and see them practising all the little tricks of voice and manner, caught from older sisters, until we become disgusted at their precocity and wonder where the children of to-day are, or if there are none, childhood being a myth of past ages. Yet on whose shoulders does the blame of this rest? Assuredly on yours and mine, just so far as we by our actions teach them that such things may be done, and that not only without shame, but with actual self-glorification. but soon getting sickly and losing their, their should-be playmates of the other sex, beauty when exposed to the rude elements without. What the world demands now is piety of a more natural, substantial and reliable growth; not of the hot-house sort, not that which is kindred to the gourd, whose birth and growth and death reach only from sunset to sunset - but piety that is as tough and sturdy as the white oak, solid and sound to the very heart; piety that does not wilt in the hot sun of business life, nor shrivel in the fiery heat of temptation, but stands up bravely and victoriously against the world, the flesh and the devil. This piety, this Christian character, will win the respect and admiration and imitation of the world; will reach in all its strength and beauty through the longest life, and finally crown it with a death which shall be a golden gate opening into the glory of the immortal. A GIRL'S TALK TO GIRLS. BY SARAH L. JOY. Flirtation. Good sense, good taste and justice must all protest against our lowering ourselves and our sex as we do in persisting in this habit. In the first place, think how silly it is. You have all of you seen as much of it as I have, and I hope it has impressed you as unfavora bly. I think I can describe a scene that most of you will recognize as having witnessed, if indeed you have not been actors in it. In one of the rooms at boarding-school a group of girls assembled chattering away as only school-girls can chatter, when the door opens and in rushes a new comer, cheeks aflame and eyes aglow, and without waiting F all the objectionable words in the Eng- for the torrent of questions sure to be poured Olish language, this is the one I would have blotted out most quickly from our vocabulary, not simply that we might have another to take its place, but fully and entirely thrown into disuse because there would be no occasion to use it. I know very well, girls, how you will open your eyes at this, and how some of the most unthinking among you will protest at first, yet I am sure when you come to consider the matter thoroughly, see what that which you call amusement really is, how it is warping your lives, lowering your standard of justice and truth, and putting on yourselves and your sex the value at which you are willing to be estimated in the opinion of every honest man and woman, I think you will be ready to agree with me in my hatred for this most despicable habit. You think I speak strongly, perhaps, but it is no more strongly than I feel. This pernicious habit is growing so fearfully upon us, gaining ground every year, that I tremble when I think what the result may be. The example begins to tell already; we hear girls scarcely in their teens talking over their "flirtations," as they airily term them, with upon her, she plunges at once into her subject. Any one not accustomed to such scenes would expect some tremendous revelation of vital importance, some triumph, perhaps, over some perplexed question of study, a solution of some knotty point over which the tired brain has puzzled long and patiently, and waiting anxiously to hear the cause of such mental excitement, would be somewhat surprised, not to say startled, to hear the following announcement: 66 "O, girls! hurry, quick! there's two splendid fellows just gone past in a buggy, and-end I have had the gayest flirtation with them! They're real handsome, both of them, and they waved their handkerchiefs and threw kisses at us until they got clear by. I waved mine back, you may be sure, but L. didn't dare to, because she's been called to the library once you know for flirting, so she just tied hers to the tassel of the window curtain, and she couldn't help its swinging you know. I laughed till I thought I should have died, and when she had tied it up and just hit it—accidentally of course so it should swing, they took off their hats and made just the lowest bow. They'll be back again in a minute, so I want you to come up to our room and see the fun." So off she starts with the whole bevy after her in wild pursuit, and in a minute more her room is reached. The door is locked and some one is instructed to call "busy" in case of an attempted interruption and eager glances are thrown out of the windows watching for the return of the knights of the handkerchief. Here they come at last, and now the excitement is at its height. Handkerchiefs are waved, bows exchanged, kisses tossed to the young ladies at least, until the carriage is out of sight, and the bustle is a little quieted by an admonitory tap at the door, and a warning "Too much noise, young ladies!" when they settle them selves to talk over their "good time" as they call it, and watch for some other chance passers-by to go through the same senseless mummery, under the title of a "splendid flirtation." and I have seen the hot blush of indignation rush to many a girl's cheek on being told that it was impossible to put confidence in her; but it was by her own act and no whim of her reprover, as she used to fancy it was, that her standing in the estimation of the best was lowered. I think we all see these things differently now, but while we have given up these senseless ways of amusement, we have fallen into deeper, more dangerous habits, from which we have a thousand times more to fear. I mean something more than artful coquetry, or thoughtless trifling; a deliberate leading on of some person for our own gratification merely, until their best affections are won, then throwing them carelessly one side to play the same game with another. Perhaps it is done oftentimes, indeed I think it is, for mere selfish ends which we wish to gratify. A taste for amusement, a decided love of admiration and attention, is often the motive power, with utter carelessness and indifference to the result. "I want to go, somebody cares to take me, and I might as well go with him as any one," says many a courages her admirer in every way, and then when he asks to repay him for all this, in the truest, sweetest way a woman can repay the man who loves her, she coolly tells him she had no idea of such a thing, she thought he simply regarded her as a friend, &c; going over the old stereotyped phrases that have been used in like circumstances by demure damsels ever since the world began. There may be some, I hope there are many who won't understand this at all, and who will be almost ready to declare such silliness impossible, but those of you who know board-girl, so she shuts her eyes to the future, ening-school life will know that what I have told you is a veritable truth, though perhaps it may never have seemed so silly and ridiculous to you before. For one I fail to see the pleasure in it; the only emotion I could ever fancy its calling forth, was a certain fear of being found out, for the penalty was not a light one, and there wasn't one of us who wouldn't rather face any danger, or endure any physical pain rather than meet the calm blue eyes of our preceptress, and hear her in her low, measured tones deal out to us that dignified reproach that almost amounted to contempt. Beyond this I could understand none of the excitement, and now it is a greater puzzle to me than ever. Besides gaining no real pleasure, we did ourselves an infinite deal of harm, in which not only the actors but those entirely innocent, even from a thought of wrong-doing, suffered. There was not one among us but would have been indignant had she been told she were lowering herself in the eyes of every one by her actions. Still it was true. One could not patiently brook being told by a teacher that it denoted lack of principle, There may be times when all this is really true, when the advances have been so gradual, that such a declaration is indeed unexpected. Then no blame can be attached to the recipient, but usually such attentions are so marked that there is no mistaking them, and any young lady of ordinary capacity can tell whether they are earnest or not; for in heart matters the sex are quick readers, and there are signs that cannot be mistaken. Unless she chooses, no lady, or few at least, need give herself or another the pain of a direct refusal; when she does, she may be set down at once as heartless and unprincipled. Girls, our sex is not alone in this, and in some things we are at a decided disadvan tage. Attentions may be offered which we accept in all honor, believing in the honor of those who offer them. A young man may monopolize his friend's society, showing in every way that he considers her his by right, compel her by his manner to give up all other friends for his sake, yet all the time taking care not to "commit himself" by any word by which she can hold him when he chooses to take "French leave," which usually occurs soon after he has found that he has won her love, and that in all the world there is no one to her what he is. He can do this and say, "I was not bound, I gave her no promise that should lead her to think I meant anything serious." Let me tell you, girls, he can't quiet his own conscience with that sophistry; he knows that he gave more than words, and that no act of his during their whole friendship, but gave her the right to expect more from him. A woman in that case is helpless; she has no aid except in the pride of her womanhood, which if it be true and pure, will rise above the sorrow, and look with pity akin to contempt on the creature who could so far forget his manliness as to bring such suffering to the life of another, and that other one whom every law, human and divine, should urge him to treat with consideration, or at least justice. But, girls, any sin like this on the part of another does not, cannot, excuse it in us. We have no right to trifle with the feelings of another, even to avenge a fancied or real slight on ourselves or others. Justice demands that we treat those with whom we come in contact as we would be treated by them. We cannot consistently exact from them what we refuse to give, and so long as we indulge in this habit of deception and intrigue, so long we may expect to receive the like treatment. I wish I could tell you how utterly I despise all this, and how I wish every one of our sex would, true to all the finer instincts of womanhood, stand boldly out against it. So thoroughly condemned, the habit must die. It never could stand against such a tide of indignation. But now, girls, of you who don't believe in it, who never allow yourselves to be drawn into it, I want to ask one thing. Do you do what you can to suppress it? Do you raise your voices in protest against it, or do you simply fold your hands, sit quietly down and say, "It's no business of mine, I can't help it." It is business of yours, you can help it; in a measure certainly, every one of you. Just so much as you care to raise the standard of womanhood, to make your own sex see their duties, the other to acknowledge their purity and uprightness, in such proportion as you care to keep the name of woman from trailing in the mire of slander and ridicule, just so much it is your business. Just so vigorously and firmly as you put both voice and example against it, just so much you can help it. The work is partly in our hands, yours and mine. Girls, to you who have thoughtlessly drifted along in this habit, will you not think of it more seriously? See what wrong you are doing to yourselves and to us all. Do you not shrink from having your name idly on every tongue? Do you not see that in so much as you lose the respect of the good and true, in so much you lose from your life of its power of doing good? Do you not feel that what you gain in assurance and self-confidence you lose in that instinctive delicacy that is the true beauty of girlhood? I know if you see this aright, you will acknowledge your error, and may I hope that from acknowledgment will come improvement, for you know and but half. "A fault confessed Is half redressed," ABOVE AND BELOW THE CLOUDS. A BY MRS. R. B. EDSON. FEW years since there flashed along the wires from the Carolinas, a thrilling report of a "battle above the clouds." It was a beautiful thought, highly poetic and eminently suggestive. It was seized upon by poet and preacher and applied to the possi bilities of life; but alas, for its practicability. Very few of us are able to live much above the clouds. Most of our battles have to be fought beneath them. It is only in some favored moments that we get glimpses of the eternal calm beyond. Groping in these dim, earthly labyrinths, beset by peril and haunted by doubt is it any marvel we stumble sometimes? The sunlight that floods the mountain summit lies pale and cool in the shadowed valleys. We murmur that it is so, and seek, but ah! how vainly, to rend the cloudy veil. It is only at rare intervals that we are lifted above the doubts and disturbances of this lower sphere, and can look down upon them as transient mists and vapors. Ah! how the dull pattern of our common lives grows soft and beautiful in the clear light of these serener skies! How all our crosses seem changing into crowns, and how impotent and weak look the "lions in the way!" How easy leads the path to heaven from these rare Olivets where we would fain make tabernacles and abide. But as we sometimes see the clouds lift at sun-setting, revealing for a moment the golden splendor beyond, and then shut down again in storm and darkness, so God lets fall again the curtain that veils his upper heaven and leaves us amid the shadows below. But ah! the sweet foreshadowing of a beautiful to-morrow, when the storms shall all be past! I think we are all very slow to learn the lesson of the Master's life. Only once did the heavens open and the visible spirit of God descend and rest upon him. If he trod the mount of transfiguration, he also fasted in the wilderness of temptation, paused, weary, at the well of Samaria, and wept and prayed in Gethsemane. His way lay oftenest through lowly paths. Do we not talk and preach too much about living above these common ills and common cases? When we come to the rough places, which is bravest to walk triumphantly through them or wait to be lifted over? If trials did not annoy, or sorrows pain, or temptations tempt us, where would be our merit, or their discipline? There is nothing that strengthens the soul like struggle. The sweetest and richest lives have been lived by those who have suffered most and conquered most. I think if we were to take all the most disagreeable things and all the most painful things, and all the things we most dread and dislike, and work them into our lives, not shirking them, but using them in a Christian temper, we should be surprised to find what stepping stones they were to Heaven. Our religion is too often divorced from our common lives; it is to us a sentiment, an emotion, a thing of times and seasons, rather than an all-pervading principle, entering into all the secret fastnesses of our domestic, social, moral, and spiritual life. God is not alone upon some glorified Olivet, but close beside us in our daily duties and daily conflicts; strengthening us for them all, and giving us sometimes through the parting rifts faint glimpses of the glory beyond, only glimpses, because the steady light would be too great for our mortal vision. But by-andby in the eternal calm of His great here. after, our conflicts and triumphs won, we may sit in its celestial radiance forevermore. THE OLD MAN WHO WOULD A-WOOING GO. BY ALICE CARY. Mistress lady-lark, mistress lady-lark! I want your tender and true eyes! And I want your heavenly blue eyes! Modest violet, maiden violet, Pray, can I borrow your blue eyes? Mistress nightingale, mistress nightingale, I want to borrow your fair tongue, For I have to sing a sweeter tale Than ever you in the air sung; Melodious mistress nightingale Be still, and lend me your fair tongue! Master redbreast, robin redbreast, Whose note has so oft my day cheered, You wear the color my love loves bestWill you lend it to a grey-beard? O, stay my little man, stay in your nest, And make me brave for a grey-beard! A hollow silver feather? Say, shall we write together? Editorial Department. ness. Within the Veil. The time of the fading leaf is in a peculiar sense consecrated to memory and sadThe winds that sigh the requiem of summer touch a chord in every bosom to which their own mournful sweetness is attuned. The haze of the autumn atmosphere steals about the heart also, and spreads over the face of all things a soft and tender melancholy. The earth, which has brightened like a meadow and bloomed like a garden, takes upon itself the stillness and solemnity of a burial-place, and strews its flowers and spreads its lealy pall as if it would lend to the departing year all the sad poetry of death. And all this "glides into our musings with a mild and gentle sympathy." We are made to feel more deeply how in our own lives "the grass withereth, the flower fadeth," how, one by one, our treasures are slipping from us and are hidden from our sight, and how soon we, too, shall be laid to rest in the same silent bosOur own peculiar sorrow comes back to us afresh, and with it we are touched with a closer sense of all the sorrow and sadness om. gather fulness and sweetness. We are exalted above our common life, and sustained by a strength and calmness that can have no other source than the grace of God. As the year buries its flowers, in pomp of gold and crimson, so we bury our loved ones, our souls rapt and glowing, and the world transfigured in the light of more divine realities. We need appeal to no one who with Christian faith has followed its beloved to the gates of the other life, as to the nature of this exaltation. It is something apart from excitement or mere physical energy. It is an expansion and uplifting of life itself; it is the soul's assertion of its birthright and its supremacy over all the accidents of time. It is a view from the mountain-top of that fair land of promise that lies beyond our wilder ness. But we cannot abide here. The veil that hides our loved ones from our sight gathers thick about us, and shuts out the light of that world and of this. Oh, the dreary, dreary descent,- oh, the sad ebbing of the tide! Grief has its Novembers, when all is faded and gone; when the clouds weep and of this mortal life; and though we may hard- the winds sob, when the fire goes out on ly know what they mean, "Tears, from the depth of some divine despair, But there comes into these autumn days a glory, a richness, a tenderness that no other days can know. And shall our grief "do the season wrong"? May we not find a balm in sorrow itself, as these calm, mild days of hazy sunshine and mellow fruitfulfulness compensate us for the lost gladness of summer? Something of this God does for us as he loosens our hold upon our treasures. Life becomes deeper and richer as we see its light fading from us. A new warmth is on the earth, a new tenderness in the sky. The affections VOL. XLII.-20 the hearth, and the sun is lost from the sky. Deal leniently, judge charitably, ye to whom such days have not yet come. Talk not of rebellion against God; it is not that faith is dead, but that the sorrow overwhelms all things. Vex not the silence with explanations of what must lie hid in the counsels of the Most High; nor deem the torn heart unbelieving or unresigned because it cannot be comforted. Remember whose voice rang out against the darkened sky," My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Know that the time may come to you, a it has to many another, when that lone cry shall come closer to your soul, and hold more comfort for you, than any other words that were ever uttered by those divine lips. As in a storm, when the heavens were |