breaking of an earthly one. As we advance in the consciousness of spiritual realities, we detach ourselves more and more from the things about us. All real living moves in a series of changes from a lower to a higher conception of the relation, the work, or the possession; and all change in the ways and things we love is full of pain. It is this silent but compelling power in the world, steadily driving us forward, which evidences the presence of divinity in the ordering of our lives. Nothing which comes into our hands quite satisfies us; for noble possession always involves spiritual recognition of the gift, and with spiritual perception comes a new sense of values and obligations. Nothing satisfies because nothing is complete or finished; neither our capacity for receiving nor the gift which is bestowed upon us. In the exact degree in which we are worthy of a great possession are we unable to rest in it; there is that in it and in us which discloses new possibilities of joy, and therefore of service. No man of conscience or imagination can be content with his work, however men may praise it, because as he works his vision of what he may achieve with heart and skill grows clearer; no man can be satisfied with his life, however rich and full, because, as a man's life deepens and widens, its needs grow vaster and nobler; nor can any man be satisfied with the love he bestows or receives, however fortunate his lot, because the very act of loving increases the capacity for loving; and as love grows deep and tender, it seeks, by the law of its nature, higher unity of spirit with spirit and the opportunity of more complete sacrifice and surrender. So the immortal within grows by all contacts with the mortal, and every relation, work, duty, and pleasure has that within it which will not let us rest either in attainment or possession.

Through this necessity, hidden in the heart of all true relations and wholesome experiences, to find realization in terms of the spirit, a constant purification is effected. Love begins in passion, and ends in sacrifice and spiritual surrender; work begins in ambition, and ends in service; the traveler sets out to make a way for himself and serve his own ends, and becomes a humble seeker after the ways of duty and the will of God. The history of humanity is touched and turned to light through all its tortuous and sorrow

ful course by this silent transformation of the mortal desire into the immortal achievement. The youth hears the voice of fame and presses toward it with eager feet; the man struggles with his own sluggish will, his inert fingers, his uncertain visions, until the applause of his fellows is only faintly heard and he cares supremely to do his work with the skill of perfect insight and perfect craftsmanship harmonized in indissoluble union. It is a great price which he pays for the education which makes him an artist; for all education costs in exact proportion to the dignity and significance of the work which it fits a man to do. And all education is, in a true sense, painful. It is the travail of the spirit through which a finer life is being born; and since, for those who live truly and deeply, life is always growing in depth and power and realty and vision, the pangs of birth are never absent; for true living is being born daily into newness of life. -The Outlook.

HOW CHILDREN ARE SPOILED.

BY EDITH CHESTER.

HE well-appointed class-rooms of today present an agreeable contrast to the primitive school-house of fifty years ago, but, now that the struggle waged against long hours, uncomfortable seats and over-strict discipline is at an end, we are inclined to run to the opposite extreme, and continue in our schools the system of spoiling begun in the homes. of so many American children. Strange as it may seem, there was opened last year, in this country, a school which the pupils were only to attend as long as they were amused. No teacher was to say, "Pay attention!" If the child was not sufficiently interested in the lesson to give its attention freely, he was not to be compelled to yield it unwillingly. The child was permitted to remain at home whenever he found the studies stupid, and if the teacher failed to hold her class, she was dismissed, and a more capable instructor selected.

Fortunately, the experiment failed. No matter how attractive the books, how agreeable the method or how patient the professor, there are some dull lessons that must be learned, and can only be acquired by application and study on the

part of the pupil. The sensible parent will realize this, and encourage her child to industry, thus overcoming the obstacle and strengthening the mind.

Sad as it may seem, the words "spoiled American children," so often heard from the lips of foreigners, contain more truth than fiction, as maids, teachers and governesses find to their sorrow. One great cause of complaint is that the parents are too indifferent to the necessity of seeing that their children are sent to school when the term begins. Two, three and often four weeks are allowed to elapse of this precious time, and when at last the child enters her classes, she has lost what can never be made up-the class explanations, the drill in the foundations, and elementary principles. "Poor little thing!" argues the indulgent mother, "let her play out of doors while this lovely weather lasts;" and "Poor little thing!" says the same mother a few months later, "she must not go out while it is so disagreeable; her health is of more importance than her books." So the poor little thing" is kept from the few hours' schooling that would enable her to enjoy an afternoon's outing with more zest, and falls so far behind the other children that she is ashamed to let them see her ignorance. The mother thinks her darling has been very poorly taught, and tries another schoolwith the same results.

A little girl, ten years of age, was missing several weeks from among her school-mates, and her teacher called to discover the cause of the child's absence. Her mother declared that she did not know why her little daughter had been absent, but she would send for her and find out.

"Dearie," she said as the child came into the room, "Miss Horton says that you have not been at school for six weeks, and she has come to see if you were ill."

"No, indeed," said dearie, "but don't you remember on Easter I said I wasn't going back to school for six weeks? The time is up to-morrow. I have it marked on my calendar. I'll be at school tomorrow, Miss Horton, and I'll study real hard, too; see if I don't."

"Isn't she a funny child?" laughed her mother. "I never know what she is going to say next."

Sure enough the morrow brought 'dearie," and she studied as hard as she

could, but she could not make up those lost weeks. There are no words to express the indignation of that mother with the principal when at the commencement "dearie" was the only child who did not receive a certificate.

This same teacher called on a family living on the Avenue, to see if the parents of one of the primary children would permit their little one to join a conversational German class. The child was sent for. She was a pretty piece of mischief seven years old.

"Miss Horton has come to see if you want to join the German class," said the fond mother. "What do you think about it, darling?" As several of darling's friends belonged to the class, darling thought she would join also, and the mother graciously gave her consent.

These are only two of the dozens of instances that teachers have to contend against. Everything seems to rest with the child. Not only the question, "What shall I study?" but "Shall I study at all?" is left to the discretion of children under ten years of age. Their judgment is final. No wonder every effort is made to make the road to learning easy. If the child is happy, all is well; if not, woe to the teacher.

The fear of overtaxing the little brain is so great that the little brain is too often allowed to rest idle and unemployed, and all the habits of application and concentration are uncultivated. The children are bright enough, with a brightness that is merely on the surface. It wears away before the child enters its teens, and all that remains is the pert forwardness that is so harshly but justly criticised by our translantic neighbors. -Country Gentleman.

STORY OF LINCOLN.

PUBLIC interest in the deeds and words

of Abraham Lincoln seems to increase as the years come and go. Mr. Speed, of Kentucky, has lately given some personal reminiscences which never before appeared in print. This selection will be read with interest:

The last time I saw him was about two weeks before his assassination. He sent me word by my brother James, then in his cabinet, that he desired to see me before I went home. I went into his office about eleven o'clock. He looked

jaded and weary. until his hour for ordered the door over to where I was sitting, asked me to draw up my chair. But instead of being alone, as he supposed, in the opposite direction from where I sat, and across the fire-place from him, sat two humblelooking women. Seeing them there seemed to provoke him; and he said, "Well, ladies, what can I do for you?" One was an old woman, the other young. They both commenced talking at once. The President soon comprehended them. "I suppose," said he, "that your son and your husband are in prison for resisting the draft in Western Pennsylvania. Where is your petition?"

I stayed in the room callers was over. He closed, and, looking

The old lady replied: "Mr. Lincoln, I have no petition. I went to a lawyer to get one drawn, and I had not the money to pay him, and come here, too. So I thought I would just come and ask you for my boy."

"And it is your husband you want?" said he, turning to the young woman. "Yes," said she.

He rang the bell, and called his servant, and bade him to go and tell General Dana to bring him the list of prisoners for resisting the draft in Western Pennsylvania.

The general soon came, bringing a package of papers. The President opened it, and, counting the names, said: "General, there are twenty-seven of these men. Is there any difference in the degree of their guilt?"

No, said the general: "it's a bad

case and a merciful finding."

"Well," said the President, looking out of the window, and seemingly talking to himself, "these poor fellows have, I think, suffered enough. They have been in prison fifteen months. I have been thinking so for some time, and have said so to Stanton; and he always threatened to resign if they were released.

But

he has said so about other matters, and never did it. So now, while I have the paper in my hand, I will turn out the flock." So he wrote, "Let the prisoners named in the within page be discharged," and signed it. The general made his bow, and left. Then, turning to the ladies, he said: "Now, ladies, you can go. Your son, madam, and your husband, madam, are free.'

The young woman ran across to him, and began to kneel. He took her by the

elbow, and said impatiently, "Get up, get up, none of this!"

But the old woman walked to him, wiping with her apron the tears that were coursing down her cheeks. She gave him her hand, and, looking into his face, said: "Good-by, Mr. Lincoln. We will never meet again till we meet in heaven."

A change came over his sad and weary face. He clasped her hand in both of his, and followed her to the door, saying as he went, "With all I have to cross me here I am afraid I will never get there, but your wish that you will meet me there has fully paid me for all I have done for you.'

We were then alone. He drew his chair to the fire, and said: "Speed, I am a little alarmed about myself. Just feel my hand." It was cold and clammy. He pulled off his boots, and putting his feet to the fire, the heat made them steam. I said overwork was producing

nervousness.

"No," said he, "I am not tired.”

I said, "Such a scene as I have just witnessed is enough to make you nervous.'

How much you are mistaken!" said he. "I have made two people happy today. I have given a mother her son and a wife her husband."

HOME TRAINING OF CHILDREN.*

BY LILLIE HOFFMAN METZ.

maker fails not so much in making the home beautiful and attractive, not in schemes of money-making, not in the knowledge of how to till the soil to the best advantage, nor the numberless other things that make for material pros perity, but, alas! too often in that neverdying work, the culture of the mind and soul of the little ones entrusted to them.

T is very evident that the average

The sweetest gift of God to man, I think, is the innocent, laughing, prattling child. Pure and holy it comes like a benediction to this sin-cursed earth, planting new hope in the heart, and scattering the clouds of doubt. Dark and dreary would be our world with all its beauty of landscape, its glory of sun and moon and stars, its magnificence of

* Read before the Farmers' Institute at Shippensburg, Cumberland County, Pa., during the session having special reference to the schools.

mountain and its splendor of valley, if the songs of childhood were stilled, and the sound of baby voices forever hushed.

Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,
That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate

Than reaches their trunks below.
They are better than all the ballads
That were ever sung or said;
For they are the living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

Yes, earth would be cold and desolate with the children gone, and heaven, methinks, would be less than heaven if the New Jerusalem were not "full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof."

But the little babe in all its sweetness resting on its mother's bosom, is but the man in embryo. Within that little soul lie hidden characteristics, which trained shall bud and blossom into a life of beauty that will leave its impress on the world, or neglected shall become a bitter curse to itself and a blight to humanity.

Playing side by side are the good and the bad. In the gilded palace of the Pharoahs, on pillows of down, with fragrant zephyrs kissing his cheek, sleeps the heir of the throne, the future oppressor of Israel. Out yonder amid the flags on the river's bank, in the pitchdaubed basket of rushes, lies the Hebrew babe, who shall not only deliver his people from bondage, but shall leave the impress of his character on the ages to come. So it has ever been in the history of the past. "The germs of power were

in the babe who afterward wrote his name as Plato or Cæsar, Columbus or Charlemagne, Alexander or Napoleon."

In the cradles of to-day lie the future Dantes and Shakespeares, the Luthers, and Knoxes, and Wesleys, or the Pharaohs and Herods of the world. And to you, fathers and mothers, are given these little lives to guard and train and keep. Well then may you study what will go toward making the children true and noble men and women. And first you will learn to make your home the sweetest spot on earth. It matters not whether it be pleasant for situation, beautiful in adornment, rich in luxury and refine

| ment, or whether it be the humblest cottage in the land, to your child it will be the one place dear on earth, because it is not made of stones and marble, but of loving hearts.

You want to give love and time and self to your children. Show them that dearer to you than rich carpets and costly curtains, handsome furniture and luxurious appointments, is their pleasure and their happiness. Let love for them be greater than love for the house and its furnishings. Give time to your little ones. If that means a sacrifice to you mothers of dainty clothing, fancy work and social calls, make the sacrifice; for instead of the baubles of time it may mean a glorious work for eternity. If to you fathers it means less time for the one thing that absorbs you soul and body, then give up the struggle for fame and the race for wealth, that you may give some care to that boy or girl, that you may train that son or daughter for God. And not only give time, but let your own inner self flow out to the children. soul meet soul, and heart touch heart. Enter into their plays, their troubles, and their thoughts. Oh! how many griefs and sorrows we might wipe away and how many burdens we might lighten for the little ones if we had only won their confidence and understood their motives. One of the saddest things in the world is childhood misunderstood. How carefully then we ought to study the children! Do you say it involves time and labor and trouble? Yes, but labor and trouble are not to be weighed when we are working on living stones.

Let

Implant in your children the desire to do right, not in the hope of reward, nor from the fear of punishment, but because it is right. Teach them that purity of soul is better than silver or fine gold, that honesty and sincerity are precious jewels to be worn with royal pride, that love for God and his fellow-men is the supreme test of a manly soul, that kindness and truth are gems in the crown of life, For whatever men say in their blindness, And spite of the fancies of youth, There's nothing so kingly as kindness,

And nothing so royal as truth. Among the stones that go to make the foundation of character let there be the clear-cut diamond of truth, insert the pearl of love, put in the crystal stone of kindness, set the marble shaft of purity, use the granite boulder of determination and

self-reliance, employ the iron base of firmness, and the superstructure will rise strong and imposing, and the waves of sin and the storms of temptation will beat against it in vain.

One word in regard to the spiritual nature of your child. Give him soulGive him soulculture, or the day may come when you will count all gold as dross, and fame as vanity, and life as nothing, if you could only bring back the look of the cradle's innocence on the face of the coffined reprobate. Time may find the idol of your heart on the thronged path that leads to destruction, and your heart rent and torn by the cords of love that bound you and your child together. "If I can put one touch of rosy sunlight into any life I shall feel that I have worked with God," says George Macdonald.

Will you so work with God in shaping that child's life that its setting sun may be all golden and glorious, or will you let it sink into the dark clouds of doubt and despair that end in everlasting night? Remember that some of the children that have been given you to train may one day be climbing "the dizzy heights toward which all science and philosophy converge.

But bordering the heights of knowledge there are chasms of doubt and gulfs of despair, and only those may safely climb who have an unbroken faith in and a loyal love for the Saviour.

But for this great work of training souls for life's mission and for eternity, who is sufficient? Where is the parent that will say, "This will I do?"'' It is told of the painter of that masterpiece, "The Last Supper," that ere his genius had burst into brilliancy, his old and famous master bade the young artist finish a picture he had begun. The young man shrank from the task, but at last kneeling before the easel he prayed, "It is for the sake of my beloved master I implore skill and power for this work." As he painted his eye grew steady, his hand awoke with slumbering genius, and his picture was a triumph of art.

And so,

pleading for the sake of the Master, skill and power will be given you to train the spiritual natures of your children that they may "walk through the stream of earthly pollution and through the furnace of earthly temptation and come forth white as linen washed by the fuller, and pure as the golden wedge of Ophir refined in the refiner's fire."

ΑΝ

THE LOVE OF READING.

N interesting experiment has been tried this term in the evening continuation schools of the London School Board. Arrangements were made for a story-telling evening once a week, and seventeen lecturers or story-tellers were appointed to undertake the work. The aim of the course is "to inculcate a love of reading among the boys and girls who have just left school;" and, to this end, the stories told are taken from standard English works in prose or poetry, illustrated by selections from the writings themselves, and also by pictures and photographs. In this way the boys and girls have been introduced to such works as Ivanhoe,' Adam Bede," "Westward Ho!" "David Copperfield," "Hamlet," and "The Merchant of Venice." The syllabuses vary considerably, of course, but in each case the teacher is attempting the same thing-to develop the literary taste and whet the literary appetite of his listeners; to teach them to know good literature from trash, and to choose the former rather than the latter.

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This experiment of the Londou School Board is of wide significance. It touches the whole of the educational field, and it may well cause us all to search our hearts, and honestly ask how far the ordinary curriculum of a secondary school succeeds in inculcating a love of reading in its scholars. How much does the ordinary boy or girl of sixteen know or care about English literature when he or she leaves school? And is it altogether their fault if the acquirement in each case is small?

There is a certain humor, and pathos, too, about the fact that "the love of reading" has to be taught in a special lesson outside the ordinary school curriculum. We have so carefully and methodically mapped out our schooltime and planned the various subjects of study that such a vague and indefinite thing as "the love of reading" is somehow or other squeezed out of our neatly drawn-up syllabuses. It is to be feared that a very large number of the pupils who pass through our schools step across the threshold for the last time with feelings in which a sense of relief is pleas antly mingled with one of finality.

The schoolboy, leaving school for business, throws his Latin book and his