various sorts. Many farmers' families possess excellent books of their own, with sets of encyclopædias in which they are accustomed to look up" subjects. The state of things on the farm, especially in the winter, encourages evening reading instead of discouraging it. It is a change from the farm work-a delightful peep into a new world. The farmer who wishes his boys and girls to acquire the habit of reading can cultivate in them these habits nowhere so well as in his own sitting room or living room. Books from the village library, good periodicals regularly subscribed for or taken with reading clubs and a book now and then bought with the children's own earnings, will be read eagerly, if the home surroundings are made pleasant. The president of a great college has said that the most a good college education can do for a man is to teach him how to read, and in these days of Chautauqua Circles and University Extension, no one need go to the great cities to acquire the essentials of cultivation. THE FAMINE OF THE SOUL. LESSON OF PRODIGAL SON. I will arise and go to my father.-Luke xv. 18. THE HE first line of this parable, "A certain man had two sons,” is a sentence that seems to tell us nothing and yet tells us everything. The quick eyes of the heart see its meaning, the swift pencil of the imagination translates it, and what seemed a barren statement becomes the brightest picture this side of heaven-a happy home! The joy of home, its repose, retreat and rest, this home in the parable, its broad acres stretching away to the horizon, its rich meadows and browsing cattle, its dwelling in the midst of all, a home, indeed, thrilled and gladdened by the outflowing of parental affection, with peace folding its white wings about every brow and contentment filling every heart-we see it all. But, discontent enters and the shadow falls-the shadow into which every man who writes a true story of human life must dip his pencil. We see the younger son go forth with his "portion of goods," his eyes aflame in the light of the land into which he goes, all unconscious that eyes full of heart-break watch him on his perilous way. Stepping out of that darkened door, he leaves all the shadow behind him. He finds none in the "far country" into which he journeys. Why should he? Young, rich, unrestrained, and with the world before him, what more does a man want? What a world he finds it! Not the hollow, painted thing of the home teaching, but a great, smiling, glittering, bewildering thing! And to all its joys there was but one passport, and he had it. Gold could buy it all; it had no price but gold-and that he had. "And there wasted his substance in riotous living." Yes, he had never "lived" before. He had been a fledgeling all his life; what wonder now that he spreads his wings! You are not astonished at anything he does. The tessellated floor, the tinted dome, the rich upholstery of the banquet-hall, do not surprise you. The friends that gather with him to celebrate some festal day, the costly flowers, the sparkling wine, the groaning board, are only natural. Yea, you are not surprised when to some wild toast a hundred brimming glasses ring, while bacchanalian shouts shake the tapestry and make the torches flare. But God help you to be astonished when you hear that in all this you are but looking upon a picture of yourself! How can that be? You are not a prodigal, but a decent citizen. What has this picture to do with you? Everything. Look and see yourself as God sees you. What have we here? Wandering, revelry and waste. Wandering! And is there none in your case? Is there no father who waits and watches for you? Listen! "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me!" Waste! And is there none in your case? What is your reason, intellect, gifts of heart and mind, your time and talent, but your portion of the riches of God's nature, with which you have come into this far country. What are you doing with them? often the answer must be: He has made the intellect the slave of Mammon; the sensibilities he has stagnated until the heart is rank, putrid with its own corruption; the affections he has debased, and the imagination, created to wave its imperial plumage amid scenes of spiritual beauty, dragged down to flap its drooped and dishonored pinions in cesspools of vice and corruption. How Revelry! O man, look into your heart! What a banquet-hall! Its walls bright with touches of skill infinite; from floor to ceiling, in every turn and tracery, all of God. Made to be the temple of the Holy Ghost. Behold it now. The light of heaven turned off, the light of hell turned on! Its walls splashed with the spilt wine of passion. Its harps broken. Its pictured dreams of boyhood all awry. Conscience muzzled and flung in a corner. The table, about which gather the besotted affections, covered with food which the swine of creation eat, while hoary-headed selfishness sits at the head of the table, gloating over the mighty feast. Of all wandering this is the saddest, and of all waste and revelry this is the worst. Though the devil seems to set a good table, it does not last. Only God reserves "the best wine until the last." What the devil reserves is dregs; so the story of the prodigal teaches. The black wave of bankruptcy breaks on his marble doorstep, and his creditors turn the drawingroom into an auction-room. "Mercy!" Men don't have mercy when banks are breaking and bread is at a premium. They take the steed from the stall, the statue from the niche, the wine from the cellar, and he is hustled from his doorstep a homeless, friendless, Godless beggar! No, not friendless. This man has led the "German," and had been the lion of society. Society has drunk his wine, spent his money, shouted herself hoarse in his praises. When society hears of his distress she will hasten to bind up his wounds! Do you think so? Well, you are alone. He thought so too; he went to society, and she sent him to the pig sty! When was society a father to her own prodigals? When was society a good Samaritan to bind up the wounds of the broken-hearted? What is society? A polite machine, often as hard as steel and as heartless as iron. It has eyes to flatter those who succeed and to be blind to those who fail. It has hands to strike those who refuse to worship at its shrine, but never in God's world two arms to put about the troubled. Here is a man who loved and worshiped it, and sold his soul for it. Do you want to find him? Then you must go to the pig-sty. Here you find him, a famished swineherd, sunk upon the cold ground, his back against a trough, and the heedless. world in the distance, absorbed, as usual, in its round of business and pleasure. The horrors of physical hunger were his, but now a deeper hunger yet has seized upon him, a spiritual hunger-the famine of the soul-a famine that strikes alike through the palace of the king and the hovel of the poor, the gaunt form of eternal starvation casting its chilling shadow upon the homes and hearts of men. This poor, ragged swineherd had fallen down, down, from worldly honor and prosperity, and landed hard by the gates of Heaven-the Heaven that lay about him in his childhood. As he cowers there sweet memories are stirring at his heart. He has gone back to the sunny spot whence his wanderings began. The scenes of his innocent days are given to his eyes. He hears the bird-songs that waked him in the morning, and catches the odor of the flowers that starred the meadow as he "drove his jocund team afield." He hears his father's voice, he sees his father's face, and tears course down his face and great sobs shake the emaciated form. Yea, more. See! he is on his feet, and his brave resolution smites the air: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say, Father, I am no more worthy to be called thy son." And he turned his face homeward. No need to follow him. He will not turn back now. True, the way is long and the path is rough, but over the blue hills in the dim distance is the father's home, and what are the difficulties of a journey, I wonder, when home is at the end of it? The same broad acres, the same green meadows, the same old picture of repose and peace, were lying there in the gray evening light. The same, and yet not the same. It was certainly not the same to the bowed and broken old man coming in from the fields after the long day's work. What is it coming up the slope-coming wearily as if on aching feet? How can we hope to tell? The eye of an eagle could not penetrate this deepening twilight. But swifter than the eyes of eagles are the eyes of fathers or mothers looking for their lost children. And while we speak he has crossed the intervening space and folded to his heart the returning son. I am glad for the sake of fathers all over the world that the poor wanderer's confession was crushed from his lips by the kiss of welcome! I am glad for the sake of many sons all over the world that the brave fellow struggled back and managed to stammer out: "I am no more worthy to be called thy son." And oh, I am glad for the sake of the sin-burdened in every age and clime, that the only answer was: "Bring out the best robe and put it on him, for this, my son, was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found."-Rev. G. W. Briggs, Austin, Texas. WHO CAN TELL? BY ALFRED BAYLISS. Who can tell what a baby thinks? By which the manikin feels his way Into the light of day? T is not always so easy to guess what is in the mind of a little six-year old. But the trend of their thought is sometimes exposed in the most unexpected times and manners. There is a teacher There is a teacher in one of our Whiteside country schools who makes the morning exercises so pleasant that one little fellow confided to his mother that he would like to go to school "just long enough to sing a little song and say a little prayer, and then come home again." Can't we have the prayer again?" he said, one day, about the middle of the forenoon. "How many would like to stop and say the prayer for -?" said the teacher. Every hand went up, and the whole school repeated: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Then the teacher says, "And what do you think 'I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever' means?" A little girl answers: "I think it means to go to Heaven and be with Jesus." To which the young six-year old who caused the digression adds: Some of the old soldiers haven't gone to Heaven yet. I've been watching that ever since decoration day, and most of the flags are on the graves yet, and when they go they'd be sure to take their flags with them." And she felt well paid for her time by the added insight it gave her into that little fellow's mind. The instinct of investigation is stronger in younger children than some of us think, and even if we can't always direct it and furnish it with food, it is as well to know of its existence. -Sterling (Ill.) Standard. TH THE SPIRIT STAYS. HE bonny face of Lucy Stone has vanished alike from the editorial rooms in Park street, Boston, and from the platforms where impartial legislation is demanded, and from the lovely suburban home at Dorchester which she both enjoyed and adorned. A singularly fresh and animated nature, filled with bonhommie and bearing itself with a simplicity that was grace, was the characteristic of Mrs. Stone. Even while pouring hot shot of argument and sarcasm into the enemy's camp, she never lost the appearance of the Scotch gude wife, her nativeborn charm of good-will and loveliness. It has been, indeed, astonishing, since the death of this active-minded woman, to read some of the comments which in this year of grace 1893 would make her life and labors the synonym of a lost cause. Woman suffrage," says some of these almost amusing non-observers, "is farther off now than when Mrs. Stone began to work for it. Women have been accorded almost everything by way of justice that they have asked for," and so forth and so forth. Prithee, gentle critics, who asked for, and have never ceased to demand, these just laws? Who but Lucy Stone, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Grew, Lucretia Mott, and others less distinguished? Until these women began to make their claim that husband and wife, mother and father, widower and widow, should be equally considered by American statute law, and that many of the existing anachronisms of the English common law should be wiped out, no man moved for equalizing legislation-though a number were quick to do so once these clear demands were sounded. That laws have been made which give woman her own wages and her separate property rights, and which permit her entrance into many occupations unheard of until recently for her, is true-but as yet, in this State, no married mother is the natural guardian of her children when her husband dies, as the law makes him the guardian, whether she dies or not. When she gets a divorce, the children and their earnings are still his. Under exceptional circumstances, such as tender years or frail health, the temporary custody will be awarded to the mother; but this is done solely for the benefit of the child, and not in recognition of the natural right or affection of the mother. And this, until the tender age of seven years, when the father resumes his common-law rights over them, if not a confirmed drunkard or notoriously vicious man. Let no one say, while this inequality exists and while a "widow's incumbrance" is still the term used to designate a wife's right to one-third of her husband's real estate (while he possesses the right, at her death, to all of hers), that either in property or in the ownership of children, man and woman before the law are as yet regarded as equal by justice. It may yet await the vote of woman to make them equal. But the most amusing part of these published reflections on the "lost cause that Mrs. Stone represents, is the grave summing up that the voting by women is farther off than when this agitation began. Farther off! when all roads are leading to it. When school suffrage is an actuality in twenty-two States, municipal suffrage not only marks the States of Kansas, and has been legislatively granted in Michigan, while equal suffrage comes before the people of Colorado this fall, and has held an unsullied record for over 23 years in the Territory (now State) of Wyoming-when the vast body of Women's Temperance Unions are putting it forth in their publications and at their meetings, South as well as North, and have their officers especially to work for it and for the education of the people in this regard. If any intelligent proportion of American women hesitate to insist on their rights under the Declaration of Independence to-day, to take a part in choosing their law makers and their tax makers, it is because they wish that the unintelligent and the indifferent vote, that so conspicuously defeats the best ends of manhood suffrage, may be eliminated from the voting of women. Yet many of these, also, are coming to feel that the responsibility of staying outside in a self-governing community is, perhaps, greater than the responsibility of coming in. No fear of publicity, it may be said, or of an orderly line at a ticket office of any kind whatsoever, keeps the conscientious American woman of to-day away from any place where she desires to go.-Philadelphia Ledger. "What then, son?" "The man said: 'Right, my boy,' and hired me." "So you were paid for being polite," said the father with much satisfaction. "Attention," said Lowell, "is the stuff out of which memory is made." The large things of this life will take care of themselves-it is the little things that count. We grow and improve by paying attention to the affairs of life, the habits of good society, the manners of the educated and refined. There is a story called "A Window in Thrums," the work of a popular author. There is in it a character named "Leeby," of whom her friends said: "It's a pity she cannot make use of her eyes, if not of her tongue," and they rated her for having her eyes cast down, and not seeing or hearing what was going on. Yet she was the only one who saw there was "nae carpet below the wax cloth" in the manse; "just a poker in the fireplace-nae tangs." And of the minister's new wife: She wears her hair low on the left side to hide a scar, and there's two warts on her right hand." She had paid attention to her surroundings, and was full of mental notes. To pay attention to the speaker is the highest compliment that can be paid. It saves one the mortification of being told of the fine points that were missed. It was this faculty which made the Dutch painters great artists. They painted all the little details of a room, even to the string of onions over the fireplace, and these last became first. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. NEAR BY PROF. DAVID SWING. EARLY all eminent physicians are men of general education. This fact does not come from the direct relations of a college course to the treatment of a fever or a chill, but from the relations of a long school life to the powers of observation and judgment and memory and decision of character. All long courses of study judiciously pursued during youth bring out the powers of the mind and fit it for any one of the great pursuits of our world. The Latin and Greek studies have been valuable because those books of language and literature have brought the modern intellect into intimate relations with the most powerful races that have ever existed. The classic men were the marvels of mental excellence. That excellence was many-sided. They were great in taste for beauty and great in the power to find political and moral principles. What is most strange, they were in full accord with that hidden future which we now call the nineteenth century. passing those classic studies the student, while developing every faculty of his soul, is virtually studying the modern period. Greece, Rome, and America are all one. The doctor, the lawyer, the preacher, the citizen, passing over those old books, finds two rewards: the culture of his mind, and an intimate association with his own age. Greece and Rome were the old, original England and America. The good physician must be a man before he is a doctor. Our education must help us all to be human beings before we assume the garb of lawyer, or preacher, or merchant, or doctor. A profession is not a whole life, but only a piece of life. We all pity the professional man-lawyer, preacher, painter, or musician-who is defective as a human soul. Education must make a grand humanity, and then the professions must come and assign each intellect some task. A man first, a doctor afterward. All the eminent physicians have worn the additional fame of being widely educated men. This fame still hangs over them. It is still thought desirable that the doctor shall come to his calling through college gates. He is influential both as a superior mind and as a physician. It is probable that the worth of the physician has not declined. The number of great men in that pursuit does not seem to have diminished. The doctor seems to have advanced with the world. The spirit of the times is like the atmosphere, in that it presses at all points equally. In what is called the advance of the age, all the professions enjoy share and share alike. The ideal physician, being compelled to meet all kinds of persons, the highest, the learned, the gifted, and also the poorest of earth, he naturally reads and thinks in a wide field, that he may possess something in common with the many men and many women of many minds; and then he so knows the sorrows of the lower classes that he stands allied to philanthropy. The old white-haired doctor was once a trustee in all local institutes of charity, and the acting chairman of all committees of ways and means to high moral ends. His practice fastened him to the people. He had been with many families, and in their sad or thoughtful or happy hours. No hour is sadder than that in which some loved one seems on the border of death, no hour happier than that in which that loved one is returning rapidly to health. Society has thus encompassed the physician with its many-sided learning, its tears, its rejoicings, and thus has compelled him to seek a general information and to wear at last a more humane heart. His associations are wider than those of the lawyer and politician and common scholar. He cannot well be a rabid sectarian in religion, nor a partisan in politics. He has seen the homes of the Catholic and the Protestant; he has felt the pulse of Methodist and Presbyterian; he has seen the same suffering for saint and skeptic, and from these many witnesses has come a belief in the essential oneness of all minds and hearts. What would Saint Luke now think or say, could he appear in the world and behold the new sciences, new truths, and new skill of his old profession? It is |