rare and nameless marble, where rests at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him at the head of the army in Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tri-color in his hand. I saw him in Egypt, in the shadows of the pyramids. I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm and at Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, when the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disasterdriven by a million bayonets back upon Paris-clutched like a wild beast-banished to Elba. I saw him escape and re-take an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

I thought of the widows and orphans he had made, of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant, with my wife by my side knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; I would rather have been this man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial personation of force and murder, known as Napoleon the Great.

THE BICYCLE RIDE.*-JAMFS CLARENCE HARVEY.

Whether bicycle riding on Sunday be sinful or not, depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is done and the associations of the ride.-EDITORIAL. İ

You have read of the ride of Paul Revere,
And of Gilpin's ride, so fraught with fear;
Skipper Ireson's ride in a cart,

And the ride where Sheridan played a part;
Calendar's ride on a brazen hack,
And Islam's prophet on Al Borak;
The fateful ride to Aix from Ghent,
And a dozen others of like portent,

But you never have heard of a bicycie spin
Which was piously ended, though started in sin.

Tom was a country parson's son,

Fresh from college and full of fun,

Fond of flirting with bright-eyed girls,

Raving, in verse, over golden curls,
Sowing a wild oat, here and there,

In a way that made the parson stare
And chide him sternly, when face to face,

While, in private, he laughed at the young scape-grace.
But the wildest passion the boy could feel
Was the love he bore for his shining wheel.

He rode it by night and he rode it by day,
If he went two rods or ten miles away;
And Deacon Smith was heard to remark
That he met that pesky thing in the dark
And it went right by with a glint and a gleam
And a wild "hoot-toot" that made him scream;
In spite of the fact that he knew right well
That evil spirits were all in-well-
He wouldn't meet that thing again
For a corn-crib full of good, ripe grain.

One Sunday morning the sun was bright,
The birds' throats bursting with glad delight,
The parson mounted his plump old bay
And jogged to the church, two miles away;
While Tom wheeled round, ten miles or more
And hid his wheel by the chancel door;
And he thought, as he sat in the parson's pew,
"I wonder what makes dad look so blue,"
From "Lines and Rhymes," by permission of the Author.

Till it came like a flash to his active mind,
He'd left his sermon and spec's behind.

Now the parson was old and his eyes were dim
And he couldn't have read a line or a hymn
Without his spec's for a mint of gold;

And his head turned hot while his toes turned cold;
And right in the midst of his mental shock,
The parson deceived his trusting flock,
And gave them eternal life and a crown,
From the book he was holding upside down.

Tom, the rascal, five minutes before,

Like an arrow, had shot from the chancel door.

The horses he frightened I never can tell,

Nor how the old church folks were shocked, as well,
And they said they feared that the parson's lad
"Was a-gettin' wild" and would "go to the bad;"
For 'twas wicked enough to set folks in a craze
Without "ridin' sech races on Sabbath days;"
And they thought the length of the parson's prayer
Had something to do with his fatherly care-
While the truth of it was, which he afterwards dropped,
He didn't know what he could do when he stopped.

Of course you know how the story will end;
The prayer was finished and duly "Amen'd,"
When Tom, all dust, to the pulpit flew
And laid down the specs and the sermon too.
Then the parson preached in a timid way
Of sinful pleasure on Sabbath-day;

And he added a postscript, not in the text,
Saying that, when they were sore perplexed,
Each must decide as he chanced to feel.

And Tom chuckled: "Sundays, I'll ride my wheel."

Part Thirty-First.

Each of the Four Numbers of

"100 Choice Selections" contained in this volume is paged separately, and the Index is made to correspond therewith. See EXPLANATION on first page of Contents.

The entire book contains nearly

1000 pages.