THE OWL CRITIC.

"WHO stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop; The barber was busy and he couldn't stop;

The customers, waiting their turn, were all reading
The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding

The young man who blurted out such a blunt question;
Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion; -
And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,

How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is, —
In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis !

I make no apology;

I've learned owl-eology.

I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections,
And cannot be blinded to any deflections

Arising from unskilful fingers that fail

To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!

Do take that bird down,

Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"

And the barber kept on shaving.

"I've studied owls, and other night fowls,
And I tell you what I know to be true:

An owl cannot roost with his limbs so unloosed
No owl in this world ever had his claws curled,
Ever had his legs slanted, ever had his bill canted,
Ever had his neck screwed into that attitude.
He can't do it, because 'tis against all bird laws.
Anatomy teaches, ornithology preaches,
An owl has a toe that can't turn out so!

I've made the white owl my study for years,

And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!

Mister Brown, I'm amazed you should be so gone crazed
As to put up a bird in that posture absurd!

To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;

The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!"

And the barber kept on shaving.

"Examine those eyes, I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem they'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh to encounter such chaff.

Do take that bird down; have him stuffed again, Brown!"
And the barber kept on shaving.

"With some sawdust and bark I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that, I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl than that horrid fowl,
Stuck up there so stiff, like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic,
And then fairly hooted, as if he should say:

66

Your learning 's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird I pray. I'm an owl; you're another.

Sir Critic, good-day!
And the barber kept on shaving.
JAMES T. FIELDS.

TIME.

TIME is the solemn inheritance to which every man is born heir, who has a life-rent of this world, a little section cut out of eternity, and given us to do our work in; an eternity before, an eternity behind: and the small stream between, floating swiftly from the one into the vast bosom of the other. The man who has felt, with all his soul, the significance of time, will not be long in learning any lesson that this world has to teach him. Have you ever felt it? Have you ever realized how your own little streamlet is gliding away and bearing you along with it towards that awful other world of which all things here are but thin shadows, down into that eternity towards which the confused wreck of all earthly things is bound?

Let us realize, that, until that sensation of time, and the infinite meaning which is wrapped up in it, has taken possession of

our souls, there is no chance of our ever feeling strongly that it is worse than madness to sleep that time away. Every day in this world has its work; and every day, as it rises out of eternity, keeps putting to each of us the question afresh, What will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again?

And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing TIME? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour of it in the garden of Gethsemane they go to sleep! Have you ever seen those marble statues, in some public square or garden, which art has so finished into a perennial fountain that through the lips or through the hands the clear water flows in a perpetual stream on and on forever, and the marble stands there,passive, cold,-making no effort to arrest the gliding water?

It is so that time flows through the hands of men - swift, never pausing till it has run itself out; and there is the man petrified into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing away forever! It is so, just so, that the destiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself, slipping away from them aimless, useless, till it is too late. And we are asked, with all the solemn thoughts which crowd around our approaching eternity, What has been our life, and what do we intend it shall be?

Yesterday, last week, last year, they are gone! Yesterday was such a day as never was before, and never can be again. Out of darkness and eternity it was born, a new, fresh day; into darkness and eternity it sank again forever. It had a voice, calling to us of its own, its own work, its own duties. What were we doing yesterday? Idling, whiling away the time, in light and luxurious literature; not as life's relaxation, but as life's business? Thrilling our hearts with the excitement of life, contriving how to spend the day most pleasantly? Was that our day?

All this is but the sleep of the three apostles. And now let us remember this: There is a day coming when the sleep will he broken rudely, with a shock; there is a day in our future lives when our time will be counted, not by years, nor by months, nor yet by hours, but by minutes, the day when unmistakable symptoms shall announce that the messenger of death has come to take us.

That startling moment will come, which it is vain to attempt to realize now, when it will be felt that it is all over at last

that our chance and our trial are past. The moment that we have tried to think of, shrunk from, put away from us, here it is going, too, like all other moments that have gone before it; and then with eyes unsealed at last, we shall look back on the life which is gone by.

ROBERTSON.

THE SLEEP.

"He giveth His beloved sleep." - PSALM 127: 2.

Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar,
Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is
For gift or grace, surpassing this
"He giveth His beloved sleep"?

What would we give to our beloved?
The hero's heart to be unmoved,
The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep,
The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse,
The monarch's crown, to light the brows?
He giveth His beloved sleep.

What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith all undisproved,
A little dust to overweep,

And bitter memories to make

The whole earth blasted for our sake.

He giveth His beloved sleep.

"Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say,
But have no tune to charm away

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;
But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber when
He giveth His beloved sleep.

O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices !

O delved gold, the wailler's heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God strikes a silence through you all,
And giveth His beloved sleep.

His dews drop mutely on the hill,
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men sow and reap.
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
He giveth His beloved sleep.

Ay, men may wonder while they scan
A living, thinking, feeling man,
Confirmed in such a rest to keep:
But angels say, and through the word
I think their happy smile is heard, -
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

For me, my heart that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,

That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,

Would childlike on His love repose,

Who giveth His beloved sleep.

And, friends, dear friends, — when it shall be
That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep,
Let one, most loving of you all,
Sây, "Not a tear must o'er her fall
'He giveth His beloved sleep.'"

MRS. E. B. BROWNING.

SHE WOULD BE A MASON.

THE funniest thing I ever heard,

The funniest thing that ever occurred,
Is the story of Mrs. Mehitable Byrde,
Who wanted to be a Mason.