But, ah, thy little Baby sweet
Who was indeed thy God!

RUSKIN AND HIS MOTHER

FROM Præterita BY JOHN RUSKIN

Such being the salutary pleasures of Herne Hill, I have next with deeper gratitude to chronicle what I owed to my mother for the resolutely consistent lessons which so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make every word of them familiar to my ear in habitual music, yet in that familiarity reverenced, as transcending all thought, and ordaining all conduct.

This she effected, not by her own sayings or personal authority; but simply by compelling me to read the book thoroughly, for myself. As soon as I was able to read with fluency, she began a course of Bible work with me, which never ceased till I went to Oxford. She read alternate verses with me, watching, at first, every intonation of my voice, and correcting the false ones, till she made me understand the verse, if within my reach, rightly, and energetically. . . . In this way she began with the first verse of Genesis, and went through, to the last verse of the Apocalypse; hard names, numbers, Levitical law, and all; and began again at Genesis the next day. If a name was hard, the better the exercise in pronunciation,- if a chapter was tiresome, the better lesson in patience,if loathsome, the better lesson in faith that there was

some use in its being so outspoken. After our chapters, I had to learn a few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I had not lost, something of what was already known; and with the chapters thus gradually possessed from the first word to the last, I had to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, which are good, melodious, and forceful verse; and to which, together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear sound.

It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my child's mind, chiefly repulsive the 119th Psalm-has now become of all the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God. . . .

...

But it is only by deliberate effort that I recall the long morning hours of toil, as regular as sunrise,— toil on both sides equal - by which year after year, equal-by my mother forced me to learn these paraphrases and chapters, allowing not so much as a syllable to be missed or misplaced; while every sentence was required to be said over and over again till she was satisfied with the accent of it. . . .

And truly, though I have picked up the elements of a little further knowledge-in mathematics, meteorology, and the like, in after life, and owe not a little to the teaching of many people, this maternal installation of my mind in that property of chapters, I count very confidently the most precious, and, on the whole, the one essential part of all my education.

THADDEUS STEVENS

BY PHOEBE CARY

From the Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary. Houghton, Mifflin Company.

An eye with the piercing eagle's fire,

Not the look of the gentle dove;

Not his the form that men admire,
Nor the face that tender women love.

Working first for his daily bread

With the humblest toilers of the earth; Never walking with free, proud treadCrippled and halting from his birth.

Wearing outside a thorny suit

Of sharp, sarcastic, stinging power;
Sweet at the core as sweetest fruit,
Or inmost heart of fragrant flower.

Fierce and trenchant, the haughty foe

Felt his words like a sword of flame; But to the humble, poor, and low

Soft as a woman's his accents came.

Not his the closest, tenderest friend.
No children blessed his lonely way,
But down in his heart until the end

The tender dream of his boyhood lay.

His mother's faith he held not fast;

But he loved her living, mourned her dead, And kept her memory to the last

As green as the sod above her bed.

He held as sacred in his home

Whatever things she wrought or planned, And never suffered change to come

To the work of her "industrious hand."

For her who pillowed first his head

He heaped with a wealth of flowers the grave, While he chose to sleep in an unmarked bed, By his Master's humblest poor- the slave.*

Suppose he swerved from the straightest course-
That the things he should not do he did-
That he hid from the eyes of mortals close,
Such sins as you and I have hid?

Or suppose him worse than you; what then?
Judge not, lest you be judged for sin!
One said who knew the hearts of men:
Who loveth much shall a pardon win.

The Prince of Glory for sinners bled;
His soul was bought with a royal price;
And his beautified feet may tread

To-day with his Lord in Paradise.

* Thaddeus Stevens, who cared nothing about his own burial-place, except that the spot should be one from which the humblest of his fellow-creatures were not excluded, left by will one thousand dollars to beautify and adorn the grave of his mother.

THE MOTHER OF VICTOR HUGO

BY FRANK T. MARZIALS

"This century of ours was two years old, the Sparta of the Republic was giving place to the Rome of the Empire, and Bonaparte the First Consul developing into Napoleon the Emperor, . . . when at Besançon

there came into the world a child of mingled Breton and Lorraine blood, who was colorless, sightless, voiceless, and so poor a weakling that all despaired of him except his mother. . . . That child, whose name Life appeared to be erasing from its book, and whose short day of existence seemed destined to pass into night with never a morrow-that child am I." Thus in the lines which most Frenchmen know pretty well by heart, has Victor Hugo related the incidents of his birth. To put the matter more prosaically, he was born at Besançon, in the extreme east of France, on February 26, 1802, all declaring that he could not live, the mother fully determined that he should live,— and prevailing. Not thus, prematurely, was to close a career destined to be remarkable for its magnificent vitality. "Victor Marie," so was the boy christened and the name proved of happy augury. In the first fight he came off victor over death. Within six weeks he had so far gained strength as to be able to bear removal to Marseilles; and thence, though still very delicate, he was taken about to Corsica and Elba, from station to station, in the wake of a wandering military father. . . .