ents could see with the vision of boys and if boys
used the eyes of their sires, then fun would be labor, with rapture
elysian, and toil would be play, to the music of lyres!

SUNDAY

Now the day is fading slowly and the week is near its close; comes the
Sabbath, calm and holy, with its quiet and repose; then the wheels no
more are driven, and the noise no longer swells and like whisperings of
heaven, sound the far-off Sabbath bells. Are we striving, are we
reaching, for the life serene and sweet? Not by platitudes and
preaching, not by praying on the street, but by doing deeds of
kindness, comforting some heart that's sore, helping those who grope in
blindness, giving something from our store. If it be our strong
endeavor to make others' lives less hard, then forever and forever
Sunday brings a rich reward.

JOHN BARLEYCORN

I like to find the gifted youth, the youth of brains and virtue, and
whisper in his ears: "In truth, one flagon will not hurt you. He who
eschews the painted breath is nothing but a fossil; just try a drink of
liquid death--just join me in high wassail." At first my words may not
avail, they but offend and fret him, but I keep camping on his trail
until at last I get him.

And having marked him for my own, I glory in the reaping; I feel that
death, and death alone, can take him from my keeping. He's mine to do
with as I will, he's mine, both soul and body; his one ambition is to
fill his outcast form with toddy. At first I take away his pride,
destroy his sense of honor, and when I see these things have died, I
know he is a goner. I house him in a squalid den, and take his decent
garments, and entertain him now and then with rats and other varmints.
I place a mortgage on his shack, despite his feeble ravings, I put old
rags upon his back, and confiscate his savings. And thus I take what
is a man, here in your Christian city, and make him, by my ancient
plan, a thing to scorn and pity.

My victims lie in Potter's Fields in regiments and legions; John
Barleycorn his scepter wields o'er all these smiling regions. I find
new victims every day as I go blithely roaming; a million feet I lead
astray between the dawn and gloaming. With sparkling beer and foaming
ale I am my friends befriending, and to the poorhouse and the jail my
followers are wending. You hear the pageant's dreary song as down the
road it ambles; I wonder, oftentimes, how long you'll stand my cheerful
gamb