would behold it, it is the most populous and the happiest month. The herds plash in the sedge; fish seek the deeper pools; forest fowl lead out their young; the air is resonant of insect orchestras, each one carrying his part in Nature's grand harmony. August, thou art the ripeness of the year! Thou art the glowing centre of the circle! 9. SEPTEMBER! There are thoughts in thy heart of death. Thou art doing a secret work, and heaping up treasures for another year. The unborn infant-buds which thou art tending are more than all the living leaves. Thy robes are luxuriant, but worn with softened pride. More dear, less beautiful, than June, thou art the heart's month. Not till the heats of summer are gone, while all its growths remain, do we know the fulness of life. Thy hands are stretched out, and clasp the glowing palm of August and the fruit-smelling hand of October. Thou dividest them asunder, and art thyself moulded of them both. 10. OCTOBER! Orchard of the year, bend thy boughs to the earth, redolent of glowing fruit! Ripened seeds shake in their pods. Apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to let go when no wind is out, and swing in long waverings to the earth, which they touch without sound, and lie looking up, till winds rake them, and heap them in fence-corners. When the gales come through the trees, the yellow leaves trail like sparks at night behind the flying engine. The woods are thinner, so that we can see the heavens plainer as we lie dreaming on the yet warm moss by the singing spring. The days are calm. The nights are tranquil. The Year's work is done. She walks in gorgeous apparel, looking upon her long labour; and her serene eye saith, "It is good." 11. NOVEMBER! Patient watcher, thou art asking to lay down thy tasks. Life to thee now is only a task accomplished. In the night-time thou liest down, and the messengers of winter deck thee with hoar-frosts for thy burial. The morning looks upon thy jewels, and they perish while it gazes. Wilt thou not come, O December? 12. DECEMBER! Silently the month advances. There is nothing to destroy, but much to bury. Bury then, thou snow, that slumberously fallest through the still air, the hedge-rows of leaves! Muffle thy cold wool about the feet of shivering trees! Bury all that the year hath known! and let thy brilliant stars, that never shine as they do in thy frostiest nights, behold the work! But know, O month of destruction! that in thy constellation is set that Star, whose rising is the sign, forevermore, that there is life in death. Thou art the month of resurrection. In thee the Christ came. Every star that looks down upon thy labour and toil of burial knows that all things shall come forth again. Storms shall sob themselves to sleep. Silence shall find a voice. Death shall live; Life shall rejoice; Winter shall break forth, and blossom into Spring; Spring shall put on her glorious apparel, and be called Summer. It is life, it is life, through the whole year!-Beecher. bergs, mountains. lichen (li'-ken), a plant that grows orbit, course round the sun. orchestra, musical performers. sedge, grass growing in swamps. THE NOSE.1 1. The organ of smell we are apt to regard more as an ornamental than a useful appendage to our faces. So useless, indeed, do a large portion of mankind esteem it to be, that they have converted it into a snuff-box. was given us, however, for a different purpose. It 2. The nose is a much simpler construction in all respects than the eye or the ear, and may be explained Section of the Nose, showing the branches of the Olfactory Nerve. in a word. A glance at the cleft head of a dog or a sheep I will show that the nostril opens into a large arched cavity, with many curled partitions partially dividing it into additional spaces. The walls and arch of this cavity are constructed of bone, and lined with a soft, moist, velvety membrane resembling that inside the mouth. 3. Over this membrane spread a multitude of small threads or nerves resembling the twigs of a branch; there are many such branches within the nostril, and they join together so as to form larger branches, which may be compared to the boughs of a tree. These finally terminate in a number of stems, or trunks, several for each nostril, 1 From The Five Gateways of Knowledge, by permission of Macmillan & Co. which pass upwards through openings provided for them in the roof of the arched cavity, and terminate in the brain. 4. We have thus, as it were, a leafless nerve-tree whose roots are in the brain, and whose boughs, branches, and twigs spread over the lining membrane of the nostril. This nerve is termed the nerve of smell. When we wish to smell anything-for example, a flower-we close our lips and draw in our breath, and the air which is thus made to enter the nose carries with it the odorous matter, and brings it into contact with the ramifications of the nerve of smell. 5. Every inspiration of air, whether the mouth is closed or not, causes any odorous substance present in that air to touch the expanded filaments of the nerve. In virtue of this contact or touching of the nerve and the volatile scent, the mind becomes conscious of odour, though how it does so we know as little as how the mind sees or hears. Of this, however, we are quite certain that if the nerve be destroyed, the sense of smell is lost. 6. So far as the lower animals are concerned, the uses of the organ of smell are manifest. It guides them in the selection of food and drink; enables them to distinguish what is hurtful from what is wholesome; and in many cases, assists them in tracing out their companions where the eye and the ear would be of no avail. 7. It may probably be affirmed that man is intended to be impressed by odours only sparingly and for a short time. There is a provision for this in the fact that all odours are vapours or gases, so that they but touch the inside of the nostril and then pass away. Moreover there is no substance having a powerful smell of which it is safe to take much internally. The most familiar poisonous vegetables, such as the poppy, hemlock, and monk's-hood, have all a strong and peculiar smell. 8. So far as health is concerned the nostril should probably be but sparingly gratified with pleasing odours or distressed by ungrateful ones. Comfort is best secured by rarely permitting an infraction of the rule, that the condition of health is no odour at all. Questions on the lesson :-What does the nostril open into? Into what is the cavity divided? By what? What are the walls made of? How is the cavity lined? What spread over the membrane? What are these nerves like? When they join together what are they like? Finally what do they form? How is it that we have the sensation of smell? Show how the air is drawn in-what it brings with it. What are the uses of the organ of smell to the lower animals? What is evidently intended as regards man? What probably is best as regards health in the case of man? appendage, something added. infraction, breaking or violating. membrane, a thin skin. partition, that which divides. volatile, easily passing away. MILTON'S PRAYER OF PATIENCE. In 1652, a few years before Milton began the composition of his great poem, Paradise Lost, he became totally blind, "dark, dark, irrecoverably dark." The following poem expands the poet's words on Patience in the "Sonnet on his Blindness." "Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; Р |