and obscurity, and is surrounded with no circlet of gazing
and flattering eyes. There _are_ positions in life, in society, where all
loveliness is seen and noted; chronicled in men's admiring comments, and
perhaps celebrated in adulatory sonnets and songs. And well, perhaps, that
it is so. I would not repress the admiration of society toward the lovely
and good. But there is many a lowly cottage, many a lowly bedside of
sickness and pain, to which genius brings no offering; to which the
footsteps of the enthusiastic and admiring never come; to which there is
_no_ cheering visitation--but the visitation of angels! _There_ is humble
toil--_there_ is patient assiduity--_there_ is noble
disinterestedness--_there_ is heroic sacrifice and unshaken truth. The
great world passes by, and it toils on in silence; to its gentle footstep,
there are no echoing praises; around its modest beauty, gathers no circle
of admirers. It never thought of honor; it never asked to be known.
Unsung, unrecorded, is the labor of its life, and shall be, till the
heavens be no more; till the great day of revelation comes; till the great
promise of Jesus is fulfilled; till the last shall be first, and the
lowliest shall be loftiest; and the poverty of the world shall be the
riches and glory of heaven.

THE BABY AND THE BOY MUSICIAN.

BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.

A cherub in its mother's arms,
Look'd from a casement high--
And pleasure o'er the features stray'd,
As on his simple organ play'd
A boy of Italy.

So, day by day, his skill he plied,
With still increasing zeal,
For well the glittering coin he knew,
Those fairy fingers gladly threw,
Would buy his frugal meal.

But then! alas, there came a change
Unheeded was his song,
And in his upraised, earnest eye
There dwelt a silent wonder, why
The baby slept so long.

That polished brow, those lips of Rose
Beneath the flowers were laid--
But where the music never tires,
Amid the white-robed angel choir
The happy spirit stray'd.

Yet lingering at the accustom'd place
That minstrel ply'd his art,
Though its soft symphony of words
Convulsed with pain the broken chords
Within a mother's heart.

They told him that the babe was dead
And could return no more,
_Dead! Dead!_--to his bewildered ear,
A foreign language train'd to hear--
The sou