quantity of gas, dampness, and heat. This is the theory that empties the universe, not only of an intelligent power, but of all graciousness; it leaves us nothing to love and nothing to expect from the future. Vast Kingdom of Goodness.-The evidences of a God are not to be found in the power and wisdom demanded by the creation any more than the graciousness of nature. There are indeed dark spots in the natural world. Animals often devour each other. There are selfishness and cruelty to be found, and death seems a misfortune. But we soon pass by these dark exceptions and come to a vast kingdom of goodness. It is good in the sun to shine for millions of years and in a benignity that makes the seasons and the zones of life. There is somebody's grace in the light that turns into a thousand colors in the presence of a mind that loves such coming and going tints. If man's sky must have cloud and storm it was a sweet thought that many a storm should end at sunset and make the horizon at the west a thousand times more beautiful for the storm's sake. Thus a black tempest is turned into glory by divine grace. Plants come by help of the sun, the rain, and the soil, but it was a kind thought that they should come blossoming; should come exhaling perfume. Before man's food comes from the wheat, the field must stand for a time in waving gold. On its slow way to the miller the grain must pass by the painter, the lover, and the poet. And the mill itself is often an object of pen and pencil. And then, at last, when the daily bread reaches man he laughs, and is glad while he eats. If life is supported by the sun and soil, it was the gracious thought of some one that the animals should come in beauty, and that many birds should come with a world of song in their hearts. Some animals come with a boundless friendship for man. The dog worships man as its God. The horse of Custer would follow him in the wilds of the plains. It loved to be his pillow at night. It called for him if he moved away from it. The West is wild only to those men who, by studied cruelty to themselves and their poor dumb brutes, have emptied all times and places of divine grace. Could man repair to the mountains, plains, and canons and take with him a human nobleness, he would find that God in His goodness had reached those soli tudes far in the advance, and had put music into every waterfall, and on each mountain peak the halo of a saint. The Creator's Benevolent Wishes.-This spectacle of God's benevolent wishes, as seen in the physical and moral worlds, lies before man lies before man as the greatest lesson ever spread before him. In the schools he may learn many sciences and many tongues; he may become stored with knowledge and colored by literature and art, but his education is most perfect only when he has learned to be gracious. His grace cannot be that of the flower that blooms or of the wheat that bends to the summer wind, but it can be that of the soul. His soul can be like the horses that drew the chariot of the sun-it can step silently as upon clouds and run an errand of only benevolence. To be gracious even to a slave; to be gracious to all the poor, to all the unfortunate: to be gracious to all forms of honest opinion; to be like Cicero, "transient in enmities, unchanging only in friendship;" to make this grace shine even upon all the dumb animals! Oh, what a destiny for the human heart! For matchless beauty the next thing to God's grace is man's grace. It often seems to the religious student of beauty that all the arts, painting, sculpture, architecture, and music, are only the grace of the mind asking material things to become its language. The genius of art is peace. Its statues ought to possess something of repose, its pictures ought to detain not by horrors, but by some everlasting charm; its music ought to join the heart to the infinite; its arches, and columns, and domes should seem able and willing to stand forever beautiful in sunshine, calm, and storm. eye fills with tears at the thought that any of the beauties of architecture should be reared for only a day; that domes and columns must reckon their life with the hours of the ephemeral insect. All art is the effort of the mind to utter its divine peace and to express its attachment to immortality. The dearest quality in architecture is its power to whisper to us the word, the word, "always, always!" The Man's Hope of a Second Life.-It is most probable that man's hope of a second life ought to be deduced not from God's power and omnipotence, but from His grace. The Father who turns the air into music, who orders the plants to blossom, who paints the clouds in the evening, who pours beauty into the hu man soul until it overflows in art and literature as the Nile pours over into a desert and makes sand a paradise-this kind of a God will probably make your death bed a place where the grace of earth is changed for the more spotless beauty of some other land. We dare not say that the Infinite ought to do this for His children, but when we read the history of grace as it lies all written out in our world, we cannot but assure that there will be seen by all of you not many years hence a world, a land, a life more deeply marked, more grandly ornamented, more richly endowed by God's grace.-Prof. David Swing. A BRIGHTER TERM. RHODA LEE. OW the old bell rang out to-day! It is cheerful at all times, but so much jollity and positive hilarity was there in its tones this morning that I stopped in my work to wonder what spirit of mischief had taken possession of it. Cracked through it is, and withal very shaky, it seemed to be putting forth its most strenuous efforts, assuring the many little folks on the way, that whatever the bell could contribute towards the general happiness of school, would most heartily be given. And the teacher of this same little school was making just such resolutions. School was to be happier this term than ever before. There were plans for recreation and development in side lines that were going to help on the regular work. There was going to be less drudgery and more real teaching. It was not necessary that she should teach botany or read "Tom Brown" and "Little Women," but she was going to do both. Calisthenics and club swinging were not on the curriculum, but nevertheless visions of the creditable drill company floated about in her mind. There was the usual amount of hard work before the class, but there was also something a little outside the course brighten the days, to be "in the warp and woof of life," as Jean Ingelow says: A thread of gold that glitters fair, and to There is no difficulty in getting work well done provided it be attractive, and if there is no possible way to make it so, a little recreation beforehand will rest the tired minds and insure the work being done with all good-will and heartiness. Good work, happy days with no friction, should be our aim in the session to come. Strengthen yourself with a new supply of true, womanly common sense and patience. Do every thing in your power to promote perfect sympathy between your scholars and yourself, and with the memories of your own childhood and school-days ever fresh in your mind, the hours spent within the four walls of school will be barren of neither profit nor pleasure. "A very little thing pleases a child" is a saying heard not unfrequently. There is another side to the adage that one needs to be reminded of occasionally. How little is required to discourage a child. What harm a single word, a look, will do sometimes at school. An undeserved reproof given, a childish impulse checked, an effort to please disregarded or unappreciated. How all these things. wound and warp child-nature! Does not the primary teacher require almost infinite wisdom? It is necessary for a teacher to do a little weeding at the beginning of a new term. She must retain all the good plans of former sessions but clear out all rub bish, all that is useless, even though it be ornamental. Thinking over my own plans, I decided once more to make use of the little medals that have adorned my classes for a number of terms. The supplies necessary are three or four dozen brass bangles about one-half inch in diameter (such as are used for fancy work,) a few yards of narrow blue and red ribbon and a box of safety pins. Tie the ribbon through the bangle with a neat little bow and it is ready to be pinned on when won. The boys generally prefer red, the girls blue. The medals are always attended to on Monday morning and are awarded for punctuality and good conduct for one week. No two teachers have exactly the same standard, therefore I will not state when I consider a medal to be earned; suffice it to say they are not too easily obtained. Still there are generally a goodly number of medals to be seen. If managed wisely they are an excellent institution. I know of one teacher who on the closing day of last term, made several good resolutions for this season. Doubtless N the rapid progress of the world from ger of overlooking the real necessity for discipline. Superficial thinkers are apt to associate it with the slavery from which they are escaping and to dissever it from the freedom towards which they are eagerly pressing. But the truth is that discipline, in its true sense, is necessary to the very idea of freedom. The cruelty of the despot, the hard-hearted severity of the overseer, the hasty punishment of the passionate parent, cannot be rightly termed discipline. They do not contribute to any well-defined and valuable end. They are merely the exhibition of selfish inhumanity when clothed with brief authority. True discipline is what we all need to bring out the best that is in us. Every organization needs it to further its objects. The army must be well disciplined, or the battle is lost; the school, or chaos will make teaching impossible; the family, or its mighty power for good vanishes. And every individual needs it for his own development, and to enable him to bring his powers and faculties into orderly and effectual activity. Neither does discipline die with the death of authority. If it has been of the right kind, it is then merely transferred from the authority of others to the authority of self. Self-discipline is, or should be, the end and aim of all other discipline, and the test of its quality; and every one who is at all intelligent will be thankful for having been subjected to a control in early life that has gradually prepared him for and merged into selfcontrol. Only thus can any one experience the meaning and the blessing of freedom, for without it, though no hand may direct him and no voice command him, his own breast will be a scene of anarchy and tyranny, and he its powerless victim. Perhaps no other power is more important in the pursuit of the various avocations of life. It enables a man to submit patiently to whatever preparation is necessary, to overcome natural repugnances which would hinder his career, to triumph over the love of ease, or the craving for pleasure, which would destroy his hopes of success. Many a man with brilliant talents and fine prospects has been wrecked upon these unseen rocks. He has trusted to his abilities, and they have betrayed him, simply because they were not well disciplined. The dry details of his work weary him, its drudgery he cannot bear, its enforced regularity he despises. Presently, to his surprise, he is distanced in the race by those of inferior powers, but who, by perseverance and self-denial, have used them to better purpose. Mr. Hamerton, in his Intellectual Life," says truly, "The origin of discipline is the desire to do not merely our best, with the degree of power and knowledge which at the time we do actually happen to possess, but with that which we might possess if we submitted to the necessary training. The powers given to us by nature are little more than a power to become, and this becoming is always conditional on some sort of exercise-what sort, we have to discover for ourselves." Of course, this power to become" is limited in each individual case, but without self-discipline we can never reach those limits. It is not merely for continuous industry that this power is needed. Often the authority of the mind is required to make as leave off what is engrossing us, to the exclusion of other duties and interests. Much of the overwork that is so frequently prostrating men of business and professional life comes from the lack of self-discipline. They know and will admit that they are doing too much; that they need rest and relaxation; that they are not giving what they owe to their families or to society; but they plead that they cannot help it, which simply means that they have not that power of command over themselves which would enable them to do what they know to be right. A self-poised man has the same control over his various faculties that the practiced musician has over the keys of his instrument, while the undisciplined man strikes at random, never knowing whether harmony or discord may ensue. Not only in the labor of our lives do we ing and guiding, in one way or another, that which owes its being to us. We should all agree if put to the vote that a child has a right to be well born. That was a trenchant speech of Henry Ward Beecher on the subject of being born again; that if he could be born right the first time he'd take his chance on the second. "Hereditary rank," says Wash lusion, but hereditary virtue is a patent of innate nobility which far outshines the blazonry of heraldry." Over the unborn our power is almost that of God, and our responsibility like His toward us; as we acquit ourselves toward them, so let him deal with us. need to preserve this authority over self. In our hours of recreation, in our association with our fellowmen, in the thousand details of life its constant presence is necessary. It distinguishes the strong and noble character from the weak and wavering one. It enables us to choose between the different motives which are constantly presenting themselves, and to stem the tide, instead of drifting help-ington Irving, "may be a snare and a delessly down with the current. Every one has an ideal of life, higher than his actual life reaches. We should all like to be better, nobler, more just and generous and disinterested than we are. Through self-discipline alone can we climb this ladder and approach this ideal. It is by no chance metaphor that we speak of ascending to the higher life, or sinking to the lower. The one implies determination, power, effort; the other merely the absence of all these, the letting go of the moral reins, the abdication of authority over self. For one man who resolves deliberately and knowingly to tread the downward path, there are thousands who merely sink into it from mental and moral inertia. If we lose control of our muscles, we fall to the earth; if we lose control of our mental faculties, we fall into idiocy; if we lose control of our moral powers, we fall into evil. Weakness is the real slavery; strength the real freedom. And this strength is the ever-growing result of self-discipline. Each one may gain it and hold it for himself, for, like every other power, it grows by exercise, and no one who seeks it in all earnestness will seek in vain.-Philadelphia Ledger. right to do what I like with my own But most of us dare not take this ground. We may not philosophize or formulate, we may not live up to our theories, but we feel in greater or less degree the responsibility of calling a human being hither, and the necessity of guard Why should we be astonished at the warped, cold, unhappy, suspicious natures we see about us, when we reflect upon the number of unwished for, unwelcome children in the world; children who at best were never loved until they were seen and known, and often grudged their being from the moment they began to be. I wonder if sometimes a starved, crippled, agonized human body and soul does. not cry out "Why, O man, O woman, why, being what I am, have you suffered me to be ?" As to keeping children too clean for mortal use, I don't suppose anything is more disastrous. The divine right to be gloriously dirty a large portion of the time, when dirt is a necessary consequence of direct, useful, friendly contact with all sorts of interesting, helpful things, is too clear to be denied. The children who have to think of their clothes before playing with the dogs, digging in the sand, helping the stablemen, working in the shed, building a bridge, or weeding the garden, never get half their legitimate enjoyment out of life. And oh, unhappy fate, do not many of us have to bring up children without a vestige of a dog, or a sandheap, or a stable or a shed, or a brook, or a garden! Conceive, if you can, a more difficult problem than giving a child his rights in a city flat. You may say that neither do we get ours; but bad as we are we are always good enough to wish for our children the joys we miss ourselves. Thrice happy is the country child, or the one who can spend a part of his young life among living things, near to Nature's heart. How blessed is the little toddling thing who can lie flat in the sunshine and drink in the beauty of the from her nap to do so!" The sharp, incisive tone, coupled with the sound of her own name, aroused the drowsy Ellen from her stupor, and with shame and confusion she sought to find her place. "The 24th question," said Miss Flint, still in that biting tone of sarcasm. green things growing;" who can live | tion, if she has sufficiently recovered among the other little animals, his brothers and sisters in feathers and fur; who can put his hand in that of dear mother Nature and learn his first baby lessons without any meddlesome middlemen; who is cradled in sweet sounds "from early morn to dewy eve;" lulled to his morning nap by hum of crickets and bees, and to his night's slumber by the sighing of the wind, the plash of waves, or the ripple of a river. He is a part of the 'shining web of creation," learning to spell out the universe letter by letter, as he grows sweetly, serenely, into a knowledge of its laws.-Scribner's Magazine. 44 ARE YOU MISS FLINT? BY AN OLD TEACHER. CLASS in mental arithmetic!" Slowly the long line of boys and girls filed into their customary places on the floor, in response to their teacher's summons-even more slowly than was their wont; for the morning was oppressively warm-one of those hot, sultry days in early April, that occasionally surprise us with the suddenness of their coming, and the intensity of their unlooked-for heat. To this cause, doubtless, was also due the unusually depressing recitation which followed, rasping the poor teacher's tired nerves to the last point of endurance. Even her most reliable pupils seemed to fail her, dragging out to their slow end the monotonous, stereotyped analysis of their several examples. If this was the case with the bright schoolars, what can be said of the drones in the class! Clear down at the foot of the class stood a tall, awkward-looking girl, whose sallow, jaded countenance marked her as somewhat older than her companions, as indeed she was. She stood listlestly thumbing the leaves of her book, and at the close of each recitation lifting her dull eyes to the teacher's face, in evident anxiety as to whether her turn was coming next. But the class was large and the questions long, and the teacher, with intuitive dread, deferred the hardest case until the last, called first upon one and then another, so that the girl at the foot became indifferent, and then drowsy, even to sleepiness, until her head nodded. "Ellen Slade may take the next ques Having found the place Ellen mechanically read the problem, and then as mechanically proceeded to solve it. Had she been called upon earlier in the recitation, she might possibly have made a more creditable appearance; for the formula was fixed in her brain by its frequent repetition, so that she could have followed it after a fashion. But that unfortunate moment of forgetfulness had driven everything out of her mind that would have given her anchorage. She floundered about hopelessly for a few moments and then gave up altogether. "It would seem," said Miss Flint, with withering contempt, "that your nap might have rested you enough to enable you to grasp some idea of the lesson, even if the entire class had not recited before you." The girl colored to the roots of her hair, but maintained a respectful silence. "I wonder," continued the teacher impatiently, "if there is a question in the book you can answer! Turn to the first page and see. Read the first question.” Ellen found the place and read: “How many thumbs have you on your right hand?' One." "Bravo!" exclaimed Miss Flint, "you quite encourage me! Go on." "How many thumbs have you on your left hand? If you have one thumb on your right hand, on your left hand you will have two times one thumb—” A shout of laughter from the whole school interrupted her, and even Miss Flint, annoyed as she was, could not restrain a smile. The poor girl, bewildered, looked up with mute appeal. Evidently, she had not the least idea whither she was drifting. But Miss Flint was relentless. "Go on!" again she commanded. "We are in a fair way to learn some startling facts in science, by your peculiar mode of analysis. Pray go on." But the discomfited girl began to realize she was the sport of both teacher and school. For a moment she tried awk |
