cals which are held at this time. In the third month school is dismissed from five to ten days on the occasion of worshiping at the graves of ancestors. And so, throughout the year, there is a continual series of festivals and ceremonies, when school is dismissed.

The teacher also if he has any special business, may be absent from school at his convenience. On an average more than one-third of the time there is no school. Chinese boys go to school very early in the morning, before breakfast. I have often heard them singing at their books before it was right light in the morning.

Chinese school-boys play very little. They are taught that running or shouting in play is very rude and unbecoming. They are naturally lazy, and indisposed to exert themselves. I have never seen them play, any such brisk and exciting games as are common among boys in America. When they do play they generally sit down and play such games as chequers or marbles.

I might tell you many more things about Chinese schools and boys, but I fear I would tire you. I will only add that the great ambition of a Chinese boy is to get a literary degree when he is a man. Examinations are held each year by the officers, and degrees conferred on the best scholars. These degrees are like diplomas from colleges at home, but are regarded as a much greater honor than a diploma with us. Getting a degree is the first step in the way of becoming an officer, which is accounted the greatest happiness and the highest honor. This kind of education which I have described, and which is universal in China, is a very poor one indeed. It furnishes no incentives to originality or improvement, but, on the contrary dwarfs the mind, and ties it down to go round and round in the same treadmill that has served for the last two thousand years. Besides all this, the schools are the strongholds of atheism and idolatry.

None are so hard to reach with the gospel as those who are full of these old classics. Nothing can change this state of things and give to the Chinese true light and knowledge but the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should thank God that the way is quite open to preach to them the gospel, and we should strive by all means to send it to them as soon as possible. Our school of twentyfive boys is doing something in this great work. We look to you, children in the Sabbath-school, to support it by your contributions, and to pray for God's blessing on it, without which all our labor will be in vain Do not forget, I pray you, the millions in China, who have not the great blessings which you have.

Hoping to hear a good account of you, and to get a letter from your Superintendent, I remain, Yours fraternally,

Lewisburg Chronicle.

C. W. MATEER.

THE THISTLE AND THE ROPE-WALK.

"Such a mite as I can do no good" is the general impression of our boys and girls, when urged to do what they can for the good work. But smaller and humbler instruments than you God has made use of to do great works in this world.

A great army many years ago invaded Scotland. They crept on stealthily over the border, and prepared to make a night attack on the Scottish forces. There lay the camp all silently sleeping in the starlight, never dreaming that danger was so near. The Danes, to make their advance more noiseless, came forward barefooted. But as they neared the sleeping Scots one unlucky Dane brought his broad foot down squarely on a bristling thistle. A roar of pain was the consequence, which rang like a trumpet blast, through the sleeeping camp. In a moment each soldier had grasped his weapon, and the Danes were thoroughly routed. The thistle was from that time adopted as the national emblem of Scotland.

By the harbor of New London there was once a long old ropewalk, with a row of square window-holes fronting the water. In time of war a British Admiral was cruising off that coast, and had a very good chance to enter and destroy the town. He was once asked afterwards why he did not do it. He replied, he should have done so "if it had not been for that formidable long fort whose guns entirely commanded the harbor." He had been scared off by the old rope-walk!

God has His uses for even the simplest and humblest of us. Our great business should be to find out what the Lord would have us to do, and then do it with all our might, mind and strength.— Exchange.

THE NOBLE BEREANS.

(Acts 17: 5-12.)

BY THE EDITOR.

At the foot of Mount Olympus, in Macedonia, is a city of some 18,000 or 20,000 inhabitants. It is pleasantly embowered among gardens and groves of plane trees. Streams of water flow through nearly every street. It is on the left bank of the river

Birds of sweetest voice warble their

Haliacmon. songs from among these groves during the greater part of the year. It is a little paradise, which now passes by the name of Verria, but in the days of Paul was called Berea.

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Upon this lovely scene Olympus, with his hoary snow-covered crown, has looked down for 4000 years. On this mountain Homer located the home of Jupiter and the chiefs among the gods. Then as now, clouds of vapor enveloped its snowy summit. the poetic mind of the old Greeks, these clouds were the curtain hung before heaven's door. Although this family of gods, and their picturesque lofty abode, were the creation of Homer's genius, millions of benighted Pagans, looked to this as the hill whence their help came, the mountain where men ought to worship.

For three Sabbaths Paul had reasoned out of the Scriptures with the Jews in the synagogue of Thessalonica. Some believed, and others of the baser sort moved with envy, drove him from the city. His friends seeing the danger led him away by night. For a distance of sixty miles, they had to travel to Berea. The beginning of their journey, by night, led through gardens which are in the immediate neighborhood of Thessalonica. Then through a large tract of grain fields. By this time the day must have dawned. Through the vast forests, and along paths infested by robbers, they pursued their way.

As elsewhere, so at Berea, Paul can not be idle. He repairs to the synagogue of the Jews, who received "the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so." Right here, near the throne of the Olympian Jove, it is pleasant and significant to hear the true God and Gospel preached and believed in.

Their Scriptures consisted of some of the principal books of the Old Testament. Among others the prophecy of Isaiah. In these they searched for light respecting the person and life of the Messiah. These Bereans present an example worthy of our imitation.

(1.) They received the word with all readiness of mind. (2.) They followed the hearing of it by searching and comparing the Scriptures on the subject heard. (3.) They made a daily habit of doing this. (4.) This led many to a saving faith. (5.) All this was the mark of noble, honorable qualities.

THERE is a greater depravity in not repenting of sin when it has been committed than in committing it at first. To deny, as Peter did, is bad; but not to weep bitterly, as he did, when we have denied, is worse.-Payson.

THE BAREFOOT BOY.

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red-lips, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy:
I was once a barefoot boy.

Prince thou art-the grown up man
Only is republican.

Let the millioned-dollared ride.
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy,
In the reach of ear and eye:
Outward sunshine, inward joy.
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy.

O for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools:
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell;
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his well:
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,

Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine.

Of the black wasp's cunning way,
Mason of his wall of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans !

For, eschewing books and tasks
Nature answers all he asks:
Hand in hand with her he walks,

Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy.
Blessings on the barefoot boy!

O for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master waited for!
I was rich in flowers and trees,"
Humming-birds and honey-bees,
For my sport the squirrel played,
Filled the snouted-mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone:
Laughed the brook for my delight,
Through the day and through the night;
Whispering at the garden-wall,

Talked with me from fall to fall;

Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond;

Mine the walnut slopes beyond,

Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!

Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.

O, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude.
O'er me like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent;
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold,
While for music, came the play
Of the pied frogs' orchestra ;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch; pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man!
Live and laugh as boyhood can.
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubbled-speared the new mown sward,

Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;

Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;

All too soon these feet must hide

In the prison-cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,

Made to tread the mills of toil,