CENTENNIAL HYMN.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

UR fathers' God, from out whose hand

OU The centuries fall like grains of sand,

We meet to-day, united, free,
And loyal to our land and Thee.
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

Here, where of old, by Thy design,
The fathers spake that word of Thine,
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

Be with us while the new world greets
The old world thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil, beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

Thou, who hast here in concord furled
The war-flags of a gathered world,
Beneath our Western skies fulfill
The Orient's mission of good will,

And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece,
Send back the Argonauts of peace.
For art and labor met in truce,
For beauty made the bride of use,

We thank Thee, while, withal, we crave,
The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,
The manhood never bought nor sold!

O, make Thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law,
And, cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old!

THE AUCTIONEER'S GIFT.

S. W. FOSS.

HE auctioneer leaped on a chair, and bold and loud

THE and clear,

He poured his cataract of words, just like an

auctioneer.

An auction sale of furniture, where some hard mort

gagee

Was bound to get his money back, and pay his lawyer's

fee.

A humorist of wide renown, this doughty auctioneer, His joking raised the loud guffaw, and brought the answering jeer,

He scattered round his jests, like rain, on the unjust and the just;

Sam Sleeman said he "laffed so much he thought that he would bust."

He knocked down bureaus, beds, and stoves, and clocks and chandeliers,

And a grand piano, which he swore would "last a thousand years;"

He rattled out the crockery, and sold the silverware; At last they passed him up to sell a little baby's chair.

"How much? how much? Come, make a bid; is all your money spent?"

And then a cheap, facetious wag came up and bid, "One cent."

Just then a sad-faced woman, who stood in silence there, Broke down and cried, "My baby's chair! My poor dead baby's chair!"

"Here, madam, take your baby's chair," said the softened auctioneer,

"I know its value all too well, my baby died last year; And if the owner of the chair, our friend, the mort

gagee,

Objects to this proceeding, let him send the bill to me!"

Gone was the tone of raillery; the humorist auctioneer Turned shamefaced from his audience, to brush away a

tear;

The laughing crowd was awed and still, no tearless eye was there

When the weeping woman reached and took her little baby's chair.

A

A MODEST WIT.

SUPERCILIOUS nabob of the East

Haughty, being great-purse-proud, being rich— A governor, or general, at the least,

I have forgotten which

Had in his family a humble youth,

Who went from England in his patron's suite, An unassuming boy, and in truth

A lad of decent parts, and good repute.

This youth had sense and spirit;
But yet, with all his sense,

Excessive diffidence

Obscured his merit.

One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine,
His honor, proudly free, severely merry,

Conceived it would be vastly fine

To crack a joke upon his secretary.

"Young man," he said, "by what art, craft, or trade, Did your good father gain a livelihood?"

"He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said,
"And in his time was reckon'd good."

"A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek,
Instead of teaching you to sew!
Pray, why did not your father make
A saddler, sir, of you?"

Each parasite, then, as in duty bound,

The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.
At length Modestus, bowing low,

Said (craving pardon, if too free he made),
"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know

Your father's trade!"

"My father's trade! by heaven, that's too bad!

My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad?

My father, sir, did never stoop so low

He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

"Excuse the liberty I take,"

Modestus said, with archness on his brow,
"Pray, why did not your father make

A gentleman of you?"

-Anon.

THE FULL-BLOODED COW.

T. DEWITT TALMAGE.

WE E never had anyone drop in about six o'clock

p. m. whom we were more glad to see than Fielding, the Orange County farmer. In the first place, he always had a good appetite, and it did not make much difference what we had to eat. He would not nibble about the end of a piece of bread, undecided as to whether he had better take it, nor sit sipping his tea as though the doctor had ordered him to take only ten drops at a time, mixed with a little sugar and hot water. Perpetual contact with fresh air and the fields and the mountains gave him a healthy body, while the religion that he learned in the little church down by the mill-dam kept him in healthy spirits. Fielding keeps a great drove of cattle and has an overflowing dairy. As we handed him the cheese he said, "I really believe this is of my own making." "Fielding," I inquired, "how does your dairy thrive, and have you any new stock on your farm? Come give us a little touch of the country." He gave me a mischievous look and said, "I will not tell you a word until you let me know all about that full-blooded cow, of which I have heard something. You need not try to hide that story any longer." So we yielded to his coaxing. It was about like this:

The man had not been able to pay his debts. The mortgage on the farm had been foreclosed. Day of sale had come. The sheriff stood on a box reading

the terms of vendue. All payments to be made in six months. The auctioneer took his place. The old man and his wife and the children all cried as the piano, and the chairs, and the pictures, and the carpets, and the bedsteads went at half their worth. When the piano went, it seemed to the old people as if the sheriff were selling all the fingers that had ever played on it; and when the carpets were struck off, I think father and mother thought of the little feet that had tramped it; and when the bedstead was sold, it brought to mind the bright, curly heads that had slept on it long before the dark days had come, and father had put his name on the back of a note, signing his own death warrant. The next thing to being buried alive is to have the sheriff sell you out when you have been honest and have tried always to do right. There are so many envious ones to chuckle at your fall, and come in to buy your carriage, blessing the Lord that the time has come for you to walk and for them to ride.

But to us the auction reached its climax of interest when we went to the barn. We were spending our summers in the country, and must have a COW. There were ten or fifteen sukies to be sold. There were reds, and piebalds, and duns, and browns, and brindles, short horns, long horns, crumpled horns and no horns. But we marked for our own a cow that was said to be full-blooded, whether Alderney, or Durham, or Galloway, or Ayrshire, I will not tell lest some cattle fancier feel insulted by what I say; and if there is any grace that I pride myself on, it is prudence and a determination always to say smooth things. "How much is bid for this magnificent, full-blooded cow?" cried the auctioneer. "Seventy-five dollars," shouted someone. I made it eighty. He made it ninety. Somebody else quickly made it a hundred. After the bids had risen to one hundred and twenty-five dol