Dick wept at this, and the young daughter of Master Fitzwarren, being moved to pity, offered from her own He, poor lad, could not understand it money what would preserve to the lad all, and went on with his drudgery in his four-footed friend. But not even the scullery as if nothing had hapthis would the stern merchant allow, pened, until his master compelled him and Dick therefore bad to bid a tearful to quit it, and from being his boy-offarewell to his favorite and resign him- all-work made him his partner in busiself to his loss.

All this had taken place many months ago. Now when the "Unicorn"-for that was the name of the vessel-returned to call. port, great was the astonishment of everybody (and no one's greater than Dick's) to find that the principal portion of the treasures on board belonged to the little scullery-boy of Master Fitz

merchant, and being just and honorable. as well as wealthy, he gained the respect and love of all with whom he had to do. When he grew to be a man he married the kind Miss Fitzwarren which made him happier than all his wealth.

Not only did merchants look up to him, but nobles and even kings came to him in their money difficulties, and he was the same upright gentleman to all men. Honors increased, and at last the prophecy of Bow Bells became true, and Sir Richard Whittington was made Lord Mayor of London.

The Voices of the Flowers.

IF you lie with your ear to the soft green earth,
When the rain and the sunshine fall,

You can hear the flowers, in their gay glad
mirth,

To each other whisper and call.

For hushed, like an infant in sleep, they lie
In their moist cool cells below,

Aweary of hearing the wind's bleak sigh,

And the falling of the snow.

But when spring comes down to the earth, and

her feet

Send a thrill through woodland and plain,

sweet,

But which we miscall the rain

Then they waken up with a light in their look, And in low sweet whispers they cry: "Sisters, a murmur is heard in the brook,

And sunshine is seen in the sky;

In that capacity he grew still in And the clouds weep tears that are soft and riches and fame, and when his first term was expired, his admiring fellow-citizens, after a few years, made him Lord Mayor for a second, and when the second term was past, for a third. His third mayoralty happened in 1419, when King Henry IV. was on the throne of England; and then it was his honors rose to their highest pitch, for he entertained at his own table the king and queen of the land in such grand style that Henry said of him, "Never king had such a subject."

And never poor had such a friend. He never forgot the little forlorn boy on Highgate Hill, and it was his delight to his latest day to make the hearts of the needy glad, and show to all that it is not for money or grandeur, but for an honest soul and a kind heart that a man is to be loved and honored by his fellows.--N. Y. Observer.

A MAN in the path of duty is twice as strong to resist temptations as out of it. A fish is twice as strong in the water as on the shore; but a four-footed beast is twice as strong on the land as in the water. The reason is, because the water is a proper element of the one, and the earth of the other. Thy work is thy element wherein thou art most able to resist temptation.

THE TRUTH cannot be buried, beheaded, or crucified. A lie on the throne is a lie still, and truth in a dungeon is truth still; and the lie on the throne is on the way to defeat, and the truth in the dungeon is on the way to victory. No accident of position can change the essential nature of things, or the laws which determine their destinies.

"It is time we should burst through the young green earth,

As the stars through the heavens by night, That the young and the old may rejoice in our birth,

And we in the calm, sweet light.".

Then one said, "Sisters, where shall we grow?
I shall grow by the side of the stream,
And all day long I will blossom and blow,

Till the dews fold me up in a dream."

"And I," said another, "will bloom by the way Where the children go in a band;

They will stop for a moment their gladsome play,

And touch my lips with their hand."

"I will peep from the long rich grass," said

one,

"When the meadows bow to the wind, And will catch like dewdrops the fairy tone Of the music it leaves behind.”

"And I," said one, "in some garden rare, Where my fairer sisters abide;

And it may be that I shall be twined in the
hair

Of the maid as she blooms into bride."
Then a sweeter voice held the rest in thrall:
"O sisters, what things ye have said!
I shall grow in the sweetest spot of all-
On the graves of the calm, pure dead.
"They will know that I blossom above their dust
And will yearn, in their silent abode,
For the grand resurrection to crown their trust
In the love and the promise of God."

Thus the flowers whisper, and if you lie

When the rain and the sunshine fall,
You will hear them question and make reply,
If your heart is one with all.

-Good Words.

The Sunday-School Department.

The Bobolink's Song.

[From "A Bird Medley," by John Burroughs, in Scribner's Monthly.]

I have noticed that the bobolink does not sing the same in different localities. In New Jersey it has one song; on the Hudson a slight variation of the same, and on the high grass lands of the interior of the State, quite a different strain -clearer, more distinctly articulated, and running off with more sparkle and liltingness. It reminds one of the clearer mountain air and the translucent spring water of these localities. I never could make out what the bobolink says in New Jersey, but in certain districts in this State his enunciation is quite distinct. Sometimes he begins with the word gegue, gegue. Then again, more fully, be true to me, Clarsy, be true to me, Clarey, Clarey, thence full tilt into his inimitable song, interspersed in which the words kick your slipper, kick your slipper, and temperance, temperance, (the last with a peculiar nasal resonance), are plainly heard. At its best, it is a remarkable performance, a unique performance, as it contains not the slightest hint or suggestion, either in tone, or manner, or effect, of any other birdsong to be heard. The bobolink has no mate or parallel in any part of the world. He stands alone. There is no closely allied species. He is not a lark, nor a finch, nor a warbler, nor a thrush, nor a starling. He is an exception to many well-known rules. He is the only ground-bird known to me of marked and conspicuous plumage. He is the only black and white bird we have, and what is still more odd, he is black beneath and white above, the reverse of the fact in all other cases. Preeminently a bird of the meadow during the breeding season, and associated with clover, and daisies, and buttercups, as

no other bird is, he yet has the look of
of one to the manor born.
an interloper or a new-comer, and not

The bobolink has an unusually full
throat, which may help account for his
great power of song. No bird has yet
been found that could imitate him or
even repeat or suggest a single note, as
if his song were the product of a new
set of organs.
There is a vibration
about it, and a rapid running over the
keys that is the despair of other song-
sters. It is said that the mocking-bird
is dumb in the presence of the bobolink.
My neighbor has an English sky-lark
that was hatched and reared in capti-
vity. The bird is a most persistent and
vociferous songster, and fully as suc-
cessful a mimic as the mocking-bird.
It pours out a strain that is a regular
mosaic of nearly all the bird-notes to be
heard, its own proper lark-song forming
a kind of bordering for the whole. The
notes of the Phoebe-bird, the purple
finch, the swallow, the yellow-bird, the
king-bird, the robin, and others, are
rendered with perfect distinctness and
accuracy, but not a word of the bobo-
link's, though the lark must have heard
its song every day for four successive
summers. It was the one conspicuous
note in the fields around that the lark
made no attempt to plagiarize.

"WELL, Father Brown, how did you like the sermon yesterday?" asked a young preacher. "Ye see, parson," was the reply, "I haven't a fair chance at them sermons of yours. I'm an old man now and have to set pretty well back by the stove; and there's old Miss Smithie, Widder Taff, 'n Rylan's darter's, 'n Nabby Birt, 'n all the rest settin' in front of me with their mouths wide open a swallerin' down all the best of the sermon, 'n what gets down to me is putty poor stuff, parson, putty poor stuff."

SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSONS.

LESSON XXIII.

TEXTS.-Whitsunday.-Pentecost. Matt. xii. 31-2; Mark iii. 28-9; Luke xii. 10.

season.

names:

in the world. How important, then, to know in what the sin against the Holy Ghost consists, lest we commit it!

COMMENTS, MATH. XII.

Verse 31.-Wherefore: Because the Pharisees had spoken of the miracles of Christ, as wrought by the Spirit of evil, word. All manner of sin, or wrong(vs. 24-30), He uttered this warning doing, and blasphemy, or impious and mocking speech against God, shall be forgiven-provided we repent. But the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, because no sorrow or penitence follows after a heart is so hardened as to call light, darkness; good, evil; Christ, Satan. The impossibility of forgiveness is not owing to wilful resistance against it. the want of God's grace, but to the

FESTIVAL NOTES.-Our Lord had promised to send the Divine Spirit to His disciples, after that He had ascended to His Father in heaven. John xiv. 16-18; xv. 26-27; xvi. 7-15. This promise He made good on the Jewish Pentecost the fifteenth day after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (Lev. xxiii. 15 16.) On this occasion the Israelites rejoiced over two facts: 1. The proclamation of the Law, at Mt. Sinai, when they became a nation; 2. And their harvest ingatherings. It pleased God to change the Jewish festival into a Christian Pentecost, by causing the advent of the Holy Ghost to fall on this The Christian Church, likewise, celebrates two great facts, at this time: 1. The proclamation of the Spiritual Law of the Gospel-the founding of the Church, A. D. 30; 2. And the first harvest of souls within His kingdom. This Lord's day has two VERSE 32. And whosoever speaketh 1. Pentecost, which is a Greek term, and against (or blasphemeth) the Son of Man means the Fiftieth day-counting from-JESUS-it shall be forgiven him; beEaster; 2. Whitsunday, an old Eng- cause not to discern the Messiah, under lish name for white. In the early days the humble form of a carpenter's sonof the Church, catechumens were usually in His lowliness and humiliation-may confirmed at this season, all arrayed in be followed by a recognition, after the Spirit opens the eye of faith. Many, Although God had always preserved who at first doubted, came and acknowto Himself a people, in the world-ledged Him as the Son of God. But he never having left Himself without a that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, witness; yet had He not established or refuseth the only medicine provided a kingdom of salvation for all mankind (Acts ii. 38-39)—until the first Christian Pentecost occurred. So, too, had God's Spirit been in the world from the beginning, (Gen. i. 2), but not until our Lord's body had ascended to God, did the Spirit enter and issue from lim mankind. Hence the Spirit of God is called "Holy Ghost," after Christ's ascension-a term which we apply to a spirit coming out of a human body. As the sun is ever shining upon the earth, but did not print the photographs of men, before science had invented the art; so neither did the Spirit of God create the image or likeness of Christ in men anew, until His body had been glorified. After Him, as the model or pattern, now the new man is regenerated within us. (Col. iii. 10.) We become children of God, through Christ, by the Spirit. And if we grieve, quench, or resist the Spirit, we are, at the same time, without God and without Christ

white robes.

upon

This

for his diseased soul; strikes away the
hand that would help him; shuts out
the only light that can illuminate his
darkness, must remain in an unpar-
doned state, and sink deeper and deeper
into misery. Neither in this world-
neither in the world to come.
phrase means to teach, that there is no
remedy for such a soul-not under the
Old Dispensation of Moses and the
Prophets, nor under the New Dispensa-
tion of the Gospel. It implies, further-
more, the possibility of maturing and
ripening into a totally impenitent cha-
racter, that excludes all hope of refor-
mation and redemption.

Mark iii. 28-29. This Evangelist repeats, in substance, the same warning words of our Lord, against resisting the strivings of God's Spirit, from time to time, and thus sink at last into the state of a soul dead to light and life. The additional expression-eternal damnation-may be read, but is in danger