bent the tree's inclined, ye know, but I hadn't never thought that they'd got right and reason to expect I'd do my part as well as they their'n. Seemed as though I was findin' out more about Josiah Emmons's shortcomin's than was real agreeable.

"Come around Friday I got back to the store. I'd kind o' left it to the boys the early part of the week, and things was a little cuterin', but I did have sense not to tear round and use sharp words so much as common. I began to think 'twas gettin' easy to practise after five days, when in come Judge Herrick's wife after some curt'in calico. I had a han'some piece, all done off with roses an' things, but there was a fault in the weavin'-every now and then a thin streak. She didn't notice it, but she was pleased with the figures on't, and said she'd take the whole piece. Well, jest as I was wrappin' of it up, what Mr. Parkes here said about tryin' to act jest as the Lord would in our place, come acrost me. Why, I turned as red as a beet, I know I did. It made me all of a tremble. There was I, a door-keeper in the tents of my God, as David says, really cheatin', and cheatin' a woman. I tell ye, brethren, I was all of a sweat. 'Mis' Herrick,' says I, 'I don't b'lieve you've looked real close at this goods; 'taint thorough wove,' says I. So she didn't take it; but what fetched me was to think how many times I'd done sech mean, onreliable little things to turn a penny, and all the time sayin' and prayin' that I wanted to be like Christ. I kep' a-trippin' of myself up all day jest in the ordinary business, and I was a peg lower down when night come than I was a Thursday. I'd ruther, as far as the hard work is concerned, lay a mile of four-foot stone wall than undertake to do a man's livin' Christian duty for twelve workin' hours; and the heft of that is, it's because I aint used to it, and I ought to be.

"So this mornin' came around, and I felt a mite more cherk. 'Twas missionary mornin', and seemed as if 'twas a sight easier to preach than to practise. I thought I'd begin to old Mis' Vedder's. So I put a Testament in my pocket and knocked to her door. Says I, 'Good mornin' ma'am,' and then I stopped. Words seemed to hang, somehow. I didn't want to pop right out that I'd come over to try'n convert her folks. I hemmed and swallered a little, and fin'lly I said, says I: 'We don't see you to meetin' very frequent, Mis' Vedder.'

"No, you don't!' ses she, as quick as a wink. I stay to home and mind my business.'

"Well, we should like to hev you come along with us and do ye good,' says I, sort of conciliatin'.

"Look a-here, Deacon!' she snapped, 'I've lived alongside of you fifteen year, and you knowed I never went to meetin'; we aint a pious lot, and you knowed it; we're poorer'n death and uglier'n sin. Jim he drinks and swears, and Malviny dono her letters. She knows a heap

she hadn't ought to, besides. Now what are you a-comin' here to-day for, I'd like to know, and talkin' so glib about meetin'? Go to meetin'! I'll go or come jest as I darn please, for all you. Now get out o' this!' Why, she come at me with a broomstick. There wasn't no need on't; what she said was enough. I hadn't never asked her nor her'n to so much as think of goodness before. Then I went to another place jest like that I won't call no more names; and sure enough there was ten children in rags, the hull on 'em, and the man half drunk. He giv' it to me too; and I don't wonder. I'd never lifted a hand to serve nor save 'em before in all these years. I'd said considerable about the heathen in foreign parts, and give some little for to convert 'em, and I had looked right over the heads of them that was next door. Seemed as if I could hear Him say: These ought ye to have done, and not have left the other undone.' I couldn't face another soul to-day, brethren. I come home, and here I be. I've been searched through and through, and found wantin'. God be merciful to me a sinner!"

He dropped into his seat, and bowed his head; and many another bent too. It was plain that the deacon's experience was not the only one among the brethren. Mr. Parkes rose, and prayed as he had never prayed before; the week of practice had fired his heart too. And it began a memorable year for the church in Sugar Hollow; not a year of excitement or enthusiasm, but one when they heard their Lord saying, as to Israel of old: "Go forward," and they obeyed his voice. The Sunday-school flourished, the church services were fully attended, every good thing was helped on its way, and peace reigned in their homes and hearts, imperfect, perhaps, as new growths are, but still an offshoot of the peace past understanding.

And another year they will keep another week of practice, by com

Alight with vanished faces,
And days forever done.

They smile and shine around me

As long ago they did;

For my body is in Segovia,

But my soul is in Madrid!

Through inland hills and forests
I hear the ocean breeze,
The creak of straining cordage,
The rush of mighty seas,
The lift of angry billows

Through which a swift keel slid;
For my body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid.

Oh fair-haired little darlings
Who bore my heart away!
A wide and woful ocean
Between us rolls to-day;
Yet am I close beside you
Though time and space forbid;
My body is in Segovia,

But my soul is in Madrid.

If I were once in heaven,

There would be no more sea;

My heart would cease to wander,

My sorrows cease to be;

My sad eyes sleep forever,

In dust and daisies hid,

And my body leave Segovia.

-Would my soul forget Madrid?

D

William Dwight Whitney.

BORN in Northampton, Mass., 1827.

HOW SHALL WE SPELL?

[Oriental and Linguistic Studies. Second Series. 1874.]

O writers imagine that, the moment we adopt a new mode of spelling, all the literature written in the old is to pass in a twinkling out of existence and out of memory? Certainly there are agencies which might be made use of to avert so bewildering a catastrophe. A Society

for the Preservation of English Etymologies might perhaps be organized, which should make a provident selection of old-style dictionaries and grammars, and store them away in a triply fire-proof library, for the young philologists of future times to be nursed upon until they could bear stronger food. It might even be found practicable, by ingenious and careful management, to procure the construction of a dictionary of the newfangled idiom in which the former spelling of every word should be set alongside its modern substitute, in order to render possible the historic comprehension of the latter. Thus, to take an extreme case or two, the new word sam (a as in far), by having the explanation "anciently, psalm" added to it, would be sufficiently insured against any such shocking suppositions on the part of the future student of English as that it pointed to Samuel instead of David as author of the sacred lyrics, or that it was a development out of the mystical letters "S. M." placed in the singing-books at the head of so many of their number; him (hymn) would be, by like means, saved from confusion with the personal pronoun-and so on. We do not wish to show an unbecoming levity or disrespect, but it is very hard to answer with anything approaching to seriousness such arguments as those we are combating; "absurd" and "preposterous," and such impolite epithets, fit them better than any others we can find in the English vocabulary. They are extreme examples of the fallacies to which learned men will sometimes resort in support of a favorite prejudice.

Many, however, who have too much insight and caution to put their advocacy of the "historic " or Tibetan principle in English orthography upon the false ground of its indispensableness to etymologic science, will yet defend it as calculated to lead on the writer or speaker of our language to inquire into the history of the words he uses, thus favoring the development of an etymologizing tendency. He who now pronounces sam and him, they think, would be liable, if he also wrote those syllables phonetically, to just simply accept them as names of the things they designate, like pig and pen, without giving a thought to their deri vation; whereas, if he knows that they are and must be spelt psalm and hymn, his natural curiosity to discover the cause of so singular a phenomenon may plunge him into the Greek language, and make a philologist of him almost before he suspects what he is about. There is more show of reason in this argument; but whether more reason, admits of doubt. The anomalies of our orthography, unfortunately, are far from being calculated, in the gross, to guide the unlearned to etymological research. For one of them which is of value in the way of incitement and instruction, there are many which can only confuse and discourage. In the first place, there are not a few downright blunders among them. Thus, to cite a familiar instance or two, the g of sovereign (French souverain, Italian

sovrano) has no business there, since the word has nothing whatever to do with reigning; island (from Anglo-Saxon ealand) is spelt with an s out of ignorant imitation of isle (Latin insula), with which it is wholly unconnected; in like manner, an has stumbled into could, in order to assimilate it in look to its comrades in office, would and should; women is for an original wif-men, and its phonetic spelling would be also more truly historical. Again, another part, and not a small one, seem to the ordinary speller the merest confusion (and are often, in fact, nothing better), calculated to lead him to nothing but lamentation over his hard lot, that he is compelled to master them. Take a series of words like believer, receiver, weaver, fever, reever, and try how many of the community are even accessible to proof that their orthographic discordances are bottomed on anything tangible. There is in some persons, as we well know, an exquisite etymologic sensibility which can feel and relish a historical reminiscence wholly imperceptible to men of common mould; to which, for instance, the u of honour is a precious and never-to-be-relinquished token that the word is derived from the Latin honor not directly, but through the medium of the French honneur: and we look upon it with a kind of wondering awe, as we do upon the superhuman delicacy of organization of the "true princess" in Andersen's story, who felt the pea so painfully through twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds; but it is so far beyond us that we cannot pretend to sympathize with it, or even to covet its possession. If we are to use a suggestive historic orthography, we should like to have our words remodelled a little in its favor if we must retain and value the b of doubt (Latin dubitare), as sign of its descent, we crave also a p in count (French compter, Latin computare), and at least a b, if not an r also, in priest (Greek presbuteros); we are not content with but one silent letter in alms, as relic of the stately Greek word eleemosune; we contemplate with only partial satisfaction thel of calm and walk, while we miss it in such and which (derivatives from so-like and who-like). Why, too, should we limit the suggestiveness of our terms to the latest stages of their history? Now that the modern school of linguistic science, with the aid of the Sanskrit and other distant and barbarous tongues, claims to have penetrated back to the very earliest roots out of which our language has grown, let us take due account of its results, and cunningly convert our English spelling into a complete course of philological training.

We have, however, no intention of taking upon ourselves here the character of reformers or of proposers of reforms; only when this and the other principle are put forward as valuable, we cannot well help stepping aside a moment to see where we should be led to if, like true men, we attempted to carry out our principles. As regards the historic element in English orthography, we think it evident enough that its