earnest, be watchful, be diligent; and if you do not obtain success, you will have done the next best thing -you will have deserved it.

Is your calling one which the world calls mean or humble? Show by the spirit that you carry into it, that, to one who has self-respect and an exalted soul, the most despised profession may be made honorable; that it is the heart, the inspiring motive, not the calling, that degrades; that the mechanic may be as high-minded as the poet, the day-laborer as noble as the artist.

Are you prosperous in business, honored by your fellow-men? If so, you must be doubly careful lest your temporal success so engross your attention as to blind you to your eternal interests. Too often the intoxicating fumes of success make hearts that once throbbed with generous emotions callous and insensible to every lofty inspiration.

The incense of admiration, of self glorification at one's success, seems to envelop men in a fog, through which they grope aimlessly on till suddenly death dispels the mist, and the vast, unseen expanse of eternity, for which they have made no preparation, bursts upon their terrified gaze. To keep the heart fresh and enthusiastic amid all the distractions of a busy life is a rare gift; but it is in every one's power to be mindful of his soul, and in the busiest as well as in the most tranquil pursuits to keep alive the ideal and the practice of a better life by prayer; and in particular, by the exercise of that greatest of virtues, - Charity.

COMPOSITION.

Give the substance of above lesson, from following hints:

Success in life is a means, not an end. We labor to become rich, not for the sake of riches, but that we may do good with wealth.

This is taught us by Christ, who says, "What doth it profit. Lives that appear most brilliant are not always most admirable. Give example. (Cæsar, Alexander, Napoleon, Dives, Croesus.) The greatest and truest success in life is to secure the end for which life is given us. To act so as to attain this end is to choose the better part, the one only thing necessary. What has been "wisely said "? We are not to be discouraged because we have to move slowly. If we have but one talent, an account of but one will be required. Refer to the “ parable of the talents." Next to securing success, the most consoling thing is to deserve it. We will be rewarded, not according to our success, but "according to our works."

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

WITH deep affection and recollection,

I often think of those Shandon bells,

Whose sound so wild would, in days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.

On this I ponder where'er I wander,

And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,

That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I've heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;

While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music spoke naught like thine;
For memory, dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon

Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I've heard bells tolling old Adrian's Mole in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame:
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly.

O! the bells of Shandon

Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

There's a bell in Moscow; while on tower and kiosk, O!

In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,

And loud in air calls men to prayer,

From the tapering summits of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant them;
But there's an anthem more dear to me:
'Tis the bells of Shandon,

That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

Questions:- Point out the several places named in this selection. What is meant by "Adrian's Mole"? "The Vatican"? What is meant by "pealing sol ly"? When do Catholic church bells peal solemnly and joyously? When solemnly and sadly? Mention some tapering points in or near your residence. Name some bells which the writer says are less sonorous than those of Shandon. Give the names of any very fine chimes of bells in America.

S

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER.

As the vessel in which the saint embarked for India floated down the Tagus and shook out hur reefs to

the wind, many an eye was dimmed with unwonted tears; for she bore a force of a thousand men to reinforce the garrison of Goa; nor could the bravest of that gallant host gaze on the receding land, without foreboding that he might never see again those dark chestnut forests and rich orange groves, with their peaceful convents and loved homes reposing in their bosom. The countenance of Xavier alone beamed with delight. He knew that he should never tread his native mountains more; but he was not an exile. He was to depend for food and raiment on the bounty of his fellow-passengers; but no thought for the morrow troubled him. He was going to convert nations, of which he knew not the language nor even the names; but he felt no misgivings. Worn by incessant sea-sickness, with the refuse food of the lowest seamen for his diet, and the cordage of the ship for his couch, he rendered to the diseased services too revolting to be described; and lived among the dying and the profligate, the unwearied minister of consolation and of peace. In the midst of that floating throng, he knew how to create for himself a sacred solitude, and how to mix in all their pursuits in the free spirit of the man of the world, a gentleman and a scholar. With the viceroy and the officers he talked, as pleased them best, of war or trade, of politics or navigation; and to restrain the common soldiers from gambling, would invent for their amusement less dangerous pastimes, or even hold the stakes for which they played, that by his presence and his gay discourse, he might at least check the excesses which he could not prevent.

Five weary months (weary to all but him) brought the ship to Mozambique, where an endemic fever threatened a premature grave to the apostle of the Indies. But his was not a spirit to be quenched or

allayed by the fiercest paroxysms of disease. At each remission of his malady, he crawled to the beds of his fellow-sufferers to soothe their terrors, or assuage their pains. To the eye of any casual observer the most wretched of mankind; in the esteem of his companions the happiest and the most holy, he reached Goa just thirteen months after his departure from Lisbon.

At Goa he was shocked, and, had fear been an element in his nature, would have been dismayed, by the almost universal depravity of the inhabitants. It exhibited itself in those offensive forms which characterize the crimes of civilized men, when settled among a feebler race, and released from even the conventional decencies of civilization. Swinging in his hand a large bell, he traversed the streets of the city, and implored the astonished crowd to send their children to him, to be taught the religion which they still at least professed. Though he had never been addressed by the soul-stirring name of father, he knew that in the hardest and most dissolute heart which had once felt the parental instinct, there is one chord which can never be wholly out of tune. A crowd of little ones was quickly placed under his charge. He lived among them as the most laborious of teachers, and the gentlest and the gayest of friends; and then returned them to their homes, that by their more hallowed example they might there impart, with all the unconscious eloquence of filial love, the lessons of wisdom and of piety they had been taught. No cry of human misery reached him in vain. He became an inmate of the hospitals, selecting that of the leprous as the object of his peculiar care. Even at the tables of the profligate he was to be seen, an honored and a welcome guest; delighting that most unmeet audience with the vivacity of his discourse, and sparing neither