and no alms.
Let those who will obey the sod,
My soul sprang from the living God.
'Tis I, the king, who bid thee stand;
Grasp with thy hand my royal hand--
Stand forth!

_Angela Morgan_.

From "The Hour Has Struck."

[Illustration: WALT MASON]

LIONS AND ANTS

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the
way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter
never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up
forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the
scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he
always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once
that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about
a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he
used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and
apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's
thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we
serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but
the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts,
put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our
hearts.

_Walt Mason_.

From "Walt Mason, His Book."

LIFE, NOT DEATH

Sometimes life is so unsatisfying that we think we should like to be rid
of it. But we really are not longing for death; we are longing for more
life.

Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.

'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want.

_Alfred Tennyson_.

THE UNMUSICAL SOLOIST

In any sort of athletic contest a man who individually is good--perhaps
even of the very best--may be a poor member of the team because he
wishes to do all the playing himself and will not co-operate with his
fellows. Every coach knows how such a man hashes the game. The same
thing is true in business or in anything else where many people work
together; a really capable man often fails because he hogs the center of
the stage and wants to be the whole show. To seek petty, immediate
triumphs instead of earning and waiting for the big, silent approval of
one's own conscience and of those who understand, is a mark of
inferiority. It is also a barrier to usefulness, for an egotistical man
is necessarily selfish and a selfish man canno