Madame Colbert, "I beg a thousand pardons for having thus forced my entrance; but I leave to-morrow, and the business which brings me to you would not admit of delay. I am M. Cenani, of the firm Cenani and Mazerani, of Paris. This youth is your son, is he not, sir?" inquired he, pointing to Baptiste, who blushed still more deeply.

"Yes, sir, thank God."

"You have cause to thank God, sir: this child acted towards me this morning in a truly noble manner."

"Only as he ought, sir, — only as he ought," said Madame Colbert, hastily.

"Nobly, madame. I see that you know the history; but, as you have probably heard it from your son, his modesty has undoubtedly left you ignorant of that which has most delighted me. I went to M. Certain's for a second piece of cloth, and was informed of all that had passed by the shop-boy. Your admirable child, madame, refused to divide with his master the overcharge on the cloth."

"Excellent, excellent! Quite right, quite right! Oh, my dear, dear boy!" said Madame Colbert, with happy pride, embracing Baptiste, who stammered :

"It would not have been honest."

"You are aware, sir," said M. Colbert, addressing the banker, "that on account of his conduct my son has been dismissed from M. Certain's.”

"I know it, sir; the shop-boy told me so; and on that account I came here to ask you, since you have already suffered your child to enter into trade, if it would suit you to place him, honest and honorable as he is, in our banking house, where, in a larger sphere, he must make his fortune."

Baptiste, who had hitherto listened in silence, and

who now only began to understand M. Cenani's intention, cried suddenly: "If to make a fortune I am to leave my father and mother, I must decline it, sir."

“But I do not decline it for you, Baptiste," said his father, tenderly but seriously. "We are very poor, my son; and I should think myself guilty did I not accept the brilliant prospects which M. Cenani so generously offers you. Go, Baptiste, with this gentleman; in all that concerns the business of your calling, listen exclusively to his advice, and follow it; when the principles of integrity and of honor are involved, add to his counsels those of your own heart."

Baptiste wept while he listened to his father, but no longer made any objection.

Thanks to the natural buoyancy of his age, and also to the change of scene and place, Baptiste felt a new life spring up within him as he was whirled along in a comfortable carriage, with a young and gay companion.

He served the banking house of Cenani and Mazerani faithfully and well, and, whilst serving it, obtained that complete knowledge of business and finance that enabled him thereafter to be so useful a servant of the State.

In 1661 he was made Minister of Finance to Louis XIV. On his appointment to the office he found bribery and cheating going on on all sides, and the State yearly robbed of millions of crowns. To the difficult task of reforming these shameless abuses, he brought, with extraordinary abilities and energy, the same courageous and unbending truthfulness which had distinguished him as a boy.

COMPOSITION.

Write a short story, embracing the chief items in Jean Colbert's tale. Change names for those of individuals and bankers of your vicinity.

Take streets, dwellings and other data to make the sketch answer a home description. Let distances, money values, etc., be in keeping with the circumstances. Close your story by quoting some few words or lines, in prose or poetry, illustrating the principle that "honesty is the best policy."

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

To be or not to be!—that is the question—

то

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them?- To die-to sleep —
No more! and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die—to sleep

To sleep? perchance to dream!-aye, there's the rub, For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The
pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,---
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

-

To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
That undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all:
And thus, the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action!

COMPOSITION.

Copy selection "Who would fardels bear.

we know not of." Write sentences taken from the Old or New Testament, containing the following words: bear (one another's burdens); proud (God resisteth); come (Thy kingdom . . . . ); death (it is appointed); dreams (Joseph's); suffer (little children); country (The prodigal went afar. . . ); consummated (All is); will (Thy will be .), and mention in what circumstances the expression was used; conscience (The worm of . . . . ); lose (If ye .

what better are ye than they?)

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE.

AS we advance into the Middle Ages, we observe the

Christian idea unfolding itself in art of imposing majesty and of exceeding beauty. First, naturally in architecture. The architecture which ultimately prevailed in the sacred buildings of Western Europe, was that which we call the Gothic. The distinctive

spirit which pervades all its forms is the spirit of mystery and of aspiration. A Gothic cathedral seemed an epitome of creation. In its vastness it was a sacramental image of the new universe; in its diversity it resembled nature, and in its unity it suggested God. But it suggested man, too. It was the work of man's hands, shaping the solemn visions of his soul into embodied adoration. It was, therefore, the grandest symbol of union between the divine and human which imagination ever conceived, which art ever moulded; and it was in being symbolic of such union that it had its Christian peculiarity. The mould of its structure was a perpetual commemoration of Christ's sufferings, and a sublime publication of his glory. Its ground plan, in the figure of a cross, was emblematic of Calvary. Its pinnacles, which tapered through the clouds and vanished into light, pointed to those heavens to which the crucified had ascended. Here is the mystery of death and sorrow. And that mystery is intensified in the sufferings of Christ: hence is the aspiration of life and hope as it is exalted in the victory of Christ.

The mere bulk of one of those structures seems at the same time to overpower the mind and yet to lift it up to heaven. The mere personal presence of a human being seems lost in its mighty space; but while the body is dwarfed the soul is magnified. As we look and wonder, the thought ever comes that man it was who conceived, consolidated, upreared those monuments of immensity; and the spirit of his immortal being seems to throb in every stone. Again, if we look through a vast cathedral, in its many and dim-lit passages, our sight, "in wandering mazes lost," finds no end and no beginning. Then does the thought occur to us, that, if we cannot with the eye take in the windings of a