ing with vigorous life,
but the other was dead. As Rounders held the lifeless one in his, he
resolved to renounce the ungrateful profession; but after the burial of
the dead tamer, the ruling passion took possession of him again, and he
did not rest until he had performed the "meat-jerk" with Brutus. Indeed,
he was not satisfied to walk in the footsteps of Brinton, but became in
his turn a creator of a Biblical drama, which he called "Daniel in the
Lion's Den."

ALBERT RHODES.

A WOMAN'S GIFTS.

First I would give thee--nay, I may and will,
Thoughts, memory, prayers, a sacred wealth unguessed,
My soul's own glad and beautiful bequest,
Conveyed in voiceless reverence, deep and still,
As angels give their thoughts and prayers to God!
Next I would yield, in service freely made,
All of my days and years, thy needs to fill;
To bear or heavy cross, or thorny rod,
Glad of my bondage, deeming it most meet:
Oh, mystery of love, as strange as sweet,
That love from its own wealth should be repaid!
Last, I would give thee, if it pleased thee so,
And for thy pleasure, wishing it increased,
My woman's beauty, heart and lips aglow;
But this, dear, last--so soon its charm must fade,
It is, indeed, of all my gifts, the least!

MARY AINGE DEVERE.

THE MODERN PYTHIA.

The arraignment of Dr. Slade, the spiritual medium, before a London
magistrate, on a charge of vagrancy, suggests the rather trite remark
that "history repeats itself."

Spiritualism is literally "as old as the hills." Lying in a manner
dormant through long years, it has had its periodical outcroppings; as,
when absolutely prohibited by an edict of Israel's first king, B. C.
1060; when it was abjured by the Council of Ancyra of Galatia, in A. D.
314; and again when ranking highest among the popular delusions of a
people boasting of their civilization and culture, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six.

Having its foundations in truth, there have not been found wanting, in
the remote past as in the present, unscrupulous persons ready to erect
on those foundations the most stupendous frauds.

The mental phenomena which have given rise to what is called
spiritualism are daily exhibited in some form or other in the life and
experience of almost every one. But the simplest and perhaps the most
interesting meth