And grew into a tree;

Love sought its shade at evening time
To breath its early vows;

And age was pleased, in heat of noon,
To bask beneath its boughs.

The dormouse loved its dangling twigs,
The birds sweet music bore;

It stood a glory in its place-
A blessing evermore.

A little spring had lost its way,
Amid the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well
Where weary men might turn.
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink.

He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that toil might drink.
He passed again, and lo! the well,
By summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues
And saved a life beside.

The thought was small, its issue great

A watch fire on the hill,

It sheds its radiance far adown,

And cheers the valley still.

A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied, from the heart·
A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath,

It raised a brother from the dust,

It saved a soul from death.

O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!

Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.

COMPOSITION.

Relate the circumstances mentioned in this poem. In connection with this narration give some idea contained in Tennyson's "Brook."

THE CHURCH PROGRESSIVE.

THE Church unquestionably stands at the head of

the influences that have civilized mankind. If Guizot's definition of civilization, "The reform and elevation of society through the reform and elevation of the individual," is true, and that it is true the Protestant schools of history admit, then the Church must be regarded as the civilizer by excellence. Home, with its manifold influences, is deemed a powerful agency in the formation of individual perfection, and to the Church, under Christ, the modern world owes all expressed by those tender words, "home," and the "family circle."

Heathenism made the family, with all its relations, subject to the supreme arbitrament of the State. Deformed children were destroyed as prospectively unfit for military service. Infanticide was one of the most prevalent crimes of heathendom. It was the Babe of Bethlehem that saved his infant companions. The stability of the family is based on the indissolubility of the marital tie. This the Church has ever upheld and preserved. By insisting on it, the Church forms society into families and kin, throwing about them defences and safeguards of liberty and happiness, and out of the Christian family the civilized state, such as we have it, arose. Here is the first step in that march of progress in which the Church leads humanity. We often hear the axiom, proved by a thousand years' experience, that the family is the social unit. It was the Church that taught and realized the axioms which all statesmanship and political science accept as fundamental science.

After reforming the family, she reformed the State. Heathen statesmanship.proceeded on the assumption that the governed were created for the governors. The pyramids overshadowed a multitude of toiling slaves, who were taught to regard their sovereign as God, the Supreme Disposer of their lives and fortunes. Republican Greece and Rome were never republican in the Christian sense. The Church, on the downfall of the Roman Empire, took the barbarians in hand, shaped their wild tribes into stable forms of government, and gave to their disunited clans an organic form. Guizot admits that the Church originated the idea of election, personal freedom, the right of the people to rebel against despotism, municipal independence, and the abolition of slavery. Here, then, is the Church fashioning the two elements of all progress, the family

སྤང་་་་་་ པ

and the free state. Without these subsisting in the relations established by her, all progress is impossible. To her, as to source and fountain, all modern progress and civilization can, therefore, be traced.

QUESTIONS AND COMPOSITION.

Change first sentence. How is civilization effected? How was the family treated by heathenism? How were children treated? What is the marital tie? At what sacrifice were the pyramids erected? Show from Guizot's admission that the Catholic Church is favorable to Republics. What did Pius IX. say about his independence in the United States? Write four sentences, in defence of Catholicity, including the following expressions:

the Church had made slaves free.

By teaching princes their duty, the Church . . . . .

people their rights. The Church which raised men from degradation brought about by tyranny must be able. . . . . . the right use of liberty. the leaders of Catholic thought contributed no small share to liberty, which by its extent has become Catholic in character.

In our own country. . .

DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.

THE glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate :

Death lays his icy hands on kings;
Sceptre and crown

Must humble down,

And in the dust must be equal made

With the poor, crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still;
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garland withers on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon death's purple altar now

See where the victor, victim bleeds;

All heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

COMPOSITION.

Write sentences with the words "substantial" and "shadows" in each. A sentence in which "humble" will qualify "crown." A sentence in which "sword" will be nominative to "kill." A sentence in which "tame" will be an adjective, "still" a noun, "laurels " a verb, and "sweet" an adverb.

substantial

armor

fate

blossom

WAGES.

WAGES are a compensation given to the laborer

for the exertion of his physical powers, or of his skill and ingenuity. They must, therefore, vary according to the severity of the labor to be performed, or to the degree of skill and ingenuity required. A jeweller or engraver, for example, must be paid a higher rate of