the swiftness, always accompanying an accident; he held tightly in my embrace, and I, forgetting myself, thinking solely of the safety of my ward. After the fearful tumble had ended, I had the horrid presentment of having crushed him! He was roguish enough too, not to speak, until I hastily gathered myself up to raise him, when he laughed lustily! Never was his laugh a happier music to me.

On several occasions I supplied the pulpit of a brother at W--boro', and remained over two and three nights. I invariably turned in with Father B- Cecil was my regular companion, and I was fond of yeleping him "My Elder." He was well fitted to play that part, because of his portly, grave and staid look. His devoted mother having given him over to my guardianship, he, of course, shared my bed with me. never did Cecil

'Lay his body down to sleep,'

And

ere he had knelt by the bed-side, folded his hands and reverently repeated his nightly prayers.

Four years later, when I was ill and abandoned the pastoral staff for a time, I was happily surprised by a letter from my boy-friend, inviting me to his parents' roof, placing at my disposal "a good old horse," and guaranteeing to me "unlimited license to the fish-pond."

The noble boy! He innocently imagined, that flesh had no ills, that "Home" cannot cure.

This was the last of Cecil to me, until my eye turned tearfully away from the cruel notice of his dying, a young man of twenty-four years. Though others have known him longer and later, I have the pleasantest recollections of Cecil-the lad-my BOY-FRIEND.

GLEANINGS OF TRAVEL.

THE GERMANS AT WORK IN THEIR GARDENS.

The art of taking care of a garden is cultivated and understood in Germany to a remarkable degree. No sooner does February furnish an hour or two of pleasant sunshine and spring-like air, than every plain man or woman who hopes to realize some pecuniary benefit from their little patch of ground, is engaged in preparing it for fruitfulness. Indeed, one is reminded all through the winter of the garden-work of the coming spring. Everything that possesses the slightest amount of fertilizing nutriment is saved with great care, and applied to the ground during the intervals of thawing weather throughout the winter months.

The question does not seem to be asked, when spring once opens, whether there will be any more frost or not. But the art of gardening is so well understood, together with the kind of plants best suited to the stage of the season, that a subsequent frost is not likely to affect injuriously any vegetables that these prudent gardeners have ventured to plant. In February, the gardeners in and about Bremen planted many vegetables and flowers, right fresh from the hot-beds. These had no more than ta

ken root before the cold weather, with whole weeks of frost and sleet returned. Anybody who would look with American eyes at those gardens, after such a trial, would very naturally conclude that every plant was killed. I thought so, and the appearance was altogether favorable to such a conclusion. But two or three weeks of real spring weather have shown that the gardeners knew just what they were about, and that their plants seem to be really more vigorous in consequence of their frosty discipline.

There is no disposition here to deny anybody from working in the garden who has the power. Just opposite my study window there are several lots which are owned by different persons, but which are cultivated by women as well as men. Generally they work together; but as far as appearances go, the women know as well how to use the spade and hoe as the men. Indeed, there is no doubt that they are quicker in their movements, and really accomplish more in a day. There is a general disposition on the part of the poor to have a piece of ground, no matter how small, how angular, or how poor it is. Depend upon it, it will soon be dug over, two spade-depths down; it will be filled with fertilizers, and its surface will be as smooth and clodless as if fairy hands had raked it. The gardens are planted with mathematical exactness. You may glance at the largest of them, but not a plant will be found out of place. The division between gardens under different proprietors are often only imaginary lines, there being two important objections to fences between them; first, they cost too much; and second, they take up altogether too much valuable ground. Where a fence would be, the real German gardener can raise a large quantity of vegetables. This economy of ground is surprising, and stands in very favorable contrast with the wastefulness of land everywhere met with in America.

LOVE OF FLOWERS.

The same care of a vegetable garden is exhibited, with even more skill and taste, in the cultivation of flowers. The Germans love flowers; there is no doubt of that. They would submit to any ordinary denial sooner than be without them. I believe if Herr Schmidt were required to pay a tax on every flower that hangs on each fuchsia, or hyacinth, or rose-stalk that stand in the windows of his house, from ground flower to garret he would submit to the publican's demand without a murmur, sooner than give them up. This love of flowers is clearly as common to the poor as to the wealthy classes. The wealthy have their conservatories. No house of respectable size is considered complete without one. And it is not placed in the rear, where nobody can see it, but often on the street, just at the very angle of the house, where the most people would be likely to see it in passing. The flower-pots are very beautiful, some of them in the old Etruscan style, others ornamented with beautiful designs from modern life. Inside these beautiful and costly flower-pots stand the real ones of burnt clay, in which the plants themselves are growing.

But while the universal pains bestowed by the affluent on plants of the rarest and most beautiful variety are admirable, the almost paternal care lavished by the poorest and humblest on such flowers as they can have is touching. The family that is crowded into a single story of a small house is sure to have each window, however small, occupied by flowers There every little projection, a rebellious brick, or a dissatisfied piece of timber,

or a shelf pieced to the original window-sill-is burdened with flowers, They are healthy plants, too, for they seem to be always in blossom, and the leaves are of the freshest verdure. I call to mind at this time the flowers in the windows of a dilapidated house near by. It is probably not less than a century and a half, and is occupied by a very poor family. I have never known the children to be clean or neatly clad; but the flowers that bloom in luxuriant beauty in those old-fashioned windows are worthy of your best mansions on Fifth Avenue. Nor is this any exception. In the narrowest streets and obscurest lanes of the city, in town as well as in the country, there is a love of flowers, and a skill in training them into thrift and beauty, which are confined to no class or condition, and which are exhibited alike by small children and very aged persons.

There is no time of the year when flowers are not saleable. There are several flower stores in Bremen, which are judiciously located on street corners. But a flower-store here is a very different thing from those in John Street, or the flower stalls in Washington market. There is something else to be seen in them besides monotonous drawers, with labels of all the plants in botany, or parcels of seeds, or clusters of dried bulbs, or packages of shrubs ready for planting. First of all, there are the plants, arranged with excellent taste on terraced stands at each end of the large windows, and blooming in tropical splendor and beauty. These windows are a complete study. Anybody who loves flowers can stand and look at them by the hour; and he may be sure that when he returns, while he will probably find some new plant added and some fading flower withdrawn, he will observe no diminution in the surpassing loveliness of the scene. These flower stores are not mere vernal institutions, but are as permanent as the banks-continuing from January to January again. Yet at these establishments, seeds of all possible varieties may also be obtained. Probably no plant, either ready for ornamenting a street window or to be grown from the seed, will be asked for in vain.

But then, there are other flower stores of an humbler kind. There are little booths erected in a quiet place under the shadow of the old Cathedral of Bremen, and kept by old women. The lowly saleswomen may be found there, with their little kettles of charcoal and pots of coffee, during the very coldest weather of the winter. They have beautiful bouquets of dried flowers, which have all the appearance of fresh ones-thus highly is the art of taking care of flowers from first to last cultivated. But they have fresh ones too, and already in bloom. In cold weather, these cannot. be exposed; but if you ask one of the old women for one, she will take a quantity of wrapping cloth from her low tables as carefully as if uncovering her youngest child. She shows you, in time, the very plant you have asked for, and it is simply a want of heart if you don't buy it.

THE PARK OF BREMEN.

In addition to the private care and culture of flowers, the municipal authorities bestow all pains upon them in the public parks and garden. This is not merely the case in one, but in all the German cities. The Wall in Bremen is the park which extends from one end of the city to the other. It is the peaceful and beautified remains of the old ramparts, and is the great promenade of the inhabitants. The walks are well laid out, flowers and trees being distributed in such a way as to present a constant

change of scene. Some of the flower-pots are very large, and are cultivated with the strictest care. There are, at the present time, long and winding borders, and flower-beds of blooming hyacinths and crocuses, which remind one rather of Italy than of the fifty-fourth degree of north latitude. Then the beds of roses and the endless variety of other flowers are daily undergoing the treatment of these painstaking and matchless German gardeners. And if the have succeeded, thus early in the season, in bringing their horticultural charges to such a high state of beauty, what must be their success in the later spring, and in all the summer months?

That the constant presence of flowers exerts a good influence on German character, I have no doubt. The vicious are, in a measure, restrained from the commission of crime; the children learn to be happy by the sight of them; the poor are withdrawn from the contemplation of their poverty, and learn from their flowers that God does not confine his love to any privileged class; while all are unconsciously but surely influenced to a love of natural beauty and reverence of God.—The Methodist.

HORACE, BOOK II, ODE 16.

Otium divos

BY PROF. WILLIAM M. NEVIN, FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE.

For careless ease the merchant prays, when caught upon the main,
And 'mid the storm and starless night, his sailors strive in vain;
For careless ease the Thracians fight, the quivered Parthians sigh;
That boon that gems, and purple stole, and gold can never buy.

For you may walk in state attire, with lictor stern before;
The closer griefs he cannot stay your breast from coming o'er;
For you may loll on tap'stried couch, within your fret ed halls;
The winged cares are with you still; they're flying round your walls.

As happy lives the lowly swain, whose board no wassail stains;
Whose salt-dish, kept with pious care, his highest wealth contains;
For on his eyelids all the night the softest slumbers stay,
Without a fear or sordid wish to banish them away.

Dear Grosphus, for a few short years, why should we strive to gain
A store of future wealth and bliss, which we must grasp in vain?
Why should we seek for softer climes beneath a brighter sun?
For, while our fatherland we flee, ourselves how can we shun?

For Care with us will climb the deck, with us will back the steed;
With feet of stag, or wings of wind, from him we could not speed.
So let us just the day be glad, and still no further seek,
And present evils soften down with smiles upon the cheek.

For who his hopes has ever grasped? Ev'n great Achilles' name,
Though far renowned, untimely death deprived of wider fame;
While Tithon, crowned with length of years, was grieved he could not die;
And what for us has time in store, to know why need we try?

Now on your hills your hundred flocks, your kine, with gentle low,
And carriage-steeds, with grateful neigh, their willing fealty show;
And richest robes are round you thrown, in purple double dyed;
While me, Fate, though in land she stint, has not the muse denied.

Oh, if that muse's spell I feel, her ivy if I wear,
For what the crowd may think or say, how little do I care!

EDITOR'S DRAWER.

THE TRICKS OF SPRING.

"Our first, best country, ever is at home." Be it native or adopted, it is home, nevertheless. What Jerusalem is to the Jew, Mecca to the Moslem, and much more-the centre of the physical universe, is one's native heath. It is cowardly and cruel, ungracious and ungrateful, to find fault even with its defects. Not to find fault, but by way of drawing an agreeable contrast, we would tell our readers, what they of course all know, that the past Spring has played some annoying tricks. The London sky has few showerless days. Although England “invites men abroad more days in the year, and more hours in the day, than any other country, few men have ever spent a day in its metropolis who have not been caught in a rain. Emerson describes the London climate by saying that on a fine day you look up a chimney, and on a foul day, down one." In the villages of Holland, where the highways and streets are canals, servant girls are evermore scrubbing and scouring. And many a strolling tourist has received the soaking benefit of their rude pails, as he passed under their windows.

This year our American Spring has borrowed its fashion from London. Such rains! heavy, frequent, sudden, drenching, impromptu rains, taking one unawares; covering him with water as with a garment. Wooing skies, clear long enough to coax you out without an umbrella, then turning on you with a deluge. Filling churches with devout worshippers, and sending them home dripping wet, like a set of half-drowned ducks; until half the church-going world were poisoned with suspicion, and remained away from their places of worship, lest they might be caught in a rain. Business dull. Stores empty. Clerks lounging on counters. Children forced to play in-doors, and turning the house up-side-down. Housewives kept from house-cleaning. Gardens unmade. Fruit drowning. Stupified quill-drivers scratching their barren heads, and wishing for the return of a clear sky and clear brains, while they are grunting over their blotted, blundering effusions.

Our charming city has been making her toilet for two months past. Indulging in copious shower-baths; coquetting with her citizens, until hordes of them were thrown into pouting and pining moods. No wonder that, after such a long and thorough ablution, she should be gay as a damsel in her bridal robes. Our mountains (here's a sigh for mountainless cities) hold the hand of leafy blessing over us; our shaded streets, thanks to the showers, cleanly scrubbed; our markets filled, and running over; our larders replenished; our stores crowded with buyers; house-cleaning over, and gardens made; our milliners busy at bonnet and dressmaking-coining money; our streets vocal with the gladsome prattling of children at play, and beaming with the smiles of promenades; our people going to church without the fear of rain before their eyes, and saying their prayers without the dread of showers. "The rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come.'