tiously honorable, if he were not so conscientiously drunk. I suppose it is now notorious that the most brilliant and promising men have been lost to the world in this way. It is sometimes almost painful to think what a surplus of talent and genius there would be in the world if the habit of intoxication should suddenly cease; and what a slim chance there would be for the plodding people who have always had tolerably good habits. The fear is only mitigated by the observation that the reputation of a person for great talent sometimes ceases with his reformation.

It is believed by some that the maidens who would make the best wives never marry, but remain free to bless the world with their impartial sweetness, and make it generally habitable. This is one of the mysteries of Providence and New England life. It seems a pity, at first sight, that all those who become poor wives have the matrimonial chance, and that they are deprived of the reputation of those who would be good wives were they not set apart for the high and perpetual office of priestesses of society. There is no beauty like that which was spoiled by an accident, no accomplishments and graces are so to be envied as those that circumstances rudely hindered the development of. All of which shows what a charitable and good-tempered world it is, notwithstanding its reputation for cynicism and detraction.

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A good many people have the idea, so it seems, that Gothic architecture and Christianity are essentially one and the same thing. Just as many regard it as an act of piety to work an altar cloth or to cushion a pulpit. It may be, and it may

not be.

Our Gothic church is likely to prove to us a valuable religious experience, bringing out many of the Christian virtues. It may have had its origin in pride, but it is all

being overruled for our good. Of course I needn't explain that it is the thirteenth century ecclesiastic Gothic that is epidemic in this country; and I think it has attacked the Congregational and the other non-ritual churches more violently than any others. We have had it here in its most beautiful and dangerous forms. I believe we are pretty much all of us supplied with a Gothic church now. Such has been the enthusiasm in this devout direction that I should not be surprised to see our rich private citizens putting up Gothic churches for their amusement and sanctification. As the day will probably come when every man in Hartford will live in his own mammoth, five-story granite insurance building, it may not be unreasonable to expect that every man will sport his own Gothic church. It is beginning to be discovered that the Gothic sort of church edifice is fatal to the Congregational style of worship that has been prevalent here in New England; but it will do nicely (as they say in Boston) for private devotion.

There isn't a finer or purer church than ours anywhere, inside and outside, Gothic to the last. The elevation of the nave gives it even that "high shouldered

appearance which

seemed more than anything else to impress Mr. Hawthorne in the cathedral at Amiens. I fancy that for genuine highshoulderness we are not exceeded by any church in the city. Our chapel in the rear is as Gothic as the rest of it, a beautiful little edifice. The committee forgot to make any more provision for ventilating that than the church, and it takes a pretty well-seasoned Christian to stay in it long at a time. The Sunday school is held there, and it is thought to be best to accustom the children to bad air before they go into the church. The poor little dears shouldn't have the wickedness and impurity of this world break on them too suddenly. If the stranger noticed any

lack about our church, it would be that of a spire. There is a place for one. Indeed, it was begun, and then the builders seemed to have stopped, with the notion that it would grow itself from such a good root. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that we do not know that the church has what the profane here call a "stump-tail" appearance. But the profane are as ignorant of history as they are of true Gothic. All the Old World cathedrals were the work of centuries. That at Milan is scarcely finished yet. The unfinished spires of the Cologne cathedral are one of the best known features of it. I doubt if it would be in the Gothic spirit to finish a church at once. We can tell cavillers that we shall have a spire at the proper time, and not a minute before. It may depend a little upon what the Baptists do, who are to build near us. I, for one, think we had better wait and see how high the Baptist spire is, before we run ours up. The church is everything that could be desired inside. There is the nave, with its lofty and beautiful arched ceiling. There are the side aisles, and two elegant rows of stone pillars, stained so as to be a perfect imitation of stucco. There is the apse, with its stained glass and exquisite lines; and there is an organ loft over the front entrance, with a rose window. Nothing was wanting, so

far as we could see, except that we should adapt ourselves to the circumstances; and that we have been trying to do ever since.

G

MY PLAYMATE

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,

Their song was soft and low;

The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear:
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,

And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.

She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine:
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?

She left us in the bloom of May:
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,

But she came back no more.

I walk, with noiseless feet, the round

Of uneventful years:

Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring

And reap the autumn ears.

She lives where all the golden year

Her summer roses biow; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go.

There haply with her jeweled hands
She smooths her silken gown,
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.

The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,

And still the Mayday flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.

The lilies blossom in the pond,

The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.

I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems;
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.

I see her face, I hear her voice:
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?

What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,

That other hands with nuts are filled,

And other laps with flowers?