THE BURIAL OF LIVINGSTONE.

The remains of Livingstone, "brought by faithful hands over land and sea," were committed to their resting-place in Westminster Abbey on April 18, 1874.

1. Droop half-mast colours, bow, bareheaded crowds,
As this plain coffin o'er the side is slung,
To pass by woods of masts and ratlined shrouds,
As erst by Afric's trunks, liana-hung.

2. 'Tis the last mile of many thousands trod

With failing strength but never failing will, By the worn frame, now at its rest with God, That never rested from its fight with ill.

3. Or if the ache of travel and of toil

Would sometimes wring a short, sharp cry of pain From agony of fever, blain, and boil,

'Twas but to crush it down and on again!

4. He knew not that the trumpet he had blown Out of the darkness of that dismal land, Had reached and roused an army of its own

To strike the chains from the slave's fettered hand.

5. Now, we believe, he knows, sees all is well;

How God had stayed his will and shaped his way, To bring the light to those that darkling dwell With gains that life's devotion well repay.

6 Open the Abbey doors and bear him in

To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage; The missionary come of weaver-kin,

But great by work that brooks no lower wage.

7. He needs no epitaph to guard a name

Which men shall prize while worthy work is known;

(99)

He lived and died for good--be that his fame:
Let marble crumble: this is Living-stone.-Punch.

epitaph, what is written on a
tomb.

liana-hung, hung with twiningplants.

ratlined, furnished with lines forming steps of ladders. shrouds, ropes from the masthead to the ship's sides.

THE HONEST MAN.

1. Who is the honest man?

He that doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbour, and himself most true.
Whom neither force nor fawning can
Unfix or wrench from giving all their due.

2. Whose honesty is not

So loose or easy that a ruffling wind

Can blow away, or, glittering, look it blind:
Who rides his sure and easy trot

While the world now rides by, now lags behind

3. Who, when great trials come,

Nor seeks nor shuns them; but doth calmly stay
Till he the thing and the example weigh,

All being brought into a sum,

What place or person calls for, he doth pay.

4. Whom none can work or woo,

To use in anything a trick or sleight,
For above all things he abhors deceit!
His words and works, and fashion too,
All of a piece, and all are clear and straight.

5. Who never melts or thaws

At close temptations; when the day is done,
His goodness sets not, but in dark can run;

The sun to others writeth laws,

And is their virtue; virtue in his sun.

6. Whom nothing can procure,

When the world runs bias, from his will

To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill.

This is the marksman safe and sure

Who still is right, and prays to be so still.-Herbert.

Questions on the lesson:-What does the honest man follow after? When? How? To whom is he true? What two things cannot turn him from giving to all their due? What two things cannot deprive him of it? [Adversity like "a ruffling wind," or prosperity like a dazzling sun.] How does the honest man act in regard to temptation? What does he hate above all things?

bias, leaning to one side, amiss.
fawn, to give false praise.
lag, to move slowly.
procure, to induce.

ruffle, to disorder, disturb.

shun, to avoid.

sleight (slit), cunning.
still, means here constantly.
thaw, to cause to melt.
wrench, to force from.

COTTON.

1. Nothing can be more beautiful than the appearance of a cotton-field, when the snowy globes of wool are ready for picking, and the dark labourers, with sacks suspended from their shoulders, wander between the rows of plants, culling the fleeces. The cotton-plant is beautiful from the moment when the minute leaflets appear above the moist earth until the time when it is gathered in.

2. In June, when it is in bloom and when the blossoms change their colour day by day, a cotton plantation looks like an immense flower-garden. In the morning the blooms of upland cotton are often of a pale straw colour;

at noon of a pure white; in the afternoon faint pink, and the next morning perfect pink. It is noticed, however, that the blossom of the sea-island cotton, one of the most-esteemed varieties, always remains of a pale yellow.

3. When the flowers fall away and the young bolls or pods begin to grow, the careful negroes watch for the insidious approach of the cotton-worms, the terrible enemies of plantation prosperity. There are many kinds of these worms; they multiply with astonishing rapidity, and sometimes cut off the entire crop of whole districts. Their appetites are exclusively confined to cotton, of which they devour both the long and the short staples greedily.

4. When the planters perceive that the insects are about to visit their crops they kindle fires in the fields, hoping to attract and destroy the moths which are the parents of the worms. In many cases this proves insufficient. The ally of these vicious destroyers of the planter's fondest hopes is the boll-worm moth, a tawny creature which, in the summer and autumn evenings, hovers over the cotton-blooms and deposits a single egg in each flower.

5. In three or four days the egg is hatched and out of it comes a worm which voraciously eats his way into the centre of the boll, and then, ere it falls to the ground, seeks another in which he in like manner buries himself. In one district, in 1873, plantations were so devastated by worms, that they looked as if lightning had passed over them, and scathed them. The bolls were in many cases cut down for entire acres as completely as if the reaper's sickle had been thrust among them.

6. During picking season, which is at its height by the middle of October, plantation life is busy and merry. Each person is expected to pick two or three hundred

pounds of cotton daily, and as fast as the fleeces are picked the cotton is carried either in waggons or in baskets on the heads of negroes to the gin-house. There, if the cotton is damp, it is dried in the sun and then the fibre is separated from the seed, to which it is firmly attached.

7. Nothing can be simpler than the ordinary cottongin. Its main cylinder, upon which is set a series of

circular saws, is brought into contact with a mass of cotton separated from the cylinder by steel bars or gratings. The teeth of the saws, playing between these bars, catch the cotton and draw it through, leaving the seeds behind. Underneath the saws a set of stiff brushes, revolving on another cylinder moving in an opposite direction, brushes off from the saw-teeth the lint which was taken from the seed, and a revolving bar producing