the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them: and when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds. Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Cæsar.-BIBLE.

"WHO

THE OWL-CRITIC.

HO stuffed that white owl?" No one spoke in the shop;

The barber was busy, and he could n't stop;

The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading

The Daily, the Herald, the Fost, little heeding

The young man who blurted out such a blunt question; Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion;

And the barber kept on shaving.

"Don't you see, Mister Brown,"
Cried the youth, with a frown,
"How wrong the whole thing is,
How preposterous each wing is,

How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is

In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 't is ! I make no apology;

I've learned owl-eology.

I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections, And can not be blinded to any deflections

Arising from unskillful fingers that fail

To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail.
Mister Brown! Mister Brown!

Do take that bird down,

Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!"

"I've studied owls,

And the barber kept on shaving.

And other night fowls,

And I tell you

What I know to be true:

An owl can not roost

With his limbs so unloosed;

No owl in this world

Ever had his claws curled,

Ever had his legs slanted,

Ever had his bill canted,

Ever had his neck screwed

Into that attitude.

He can't do it, because
'Tis against all bird laws.

Anatomy teaches,

Ornithology preaches,

An owl has a toe

That can't turn out so!

I've made the white owl my study for years,

And to see such a job almost moves me to tears!
Mister Brown, I'm amazed

You should be so gone crazed

As to put up a bird

In that posture absurd!

To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness;

The man who stuffed him do n't half know his business!*

And the barber kept on shaving.

"Examine those eyes.
I'm filled with surprise
Taxidermists should pass.
Off on you such poor glass;
So unnatural they seem
They'd make Audubon scream,
And John Burroughs laugh
To encounter such chaff.

Do take that bird down;

Have him stuffed again, Brown!"

And the barber kept on shaving

"With some sawdust and bark

I could stuff in the dark
An owl better than that.
I could make an old hat
Look more like an owl
Than that horrid fowl,

Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather.
In fact, about him there's not one natural feather."

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch,

Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!" And the barber kept on shaving.

JAMES T. FIELD.

THE LEPER.

AY was breaking,

DAY was the

ᎠᏎ

When at the altar of the temple stood The holy priest of God. The incense lamp Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof, Like an articulate wail; and there, alone, Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt. The echoes of the melancholy strain Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up, Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his hea Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off

His costly raiment for the leper's garb,

And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering stood still,

Waiting to hear his doom :—

"Depart! depart, O child

Of Israel, from the temple of thy God!
For he has smote thee with his chastening rod,

And to the desert wild,

From all thou lov'st away thy feet must flee,

That from thy plague his people may be free.

"Depart! and come not near

The busy mart, the crowded city, more;
Nor set thy foot a human threshold o'er;
And stay thou not to hear

Voices that call thee in the way; and fly
From all who in the wilderness pass by..

"Wet not thy burning lip

In streams that to a human dwelling glide;
Nor rest thee where the covert fountains hide;
Nor kneel thee down to dip

The water where the pilgrim bends to drink,
By desert well, or river's grassy brink.

"And pass not thou between

The weary traveller and the cooling breeze;
And lie not down to sleep beneath the trees
Where human tracks are seen;

Nor milk the goat that browseth on the plain;
Nor pluck the standing corn, or yellow grain.

"And now depart! and when

Thy heart is heavy, and thine eyes are dim,
Lift up thy prayer beseechingly to him.
Who, from the tribes of men,

Selected thee to feel his chastening rod ;-
Depart, O leper! and forget not God."

And he went forth alone. Not one of all The many whom he loved, nor she whose name Was woven in the fibres of the heart

Breaking within him now, to come and speak Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his waySick, and heart-broken, and alone to die! For God had cursed the leper.