And stretching o'er the world her arms of light,
   She scatters blessings from the sky's broad dome ;
For then I know that in the cheerless night
   The same pale moon falls light upon the hills at home.

THE RUINED POTTER.

JAMES FIELDING was the son of a potter, and
bred up to his father's trade. He married young
—long before he could keep a wife—and with
both his parents' consent, or rather with their
forgiveness, as they could not help themselves.
For, as they said, it war very nat'ral, an' he
might ha' done worse: 'twar, to be sure, the first
time, an' belike he would'nt do it agen. And
so they cordially shook hands with him, and
pledged the pretty bride in a flagon of old
Burton, and were both present at the first
child's christening. But the cholera came
soon afterwards, and took off the old man,
and his wife. This was the opening-scene of
James Fielding's sufferings—want—pestilence
—and death. His wife and himself were soon
afterwards both seized with the disorder, and,
though they recovered slowly, it was only to
find their father and mother, and first-born
child, removed from their once comfortable
home to the churchyard, and they themselves
with feeble bodies and accumulated debts,
which had run on wildly during sickness.
First, James was put into jail for the doctor's
bill, and then the landlord distrained for rent,
and turned them on the world; and so they
were ruined.

To be in prison, never serves a man; he gets
a habit of shifting and shuffling, and leaning,
and talking, and idling; he has the short
hand-in-the-pocket walk, and the hang-down
look of a jail companion; he is never a man
again. James Fielding came out of Stafford
jail, a changed character: more clever and
less capable of work—daintier, but not so
refined—prouder, but not more honourable ;
the edge was taken from the mind and given
to the appetites; nevertheless, he was a fond
father, for he shortly became one again, and a
loving husband to a wife who doated on him.
But a thoroughly fallen man seldom rights
himself, and bankruptcy is a break-up for
life in the constitution of successful industry.
James Fielding laboured, but his toil was
thriftless; he found friends, but, one way or
other, he let in everybody who had anything
to do with him. By degrees, he got, as was
natural, a very bad character, and, as is
generally the case under such circumstances,
without altogether deserving it. He was an
unfortunate, but not an evil man; and we all
know how falling bodies quicken in their
descent.

Still, he was a man born to suffer, and to
earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Men
of all countries, stations, and fortunes, labour
—from the serf to the lord—and Fielding's
destiny was only that of his sex. But, the
gentle, pretty girl, whom he had taken from
her father's home to comfort and cherish, to
keep his fireside clean, and to nurse his little
ones around him,—her lot was not cast by
God for labour, for toil and moil, and anguish;
yet who can tell what arrows of grief pierced
that woman's heart during her twelve years
apprenticeship to wifedom! Who shall
describe the unwomanly miseries, alas, too
common in England! of her daily shifts and
struggles, her pigmy gaunt looks, her threadbare
clothes insufficient to protect her from
the winter weather, her hard day-labour, her
sharp endurance of her children's hunger,
and forgetfulness of her own: her long sad
catalogue of distresses, compared with which
the pains of childbirth and even the death of
the child at the breast, are nothing, being
feminine sufferings.

This poor woe-begone mother stood before
good curate Godfrey, one of a noiseless
wayfaring body of Christian men who make little
stir beyond their own parish, but are there
constantly felt and heard of; the true disciples
of the Father of the poor, the world's first
teacher of quiet charity.

"He be goin' fast, indeed he be," said Mary
Fielding, speaking of the potter, who had been
down some weeks in a low fever. " 'Tis hard
to lose the father of one's child'en. I could
ha' borne any stroke but thisn. Everywhere
is a churchyard now—the life is dug out
o' me."

"Do not murmur, but think of the past. I
remember christening some of those children,
when he and you were full of health and joy.
In this journey of life, Mary, there is no hill
without its hollow. Your neighbour Susan
Jackson will not have to mourn the loss of a
husband, for she has never known the love and
protection of one; and when she goes, she will
not leave orphans to grieve for her. But, for
all that, Susan is very lonely and destitute,
and says nobody cares for her."

"Mayhap; but Susan Jackson can't be sorry
for what she never had; and poor folk didn't
ought to be fanciful. 'Tis me, sir, partin' wi'
my husband, that should fret."

"But you should remember, Mary, that
when James and you were married, it was on,
the condition you were to part one day. We
must not forget the ninety-nine favours
because the hundredth is not granted. The
Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away."

"Oh, sir, 'tis beautiful to hear ye talk;
you alway say summut so comfortin', feelin',
an' sensible like. One is ashamed to grumble
afore you, 'tis so selfish and ill-natured."

"But how are the little ones, Mary ?"

"I can't say much for 'em, sir,—they be but
poorly."

"They have had some food to-day, I
hope ? "

"'Tis early yet, sir." It was past midday.
"But indeed they hante well."

"Did they eat anything last night before
lying down ? "

"Baby had a sup o' gruel out o' James's