We smile at the robin, with our wise, amused pity, who builds her tiny nest, with such laborious care, high up, out on the waving tree-top, only to be blown away by the chilly autumn winds. But are not our homes, the sweetest homes of our tenderest love, built upon just as insecure foundations, hanging over more mysterious depths? Rocked to and fro, swept to their ruin by a breath of the Unknown? Our dreams, and hopes, and ambitions, what are they all but the sticks and straws that we weave about our frail nests, only to be blown away forever? And when our December comes, are not we too swept away, poor voyagers, over pathless wastes? Yet HE, who has provided a balmy South, as a refuge for the summer birds, to which they fly, intuitively, with blind hope and trust—has not HE prepared likewise a shelter for us, one where we may fulfil our deathless longings, meet the “loved and lost,” and realize our soul’s dearest dreams? Yes, over the lonely way, over the untried fields of the future, ay, even over the Unknown Sea, which they call DEATH, even over that, HE will guide us safely, to a haven, a home, immortal, “not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens”. But I am eppisodin! DEACON SLIMPSEY’S MOURNFUL FOREBODINGS. Thomas Jefferson went to the school-house to meetin’ last night, and he broke out to the breakfast-table: “Betsey Bobbet spoke in meetin’ last night, father.” He addressed the words to his father, for he knows I won’t uphold no kind of light talking about serious things. “She said she knew she was religious, because she felt she loved the bretheren.” Then they both laughed in an idiotic manner. But I said, in a tone of cool dignity, as I passed him his 3d cup of coffee, “She meant it in a Scriptural sense, no doubt.” “I guess you’d think she meant it in a earthly sense, if you had seen her hang on to old Slimpsey last night; she’ll marry that old man yet, if he don’t look out.” “Oh, shaw!” says I, coolly. “She’s payin’ attention to the editor of the _Gimlet_.” “She’ll never get him,” says he. “She means to be on the safe side, and get one or the other of ’em; how steady she has been to meetin’ sence Deacon Slimpsey moved into the place.” “You shall not make light of her religeen, Thomas Jefferson,” says I, in a severe voice. “I won’t, mother. I shouldn’t feel right to, for it is light enough now; it don’t all consist in talkin’ in meetin’, mother. I don’t believe in folks’es usin’ up all their religeen Sunday nights, and then goin’ without any all the rest of the week; it looks as shiftless in ’em as a 3-year-old hat on a female.” Says I, in a tone of deep rebuke, “Instead of tendin’ other folks’s motes, Thomas Jefferson, you had better take care of your own beams; you’ll have plenty work enough to last you one spell.” “And if you are through with your breakfast,” says his father, “you had better go and give the cows something to eat.” “Can’t they come here, father?” says he, leanin’ kinder lazy over the table.