The Secret of Pleasing.

A cheerful temper, not occasionally, but habitually cheerful, is a quality which no wise man would be willing to dispense with in choosing a wife. A good wife is courteous, gentle, and sweet in all her dealings. She may be a plain woman, but she takes pains to be always fascinating. Her first thought is never to disarrange, even for an instant, that drapery of pleasantness which a woman should always wear. She knows that if it is the duty of a husband to make the money, it is hers to make life ornamental and charming for him. Her perpetual aim is to give pleasure, to be agreeable, and to be amiable, and she succeeds in making “a happy fireside clime," which "is the true pathos and sublime of human life.”

The way is long, my darling,

The road is rough and steep,
And fast across the evening sky
I see the shadows sweep.
But oh, my love, my darling,

No ill to us can come,

No terror turn us from the path
For we are going home.

Your feet are tired, my darling-
So tired, the tender feet;

But think, when we are there at last,
How sweet the rest! how sweet!
For lo! the lamps are lighted,

And yonder gleaming dome,
Before us, shining like a star,
Shall guide our footsteps home.

Pilgrim Songs.

Art cold, my love, and famished?

Art faint and sore athirst?
Be patient yet a little while,
And joyous, as at first;
For oh! the sun sets never

Within that land of bloom,
And thou shalt eat the bread of life
And drink life's wine at home.

The wind blows cold, my darling,
Adown the mountain steep,
And thick across the evening sky
The darkling shadows creep;
But oh my love, press onward,
Whatever trials come,

For in the way the Father set,
We two are going home.

In the Wine Press Alone.

In the dusk of our sorrowful hours
The time of our trouble and tears,
With frost at the heart of the flowers,
And blight on the bloom of the years,
Like the mother-voice tenderly hushing

The sound of the sob and the moan, We hear when the anguish is crushing, "He trod in the wine-press alone.”

From Him in the night of His trial,
Both heaven and earth fled away;
His boldest had only denial,

His dearest had only dismay.
With a cloud o'er the face of the Father,
He entered the anguish unknown;
But we, though our sorrows may gather,
Shall never endure them alone.

would

Yew it in years to come

Remember

because "She hath done what she could":

FELTER

A Message.

BY EDWIN ARNOLD.

Ethel (age six): "I don't love you any more, grandpa."

Grandpa: "Why not, Ethel !"

Ethel: "Cause I love you so much already that I couldn't love you any more

The Thinning Ranks.

The day grows lonelier; the air

Is chiller than it used to be.

We hear about us everywhere
The haunting chords of memory.
Dear faces once that made our joy
Have vanished from the sweet home band,
Dear tasks that were our loved employ
Have dropped from out our loosened hand.

Familiar names in childhood given
None call us by, save those in heaven.
We cannot talk with later friends

Of those old times to which love lends
Such mystic haze of soft regret;
We would not, if we could, forget
The sweetness of the bygone hours,
So priceless are love's faded flowers;
But lonelier grows the waning day,
And much we miss upon the way
Our comrades who have heard the call
That soon or late must summon all.

Ah well! the day grows lonelier here
Thank God, it doth not yet appear
What thrill of perfect bliss awaits
Those who pass on within the gates.
O, dear ones who have left my side,
And passed beyond the swelling tide,
I know that you will meet me when
I too shall leave these ranks of men
And find the glorious company
Of saints from sin forever free,

Of angels who do always see

The face of Christ, and ever stand
Serene and strong at God's right hand.

The day grows lonelier, the air

Hath waftings strangely keen and cold,
But woven in, O, glad, O, rare,
What love-notes from the hills of gold!
Dear crowding faces gathered there
Dear blessed tasks that wait our hand,
What joy, what pleasure shall we share,
Safe anchored in the one home-land.

Close up, O comrades, close the ranks,
Press onward, waste no fleeting hour!
Beyond the outworks, lo! the banks
Of that full tide, where life hath power,
And Satan lieth underfoot,

And sin is killed, even at the root.

Close up, close fast the wavering line,

Ye who are led by One divine.

The day grows lonelier apace,

But heaven shall be our trysting place.

A Beautiful Classic.

"Ailie" is the gentle old heroine in that touching story of "Rab and His Friends," told by Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh. If you know it you'll be glad to hear it again; if you never heard it, you'll love it from this time on. Never mind the beginning which tells of Rab's grim fight with another dog. The part I like best is that which concerns the dog's comradeship with his master and mistress. For his relations to this loving human pair, it is that I like Rab, the great, grave creature, old, gray, brindled, massive as a Highland bull, strong as Aberdeen

granite. Ailie, the wife of James, is not unlike Jess in that favorite book of a later period, "A Window in Thrums." She is an old woman, when we meet her first, with "her white mutch set off by a black ribbon, her silvery smooth hair

banded plainly above her dark-gray eyes, eyes such as are seen only twice or thrice in a life time, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it; her eyebrows black and delicate, her mouth firm, patient and contented. The poor woman was