God only knows the hearts of men," was answered. "The most corrupt may put on a fair and honorable exterior, and deceive the very elect. Few men are really known until they are tried. There is a class who keep a good reputation while rising, in order to secure the confidence of their fellow-citizens. They have their price, but it is not small. Such bide their time, and at last find the opportunity to rob on a large scale. Without question many such are now holding places of trust, and turning to their own advantage the national means with which they have been trusted."

"And get ill-will for our pains," answered Mr. Van Dyke, in his querulous way.

"Sir!" The other started, and a flush of noble anger reddened his face. "Is this your courage? this your patriotism? You complained just now of inability to serve your country. Said you were too feeble to bear arms-were not rich had no sons to offer your country. And now confess yourself not brave enough to expose the man who is hurting and hindering us lest you suffer from ill-will! Sir, men like you are worse than open enemies. We can meet them face to face. But you work out of sight, with the public sentiment and weakening patriotic

"But why are they not ferreted out? Why your carpings and fault-findings-demoralizing are they not caught and punished?"

"They are punished and disgraced, on proof enthusiasm. Sir, if you can not bear arms yourof wrong, in every instance." self, don't, in Heaven's name! depress the no"On proof!" You asked a little while ago, What can I do? I answer-Hold your tongue! Good-morning!"

Mr. Van Dyke curled his ble ardor of those who can.

lip.

"Would you have them punished on mere accusation, and in default of evidence ?"

"No, no-of course not." Spoken in constraint.

"I think," said the other, "that you were injured once through the dishonesty of a clerk in whom you confided?"

And the indignant monitor turned away, and left the weak complainer with a rankling arrow in his mind. He was not only surprised and hurt but consciously condemned. The anger awakened by his friend's rough rebuke was not strong enough to obscure a sense of shame. Не

"I was." Mr. Van Dyke's countenance fell. felt humiliated, disturbed, unhappy beyond for"You trusted him implicitly?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"Because I thought him honest."

"And yet he was a shrewd, secret-working scoundrel; not so secret, however, that he did not at times betray himself to lookers on from the outside. You were cautioned in regard to him more than once." "I was."

"But did not heed the caution. Why?" "Simply because my faith in him was complete. I did not believe him capable of so great a sin."

mer experience. It did not help his state of mind any that he let fall indignant words such as these:

"What I call rude and ungentlemanly conduct! No man shall talk to me after that style again."

The disquietude and humiliation remained. It was not long, however, before the old complaining and self-dissatisfied state returned, and he was carping to one, talking gloomily to another, and putting to a third the oft-repeated question, "What can I do?"

"I'll tell you," said one to whom he thus addressed himself, "what a poor woman in my neighborhood, who earns her bread by washing and ironing, did. She bought a rubber blanket for a poor neighbor's son who had entered the service, and gave it to him on the day his company was ordered to march. It cost her three dollars-all the money she had in the world; but she gave it with a free heart. Give a blanket, Mr. Van Dyke, if you can do no more."

"A blanket! What is a blanket? There are six hundred thousand men in the field.” A service like this seemed altogether insignificant to Mr. Van Dyke.

"Though he was coolly robbing you all the while. Transfer the case in part. It will serve for illustration. We have true men at the head of affairs, who are seeking, under God's direction, to guide our storm-beaten ship to a safe anchorage. It was necessary, when the tempest came swooping down from an almost summer sky, to throw skilled agents to every part of the ship where duty must be done. There was little time for discrimination. The posts must be filled, in order to the prompt execution of every command. In all cases the best men were not chosen. Some proved incapable, some traitors, "And more than twice six hundred thousome shamefully dishonest-and were set aside. sand men not in the field. Let one-half of these This was inevitable. Traitors, incapables, and furnish water-proof blankets for the soldiers, and scoundrels still, no doubt, hold places and do they will save over five per cent. of them from harin. But they manage to elude vigilance, as temporary or disabling sickness. If you can your dishonest clerk managed to elude your vig- save a man from illness, and thus keep him in ilance. What then? Shall we hinder by in- the service, you do almost as much for your definite complaint, fold our arms, and do no-country as if you shouldered a musket yourthing because some men are working injury? Is this patriotism, Mr. Van Dyke? Is this doing our duty to God and our country? If instances of fraud come under our personal observation let us expose them fearlessly."

VOL. XXIV.-No. 141.-BB

self."

"That's one view of it," answered Mr. Van Dyke, in the tone of a man half convinced against his will.

"And is it not a right view?"

"There's a very important if in the case." "What?"

66

If the six hundred thousand persons would donate a blanket each. But they won't. And what is the single blanket that I would give? A drop in the ocean! Nothing more. If a hundred or a thousand other men would agree to give a blanket a piece, I would cheerfully make one of the number. But a single blanket is of no account."

"Suppose you start a subscription for a hundred India-rubber blankets-enough for a single company?"

"Oh dear, no! I never was worth a cent at begging. Any thing but hunting up subscriptions. I'd rather saw wood or split fence rails." "Then give some poor soldier, who is about going to fight for your peace and security, a single water-proof blanket to keep him dry and Do your duty, and leave the rest to Him in whose hands are the consciences of all men. I have answered your question."

warm.

But Mr. Van Dyke neither held his tongue nor furnished a blanket. Still he kept going about in a miserable, half-hearted, complaining way; now heaping censure on public men and public measures, and now prophesying the worst of evils.

"What can I do?" The usual termination of one of his wretched harangues dropped from his lips in a company of ladies. And he added, as was his wont: "I am too old to bear arms. I am not rich. I have no sons to offer my country."

whole of that time she has not been able to leave her bed. Well, Mr. Van Dyke, I found her, propped up in bed, knitting woolen slippers for sick soldiers. She had four pairs finished, and was at work on the fifth. I shall not soon forget how her wan face lighted as she showed me her work, and spoke, with moistening eyes, of the sick in camps and hospitals, far away from home and the tender care of sisters, wives, and mothers. It is so little that I can do,' she said, in her feeble voice. Three or four hours a day is all I am able to work. Oh, I pray often for more strength, so that I could do more.' I looked at the sick girl-so pale, so thin, so weak-and felt a thrill of admiration. I did not ask her; but I am sure she did not feel the tooth of pain in all the hours her fingers plied the needles. Mr. Van Dyke, if Hannah Clay can serve her country in this trying hour, shall we stand in weak hesitation, asking, fretfully, 'What can I do?' It's a shame, Sir, to talk in this fashion. Don't utter the sentence again; don't find fault; don't prophesy evil; don't go about in this weak, miserable, complaining way. It isn't manly, nor brave, nor patriotic. What shall you do? Take a lesson from Hannah Clay. Learn to knit slippers or stockings if you have no skill for any other work. But do something! A sick and dying woman rebukes your inactivity."

"Good-day, ladies," said Mr. Van Dyke, with a shamefacedness that he could not hide, and he bowed himself out. He was known in that circle, and half a dozen hearts thanked the plainspeaking lady for her rebuke.

On the next day Mr. Van Dyke went down town and bought an India-rubber blanket, which he gave to the son of a poor neighbor who was on the eve of marching with his regiment. We fear that the cheerful heart did not bless him as the giver; but not the less warmth and protection has the poor boy received in cold and storm, on dreary nights' camping or marching, amidst the mountains and valleys of Western Virginia.

"The poorest, the weakest, the humblest can do something," was confidently answered by one of the ladies. "And I hold that each individual who enjoys the blessings of this good Government is religiously bound to do all in his power for its preservation. The rich according to their wealth, and the poor according to their poverty. The strong in their strength, and the weak in their weakness. Every one can do something. It may require the united efforts of ten to do as much as a single individual of Reader, if you can help in nothing else, give larger ability. But if each does his best, the at least one rubber blanket to a soldier. It may good accomplished will be great. The way, Mr. save health or life, and thus keep him, as a brave Van Dyke, is not so difficult as the will. Given defender, in the field fronting the enemy. And the will, and the way will be plain enough. a word more-if you are tempted to complain Want of will I find to be the great impedi- and find fault, because every thing does not ment." come out just as you desire, remember that such things hinder by encouraging the disloyal, and hold your tongue!

Mr. Van Dyke answered, somewhat fretfully, that talking was easier than doing, and the lady understood the remark as meant for her. So she said, gravely, yet without feeling,

"But not half so pleasant. It is in doing that delight comes. Our talking disturbs usit is only when we begin to do that we find tranquillity and satisfaction. Let me, in partial answer of your question, What can I do? relate what I saw only an hour since. You know. Hannah Clay ?"

"Yes."

"A poor weak invalid. For six years she has not known what it was to be free from pain during her waking hours; and for nearly the

SHIPWRECK.

BY R. S. CHILTON.

A LONG, low reach of level sand,

Packed erewhile by the maddened waves
As the storm-wind drove them toward the land:
A boat on the shore and nothing more
To tell of the dead who sank to their graves,
To the sound of the wild sea's roar.

The ship went down at night, they say,
Wrestling with wind and wave to the last,
Like a great sea-monster fighting at bay:

The fisherman tells how he heard the bells
Ring in the lulls of the pitiless blast,
Mingled with wild farewells.

The winds are asleep, and the sea is still-
Still as the wrecked beneath its waves,
Dreamless of all life's good or ill:

A boat on the shore and nothing more
Tells of the dead who sank to their graves,
To the sound of the wild sea's roar.

THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BY W. M. THACKERAY.

about the subject on more than one day in the week.

So, in order to make out some sort of case for himself, our poor good old General Baynes chose to think and declare that Philip was so violent, ill-conditioned, and abandoned a fellow, that no faith ought to be kept with him; and that Colonel Bunch had behaved with such brutal insolence that Baynes must call him to account. As for the fact that there was another, a richer, and a much more eligible suitor, who was likely to offer for his daughter, Baynes did not happen to touch on this point at all; preferring to speak of Philip's hopeless poverty, disreputable conduct, and gross and careless behavior.

Now MacWhirter having, I suppose, little to do at Tours, had read Mrs. Baynes's letters to her sister Emily, and remembered them. Indeed, it was but very few months since Eliza I CHARGE YOU, DROP YOUR DAGGERS! Baynes's letters had been full of praise of Philip, ENERAL BAYNES began the story which of his love for Charlotte, and of his noble genyou and I have heard at length. He told erosity in foregoing the great claim which he it in his own way. He grew very angry with had upon the general, his mother's careless himself while defending himself. He had to trustee. Philip was the first suitor Charlotte abuse Philip very fiercely, in order to excuse his had had: in her first glow of pleasure, Charown act of treason. He had to show that his lotte's mother had covered yards of paper with act was not his act; that, after all, he never had compliments, interjections, and those scratches promised; and that, if he had promised, Philip's or dashes under her words, by which some laatrocious conduct ought to absolve him from any dies are accustomed to point their satire or emprevious promise. I do not wonder that the phasize their delight. He was an admirable general was abusive, and out of temper. Such young man-wild, but generous, handsome, noa crime as he was committing can't be performed ble! He had forgiven his father thousands and cheerfully by a man who is habitually gentle, thousands of pounds which the doctor owed him generous, and honest. I do not say that men all his mother's fortune; and he had acted can not cheat, can not lie, can not inflict tor-most nobly by her trustees-that she must say, ture, can not commit rascally actions, without though poor dear weak Baynes was one of them! in the least losing their equanimity; but these Baynes who was as simple as a child. Major are men habitually false, knavish, and cruel. Mac and his wife had agreed that Philip's forThey are accustomed to break their promises, bearance was very generous and kind, but after to cheat their neighbors in bargains, and what all that there was no special cause for rapture at not. A roguish word or action more or less is of the notion of their niece marrying a struggling little matter to them: their remorse only awakens young fellow without a penny in the world; and after detection, and they don't begin to repent they had been not a little amused with the till they come sentenced out of the dock. But change of tone in Eliza's later letters, when she here was an ordinarily just man withdrawing began to go out in the great world, and to look from his promise, turning his back on his bene- coldly upon poor, penniless Firmin, her hero of factor, and justifying himself to himself by ma- a few months since. Then Emily remembered ligning the man whom he injured. It is not an how Eliza had always been fond of great people; uncommon event, my dearly beloved brethren how her head was turned by going to a few parand esteemed miserable sister sinners; but you ties at Government House; how absurdly she like to say a preacher is "cynical" who admits went on with that little creature Fitzrickets (bethis sad truth-and, perhaps, don't care to hear cause he was an Honorable, forsooth) at Dum

"In one word, the young man's conduct has been so outrageous and disreputable that I can't, Mac, as a father of a family, consent to my girl's marrying. Out of a regard for her happiness, it is my duty to break off the engagement,” cries the general, finishing the story.

"Has he formally released you from that trust business?" asked the major.

dum. Eliza was a good wife to Baynes; a good | of mind. I will kneel down by thy side, scatter mother to the children; and made both ends of ashes on my own bald pate, and we will quaver a narrow income meet with surprising dexterity; out Peccavimus together. but Emily was bound to say of her sister Eliza, that a more, etc., etc., etc. And when the news came at length that Philip was to be thrown overboard, Emily clapped her hands together, and said to her husband, "Now, Mac, didn't I always tell you so? If she could get a fashionable husband for Charlotte, I knew my sister would put the doctor's son to the door!" That the poor child would suffer considerably her aunt was assured. Indeed, before her own union with Mac, Emily had undergone heart-breakings and pangs of separation on her own account. The poor child would want comfort and companionship. She would go to fetch her niece. And though the Major said, “My dear, you want to go to Paris and buy a new bonnet," Mrs. MacWhirter spurned the insinuation, and came to Paris from a mere sense of duty.

So Baynes poured out his history of wrongs to his brother-in-law, who marveled to hear a man, ordinarily chary of words and cool of demeanor, so angry and so voluble. If he had done a bad action, at least, after doing it, Baynes had the grace to be very much out of humor. If I ever, for my part, do any thing wrong in my family, or to them, I accompany that action with a furious rage and blustering passion. I won't have wife or children question it. No querulous Nathan of a family friend (or an incommodious conscience, maybe) shall come and lecture me about my ill-doings. No

-no.

"Good Heavens, Mac!" cries the general, turning very red. "You know I am as innocent of all wrong toward him as you are!" "Innocent-only you did not look to your

trust-"

"I think ill of him, Sir. I think he is a wild, reckless, overbearing young fellow," calls out the general, very quickly, "who would make my child miserable; but I don't think he is such a blackguard as to come down on a retired elderly man with a poor family-a numerous family; a man who has bled and fought for his sovereign in the Peninsula, and in India, as the Ariny List will show you, by George! I don't think Firmin will be such a scoundrel as to come down on me, I say; and I must say, MacWhir ter, I think it most unhandsome of you to allude to it-most unhandsome, by George!"

"Why, you are going to break off your bargain with him; why should he keep his compact with you?" asks the gruff major.

“Because,” shouted the general, “it would be a sin and a shame that an old man with seven children, and broken health, who has served in every place—yes, in the West and East Indies, by George!-in Canada—in the Peninsula, and at New Orleans;—because he has been deceived and humbugged by a miserable scoundrel of a doctor into signing a sham paper, by George! should be ruined, and his poor children and wife driven to beggary, by Jove! as yon seem to recommend young Firmin to do, Jack MacWhir ter; and I'll tell you what, Major MacWhirter, I take it deed unfriendly of you; and I'll trouble you not to put your oar into my boat, and meddle with my affairs, that's all, and I'll know who's at the bottom of it, by Jove! It's the gray mare, Mac-it's your better half, MacWhirter-it's that confounded, meddling, sneaking, backbiting, domineering-"

Out of the house with him! Away, you preaching bugbear, don't try to frighten me! Baynes, I suspect, to brow-beat, bully, and outtalk the Nathan pleading in his heart-Baynes will outbawl that prating monitor, and thrust that inconvenient preacher out of sight, out of hearing, drive him with angry words from our gate. Ah! in vain we expel him; and bid John say, not at home! There he is when we wake, sitting at our bed-foot. We throw him overboard for daring to put an oar in our boat. Whose ghastly head is that looking up from the water and swimming alongside us, row we never so swiftly? Fire at him. Brain him with an oar, one of you, and pull on! Flash goes the pistol. Surely that oar has stove the old skull in? See! there comes the awful companion popping up out of water again, and crying, “Re- “What next?” roared the major. “Ha, ha, member, remember, I am here, I am here!" ha! Do you think I don't know, Baynes, who Baynes had thought to bully away one monitor has put you on doing what I have no hesitation by the threat of a pistol, and here was another in calling a most sneaking and rascally action swimming alongside of his boat. And would—yes, a rascally action, by George! I am not you have it otherwise, my dear reader, for you, for me? That you and I shall commit sins in this and ensuing years is certain; but I hopeI hope they won't be past praying for. Here is Baynes, having just done a bad action, in a dreadfully wicked, murderous, and dissatisfied state of mind. His chating, bleeding temper is one raw; his whole soul one rage, and wrath, and fover. Charles Baynes, thou old sinner, I pray that Heaven may turn thee to a better state

going to mince matters! Don't come your Major-General or your Mrs. Major-General over me! It's Eliza that has set you on. And if Tom Bunch has been telling you that you have been breaking from your word, and are acting shabbily, Tom is right; and you may get somebody else to go out with you, General Baynes, for, by George, I won't!"

"Have you come all the way from Tours, Mac, in order to insult me?" asks the general.