ight be good enough for a
heathen, but it does not go nearly far enough for a Christian. If a
miser is like a cormorant with an iron ring round his neck, the man or
the child who lives for his own pleasure only, what is he but a greedy
cormorant with the iron ring? Who would wish to resemble a cormorant
at all? The bird knows the enjoyment of _getting_; let us prize the
richer enjoyment of _giving_. Let me close with an English proverb,
which I prefer to the Chinaman's parable--"Charity is the truest
epicure, for she eats with many mouths."

A. L. O. E.

SUMMER.

I'm coming along with a bounding pace
To finish the work that Spring begun;
I've left them all with a brighter face,
The flowers in the vales through which I've run.

I have hung festoons from laburnum trees,
And clothed the lilac, the birch and broom;
I've wakened the sound of humming-bees,
And decked all nature in brighter bloom.

I've roused the laugh of the playful child,
And tired it out in the sunny noon;
All nature at my approach hath smiled,
And I've made fond lovers seek the moon.

For this is my life, my glorious reign,
And I'll queen it well in my leafy bower;
All shall be bright in my rich domain;
I'm queen of the leaf, the bud and the flower.

And I'll reign in triumph till autumn-time
Shall conquer my green and verdant pride;
Then I'll hie me to another clime
Till I'm called again as a sunny bride.

CHARLIE'S CHRISTMAS.

Oh how cold and miserable everything is! Hardly a thought to be
uppermost on Christmas eve in the mind of a little school-boy; and yet
it was that which filled the mind of Charlie Earle on the Christmas
eve of which I am going to tell you. Only a few hours before, he had
been as happy as any boy could be. Everybody was going home, and
everybody was in the highest spirits and full of the most delightful
hopes of what the holidays would bring them; and now everybody except
Charlie has gone home, and he is left alone in the dreary school-room,
knowing that at any rate Christmas day, and maybe many other days, are
to be spent away from home, and from all the pleasant doings which he
had pictured to himself and others only the very day before.

The coming of the post-bag had been scarcely noticed in the
school-room that morning. So when old Bunce, the butle