the schoolroom. Pieces of furniture for these bedrooms would make far more suitable and interesting presents than the costly odds and ends so often given without definite intention. In the arrangement of the child's own room the expression of individual taste should be encouraged and the child allowed to choose the pictures and casts with which the walls are hung. The responsibility of such selection will do much to develop the incipient faculties of observation and comparison.-Stockton 66 PEACE IN THE HOME Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." Father and mother must be beautiful and undivided in their lives if they want their children to dwell together harmoniously. It is not an easy thing for even the most excellent people to live together in harmony, if they have clashing tastes and temperaments, but when differences are overcome they are means of grace, and some of the most beautiful married lives in all the world are the result of unions of so-called "incompatibles" who took their troubles to God. In Stepping Heavenward, the author says she and her husband began, and kept up their married lives by saying together every evening a little prayer that they might love each other better and be kinder to each other day by day. Troubles came, and differences came that might have grown serious but for the little evening prayer. At a good old age the couple were happy and lovers still. A part of every child's evening and morning prayer should be the petition for a loving spirit, for the love that "believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." In the interests of peace-and of even better things than peaceseveral very simple rules need to be impressed on the growing members of the family circle. Here are a few Don'ts: Don't tell tales; don't criticise behind cach others' backs; keep engagements and pay your debts as punctually in the family circle as among outsiders; be as prompt and pleasant at meal times as possible; don't nag; don't lose your temper. Remember that a temper is an excellent thing-to keep. A great many placid people have the fatal gift of ruffling everybody else. Remember that virtue consists not merely in being good yourself, but in helping others to be good also. Like the Ten Commandments, the whole matter can be summed up in St. Paul's oft-repeated words: Love is the fulfilling of the law." So music is wedded to music, And stream and stream are one, When spirit is one with spirit, And soul is wedded to soul. ARRANGING THE WORK OF THE HOUSE The work must be reduced to a system. If it is done in a haphazard, whatever-comes-uppermost fashion, both mistress and servant will always be at "LITTLE BY LITTLE " work. System is necessary, whether you have one servant or half a dozen, and, in the latter case, it is impossible to get along without it. But where you have only one or two, it is best not to trust to them to do their allotted work just as it seems convenient to them, for even experienced servants, who work well, seldom are good planners. That is not the business they have learned, learned, and they expect to be directed. You know the wants and ways of all the members of your household, what little comforts they desire and their hours for pleasure and business. So you are the one to arrange the work in such a manner that it will fit in snugly and comfortably with all these needs, and duties, and pleasures. For this fact must not be lost sight of that housekeeping is the art of making a home-it does not consist in keeping a house spotlessly clean, or in getting the most work done in a given time, or in perpetually making something to tempt the appetite, or in straining every nerve to save money. Neatness, industry, good, wholesome cooking, and economy all belong to housekeeping, but everything must be made subservient to the grand central idea-so difficult to define even with many words, but so easily understood when expressed in one-home.-Stockton. LULLABY Sleep, baby, sleep! The eastern skies Is shedding its pure light! O little one! O little one! Let all thy sobbings cease, For the little Babe who came to be Is named the Prince of Peace! Sleep, baby, sleep! Sleep, baby, sleep! For man and beast are glad; That all the patient kine might see This little Prince of Peace! This little Prince of Peace! Let all thy sobbings cease, my babe, For lo! thy King, my little babe, Is named the Prince of Peace! Is named the Prince of Peace! --Myrta Lockett Avary. Think how poor a place it was in which Christ was born! how lowly a company it was into which God entered when he came to dwell among us. Then hold every home God's possible dwelling-place.-Mary Jordan. LINCOLN AND THE BIRDS At the present time, when the agitation against the slaughter of birds is growing in many States of the Union, the following anecdote, which is related of Abraham Lincoln, will be read with interest. The narrator is one who knew Lincoln well, and who, at the time of the incident, was his fellow-traveler. "We passed through a thicket of wild-plum and crab-apple trees, and stopped to water our horses. One of the party came up alone, and we inquired: 'Where is Lincoln?' 'Oh,' he replied, when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nest, and he was hunting for the nest, that he might put them back in it.'" INFLUENCE You never can tell when you send a word, Like an arrow shot from a bow By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind, Just where it will chance to go. It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend, To a stranger's heart in life's great mart You never can tell when you do an act Just what the result will be; But with every deed you are sowing a seed, Each kindly act is an acorn dropped In God's productive soil; Though you may not know, yet the tree shall grow And shelter the brows that toil. You never can tell what your thoughts will do In bringing you hate or love; For thoughts are things, and their airy wings They follow the law of the universe, Each thing must create its kind; And they speed o'er the track to bring you back Whatever went out from your mind. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox, It is easy to be neat and not hard to be clean. The humblest little home can Neatness and cleanli be as neat and clean as the finest mansion in the world. ness in the home are sure to lead to neatness and cleanliness in the person of all in the home. MARRIAGE? A wife?-thought I;-yes, a wife! -If now in that chair yonder, not the one your feet lie upon, but the other, beside you-closer yet-were seated a sweet-faced girl, with a pretty little foot lying out upon the hearth-a bit of lace running round the swelling throat-the hair parted to a charm over a forehead fair as any of your dreams -and if you could reach an arm around that chair back, without fear of giving offence, and suffer your fingers to play idly with those curls that escape down the neck; and if you could clasp with your other hand those little white, taper fingers of hers, which lie so temptingly within reach,—and so, talk softly and low in presence of the blaze, while the hours slip without knowledge, and the winter winds whistle uncared for;-if, in short, you were no bachelor, but the husband of some such sweet image-(dream, call it rather)--would it not be far pleasanter than this cold single night-sitting-counting the sticks-reckoning the length of the blaze and the height of the falling snow? And if, some or all of those wild vagaries that grow on your fancy at such an hour, you could whisper into listening, because loving ears-ears not tired with listening, because it is you who whisper-ears ever indulgent because eager to praise; and if your darkest fancies were lit up, not merely with bright wood fire, but with a ringing laugh of that sweet face turned up in fond rebuke -how far better, than to be waxing black, and sour, over pestilential humors -alone-your very dog asleep! And if when a glowing thought comes into your brain, quick and sudden, you could tell it over as to a second self, to that sweet creature, who is not away, because she loves to be there; and if you could watch the thought catching that girlish mind, illuming that fair brow, sparkling in those pleasantest of eyeshow far better than to feel it slumbering, and going out, heavy, lifeless, and dead, in your own selfish fancy. And if a generous emotion steals over you— coming, you know not whither, would there not be a richer charm in lavishing it in caress, or endearing word, upon that fondest, and most dear one, than in patting your glossy-coated dog, or sinking lonely to smiling slumbers? How would not benevolence ripen with such monitor to task it! How would not selfishness grow faint and dull, leaning ever to that second self, which is the loved one! How would not guile shiver, and grow weak, before that girlbrow, and eye of innocence! How would not all that boyhood prized of enthusiasm, and quick blood, and life, renew itself in such presence? My fancy would surely quicken, thought I, if such being were in attendance. Surely imagination would be stronger, and purer, if it could have the playful fancies of dawning womanhood to delight it. All toil would be torn from mind-labor, if but another heart grew into this present soul, quickening it, warming it, cheering it, bidding it ever,-God speed! Her face would make a halo, rich as a rainbow, atop of all such noisome things, as we lonely souls call trouble. Her smile would illumine the blackest |