The silent tears that fall at dead of night Over soiled robes which once were pure and white;

The prayers that rise like incense from the soul,

Longing for Christ to make it clean and whole:

These are not lost.

The happy dreams that gladdened all our youth,

When dreams had less of self and more of truth;

The childish faith so tranquil and so sweet,

Which sat like Mary at the Master's feet:
These are not lost.

The kindly plans devised for other's good,
So seldom guessed, so little understood:
The quiet, steadfast love that strove to win
Some wanderer from the woeful ways of sin:
These are not lost.

Not lost, O Lord, for iu Thy city bright Our eyes shall see the past by clearer light; And things long hidden from our gaze below Thou wilt reveal, and we shall surely know They were not lost.

HABITS OF OBSERVATION. Every boy should cultivate the faculty of observation. If he does so designedly, it will not be long before he will do so unconsciously. It is better to learn a thing by observation than by experience, especially if it is something to our detriment. I would prefer to know which is the toadstool and which is the mushroom by observation rather than by experiment, for the latter might cost me my life. There is hardly a vocation in which observation is not of great service, and in many it is absolutely essential. It adds to the proficiency of the chemist, the naturalist, the mining expert, and the frontiersman. Observation quickens experiment. It leads to inference, to deduction, to classification, and thus theories are formu

lated and sciences established.

An observing boy will become an observing man, and as boy and man he will have an advantage over those who have not cultivated the faculty. Galileo noticed the swaying of a chandelier in a cathedral, and it suggested the pendulum to him. To another inventor the power of steam and its application was suggested by the kettle on the stove. A poor monk discovered gunpowder, and an optician's boy the magnifying lens.

SARAH DOUDNEY.

Two boys of my acquaintance one morning took a walk with a naturalist.

"Do you notice anything peculiar in the movement of those wasps ?" he asked, as he pointed to a puddle in the middle of the road.

"Nothing, except that they seem to come and go," replied one of the boys.

The other was less prompt in his reply, but he had observed to some purpose.

"I notice that they fly away in pairs," he said. "One has a little pellet of mud, the other nothing. Are there drones among wasps, as among bees?"

"Both are alike busy, and each went away with a burden," replied the naturalist. "The one you thought a 'do-nothing' had a mouthful of water. They reach their nest to-gether; the one deposits his pellet of mud, and the other ejects the water upon it, which makes it of the consistency of mortar. Then they pud dle it upon the nest, and fly away for more materials.”

You see, one boy observed a little, and the other & good deal more, while the naturalist had something to tell them that surprised them very much.

Boys, be observant. Cultivate the

faculty. Hear sharply, look keenly. Glance at a shop window when you pass, and then try and see how many things you can recall that you noticed in it. You may not become great men through your observations, like Newton, Linnæus, Franklin, or Sir Humphrey Davy, but you will acquire information that will be of service to you, and make you wiser, and quite probably much better men.-J. Bor

rows.

THE HARM IT DOES.

I mean strong drink, children. And only a small part of the harm. I could not tell you all if I talked a whole week. It is the harm it does to the splendid body which God has given to us. You know what our bodies are nice, white skin; sound, firm flesh on good, strong bones, with little purple rivers of arteries and veins running through it; bright eyes, steady feet, and strong handswhy, ought not folks to be ashamed to do anything to spoil such a perfect piece of the Creator's work?

"Yes! yes, indeed!" you all say. Now, you look at a person who drinks-do you find any of these things? Red nose, red eyes, dark, wrinkled skin, shaky hands, feet that won't walk straight, mind that can't remember-nothing at all that you can see as God made it. Why, boys and girls, and women, too, are afraid of a drunken man, because they know he isn't himself at all, but given up to a bad spirit; and there is no telling what he will do.

You all know what it means to be paralized-not to have any motion or power in the part affected. That is just how alcohol affects the body a short time after it is taken into the stomach. All the little tissues and nerves yield to it, and it goes to the brain, turning into something resem

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bling the white of a hard boiled egg. Do you think such leathery stuff could do much thinking? Do you wonder that the drunkard, with his stiffened nerves and white-of-egg brain, tumbles over and lies like a log in the gutter?

BEES WHICH HAVE NO STING.

Be persevering.-Many a lad makes a good beginning and stops there. He may be sharp and clever, but he tires too early, and he isn't even like the hare in the fable, he never finishes. He is always finding something which he thinks he could do better than the thing he has in hand.

Be kind. Some boys growl at their sisters and brothers like bears in a bad temper. It is a great deal easier to talk gently and pleasantly, and far more profitable, for it brings in a good crop of kindness in return. The boy who thinks everybody is grumbling and finding fault with him

should examine himself and see if some of his own seeds are not springing up.

Be truthful.—This is a hard task to a boy, but it is worth all the trouble it costs. And the first step in that direction is to cease to tell lies "in fun". The world is full of fun without there being any need to fall back upon lying for it. The boy who is always telling lies in fun very easily falls into the habit of telling lies in all seriousness.

Be honest.-There is a popular saying amongst childen that Findings are keeping," and this has led to the finding of many things before they are lost. If everybody would allow the so-called lost things to remain where they are, the owners would recover far more of them than they do.

Be a man.-Some boys consider smoking is the first step in this direction, and a moustache and a swagger

the next. They are mistaken. The first leads to sickness, and commonly a good birching, as it deserves; the seconds seem to be the exclusive cultivation of fools. A good boy-one who is kind and considerate at home, and who knows how to work well at school, and who knows how to play well at the proper time, generally makes a good man.

BACKBONE.

One is tempted to ask, "How is backbone to be formed in the rising generation of Christians, if everything about the religious life is made so pleasant and easy? If sermons must be so light or short as hardly to involve any effort of attention on the part of the hearer, and the rest of the service is to be a bright little

concert? And if the other hours of the day given us to be spent at the gates of Heaven are to be merely enlivened with 'Sunday talk?'"

We are in great danger of degenerating into molluscous Christians. Christian preachers and writers ought, I think, to be continually reminding their people of the place of self

denial in the Christian life. If we let down the tone of the church in this respect it may please God to give her a new chapter of the discipline of persecution, for that has been the great means usually employed for teaching her that the Cross has to be

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borne in another sense than as an ornament on a lady's bosom. If any man will come after Me, let him take up his cross daily and follow Me."Dr. W. G. Blakie.

BY OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

The National Eisteddfod which has been held at Pontypridd attracted a large concourse of people, but wretched weather made it very difficult to bring the receipts up to the proper standard, so there will be a heavy deficit falling upon the gentlemen who have guaranteed the expenses. Judge Gwilym Williams, of Miskin Manor, a most popular judge and enthusiastic Welshman, has excelled himself in the management of the gathering, and, in the course of his address, had to put his foot down upon the eccentricities of some of the bards. The chair prize for the ode on "The Pulpit of Wales" was awarded to "Obed-Edom," (the Rev. J. Cenlanydd Williams, of Maesteg), but

point. Pedrog and Dyfed were at one in their decision in favor of the winner, but Gwilym Cowlyd opposed it, and wanted to read his adjudication to the audience. Judge Gwilym Williams, as Chairman of the Committee, in stentorian tones, forbade this, and an unprecedented scene occurred, in which the audience supported the Judge, amidst great cheering. Gwilym Cowlyd had to give up his intention of declaring his reasons for deciding against the winner.

WE are very proud in Wales of Serg't Davies, the Queen's prizeman, who has won the Queen's prize, open to the army and volunteers, for shooting at Bisley for the first time in Wales. He has been rewarded with due honor, at Llanelly, his native town, and was sent to the Eisteddfod

to ask that the Eisteddfod for 1895 should be held at that enterprising town.

ANOTHER great success in Welsh musical circles is Miss Llewela Davies of Brecon, a musician of extraordinary ability, who has succeeded in capturing all the prizes of the Royal Academy of Music. The professors of this celebrated institution say that she is the most brilliant student the academy ever turned out. She is quite young, accompanies Mr. Santley, and promises to be a great suc

cess.

WE are in the midst of serious la bor troubles in Wales, and the leaders of the men who formerly exercised great influence, seemingly, have lost their power of persuasion and guidance. There is a strong section of the miners who desire to maintain what is known as the sliding scale arrangement, an arrangement which provides for the revision of wages by a committee of working men and masters. On this committee sits W. Abraham, M. P., the Mabon of Parliamentary fame. The other section oppose the declining scale, asserting that the workmen's representatives on the committee are influenced by the masters. This section also desire to incorporate the Welsh trade or ganizations with the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and is led by a Mr. William Brace. So great is the tension that a libel action has just been brought out at the Glamorganshire Assizes, in which Mabon was plaintiff, and recovered £500 damages from Brace, and Mabon has, to the shame of his masters, been hustled and mobbed in his own district by rowdies.

THE Assizes have just concluded at Swansea, and have been termed the "Black Assizes" on account of the

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gravity of the calendar. No less than three murders were tried, an unusual state of affairs in Wales.

THE Welsh University charter has been issued and will be probably discussed this session in Parliament. Some of the Welsh members are in favor of providing that private students who cannot afford the time or the money to go into residence, such as the children of workmen, should have a stimulus given to them of being able to take a degree if they can pass the examination.

MR. GLADSTONE has replied by let ter to the communication made to him by the Welsh Liberal members as to disestablishment, but the terms of that letter have not yet been made public.

AT a meeting held recently at Llanelly, the native place of the late Rev. Samuel Morris, the brave chaplain of the ill-fated Victoria, it was decided to commemorate his gallantry by placing a column outside the parish church of which his father was vicar for over forty years.

has occurred at Aberavon. On Bank A VERY shocking boating accident Holiday numerous excursions were run to this seaside place, and a large number of the young people went out boating. One boat contained about 25 young men and women, and suddenly it capsized about 100 yards from the shore. Nearly the whole were drowned.

THE Siamese trouble has been settled for the present. Welshmen are represented in Bangkok by Mr. David Williams, late of Her Majesty's Customs, but who was chosen by the Siamese Government to organize and manage their fiscal arrangements. Great anxiety was felt in London for some time about the issue of the quarrel between Siam and France.