the more obscure streets of our crowded cities would welcome it as a
messenger from Heaven.

It is even thus with the sunbeams of the human heart. Trifling
things they are in themselves, for the heart is wonderfully
constituted, and it vibrates to the slightest touch; but without
them life is a blank--all seems cold and lifeless as the marble slab
which marks the spot where the departed loved one lies.

A gloomy home was that of Henry Howard, and yet all the elements of
human happiness seemed to be there. Wealth sufficient to secure all
the comforts and many of the luxuries of life, was theirs, and both
husband and wife were regarded by their numerous acquaintances as
exceedingly intelligent and estimable people--and so indeed they
were. The light tread of childhood was not wanting in their home,
although its merry laugh was seldom heard, for the little children
seemed to possess a gravity beyond their years, and that glad
joyousness which it is so delightful to witness in infancy, was with
them seldom or never visible.

Life's sunbeams seemed strangely wanting, yet the why and wherefore
was to the casual observer an unfathomable mystery.

Years before, that wife and mother had left the home of her
childhood a happy and trusting bride. Scarcely seventeen, the love
which she had bestowed upon him who was now her husband, was the
first pure affections of her virgin heart, and in many respects he
was worthy of her love, and, as far as was in his nature, returned
it. Her senior by many years, he was possessed of high moral
principles, good intellectual endowments, and an unblemished