hear he has lately issued a Latin Grammar that promises to have quite
a run."

"And Smithson?"

"Smithson has an office at Washington, and was there living in great
style the last time I saw him."

It may be questioned whether the minister sank to sleep that night, amid
the many comfortable provisions of his friend's guest chamber, without
rebuking in his heart a certain rising of regret that he had turned his
back on all the honors, and distinctions, and comforts which lay around
the path of others, who had not, in the opening of the race, half the
advantages of himself. "See," said the insidious voice--"what have you
gained? See your early friends surrounded by riches and comfort, while
you are pinched and harassed by poverty. Have they not, many of them, as
good a hope of heaven as you have, and all this besides? Could you not
have lived easier, and been a good man after all?" The reflection was
only silenced by remembering that the only Being who ever had the
perfect power of choosing his worldly condition, chose, of his own
accord, a poverty deeper than that of any of his servants. Had Christ
consented to be rich, what check could there have been to the desire of
it among his followers? But he chose to stoop so low that none could be
lower; and that in extremest want none could ever say, "I am poorer than
was my Savior and God."

The friends at parting the next morning shook hands warmly, and promised
a frequent renewal of their resumed intercourse. Nor was the bill for
twenty dollars, which the minister found in his hand, at all an
unacceptable addition to the pleasures of his visit; and though the
November wind whistled keenly through a dull, comfortless sky, he turned
his horse's head homeward with a lightened heart.

* * * * *

"Mother's sick, and _I'm_ a-keeping house!" said a little flaxen-headed
girl, in all the importance of seven years, as her father entered the
dwelling.

"Your mother sick! what's the matter?" inquired Mr. Stanton.

"She caught cold washing, yesterday, while you were gone;" and when the
minister stood by the bedside of his sick wife, saw her flushed face,
and felt her feverish pulse, he felt seriously alarmed. She had scarcely
recovered from a dangerous fever when he left home, and with reason he
dreaded a relapse.

"My dear, why have you done so?" was the first expostulation; "why did
you not send for old Agnes to do your washing, as I told you."