A month after Mr. Perley’s return to New York, he was preparing to start again, although thousands and thousands had gone before, and were choking up all the avenues of communication to the Pacific and along the coast. His friends urged him not to risk his life again; but his goods were on the way to San Francisco, and here was his only chance to realize a fortune. So he got himself ready for another flight. But just as he was on the point of starting, the vessel in which he had shipped his goods returned to port, so much damaged by a storm as to be unfit to weather the Cape. When she put to sea she was scarcely equal to the voyage, and insurance could only be effected at very high rates. A heavy leak had damaged, more or less, a great portion of the cargo, among which were the goods of Mr. Perley. This damage, so far as Mr. Perley was concerned, was assessed at one thousand dollars, and paid. The balance of his goods were sold off at auction, in a spirit of recklessness engendered by a temporary despondency, for two thousand dollars more. And thus ended Mr. Perley’s California expedition! Disappointed, disheartened and almost beside himself, the unfortunate man wandered about the city in a state of irresolution for a month or two; while his old partner, the cool, shrewd Yankee, was rejoicing over the fine business which had come exclusively into his hands, and saying to himself—“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” At last Mr. Perley’s organ of Hope became again active; and, as intelligence from the gold region came with so many drawbacks, he concluded to try his fortune once more at home, and so, with the three thousand dollars that remained, started his old exchange business in Wall street, where he may now be seen counting his uncurrent money, and sighing over the smallness of his gains. * * * * * THE OLD WOODEN CHURCH ON THE GREEN. BY HENRY MORFORD. They are all laying hands on the things I loved best, They are all closing up my dim past, They are all heaping sods upon Memory’s breast, Till but little is left me at last; But I sometimes look back to the things of old time, And I think of the things that have been, And the memory comes, like a nursery rhyme, Of the Old Wooden Church on the Green. It is little and old in this plentiful age, It has neither a steeple nor bell, It is bowing its roof to the pitiless rage Of the storms it has battled so well; It is guiltless of glass, and the paint’s washed away In the storm and the sunshine, I ween, For no kind hand attends, for this many a day, To the Old Wooden Church on the Green.