HAPPY CHILDHOOD. THERE are very few persons in the whole universe who do not recall the period of their childhood as being the happiest and most contented epoch of their existence. We have all had little trials during our infancy; but these very trials, and to us, at that time, seeming hardships and cruelties, are looked back upon with fond yearning and are carefully treasured as being the souvenir of the brightest and most innocent page in the history of our lives. Do we not remember with feelings of fond regret the happy

games we played with our companions at school? Do we not remember with pride aud satisfaction the great triumph that we had over our childish competitors in the race for knowledge, or fondly muse over our defeat by some more fortunate rival? Verily we may speak and think of the younger days of our existence with feelings of pride and pleasure.

The happy child depicted in our engraving will doubt less remember in days to come the pleasant hours it spent on the shores of the lake. It will recall the gratified feel

ing with which it cooled its little feet in the clear water, while anxiously watched by its faithful companion, the dog "Nip."

Have we not all of us some little souvenir of a like nature? Reader, if you will only cast your eyes over the well-thumbed pages of your past life, you will probably freely admit that there is no period of our lives so fondly remembered as the days of "Happy Childhood."

SCHOOL is out, and the village children bound away, each with a load of books, but no load of care. They feel the want of fresh air in their lungs, and those lungs are tested again and again till every one can see that they are thoroughly sound. As they run on, climbing stiles or fences, all thought is on play. School is over, and all the humdrum that bears down the elastic spirits of the young.

Tops and strings emerge from unfathomable pockets; jack-knives that have done good service many a day; the apple, ornamented with sundry sly bites, given by stealth during school-hours, all appear.

The girls strike up their pleasant chat, allowing the screaming boys to hurry by, with all their haste not destined to arrive till long after the girls have reached home, related the story of the day, washed and prepared themselves for home-reception.

SCHOOL IS OUT.

Ir is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.

PATIENCE, the second bravery of man, is, perhaps, greater than the first.-De Solis.

A STORY OF THE SEASHORE.

THE tide was going out. Slowly and peacefully it retreated from the firm white sands; noisily it ebbed from the brown rocks where the seaweed grew. These same brown rocks ran out very far into the water, and caught the first and last beat of the waves. Curious creatures lived upon them amongst the fronds and tufts of the seaweed.

There were the Urchins-funny fellows they were! some as big as the largest apples you ever saw, and some as tiny as buttons. They were something the shape of buttons, too, with a round shell covered all over with a forest of sharp spines.

There were the Anemones, pink, crimson and drab, with❘ fleshy bodies, and a coronet of feelers, looking like a daisyshaped flower, upon their heads.

And there were Periwinkles and Limpets, and the quarrelsome Hermit-crabs, who were fond of robbing other folks of their houses and living there themselves; and a host of smaller things, which dwelt in shells among the rocks.

The tide had sunk very low, and in the hollow of the highest part of the rocks it left behind it a pool of clear still water. The pool was fringed with seaweed, and bright with exquisite colors-sea-stains of yellow, dark-red and velvet-green. Now that it was cut off by the ebb, it was so very still that you might have almost believed that a strip of the sky had fallen down, with its flakes of fleecy clouds, among the rocks.

"Oh, how pleasant it is to live!" exclaimed a tiny red Anemone, shaking its thread-like arms. This creature was very young, having been born since the tide had flowed in that same morning.

"You think so, do you?" said a Prawn, swimming lazily past with the most graceful motion in the world. “Ah, wait until there is a storm, and see if you find that so pleasant."

The sun warmed the shallow pool through and through; and a Hermit-crab growled, as he crept further into the shade of a crevice.

seas. Instead of warm sunlight and soft coloring there is the howling of freezing winds, and the black hues of cloud and night. Ah, yes! the storm is bad sometimes, no doubt."

"And what shall we do then ?"

"I know what I shall do," the Prawn said, airily, not giving the Limpet time to reply; "I shall just skim away to the deep sea, and there, far below the surface, I shall be cozy and calm until fair weather returns."

"Then you will take me with you, please ?" the Anemone pleaded.

"You! a likely thing! How are you to swim, I wonder -a red lump like you!"

The Anemone scarcely knew what to believe. The Limpet spoke again :

"Little one, sooner or later the storm will come; and when it does it will be strong enough to dash the life out from you and me unless we be prepared. I don't know about swimming out to sea, as the Prawn talks of doing. I couldn't do it, nor you either: all I know is that I should have died long ago if I hal not taken fast hold of this rock. I have been here so long that I have worn a hollow into the stone just the shape of my shell; and when the waves rise and the winds begin to shriek I cling fast, firm and strong to my rock, and I am kept safe through all the fury of tide and tempest."

"Yes," sneered the Crab, "and now you are half roasted by the sun because you won't leave your precious rock, even for a moment."

"It is rather warm, I confess," the Limpet replied; "but it's only for a little time. The flood-tide will come soon, and the first wash of spray will revive me. No, no! nothing short of death would induce me to leave my rock."

The light glittered through the transparent body of the

The little Anemone felt humble. Life could not be so delightful as his inexperience had thought it, since such wise creatures as the Crab and the Prawn could find fault. A Starfish clung to a pebble at the bottom of the pool: he was pushing out his feelers one after another, and his delicate suckers were quivering in the light. He looked happy enough, the Anemone thought.

"Sir, is the storm very bad ?" the Anemone said.

But the Starfish was busy fishing for food, and did not choose to take the trouble to answer. It was a voice from overhead which said, softly, "Storms are bad sometimes, but they do good, for all that; and then they don't happen often, you know."

The speaker was an old Limpet. His shell was covered with knots and knobs, proving his respectability-for orly Limpets of a certain standing can boast such adornments.

"Tell me about them," the Anemone said. "I am young, and don't know much yet."

"Ah," replied the Limpet, "the young ones know more than the old ones in these days, but if you really want to be told about the storms I'll do the best I can for you; although I must say that five minutes' experience would enlighten you more than a month of talking. The storm is just the opposite of this present time. Instead of this peace and quiet there is a deafening noise. Instead of this still water there is the weight and dash of gigantic

away "I'd rather die than be chained there,” he said. "What must I do to be kept safe ?" the Anemone asked. "I am so soft and weak that I am sure the storm would soon finish me. I haven't even a shell to guard me." "Find a sheltered corner, and cling fast," was the advice of the Limpet.

The tide had turned some time ago, and there was a booming sound in the distance, and a rustle among the fronds wrack, which was hanging like a heavy fringe upon the edge of the stones. The sea was coming.

Slowly it came, yet strongly; it broke in frothy foam against the brown rocks, and flowed into the pools, sending volumes of sharp cold water over the drooping wrack, and the sea-grass blistering in the heat.

"Ah, ah!" laughed the Crab, "here comes the tide! This horrid warm water will get freshened up now." A great wave washed into their pool as he spoke. The Anemone shrank in fear.

"Is this the storm ?" it cried.

"Bah! no," said the Prawn; "t'is only the sea-the jolly, merry, grand old sea! The storm is twenty thoa. sand times worse than this, if you call this bad."

"Cling fast, and fear not," the Limpet said.

So the baby Anemone found a corner underneath a ledge, which would break the full force of the sea, and there it fastened itself, clinging with all its might to the firm rock. "I'm safe now," it said.

The tide rose and fell; the Summer days grew long

and the Autumn days drew near; the Anemone had reached its full size now, in its sheltered corner. Daily it rejoiced in the good life God had planned for it to live, there, in its own pool on the rocks.

plant more seeds at once, and place them where neither she nor Dicky could get at them.

"It's just like our lesson for next Sunday, Susie," said Charlie; "the fowls in the air came and devoured it up,'

"The storm is coming," it replied.

"Then better face it than stay motionless here," said the Crab, sourly. "I wonder that you haven't died weeks ago from sheer dullness."

"I am quite happy," the Anemone answered.

One night the sea began to sob, a fierce light shone from behind the cloud-masses which lay dark upon the sky; the wind whistled, and the wild birds cried in answer. The storm was coming!

All through the long hours of that night the gale blew heavily, the waves poured with a noise like thunder upon the shore. The ships kept far from land, and spread their canvas wings to fly to the nearest harbor. The seagulls' screams could scarcely be heard; for the voice of the storm had come!

The morning dawned. High on the edge of the tidemark the Prawn lay dead, his graceful limbs spread over the wet sand, his elastic feelers broken, his beautiful body all dull and stained. When the storm broke he had had no power to swim deep into the sea.

In the pool there lay a broken heap. It was the Hermitcrab. The waves had beaten him until his shell was shattered, and his form crushed and lifeless.

And as for the Starfish, where it was none knew; but a child at play found it days afterward, a dry and shriveled thing, blown off amongst the sand-hills by the shore. It "did not believe in storms," yet a storm had killed it.

On the smooth brown rock the Limpet still clung, and there, in the crevice in the clear pool-water, the Anemone spread its flower-like rays.

"You told me to cling fast," it whispered. "I did so, and I am safe."

"

BEHOLD, THERE WENT OUT A SOWER TO SOW." CHARLIE and Susie were very fond of flowers. When February came with its brighter sunshine and longer days, the plants in their little bay window, which seemed to stand still the early part of the Winter, all began to bloom most beautifully. The children sowed a great many seeds of verbenas and other Spring flowers in little pots, to have ready to put out in the ground as soon as the danger from frost was over. It was so pleasant to watch the tiny shoots spring up, and to think of the beautiful, gay blossoms which each one would bear when the warm May and June sunshine fell on the young plants. When they were about a quarter of an inch high, the children were invited to spend a day or two away from home with their cousin Alice. Mother and father went, too, and only Bridget was left to take care of the plants. As soon as the children got back they ran to the window to see about their flowers, especially the little seedlings. How badly they felt when they saw that not a whole green shoot was left of these last. They ran to Bridget in distress.

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Oh, them little weeds !" she said, looking rather scornfully at the bare green stems. "Shure, I watered all the flowers, but to-day whin I let Dicky out for an airin' in the parlor, as yer mamma tould me to do, I just let him pick away at the little things. Shure they're no good like the other pretty posies."

Well, it would do no good to fret now, the children thought. So, though they felt very much like being cross with Bridget, they concluded that it would be better to

and not a fowl of the air, exactly."

"And I don't like to compare him to Satan, either," replied Susie. "A great ugly crow, or a vulture, or one of those dreadful bats would seem more like him than my precious birdie." Here Susie stopped talking to let Dicky take a seed from her lips.

"Bats are not birds, Susie. Don't you know better than that?" said Charlie. "Besides, don't you remember that Satan is said to be sometimes like 'an angel of light,' and of course angels are prettier than Dicky. But I'd advise you, Susie, not to plant any of the seeds in that shallow basket, as you did before. If Dicky hadn't eaten them, the sun would have 'scorched them,' unless you had watered them two or three times a day. You know how the crocus died in it last Winter."

"Well, there are no thorns to choke them, anyway, in this room," said Susie. "There is plenty of good ground, though, and we'll do our best with that.”

And as their mother heard them talking, she prayed that the seed sown in their hearts, which she knew the Holy Spirit had caused to spring up in its fresh soil, might bring forth a hundredfold to the glory of God.

JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE BIBLE.

You have often admired the line of shimmering light which shines on the ruffled waters when the moon is in the

heavens. Look in any other direction and the waters are dark and troubled. Look toward the orb of night, and you see the glory all the way, right from your feet to the heavens above. Another standing beside you, looking at another angle, will see another line of light and glory, and another in another place will see another; and so on endlessly. The moon is really shining over all the water, but each one sees only a portion of its radiance, and that

portion only by looking in one direction. So is it in the Bible. The glory is shining all over it. You may see nothing of heaven in it so long as you will not look in the right direction. But look to the point of sight; look to Jesus, and you will see the glory of the Bible. You cannot see it all. Another will see something else that you do not. And another, standing at another point, will see But every one

something that you and he have missed. thing. We may be called by different names, and we may who looks earnestly in the right direction will see somelook at sacred truth at different angles; but if "looking unto Jesus" be our motto, we shall see "the glory of the Lord." And though no one can see it all, each one will see all he needs. Every one that looks in the right direction will see a path of light and glory leading from his own feet across the troubled waters of his life, up to the heavens above. "We all with open face bebolding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory "; and "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear wih Him in glory (Col. iii. 4).-J. Monro Gibson, D.D.

HAVE the courage to "cut" the most agreeablo acquaintance you have when you are convinced that he lacks principle. "A friend should bear with a friend's infirmities," but not with his vices.