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"And who was your schoolmaster?"

"Oh! I never was at school."

Here was a singular case -a boy could read and spell without a book or a master, But what was the fact? 'Another little sweep a little older than himself, had taught him to read by showing him the letters over the shop-doors which they passed as they went through the city. His teacher, then, was a little sweep like himself; and his book, the sign boards on the houses. What may not be done by trying?

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our salva-tion, 'Tis flow-ing full and free.

I will sing the story,

How Jesus died for me,
The cross on which he suffered
My boast shall ever be.

I will sing the story-
The story of his death:
How Jesus came from glory
And died to give us rest.

I will sing the story

Of pardon, peace and love;
For all who will receive it,
A home of rest above.

Poetry.

ONLY A WORD.

A FRIVOLOUS word, a sharp retort,
A parting in angry haste,

The sun that rose on a bower of bliss,
The loving look and the tender kiss,
Has set on a barren waste,

Where pilgrims tread with weary feet
Paths destined never more to meet.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
A moment that blots out years,
Two lives are wrecked on a stormy shore,
Where billows of passion surge and roar,
To break in a spray of tears;
Tears shed to blind the severed
Drifting seaward and drowning there.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,

A flash from a passing cloud,

Two hearts are scathed to their inmost core, Are ashes and dust for evermore.

Two faces turned to the crowd, Masked by pride with a life-long lie, To hide the scars of that agony.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,

An arrow at random sped,
It has cut in twain the mystic tie
That had bound two souls in harmony,
Sweet love lies bleeding or dead.
A poisoned shaft with scarce an aim
Has done a mischief sad as shame.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,
Alas! for the loves and lives
So little a cause has rent apart;
Tearing the fondest heart from heart
As a whirlwind rends and rives,
Never to reunite again,

But live and die in secret pain.

A frivolous word, a sharp retort,

Alas! that it should be so?

The petulant speech, the careless tongue,
Have wrought more evil, and done more wrong,
Have brought to the world more woe

Than all the armies age to age

Records on hist'ry's blood-stained page.

All the Year Round.

HAPPY EVERYWHERE.

There are briars encircling every path,
There are ills which all must share;
The lordly hall, and the lowly cot,
Have each their weights of care-
But the childish mind that trusts in God
Will be happy everywhere.

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