What is done from a genuine, strong, inward emotion, whether in writing or painting, always mesmerizes the paper or the canvas, and gives it a power which everybody must feel, though few know why. The reason why the Bible has been omnipotent, in all ages, has been because there were the emotions of God in it. POGANUC PEOPLE. [Sidenote: Puritan music.] As there is a place for all things in this great world of ours, so there was in its time and day a place and a style for Puritan music. If there were pathos and power and solemn splendor in the rhythmic movement of the churchly chants, there was a grand, wild freedom and energy of motion in the old “fuguing tunes” of that day that well expressed the heart of a people courageous in combat and unshaken in endurance. The church chant is like the measured motion of the mighty sea in calm weather, but those old fuguing tunes were like that same ocean aroused by stormy winds, when deep calleth unto deep in tempestuous confusion, out of which, at last, is evolved union and harmony. It was a music suggestive of the strife, the commotion, the battle-cries of a transition period of society, struggling onward toward dimly seen ideals of peace and order. LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. [Sidenote: Books.] No ornament of a house can compare with books; they are constant company in a room, even when you are not reading them. MY WIFE AND I. [Sidenote: Our thoughts in others’ words.] The only drawback when one reads poems that exactly express what one would like to say is that it makes us envious; one thinks, why couldn’t I have said it thus? WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS. [Sidenote: Books of meditation.] St. John was seated in his study, with a book of meditations before him, on which he was endeavoring to fix his mind. In the hot, dusty, vulgar atmosphere of modern life, it was his daily effort to bring around himself the shady coolness, the calm, conventual stillness, that breathes through such writers as St. Francis de Sales and Thomas à Kempis, men with a genius for devotion, who have left to mankind records of the milestones and road-marks by which they traveled towards the highest things. Nor should the most stringent Protestant fail to honor that rich and grand treasury of the experience of devout spirits of which the Romish Church has been the custodian. The hymns and prayers and pious meditations which come to us through this channel are particularly worthy of a cherishing remembrance in this dusty, materialistic age. * * * * * [Sidenote: Hymns.] Words of piety, allied to a catching tune, are like seeds with wings—they float out in the air, and drop in the odd corners of the heart, to spring up in good purposes. CHAPTER VIII. NEW ENGLAND LIFE. THE MINISTER’S WOOING. [Sidenote: Earnestness of the New England people.]