Better to smell the violet cool, than sip the glowing wine; Better to hark a hidden brook, than watch a diamond shine.

Batter the love of a gentle heart, than beauty's favor proud; Better the rose's living seed, than roses in a crowd.

Better to love in loneliness, than to bask in love all day;
Better the fountain in the heart, than the fountain by the way.

Better be fed by a mother's hand, than eat alone at will;
Better to trust in God, than say: "My goods my storehouse fill."

Better to be a little wise, than in knowledge to abound;
Better to teach a child, than toil to fill perfection's round.

Better to sit at a master's feet, than thrill a lis'ening State;
Better suspect that thou art proud, than be sure that thou art great.

Better to walk the real unseen, than watch the hour's event;
Better the "Well done!" at the last, than the air with shouting rent.

Better to have a quiet grief, than a hurrying delight;
Better the twilight of the dawn, than the noonday burning bright.

Better a death when work is done, than earth's most favored birth, Better a child in God's great house, than the king of all the earth.

GEORGE MAC DONALD.

TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching; how many of them? Sixty thousand! Sixty full regiments, every man of which will, before twelve months shall have completed their course, lie down in the grave of a drunkard! Every year during the past decade has witnessed the same sacrifice; and sixty regiments stand behind this army ready to take its place. It is to be recruited from our children and our children's children. Tramp, tramp, tramp--the sounds come to us in the echoes of the army just expired; tramp, tramp, tramp--the earth shakes with the tread of the host now pass. ing; tramp, tramp, tramp-comes to us from the camp of the recruits. A great tide of life flows relentlessly to its death. What in God's name are they fighting for? The privilege of pleasing an appetite, of conforming to a social usage, of filling sixty thousand homes with shame and sorrow, of loading the public with the burden of pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses with felons, of detracting from the productive industries of the country, of ruining fortunes and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul in hell before their time.

The prosperity of the liquor interest, covering every department of it, depends entirely on the maintenance of this army. It cannot live without it. It never did live without it. So long as the liquor interest maintains its present prosperous condition, it will cost America the sacrifice of sixty thousand men every year. The effect is inseparable from the cause. The cost to the country of the liquor traffic is a sum so stupendous that any figures which we should dare to give would convict us of trifling. The amount of life absolutely destroyed, the amount of industry sacrificed, the amount of bread transformed into poison, the shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime the poverty, the pauperism, the brutality, the wild waste of vital and inancial resources, make an aggregate so vast,--so incalculably vast, -that the only wonder is that the American people do not rise as one man and declare that this great curse shall exsit no longer.

A hue-and-cry is raised about woman suffrage, as if any wrong which may be involved in woman's lack of the suffrage could be compared to the wrongs attached to the liquor interest.

Does any sane woman doubt that women are suffering a thousand times more from rum than from political disability?

The truth is, that there is no question before the American people to-day that begins to match in importance the temperance question. The question of American slavery was never anything but a baby by the side of this; and we prophesy that within ten years, if not within five, the whole country will be awake to it, and divided upon it. The organizations of the liquor interest, the vast funds at its command, the universal feeling of those whose business is pitted against the national prosperity and public morals-these are enough to show that, upon one side of this matter, at least, the present condition of things and the social and political questions that lie in the immediate future are apprehended. The liquor interest knows there is to be a great struggle, and is preparing to meet it. People both in this country and in Great Britain are beginning to see the enormity of the business-are beginning to realize that Christian civilization is actually poisoned at its fountain, and that there can be no purification of it until the source of the poison is dried up.

Temperance laws are being passed by the various Legislatures, which they must sustain, or go over, soul and body, to the liquor interest and influences. Steps are being taken on behalf of the public health, morals and prosperity, which they must approve by voice and act, or they must consent to be left behind and left out. There can be no concession and no compromise on the part of temperance men and no quarter to the foe. The great curse of our country and our race must be destroyed.

Meantime, the tramp, tramp, tramp, sounds on,-the tramp of sixty thousand yearly victims. Some are besotted and stupid, some are wild with hilarity and dance along the dusty way, some reel along in pitiful weakness, some wreak their mad and murderous impulse on one another, or on the helpless women and children whose destinies are united to theirs, some stop in wayside debaucheries and infamies for a moment, some go bound in chains from which they seek in vain to wrench their bleeding wrists, and all are poisoned in body and soul and all are doomed to death. J. G. HOLLAND.

REVERY IN CHURCH.

Too early, of course! How provoking!
I told ma just how it would be.

I might just as well have on a wrapper,
For there's not a soul here yet to see me.
There! Sue Delaplaine's pew is empty,-
I declare if it isn't too bad!

I know that my suit cost more than hers did,
And I wanted to see her look mad.

I do think that sexton's too stupid

He's put some one else in our pew

And the girl's dress just kills mine completely;
Now what am I going to do?

The psalter, and Sue isn't here yet!
I don't care, I think it's a sin
For people to get late to service,

Just to make a great show coming in.
Perhaps she is sick, and can't get here-
She said she'd a headache last night.
How mad she'll be after her fussing!

I declare it would serve her just right.
Oh, you've got here at last, my dear, have you?
Well, I don't think you need be so proud

Of that bonnet if Virot did make it,

It's horrid fast-looking and loud. What a dress! -for a girl in her senses

To go on the street in light blue !--

And those coat-sleeves-they wore them last summer

Don't doubt, though, that she thinks they're new.

Mrs. Gray's polonaise was imported—

So dreadful!-a minister's wife,

And thinking so much about fashion!—

A pretty example of life!

The altar's dressed sweetly-I wonder

Who sent those white flowers for the font!-
Some girl who's gone on the assistant-
Don't doubt it was Bessie Lamont.
Just look at her now, little humbug!---
So devout-I suppose she don't know
That she's bending her head too far over
And the end of her switches all show.
What a sight Mrs. Ward is this morning!
That woman will kill me some day,