W1

ITHOUT going as far a Thoreau did, when he refused the offered gift of a piece of carpet for his hut in the woods, because “ one must resist the beginning of evil," we may do much to keep our lives simple, and unspoilt by luxury, if we choose. The soul, veiled in the pleasant rose-mesh, as Browning called it, of earthly existence, sometimes unawares (like the guests at the banquet of Heliogabulus) is smothered in roses. Not only the eares, but the riches and pleasures of life, choke the tender growth of spiritual things, even in hearts that once willed to be honest and good.

Life, for so many of us, goes for years along a primrose-path, tempting to delay and dalliance. Unnumbered resources surround us for deepening our knowledge, heightening our pleasures, widening our experience, increasing our happiness. There is so much to enjoy. We find, within ourselves, growing powers of perception, of appreciation; and, without, a world of books for the mind, of beauty and delight for the senses. In trivial matters, too, a thousand yearly inventions to save labour, to promote ease, crowd upon our notice, as often as not deepening and confirming the wants they profess to satisfy, and riveting the fetters of our dependence on external things, until we become the slaves of an easy chair or a lamp shade, hot plates at dinner, and soft pillows at night.

Milton's "Comus " speciously argues the case for luxury, maintaining that

"If a'l the world

Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
The All-giver would be unthanked, would be unpraised,
Not half His riches known."

But these

"Reasons not unplausible," which, the enchanter boasts

"Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares,"

do not obscure the vision of the Lady, the stately palace" "set with all manner of deliciousness," the soft music, the tables spread with all dainties she perceives to be but a "treasonous offer," and in a nobly argued reply confutes his sophistry.

66

"

By two wings a man is lifted from the earth, Simplicity and Purity" mused Thomas à Kempis. "But some as Vaughan wrote in his great Vision of Eternity, "would use no wing." We ordinary work-a-day people are too ready to look upon a spare and simple rule of life as only befitting those who are set apart for peculiar offices of service to God and man. We toil hard, we say, to earn our bread, to fulfil our day's work, and these pleasures of mind and sense, within our reach, are no more than our due, our lawful recreation. So, in most

one

of our lives, this recreation, from a means to further fitness, becomes an end. We plan our social pleasures with careful intention, are absorbed heart and soul in carrying out our plans, and all too easily learn to vie continuously with another as far as our means permit, in the smaller luxuries of life. The depression of trade, and general shrinkage of incomes, so deplored at present as a national calamity, must prove a national blessing, if it teaches us perforce to live more simply. "Abstain," wrote St. Paul, "from fleshly lusts which war against the soul," a text whose meaning the experience of each of us can unfold. Which of us has not felt our purpose enervated, our interest absorbed, our inner vision dimmed, our aspiration checked, many times, by over-indulgence in the delights of literature, of beauty, of amusement? Once a means, they have become an end. We, whose high resolve it was never to forget our Lord Christ's example, find ourselves as life advances, consciously compounding with temptation, and turning from the narrow way when it climbs upwards.

If luxury is not insidiously to sap our strength we must be resolute in putting it from us. "When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life; distinguish the recessary and the real," wrote Thoreau to one of his friends.

"No one," Professor Drummond remarks, in his book on Tropical Africa, "knows what a man is, till he has seen what a man can be without, and be withal a man." What a lot of humbug, of pretence, of ostentation, would be cleared away from our lives, if we ceased to aim at the common standards of appearances in social matters, if we valued and recognised each other more honestly for what we really are, not for what we have, or appear to have. If we gave of our real best to our friends, pleasing them for their good to edification (instead of to emulation in all the minor gratifications of the senses, as is the fashion of the day), surely with plainer living would come higher thinking. Having food and raiment to content our needs, might not the minds set free from the planning of menus, the contriving of ruffles and trimmings, be able to take a wider view, and labour to satisfy the greater needs of men?

Great peace is the portion of those whose life is lived above the conflicting cares that luxury and fashion entail. Let us have the courage to act on our belief, that half the elaborate circumstance we surround ourselves with is unnecessary cease to mind earthly things, and remember that every day we may rise on the wings of simplicity and purity, to that serener air they breathe who "will what God doth will."

let us

J. M. S. M.

HEN the Man said: "There is no God," for the din of the city filled his ears, the ceaseless strife of tongues, the echo of his own words, and the self-assertion of each teacher.

But the Angel said: "He has never been alone; he has never seen the finger of God in nature; he has never heard the voice of God in the mountain tops."

So he led the Man away to the land where the eternal mountains reach up to the blue sky, and there the Angel left him.

And then the Man began to climb-he scarce knew why-and after a time he reached pinetrees growing amid huge blocks of granite, and he sat down to rest.

Beneath him lay the valley, and on the opposite side the mountains rose again, and clearly defined against the blue of the sky shone the perpetual snow, almost golden in the summer sun.

No sound of life below, but above him the musical jingle of the cowbells.

From one of the pine-trees came the song of a bird, and all around him was life.

upon

Thousands thousands of ants ran in every direction; glorious butterflies flitted in the patches of sunlight; green grasshoppers hummed in the

grass.

A stone-coloured grasshopper walked over the stone on which he was seated.

He touched it, and, with a buzz, it spread crimson wings and flew off.

He was hungry, and he stretched out his hand to gather the whortleberries near.

Harebells and campanulas grew round, ferns clustered by the rocks-everywhere there was life.

The silence awed him, and he went higher. It was midday, and the sun was shining with an unclouded brightness, but the air was fresh.

He came upon a mass of fallen rock, and all around it grew the wild strawberry.

He had only to put forth his hand and gather. This land belonged to no one, there was no one to say him nay, no voices quarrelled for possession; it was his, as the air was his, the sunlight his.

Such a faint distant roar of waters in the valley beneath, where the cascades emptied themselves -such a tiny tinkling of cowbells, such a mysterious sound in the countless pine-trees.

What did it all mean?

Had this always gone on while he was writing and speaking, and teaching that there was no God?

There was no one to teach here. The birds

would not understand it; the insects who basked in the glorious sunshine would not understand it; trees that pointed to heaven, and the mountains of thousands of years were unaffected by his opinions and his unbelief.

A few more years, and he would be gone, but the mountains would stand on, clad in the everlasting green.

Could the Man write and teach nothing that should last?

Yes.

And then for the first time in his life he ceased to speak, and he listened; and to him came a mighty voice, even as the voice of many waters; and the mountains, the trees, and the flowers said: "It is God Who has made us, and not we ourselves;" and the birds and insects echoed : "We live in His sight. Human eyes seldom see us. We live for God in Whom all perfection dwells. We do His will, and all is well. are a little part of His most mighty plan." The Man did not speak.

We

He had never listened before as he listened

now.

He looked up and saw the sunlight shining on the tiny threads of a spider's web near him. He could never have made the smallest place as beautiful as every spot was here.

A faint breeze stirred the leaves as the sun began to lower, and the Man closed his eyes and slept.

When he looked up a golden light lingered on the snowy mountain, then it faded to be replaced in a few moments by a rosy hue which crept up and up till it reached the top.

Then the Man stood up, and facing the rosetinted mountain he uttered one word-"God." And the Angel came to him and said: "Will you stay here always?"

But he answered: "No: there are others who do not know. I must go back to them."

So he turned from the sunset light, and went back to the great city.

Yet he did not speak and write as much as of old, though he had more to say, for he thought, perhaps wisely, that after all words do little for human lives.

But the reflected glory of the sunset light on the mountain-top never left his face, and, though men marvelled at his influence, the Angel said, "He speaks that which he knows."

And the lives which he touched caught that radiance-a radiance seen only once perfectly in this world of ours, and they joined in the song of the mountains, the trees, and all nature: "O go your way with thanksgiving; be thankful unto Him, and speak good of His Name."

E. M. GREEN.

STELLA

CHAPTER I.-A BUNDLE OF RAGS.

TELLA NEWCOME and her brother were running home together one afternoon, the schools they went to were in adjoining streets, when they passed a house door at which stood a dingy-looking small boy, owning some very dilapidated garments, a pinched pale face, and a pair of very solemn, sad-looking brown eyes.

Sensitive Stella shivered, and drew her shoulders together in passing the house.

"What a cross voice that woman has," she said. "If the people who lived there are gone away, she need not say so like that, as if she would like to eat somebody's head off."

Allan turned his head, looking back at the place and people, and instead of drawing his shoulders together he shrugged them.

"I daresay you would speak crossly too, if you were dragged up a pretty stiff flight of kitchen stairs to answer the rings of a lot of little beggars."

"I hope not," said Stella quietly. She added with a smile, "but does one little beggar stand for a lot?"

"I daresay," laughed Allan. "Beggars present, beggars past, and beggars to come, equal to a lot! And all asking for certain charitable parties who used to bestow bread and soup and cheese and pennies, in other words a kind of charity mince-pie, and who are gone. Very tiresome of said parties, and very worrying for that woman to

be perpetually called upon to repeat the distressing information."

"Not very distressing for her, I reckon," corrected Stella. "She probably owes comfortable free quarters to the fact of their having gone away. But how do you know they were so kind?"

"Don't know," was the calm reply.

Stella pouted, "Oh, Allan, you are too provoking. Why did you say what you did, if you do not know?"

66

'Because I guessed from beggar present. Would that bit of bundle of rags look so doleful at hearing folks were gone away if he hadn't been in the way of getting a good help sometimes of benevolence mince-pie? But come along. Talking of pie reminds me how hungry I am. And do just give a sniff-Oh! Oh!"

His sister gave a sniff, "hot buttered toast."

"Bah! and you a girl," was the comtemptuous retort "Hot sally-lunn, or I'm a Dutchman. I shall spend my twopence on one at this baker's, and get mother to let cook toast it for us, and put lots of butter on."

"Oh! no, please," exclaimed Stella, but she was too late. Her brother was already in the baker's shop, and his twopence lying on the counter to pay for the desired luxury.

If the sister had only known her brother was so rich, a penny would surely have been begged for the miserable little fellow they had passed. As it was, however, regrets were useless now, and the best thing was to please her brother by showing pleasure in the little treat, provided

quite as much with a thought of her enjoyment as of his own.

That night as Stella knelt in prayer by her bedside, she prayed from her heart for the little tatterdemalion, whose deplorable appearance, and sorrowful cry on the strangers' doorstep, had so aroused her pitying interest; and she lay down to rest with the consoling trust that He, who cares so tenderly for the lambs of His flock, would raise up fresh friends for the poor little boy, in place of those she supposed he had lost.

It did not occur to her to think that her prayer was itself a proof that a friend had a ready been provided for the friendless, in the person of Stella Newcome herself.

The next day was Wednesday, a half-holiday at Stella's school, but not at the one to which Allan went, and as the girl walked home in more sober fashion than when the two were together, her thoughts turned naturally enough to yesterday's incident, as she drew near the house from which the roughly-spoken words had issued:"They are gone. Don't come bothering here again, I tell you. They are gone."

"And the poor little boy will have gone too, I suppose, if he has any where to go," murmured the young thinker with a half-sigh, as she looked up involuntarily at the house.

The next moment a low cry, in which relief and pity were mingled, escaped her lips.

"Why, there he is again. I wonder he is not afraid to be so near that snappy person. I should be, in his place, I know."

The next moment she added eagerly, "But all the same, I am very glad to see him once more." And even before she uttered these last words, her hand had begun to feel for her pocket, with a nervous haste as though she feared it might be gone just because she wanted it so particularly.

The fact was that Stella was the happy possessor of two pennies of her own to-day, earned by hemming dusters for Mrs. Newcome. As a rule it may be confessed that the young student thought time so spent was rather wasted, by fingers that could be used in turning book leaves, and holding pen or pencil. But she was thankful enough now that daughterly love had led her to please her mother by fulfilling the distasteful task.

"I can give a little scrap of help, at any rate," she decided as her eyes rested on what her brother had styled "A bundle of rags," and when her hand at length found her pocket the fingers closed over those two precious pennies in the depths, as if they were treasures from a gold mine. She went forward towards the poor little object of her interest.

As she came close behind him she heard the words repeated that had first excited her compassion yesterday-"They are gone-They are gone-They are gone;" but they were uttered in such a low, heart-broken, utterly hopeless tone that the scalding tears sprang into the hearer's eyes.

The small white fingers quivered over those pennies; they suddenly seemed of small account after all, before that despairing grief.

The ragged urchin, with his white face, stood holding on to the handsome railings of the big red house, and the well-dressed young school-girl stood gazing at him with a rather helpless look on her pretty, fair countenance.

Money seemed a useless thing, even if it had been of greater extent, in view of that sorrow, even though it was the sorrow of 66 a bundle of rags." And so the two stood there for some time, the boy oblivious of aught but his woe, the girl of aught but him.

There was no one passing. The house was the last in this the chief street of private houses in the country town, and faced a long, green, winding lane, with fields and a farm at the end.

At last Stella stepped up, and touched her companion on the shoulder. He started, turning round with a frightened cry.

'I'm doing no harm," he began hurriedly, then seeing who his companion was he drew a sigh of relief.

"Oh! d'ye want suffing, miss? I thought you were a policeman. This ain't the way to the railway station, it's-"

Stella smiled. "Yes, it's over there. I know that as well as you do. I live in the town. But you look so sorry about something, that I want to help you, if I can.” The child shook his head.

"Ye can't do that. Leastways not unless you're strong enough to bring them back, what lived in this house, and the dog."

"Ah!" was the gentle reply, "I am afraid I could not do that, even if I were ever so strong, but perhaps I may be able to be of a little use to you as they were, if you'll let me."

The boy stared through his tears. "Why, how can ye! You ain't Taters."

If the little Raggadocio had stared, his companion imitated him with interest. "I am not-What?"

"Not a dog, not the dog," correcting the article, and speaking with the impatience of misery.

Ste la was fairly puzzled. "No, I am not a dog, of course. But see," trying to smile him into a little cheerfulness, see what a good thing it is that I am not a hungry little dog. If I were I might eat up all I could get; but now this twopence is all for you instead. Is not that nice?"

It was disappointing enough to get nothing but another shake of the head in return.

"Nothing ain't nice so long as they're gone, and the dog."

Stella looked up and down the road for something further to say, and caught sight of the gable of her own home. That gave her what seemed a happy thought, judging from her own experiences.

Well, run home to mother, now. I daresay she will be able to think of something nice to make you happy again"

Once more the great tears welled up in the child's eyes. "I haven't no mother. She went dead, and was put away from me down in the ground, when the winter was here."

Stella put up her hand over her eyes for a brief moment. "Poor little boy," she said more gently than before. "But it was not your mother herself, only her poor sick, suffering body that died; you poor little fellow. But if mother is not at home, still it is better to go there, all the same, and not stay here crying, any longer."

"Ain't got no home."

Stella stared aghast. "Where is your father, then?" The boy shook his head more vehemently than ever.

"I ain't got no one, and they folk," with a nod at the house," they've got lots. But-but-" with sobs between each word "I'd-got-the-dog."

Stella's troubles of sore-hearted compassion made her feel curiously irritable, and she said, in a way that sounded almost cross

"But how can you say that? It is nonsense. The people in that house had the dog, you know that; you said so, yourself."

The boy shook his head, big, shining drops shaking off from the heavy eye-lashes as he did so.

"They-they-they," with a big gulp for breath"they fed it-and they-paid for it but I had it. So soon as ever it were let out in the morning it come

And memory proving all too much for the now doubly lonely, desolate child, he withdrew his clasp on the railings, and dropping in a little crouching heap on the pavement, buried his face in his arms, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

To tell the truth, Stella did something very like sobbing too. But it was growing late, and she must run home to dinner; so, popping her two poor little pennies down beside the shaking heap on the pavement, and once more sighing out, "Poor little boy," she ran on to "The Gables."

CHAPTER II.-MRS. NEWCOME HAS DOUBTS.

No one who has a feeling heart, or who has begun to understand Stella Newcome the least little bit, will doubt that thoughts of the little stranger boy, with his poverty and his piteous grief, were mingled pretty frequently with the young school-girl's studies. She spoke of him to her mother, of course, and had leave to invite him to come and have a good meal, next time she saw him.

"But I don't believe now, that that next time will ever come," murmured Stella to herself on Friday night, as she stood at her window looking out at the fair, moonlit scene for a few moments before getting into bed. Thursday and Friday, morning, noon and afternoon she had looked for the boy as she drew near the big red house, but in vain. No where was he to be seen.

"What a lot of next times never come," mused Stella rather after what is terined "Irish fashion." And then, with a half-sigh for the especial next time she wished for now, she went to bed. She had to be up early the next morning, to get a difficult lesson finished before she went to school, a lesson too in which she took a good deal of interest, nevertheless thoughts of Raggadocio, as she styled the boy, mingled with her dreams as before.

"I should like to see him again!" she ejaculated, as she went on her lonely way to school, for Allan had a whole holiday on Saturdays. "I wish I could see him again," was the burden of her thoughts as she was on her homeward way. The sound of a small dog's joyful bark coming up from the lane drew her attention, and the calm, shadowed peacefulness of the green, narrow road attracted her, in her present mood.

Stella had been walking quickly, and had a good ten minutes to spare for private meditation, and accordingly with one glance as usual at the red house, she crossed the road, and paced rather sadly down the lane, a prayer in her heart for the unknown, desolate boy, her "neighbour."

Suddenly her whole face changed, her steps grew light, and prayer turned to thanksgiving. There, beneath the red brown black berries, and the honeysuckle, sat little Raggadocio, and there playing about him in the most unmistakable state of joy and satisfaction was a certain little rough-haired Yorkshire terrier, that Stella now remembered to have seen tolerably often about the gates of the big house, during the year that it was occupied by its last tenants.

"That is the dog you were crying for!" she exclaimed. There was no need to ask.

The little creature sprang on to the boy's knees, and nestled close against him, as if afraid of being taken away, at the sound of a stranger's voice, and the child's hand went over him with a loving air of protection.

"Aye, miss," with beaming eyes. "This is Taters