How the Question Came Home.

In the dusk of a summer evening
I rooked my child to rest;
Then sat and mused, with my darling
Still folded to my breast.

His ringlets swept my shoulder,
His breath was on my cheek,
And I kissed his dimpled finger
With a love I could not speak.

A form caine through the gateway,
And up the garden walk—
And my neighbour sat down as often
To have an evening talk.

She saw me caress my baby
With almost reverent touch,
And she shook her grey head gravely;
"You love the boy too much!"

"That cannot be," I answered,
"While I love our Father more;
He smiles on a mothers rapture
O'er the baby that she bore."

For a while we both sat silent,
In the twilight's deeper grey;
Then she said, " I believe that baby
Grows lovelier every day."

"And I suppose that the reason
I feel so drawn to him,
Is because he reminds me strongly
Of my own little baby, Jim."

My heart stood still a moment
With a horror I dared not show,
While the trembling voice beside me
Went on, in accents low;

"Just the same high, white forehead,
And rings of shining hair,
And a smile of artless mischief
I have seen this Jamie wear.

"And I've sometimes thought—well, Mary,
The feeling no doubt you guess—
That my trouble would now be lighter
Had I loved my baby less."

My neighbour rose abruptly,
And left me in the gloom.
But the sob of a broken spirit
Was echoing in the room.

And when the lamp was lighted,
I knelt by Jamie's bed;
And wept o'er the noble forehead
And the ringlet crowned head.

For I thought of the bloated visage,
And the matted hair of him
Whom all the village children
Knew only as "Drunken Jim."

And my heart cried out, "O Father,
Spare me that bitter cup !
And destroy the liquor-traffic
Before my boy grows up."

—Temperance Cause.