioned folks can't follow; where the minister
is not too stately to pat the little children on the head coming out
the porch, or to give them a pleasant smile to make them feel that they
are part of his parish; where they all walk home, not over crowded,
dusty pavements, but under the leafy trees, with hearts filled with a
quiet joy, seeing "the cattle on a thousand hills," the springs which
run among the hills, "and the birds which build their houses i