A drive over a winding upland road, ever skyward, now crossing a bridge, now skirting a bit of wood, now picking up a wayfaring neighbor and giving him a lift, now turning in at a lodge-gate and passing through a long avenue, tree bordered, and sweet with bird-songs in the loitering afternoon, and lo! we are at home in the realm of the honeysuckle and the rose, with the mistress standing on the porch, her hands extended hospitably and her dear face radiant, and behind her a pretty group, friends, children, grandchildren; the family, not complete without that tried and true retainer, a dare, loving dog.

Arcady is always charming, but it reaches its highest point of beauty at the moment in June when the roses are rioting in their splendor and the honeysuckle lavishes its perfume on every wind that blows.

Deep hidden in the vine-wreaths which form a green and bowery screen for the veranda, we are shown several cunningly woven nests, in which we count four or five small eggs, from which the mother-bird has for a moment flown. It is very impressive, the skill of these feathered parents, and one likes to think of their happiness in building their babies' cradle so close to the house which has been long a synonym for peace and love. The little brothers of the air know their friends, and confidingly rear their broods year after year in the shelter of this rooftree. Their single foe in this domain is that prowler among four-footed creatures, the stealthily climbing cat, against whom the birds have to be guarded, she, too, in her fidelity having claims on the household, and, apart from her desire to hunt birds, being a most desirable member of the family's numerous dependents among dumb animals.

I wonder why we call animals dumb, by the way. They have not our speech, but their language is sufficiently eloquent, and though their voices do not articulate sounds as ours do, they understand one another, and convey more or less of meaning to us. The degree of sympathy we have with our animal friends enables us to understand them or measures our stupidity in their presence.

Rudyard Kipling, in his wonderful jungle stories, has managed to show that even wild beasts are governed by laws of their own, and Mowgli and his friends grow dear to us as we watch their intercourse and read between the lines that there is a day coming, foretold in prophecy, when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and all creatures on the earth live together in harmony.

We do many a pleasant thing in Arcady, but the pleasantest of all is the Sabbath evening sitting on the porch, with the starlight shimmering down on the blue waves of the lake not far off, round which the girdling mountains stand, while the mistress sits in the dimly-lighted drawing-room at the piano, singing the old hymns we love. As her sweet voice lingers in the sweet cords of "Jerusalem the Golden," our souls are uplifted, and heaven is not far away.

A Discussion.

Did the doctor read or preach to-day?" inquired the good man of the house, who had stayed at home, of his wife who had gone to church.

"He read his sermon," was the reply. "I like Doctor much better when he has no manuscript with him, but I suppose on such a very warm Sabbath it was easier for him to have his ideas right there on the paper."

"For my part," said Aunt Isabel, "I don't see what difference it makes to the congregation which mode their pastor prefers. There is an appearance of spontaneity about an extempore discourse, but the probability is that it has been prepared as carefully beforehand as the other, and there is always the danger, if the speaker has only made out his framework, and left his filling in to the inspiration of the occasion, that he will become too diffuse. His illustrations will throng on him as he looks into the faces before him in the pews, and he will very likely wander off on a tack that he did not intend. The written sermon is a strong tower. There it is; the man knows just how long he will be in reading it. If he reads effectively, it goes to the hearers quite as well as the speech which seems more informal."

"The truth is, my dear Isabel," said her brother," that you go to church to be instructed, and so you don't care about the manner as much as about the matter. Now I am a business man and I have great trouble in keeping my attention fixed in church. I am always worrying over next week, and unless the minister gets hold of me, hammer and tongs, I'm somewhere else, though my visible shape is at the head of my accustomed seat."

"It was a good plan they used to have," said the mother, "that of asking each child for the text, and for some thought from the sermon, after the family came home. By that means the young people were trained to listen, a thing which very necessary in all education, religious as well as secular."

is

If the children only went to church as they used to, it would be a great thing for the twentieth century men and women," said Aunt Isabel.

so few golden heads in church.

'One sees

"I think no sight is prettier than a pew full of boys and girls seated with their parents, and if the very little ones grow sleepy, their mother's lap is a good place for a nap. I used to keep a picture book in the pew for my little flock, and a pad and pencil, and the smallest ones amused themselves quietly, disturbing nobody, and by always going with me they grew into a habit of church-going which they never lost after they had come to what father called years of understanding."

The out-and-out Christian is a joyful one. The half-and-half Christian is the kind that a great many of you are-little acquainted with the joy of the Lord.

Why should we live half way up the hill, and swathed in mists, when we might have an unclouded sky and a visible sun over our heads, if we would climb higher and walk in the light of His face ?-Alexander Maclaren, D. D.

Uncle Bob-" What are you going to be when you are a man, Tommy?" Tommy-"I am going to be a soldier, 'cos then I can fight all I want to without being spanked for it."

Miss R. telling her Sunday School class of small boys about the Shut-inSociety, whose members are persons confined with illness to their beds or rooms. "Whom can we think of," said she, "that would have had great sympathy for those shut-in ?" "I know," said a little boy; some one in the Bible, ain't it, teacher?" "Yes, and who, Johnnie?" "Jonah," was the spirited answer.

66

A Texas paper says that, in one of the earliest trials before a colored jury in Texas, the twelve gentlemen were told by the judge to "retire and find the verdict." They went into the jury room, whence the opening and shutting of doors and other sounds of unusual commotion were presently heard. At last the jury came back into court, when the foreman announced, "We hab looked ever' whar, judge, for dat verdic',-in de drawers and behin' de doahs; but it ain't nowhar in dat blessed room."

"My hat b'owed off," said Margie, in relating a recent experience; "an' I tomed tlear home wiz my head bare-footed."

Curious Bits from Many Sources.

How the Capitol of Rome Was Saved by the Cackling of Geese.

The goose appears to have been much maligned by the moderns, who term it a "stupid bird," and even the trustworthiness of modern history has been impeached in support of this imputation. Every one recollects the story in Livy of the geese of Juno saving the Roman Capitol. The historical credit of this story depends in great measure upon the vigilant habits of the bird, and its superiority to the dog as a guardian.

The alertness and watchfulness of the wild goose, which have made its chase proverbially difficult, appear, from the following testimony, to be characteristic of the bird in its domesticated state. The establishment of this fact we have in the following evidence, by Professor Owen, from Richmond Park:

"Opposite the cottage where I live is a pond, which is frequented during the summer by two brood-flocks of geese belonging to the keepers. These geese take up their quarters for the night along the margin of the pond, into which they are ready to plunge at a moment's notice. Several times when I have been up late; or wakeful, I have heard the old gander sound the alarm, which is immediately taken up, and has been sometimes followed by a simultaneous plunge of the flock into the pool. On mentioning this to the keeper, he, quite aware of the characteristic readiness of the geese to sound an alarm in the night, attributed it to a foumart, or other predatory vermin. On other occasions the cackling has seemed to be caused by a deer stalking near the flock. But often has the old Roman anecdote occurred to me, when I have been awoke by the midnight alarm-notes of my anserine neighbors; and more than once I have noticed, when the cause of alarm has been such as to excite the dogs of the next-door keeper, that the geese were beforehand in giving loud warning of the strange steps.

"I have never had the smallest sympathy with the sceptics as to Livy's statement: it is not a likely one to be feigned; it is in exact accordance with the characteristic acuteness of sight and hearing, watchfulness and power, and instinct to utter alarm-cries, of the goose."

The Gray Lag Goose, identical with the domestic goose of our farmyards, is the Anser of the Romans-the same that saved the Capitol by its vigilance, and was cherished accordingly. Pliny (lib. x., c. xxii.) speaks of this bird at much. length, stating how they were driven from a distance on foot to Rome; he mentions the value of the feathers of the white ones, and relates that in some places they were plucked twice a year. In the Palazzo de' Conservatori, fifth room, are

two Ducks, in bronze, said to have been found in the Tarpeian Rock, and to be the representation of those ducks which saved the Capitol."

The Nine Worthies.

These are famous personages, often alluded to and classed together in rather an arbitrary manner, like the Seven Wonders of the World, etc.

The number have been thus counted up as the Nine Worthies of the World by Richard Burton, in a book published in 1687:

Three Gentiles

Three Jews

Three Christians.

1. Hector, son of Priam.

2. Alexander the Great.

3. Julius Cæsar.

4. Joshua, conqueror of Canaan.
5. David, king of Israel.

6. Judas Maccabæus.

7. Arthur, king of Britain.

8. Charles the Great, or Charlemagne.
9. Godfrey of Bullen [Bouillon].

London had also Nine Worthies of her own, according to a pamphlet by Richard Johnson, author of the famous History of the Seven Champions. These worthies are: 1. Sir William Walworth, fishmonger. 2. Sir Henry Pritchard, vintner. 3. Sir William Sevenoake, grocer. Sir Thomas White, merchant-tailor. 5. Sir John Bonham, mercer. 6. Sir Christopher Croker, vintner. 7. Sir John Hawkwood, merchant-tailor. 8. Sir Hugh Calvert, silk-weaver. 9. Sir Henry Maleverer, grocer. Sir Thomas White seems to have been the only quite peaceable worthy among them, whose fame lives in St. John's College, Oxford, and Merchant Tailors' School, London, which school he founded.

From the fame of these personages, Butler formed his curious title of Nineworthiness, meaning, it is presumed, that his hero (Hudibras) was equal in valor to any or all of the nine.

The Invincible Armada.

This was the famous naval armament, or expedition, sent by Philip I. of Spain, against England, in the year 1588. It consisted of 130 vessels, 2430 great guns, 4575 quintals of powder, nearly 20,000 soldiers, above 8000 sailors, and more than 2000 volunteers. It arrived in the English Channel on the nineteenth of July, and was defeated the next day by Lord High Admiral Howard, who was followed by Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher. Eight fireships having been sent into the Spanish fleet, they bore off in great disorder. Profiting by the panic the English