They like the spring, for it is so full of bird and bloom, and, like a priestess, stands swinging her censer of perfume before God's altar; and the summer is just the thing for them, for they love to hear the sound of mowing-machines, and battalions of thunderbolts grounding arms among the mountains; and autumn is their exultation, for its orchards are golden with fruit, and the forests march with banners dipped in sunsets, and blood-red with the conflicts of frost and storm.

66

And they praise God for winter, that brings the shout of children, playing blind-man's-buff, with handkerchief they can see through, around a blazing fire, and the snow shower that makes Parthenons and St. Mark's Cathedrals out of a pigeon-coop, and puts brighter coronets than the Georges ever wore on the brow of the bramble, and turns the wood-shed into a "royal tower," filled with crown jewels; and that sends the sleigh-riding party, in buffalo robes, behind smoking steeds, with two straps of bells, and fire in the eye, and snort of the nostril, and flaunt of the mane, impatient of the sawing of the twisted bit and the reins wound around the hands of the driver, till, coming up to the other gay parties, we slacken the rein, and crack the whip, and shout, Go 'long, Charley!” and dart past everything on the road, and you can only take in the excited roan span by putting your foot against the dash-board, and lying back with all your strength, and sawing the bit, while the jolly hearts in the back seats mingle the ha, ha, ha, ha! with the jingle, jingle, jingle of the sleigh-bells, and the hostler of the hotel grabs the bridle of your horses, while you go in to warm and take a glass of-very weak lemonade !

Now, there are many people thus pleased with all seasons, and complain not in any circumstances. If you are a merchant, they are the men whom you want for customers; if you are a lawyer, they are the men you want for clients and jurors; if you are a physician, they are the men you want for patients; but you don't often get them, for they cure themselves by a bottle of laughter, taken three or four times a day, well shaken up. Three cheers for the good-natured man; three groans for the gouty and sourtempered!

The Invocation implies both adoration and the intense emotion of one wholly absorbed in his commingled praise and prayer. It demands of the speaker the exercise of a complete control over his own action; otherwise what should be impressive from its seriousness will prove expressionless and artificial. This composition will offer a proper theme for the exercise of the talent for rhapsodical and devotional expression.

A PRAYER FOR US ALL.

A PRAYER FOR US ALL. (28) (44).—Anon.

God of the mountain, God of the storm,
God of the flowers, God of the worm!
Hear us and bless us,

Forgive us, redress us!

Breathe on our spirits Thy love and Thy healing,
Teach us content with Thy fatherly dealing;

Teach us to love Thee,

To love one another, brother his brother,

And make us all free

Free from the shackles of ancient tradition,

Free from the censure of man for his neighbor;
Help us each one to fulfil his true mission,

And show us 'tis manly, 'tis Godlike to labor.

God of the darkness, God of the sun,

God of the beautiful, God of each one!
Clothe us and feed us,

Illume us and lead us!

Show us that avarice holds us in thrall

That the land is all Thine, and Thou givest to all.

Scatter our blindness;

Help us do right all the day and the night

To love and mercy and kindness;

Aid us to conquer mistakes of the past;

Show us our future, to cheer us and arm us,

The upper, the better, the mansions Thou hast,

And God of the grave! that the grave cannot harm us.

73

Whittier's "Laus Deo," as an example of the spirit of praise and prayer, is one of the noblest of the poet's compositions. It is a mingled invocation and pean of joy. As a piece for recitation it offers the pupil desirous of success a superior study on the art of delivery.

LAUS DEO! (7) (52).—John G. Whittier.

On hearing the bells ring for the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery in the United States.

No speech is perfect, no matter how good its subject-matter, if, in its delivery, the words are mouthed. "Plainness and precision of enunciation" is the inflexible law of all good speaking. An admirable example in orotund tone we find in A. J. H. Duganne's "Plea for the Ox”—a fine poem, with a noble sentiment. In its delivery the student is almost compelled to slowness of utterance and fulness of tone.

75

A PLEA FOR THE OX.

A PLEA FOR THE OX. (8) (28) (32).—A. J. H. Duganne.

Of all my father's herds and flocks
I love the Ox-the large-eyed Ox!
I think no Christian inan could wrong
The Ox-so patient, calm, and strong!

How huge his strength! and yet with flowers

A child can lead this Ox of ours;

And yoke his ponderous neck with cords
Made only of the gentlest words.

By fruitful Nile the Ox was Lord;

By Jordan's stream his blood has poured;
In every age-with every clan-

He loves, he serves, he dies for-MAN!

And, through the long, long years of God,
Since laboring Adam delved the sod,
I hear no human voice that mocks
The HUF which God hath given His Ox!

While burdening toils bow down his back,
Who asks if he be WHITE or BLACK?
And when his generous blood is shed,
Who shall deny its common RED?

"Ye shall not muzzle "-God hath sworn-
"The Ox that treadeth out the corn!"

I think no Christian law ordains

That Ox or MAN should toil in chains.

So, haply, for an Ox I pray,

That kneels and toils for us this day;
A huge, calm, patient, large-eyed Óx,
Black-skinned, among our herds and flocks.

So long, O righteous Lord! so long

Bowed down, and yet so brave and strong-
I think no Christian, just and true,
Can spurn this poor Ox for his HUE!

I know not why he shall not toil,
Black-skinned, upon our broad, free soil!
I know not why his great, free strength
May not be God's best gift at length:

That strength which, in the limbs of SLAVES,
Like Egypt's, only piles up graves!

But in the hands of FREEMEN now

May build up States by axe and plough!

And rear up souls, as purely white
As angels, clothed with heavenly light;
And yield forth life-blood, richly red
As patriots' hearts have ever shed.

God help us! we are veiled within-
Or white or black-with shrouds of skin;

And, at the last, we all shall crave
Small difference in the breadth of grave.

But-when the grass grows, green and calm,
And smells above our dust, like balm-

I think our rest will sweeter be

If over us the Ox BE FREE.

We are not sure that the ridiculous compositions of "Josh Billings" are very good food for a student's mental digestion. There are those, however, who regard these effusions as something good beyond compare in the field of humo:. It is in deference to such, rather than in obeying our own opinion of what is fit and proper for repetition, that we give place to a couple of examples of Mr. Shaw's wit. That he is a wit is unquestionable; indeed, he is an original of rare merit; and, could he but divest his thoughts and fancies of their unseemly garb of ignorance and vulgarity, he would be voted our laughing philosopher par excellence. In the repetition of these extracts from Mr. Shaw's sayings, very slight action is permissible. It is mere recitative, and the speaker, for his own relief, should have before him a table or desk.

THE HORNET.-Josh Billings.

The hornet is an inflamibel bugger, sudden in hiz impreshuns and hasty in hiz conclusion, or end.

Hiz natral disposishen iz a warm cross between red pepper in the pod and fusil oil, and hiz moral bias iz, "git out ov mi way." They have a long, black boddy, divided in the middle by a waist spot, but their phisikal importance lays at the terminus of their subburb, in the shape ov a javelin.

This javelin iz alwuz loaded, and stands reddy to unload at a minuit's warning, and enters a man az still az thought, az spry az litening, and az full ov melankolly az the toothake.

Hornets never argy a case; they settle awl ov their differences ov opinyon by letting their javelin fly, and are az certain to hit az a mule iz.

This testy kritter lives in congregations numbering about 100 souls, but whether they are mail or female, or conservative, or matched in bonds ov wedlock, or whether they are Mormons, and a good many ov them kling together and keep one husband to save expense, I don't kno nor don't kare.

I never have examined their habits much, I never konsidered it healthy.

Hornets build their nests wherever they take a noshun to, and seldom are disturbed, for what would it profit a man tew kill 99 hornets and hav the 100th one hit him with hiz javelin?

They bild their nests ov paper, without enny windows to them or back doors. They hav but one place ov admission, and the nest iz the shape ov an overgrown pineapple, and is cut up into just as many bedrooms as there iz hornets.

It iz very simple to make a hornets' nest if yu kan, but i will wager enny man 300 dollars he kant bild one that he could sell to a hornet for half price.