our madder are identical. He informs us, too, that iron was used for imparting black dyes, but he furnishes no circumstantial account of the method of using it.

of America had added to our tinctorial resources the brilliant cochineal and a host of dye-woods. Nor was it until the lamp of chemistry had begun to illume the western world, that the raw materials of dyeing could be applied with full advantage.

THE WINSLOW FAMILY-A SIMPLE

STORY.

We have seen that the knowledge of dyeing with Tyrian purple lingered at Constantinople until the eleventh century at least; but in Italy, dyeing in all its branches had pretty well died out before the fourth century; nor do we meet with any new records of it there until the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. know perfectly well that any one dye-stuff is not necessarily efficient for every kind of tissue. Because a dye takes well on woolen, it does not follow that the same dye will be efficient for linen, cotton, or silk. Even Tyrian purple, which is a very easy dye to use, acts best upon wool. Linen can be dyed with it, as the Irish linen-marker discovered; but her marking would have told far better on woolen or silk material. The art of dyeing among the Greeks was, anterior to the time of Alexander's conquests, restricted to tissues of woolen stuff; but the philosophers who accompanied him to India brought back some of the refined processes of the Hindoos, of which an improved method of dyeing, or rather an extension of methods of dyeing, was one. Nearchus, the Grecian admiral who co-operated with Alexander, had, as is well known, a fleet of war vessels in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Nearchus appears to have been fond of gay colors, and he determined that his war ships should be pretty to look at. A modern admiral might have covered his rigging with emblazoned flags, but a more original thought flashed across the brain of Nearchus. Profiting by the Asiatic knowledge he had acquired in the matter of dye-stuffs, he caused the canvas of his ships to be dyed.

Between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries, we have few records of the practice of dyeing, but I am not disposed for all that to affirm, nor do I believe, that the dark ages were so dark in the matter of dye-stuffs as some people say. To practice an art is one thing; to record the practice of it is another. All the historians seem justified in affirming as to this matter is, that no records of dyeing, as it existed during the chief part of the dark ages, are extant. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the art began to revive in Italy; but not until the discovery

ried. They were both of them, Ashbel and Acton, children of opulent New York upper-class people, and knew but little of the actual every-day life of the world. Ashbel had in his own right a property that brought them some two thousand a year. Before his marriage he had selected a cozy spot up the Hudson, where he had built a palatial cottage of the olden time. Just above his cottage, in a bend of the river, the village of Rockville kept up its busy hum. Down to the east, eighty rods or more, the Hudson rolled on, burdened with its ever-varying crafts.

This place, chosen as their home, they called Glendale. There were but two of them; so that a girl for the kitchen and a man for the garden were all the help they needed.

Ashbel and his young wife, in the days of their courtship, had talked much of literature, and the Knickerbocker Magazine, then in its early days, was their chief source of entertainment. At Glendale they thought they had found a paradise. There came the literature of the day. Irving was in his prime; Halleck was writing humorously; and Bryant, in his kindly-touching manner, was the poet of the time. The men who now have a name and a day, were then just merging into literary life. At Glendale they had their own surmisings over fictitious names of Willis, Longfellow, Whittier, and Peter Parley, as we of this generation have had ours, striving to lift the vail from the mysteriousness of Currer Bell, Fanny Fern, and Ik Marvel. Their life was purely a literary one. Ashbe! wrote sketches for the Knickerbocker, and Acton tried her hand at rhymes for the youthful "Lady's Book." For pastime they drove around their grounds; took cheerful boat sails on the river; went up Tanglewood Creek to fish for speckled

trout, and frolicked like children on the lawn. Altogether, they led as happy a life as any one can in connection with worldly pursuits.

They scarcely ever had any communication with the people about the village; indeed, they knew very little of the scenes of Rockville life. Whenever they wished to mingle in society, they went down in a two hours' river-ride to New York. Their friends there kept them advised of all parties among their circles, they acting as the Winslows' agents in forwarding all invitations to balls that might be sent them. Almost every week Ashbel and Acton were in New York, getting as much joy as any worldlings could at dancing parties, theaters, and the evanescent opera.

There, as fond years went on, when there began to be felt a serious want in the family, they were still left alone to their pleasures. If there could only be a little Winslow in the family, then their happiness would be complete. Acton, with a yearning motherly heart, had thought of this matter for a long time, but had never given the thought words. It was sometimes mentioned, but as quickly passed over as a sad subject. There were orphans enough; but having little care for the welfare of others, the Winslows were only concerned about their own pleasures. An orphan, fondle it as they might, would never be their own. So it was that the vacant place and the little chair remained long unfilled.

After a few years of such anxious thoughts as these, their little Kitty came into the family a welcome guest. They had petted a silken-furred cat, that purred at Acton's footstool every evening. When she was well enough to take their little girl in her arms, one day pussy came to her, and looking up with her large intelligent eyes, seemed to ask what it all meant that she was petted no more. Acton turned to puss, and sagely remarked: "Puss, you need not come to me any more; we have another Kitty now!" and she nestled the dear one closer to her heart. From that time, as by a natural impulse, the baby was called Kitty, and puss was no longer the only favorite.

Seven or eight years more of worldly life passed on. One or two more children were given them to gladden the household. Ashbel, Jr., and Acton the second were lovely enough, but they never could seem

so dear to the parents as their first-born, the lovely Kitty.

She was now growing into those years when the mind begins to lay hold of matters beyond the common routine of child life. She began to look beyond dolls and play-houses. She seemed to be entering upon a new life, and to be putting on a character new entirely to the inhabitants of Glendale cottage.

The Winslows had both lived in the great Babel city, New York, as enlightened heathen. There are classes of people there almost too low for Gospel influences; and there are also classes of people that have set themselves up so high that the Gospel seldom reaches them: the Winslows belonged to this latter class. They had been at a celebrated Broadway church occasionally to hear noted prima donas sing; and once, a few months before their marriage, Ashbel and Acton went out of curiosity to hear Newland Maffit. These occasional church-goings were all they knew of Christianity what

ever.

At Rockville there was a homely chapel, where the gardener's people went to church upon Sabbath days; but they were veritable heathens in that Glendale home, knowing less of heaven and the way thither than many a poor slave of the South.

By chance an infidel book fell into | Ashbel's hands, which he often read to his wife. The result was, they soon set themselves up as infidels; very wise infidels indeed! They conversed often together of the follies of Christianity, and sometimes would rally with sneerings the gardener, who belonged to the Rockville church.

For a time they were ardent upholders of their new faith, or rather want of faith. One evening they were sitting rather gloomily in their front room, when Ashbel. broke the silence by a very serious remark for him:

"Acton," said he, "I have met lately several persons who profess to be Christians, and they seem to derive so much comfort from their religion, false or true, I have concluded to let them alone to their own way of thinking. I have too much joy at home to think of setting myself up as the apostle of Nothing; for this is our sect, and I have concluded to let the world run its own course. Hence

forth, let all religion be banished from our minds; we will give ourselves to the pleasures of literature and to the world's joys."

These thoughts met a full response in Acton's heart; and from that time they were infidels, as a dog is an infidel; that is, they had no concern whatever about religious matters. They cared as much for the Bible as for the Koran; both they ignored.

The Knickerbocker was their great oracle, and literature their worship; Walter Scott, Moore, and Byron their gods. Such a dark night as this had settled down over that cottage home! There were times, to be sure, when Acton, for one, cast longing glances into the future, striving to pierce the vail that enshrouded the other world; and deep sighs would often come up when she, like a wise heathen of the Socratic school, would wonder if there were a life beyond the grave. But such thoughts were always banished as soon as possible from the mind. ligious matters, then, for the most part, there was one deep, unbroken lethargic night upon them, and the Lethean stream never found more ready frequenters than Ashbel and Acton Winslow.

In re

To rear a fashionable family, to have children that should honor the name they bore, were their greatest ambitions for the future; poetry and light literature were a sufficiency for the present. Such was the life at Glendale when Kitty was eight years old. Their gardener had built himself a little cottage home on a hill, back of the dale. His house was a place of prayer, and his children were early taught the way of life.

Kitty, who as yet had not fallen in with the aristocratic notions of her Glendale home, was often found at the hill cottage. Mr. Harmon's children, as they afterward learned, would often hold their mimic meetings, and Kitty had become among them, before her parents knew it, quite an adept in child worship. One evening, as she was preparing for her evening couch, she kneeled by her mother's side and commenced:

"I do not know what it is," said the mother.

"I thought mother knew everything." "What is it you want?" the mother asked.

"I want to say my prayers as Jimmy Harmon does; don't you pray, mother?" Those were new questions to Acton. Could she have lived so long in the world, and now be moved so by a child's words? Another day Kitty came running home with a Sunday-school book in her hand.

"Look here, mother, she said;""here is such a fine story; it is Jimmy's book; he got it at the Sunday-school."

Acton did not notice her much. An hour after she saw her sitting in the grapeclad bower, reading her little book. How serious she appeared for a child of her age. By-and-by she came, and sitting by her side, laid her head in her mother's lap. "Sing, mother," said she. "What shall I sing, dear?" "Something good," she replied.

The mother struck up some fashionable song, but she had hardly half finished a stanza when Kitty interrupted, saying.

66

That is not the way to sing. Sing as Willie's mother did."

"Well, Kitty, how did Willie's mother sing?"

"There it is," she said, pointing to a few lines in the book she had just been reading. The lines were:

"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly."

This drew Acton's attention to the book. Willie, a Sunday-school scholar, had become serious, and when anxiously desiring the favor of God, had laid his head in his mother's lap, and she had sung the hymn referred to.

This story which Kitty had been reading had aroused a seriousness in her own mind.

"Now I lay me down to sleep."

She could get no further than those words, and she tried in vain to recall more of that universal child's prayer.

ing a Sunday-school.

O how sweetly she would talk to Ashbel about Jesus the Saviour. These things were sometimes annoying to her parents, but they were so very indulgent anything Kitty might do would be borne with.

She soon began to speak much of her Sunday-school teacher, repeating to her brother Ashbel the lessons she had been taught by her. Finally Kitty began to complain that she had tried to get her teacher to accompany her home to dinner so many times, but had always failed.

"And why will she not come?" the mother asked one day.

"Why, she says you will not want her company, and that she would be an intruder at our house."

Acton cared little who this teacher might be, but when Kitty's importunity could not be hushed in any other way, her mother sent an invitation to the teacher to accompany Kitty home.

The Winslows were looking for some uncouth country lass, whose pious zeal was all that gave her a teacher's place, but were resolved, for Kitty's sake, to treat her as though she were a queen.

In due time she came. Kitty went bounding up the steps exclaiming, as she flew, "This is my teacher;" and that was the child's way of giving an introduction. They were soon all in a pleasant conversation. The teacher was a farmer's daughter of the neighborhood, but was fit for any city palor whatever. There was an intelligent, pious modesty in her whole demeanor that won her way at once to their affections. She being connected with the Sabbath-school, they supposed church matters would most interest her, and ignoring entirely their infidelism, they talked of many things connected with the little Rockville church and its influences. They had obtained their ideas of the class of preachers that officiated there from caricatures, and were a little surprised at the descriptions Miss Alger gave of her pastor. Her conversation excited a curiosity in their minds to go down to Rockville and see how country people worshiped. They talked of the matter through the week, and wondered they had never thought of such a thing before.

Sabbath morning came; with much trepidation Ashbel and Acton entered the homely chapel. It was a new world to them. The singing was none of the best,

but when the whole company present rolled out the symphonies of old Coronation, then just in its popularity, from hearts that felt the power of song, their hearts were charmed; and when the preacher kneeled to pray, and the congregation mingled heart responses with the prayer, it seemed as though the very breath of heaven swept gently over the place. The sermon was delivered in an eloquent manner; no high-flown phrases, no gingerly touches, but words from the very heart of the man. Everything finical which heretofore, even in Maffit, they had been accustomed to, was absent, and truth itself seemed to be the dictator of the Sabbath services. It must be that the great Head of the Church presided there that day.

Through the week very few words passed between Ashbel and his wife concerning the meeting; but when the next Sabbath came round, as by one consent they began to prepare for church. All things continued as interesting as ever. It is one thing to build houses to attract upper-tendom, but another thing to give them the pure gospel when they are there.

After attending the chapel five or six Sabbaths Ashbel, on a Sabbath afternoon, took Acton into the library room, and there they sat in silence for some time. At last he said:

"Acton, these meetings have made quite a change in me; I am almost, as the text to-day had it, persuaded to be a Christian. Mr. Prindle in his preaching offers what something seems to tell me is the truth; and if what he preaches is true, as I am half persuaded it is, then we ought to be leading better lives."

Such had been Acton's feelings, but the ever-present tempter aroused her to evil, and she rallied Ashbel.

"What," said she, "will our Broadway friends say of us if we turn Christians?"

"Who cares for Broadway? it is time we were leaving the 'broad way,'" said Ashbel, still giving vent to a cultivated punning way.

The tears started in Acton's eyes; she covered her face and leaned on Ashbel's knee.

"I wonder if we can pray?" asked Ashbel, as he kneeled down with Acton by his side, and there with struggling emotions they wept and prayed together. It was the first time in a life of over thirty years they had ever kneeled seriously be