To all the higher things of life,
Divine compassion, and pure love.
'Tis yours to stimulate, refine,
To win men by a kindly heart;
Not grovel with us where the sign
Of Mammon hangs above the mart.

Thine is the task to reign supreme
Within the sacred sphere of home;
To make our life one happy dream,
Thine own as spotless as the foam.
To trade, to toil, to head the feast,
To seek the politician's gain,
Were hateful:--ay, as though the priest
Took usury, within the fane!

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration]

BARON DE BOOK-WORMS owns to being easily affected by a pathetic
episode. He well remembers how years ago in the course of a
discussion among literary men about books and their writers, the Baron
acknowledged that in spite of his having been told how the pathos of
DICKENS was all a trick, and how the sentiment of that great novelist
was for the most part false, he still felt a choking sensation in his
throat and a natural inclination to blow his nose strenuously whenever
he re-read the death of _Little Paul_, the death of _Dora_, and some