only the little disk of a
second-hand, traversed as swiftly, while the great rim of heaven
accepts it as a part of the eternal round!' Such was the burden of his
sermon.

"He could ride all along the roads, and hear his missionaries
preaching for him wherever a clock struck, or a dial on the gable of a
great stone barn propelled its shadows. His tracts were in every
farmer's vest pocket. Whatever he made he consecrated with a paragraph
of counsel.

"The old sign faded out. The clock-maker's sight grew dim, but his
apprehensions of the everlasting love and occupation were clearer and
more confident to the end.

"One day they found him in the graveyard of the London Tract, by the
side of the spot where his wife was interred, worn and asleep at the
ripe age of three-score.

"The mill teams and the farm wagons stopped in the road, and the
country folks gathered round in silence.

"'Run down at last,' said one. 'If there are heavenly harps and bells,
he hears them now!'"

And there they hear the ticking, the preaching of this faithful life,
under the old stone, sending up its pleasant message yet. The stone is
perishing like a broken crystal, but the memory of the diligent and
useful man beneath it rings amongst the holy harmonies of the country.
Though dead, he yet speaketh!

THE IMP IN NANJEMOY.

Dull in the night, when the camps were still,
Thumped two nags over Good Hope Hill;
The white deserter, the passing spy,
Took to the brush as the pair went by;
The army mule gave over the chase;
The Catholic negro, hearing the pace,
Said, as they splashed through Oxon Run:
"Dey ride like de soldiers who speared God's Son!"
But when Good Friday's bells behind
Died in the capital on the wind,
He who rode foremost paused to say:
"Herold, spur up to my side, scared boy!
A word has rung in my ears all day--
Merely a jingle, 'Nanjemoy.'"

"Ha!" said Herold, "John, why that's
A little old creek on the river. Surratt's
Lies just before us. You halt on the green
While I slip in the tavern and get your carbine!"
The outlaw drank of the whiskey deep,
Which the tipsy landlord, half asleep,
Brought to his side, and his broken foot
He raised from the stirrup and slashed the boot.
"Lloyd," he cried, "if some news you invite--
Old Seward was stabbed in his bed to-night.
Lincoln _I_ shot--that long-lived fox--