"The summer vanishes, but soon shall come
The glad young days of yet another year.
So do not mourn the passing of a joy,
But rather wait the coming of a good,
And know God never takes a gift away
But he sends other gifts to take its place."

TURN ON THE LIGHT

A while ago I visited the Atlantic Cable Company's office at Sydney, Cape Breton Island, where many thousands of telegraphic messages pass over the wires and under the sea each day. The manager, a telegraph man of thirty years' experience, showed us about the place.

"That's Berlin," he said, listening to the operators; "that's London; that's New York. Here is Wheatstone's automatic transmitter; there are the Western Union standard quadruples (Edison's). We send four messages now upon one wire at the same time, and could send almost any number, the difficulty being in the adaptation of mechanical contrivances to different systems of notation. Here is the automatic repeater; here the new method of insulation; here are eleven hundred cells, constituting our battery; here are the ends of the cables that start from Heart's Content, Newfoundland."

Thus he went on, making the modern miracle of electric communication as plain as words could make it to the uninitiated.

"In one minute we can send a message to London and receive an answer," he said. "We could do it in less time; indeed, the electric part is done in no time, but, you see, in New York a

man's brain-battery must grasp, and his hand must transmit, the message; then here in Sydney, another man must repeat it; then at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, a third man takes and gives it; then it is repeated at Valencia Bay, Ireland, and then in London. But for these repetitions the question and answer would be exchanged across five thousand miles in practically no time at all far more rapidly than human lips could utter the words."

Looking around upon the army of young men who were keeping up this fusillade by which distance is demolished, we asked: "Do you employ moderate drinkers here?"

Swiftly came the answer: "Not at all; we must have the brain at its clearest, the hand at its best. We can't afford to have young men that drink.”

He went on to say that he believed the temperance workers could hardly overestimate the value to the total abstinence cause of the multiplying modern inventions that put such splendid premium upon teetotalism.

He was right; the sure, slow lift of civilization's tidal wave is with us. Ten thousand forces are perpetually at work to move forward the white car of temperance reform. We who give our whole lives to the movement are hardly more than the weather vane that shows which way the breeze is blowing.

Let us, therefore, rejoice and take courage; every invention, every intricate machine, every swift-moving engine hastens the dominance of Him upon whose shoulder shall yet be a government "into which shall enter nothing that defileth."

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.-Old Testament.

THE TWO GLASSES

There set two glasses filled to the brim
On a rich man's table, rim to rim;
One was ruddy and red as blood,

And one was as clear as the crystal flood.
Said the glass of wine to the paler brother:

"Let us tell the tales of the past to each other;
I can tell of banquet and revel and mirth,
Where the proudest and grandest souls on earth
Fell under my touch as though struck by blight;
For I was a king, and I ruled in might;

From the heads of kings, I have torn the crown,
From the height of fame I have hurled men down,

I have blasted many an honored name;
I have taken virtue and given shame;
I have made the arm of the driver fail,
And sent the train from the iron rail;

I have made good ships go down at sea,
And the shrieks of the lost were sweet to me;
For they said, 'Behold, how great you be!
Fame, strength, wealth, genius before you fall,
And your might and power are over all.'
Ho! Ho! pale brother," laughed the wine,
"Can you boast of deeds as great as mine?"

Said the water-glass: "I cannot boast
Of a king dethroned, or a murdered host;

But I can tell of a heart once sad,

By my crystal drops made light and glad;
Of thirsts I've quenched, and brows I've laved;
Of hands I have cooled, and souls I have saved,

I have slept in the sunshine and dropped from the sky
And everywhere gladdened the landscape and eye;
I have eased the hot forehead of fever aud pain,
I have made the parched meadows grow fertile with grain;
I can tell of the powerful wheel of the mill,

That ground out the flour and turned at my will;

I can tell of manhood debased by you,

That I have lifted and crowned anew.

I cheer, I help, I strengthen and aid;
I gladden the heart of man and maid;
I set the chained wine-captive free,
And all are better for knowing me.”

These are the tales they told each other,
The glass of wine and its paler brother,
As they sat together, filled to the brim,
On the rich man's table, rim to rim.

WATER

Sweet, beautiful water!-brewed in the running brook, the rippling fountain, and the laughing rill in the limpid cascade, as it joyfully leaps down the side of the mountain. Brewed in yonder mountain tip, whose granite peaks glitter like gold bathed in the morning sun-brewed in the sparkling dewdrop; sweet, beautiful water! brewed in the crested wave of the ocean deeps,

driven by the storm, breathing its terrible anthem to the God of the Sea - brewed in the fleecy foam, and the whitened spray as it hangs like a speck over the distant cataract - brewed in the clouds of heaven: sweet, beautiful water! As it sings in the rain showers and dances in the hail storm as it comes sweeping down in feathery flakes, clothing the earth in a spotless mantle of white - always beautiful! Distilled in the golden tissues that paint the western sky at the setting of the sun, and the silvery tissues that veil the midnight moon-sweet, healthgiving, beautiful water! Distilled in the rainbow of promise, whose warp is the rainbow of earth, and whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven sweet, beautiful water!

STRONGHEART

Strongheart was the son of an Indian chief. He was manly, intelligent and able, and his natural gifts had been increased by attendance upon a white school. Now he is home again in the land of the Ojibways, discontented with the Indian life because he is so anxious for further education. This desire is heightened by the presence at his camp out on a hunting expedition of some Eastern students. They have in vain tried to persuade his father, old Kiwetin, to send him the next fall to Columbia University. The old man shakes his head, and afterwards the following conversation takes place.

"You are discontented with our Indian ways," said Kiwetin. "I am discontented with them," Strongheart responded. "You would like to go back to the whites."

"Yes, I would."