BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S TOAST

First published in 1797

At the conclusion of the war, Dr. Franklin, the English Ambassador, and the French Minister, Vergennes, dining together at Versailles, a toast from each was called for and agreed to. The British Minister began with: "George the Third, who, like the sun in its meridian, spreads a luster throughout and enlightens the world." The French Minister followed with: "The illustrious Louis XVI, who, like the moon, sheds his mild and benignant rays on, and influences the globe." Our American Franklin then gave: "George Washington, Commander of the American armies, who, like Joshua of old, commanded the sun and the moon to stand still, and they obeyed him."

THE BROKEN PINION

I walked through the woodland meadows,
Where sweet the thrushes sing:
And I found on a bed of mosses
A bird with a broken wing.

I healed its wound, and each morning
It sang its old sweet strain,

But the bird with the broken pinion
Never soared as high again.

I found a young life broken

By sin's seductive art;

And, touched with a Christ-like pity,
I took him to my heart.

He lived with a noble purpose

And struggled not in vain;

But the life that sin had stricken
Never soared as high again.

But the bird with the broken pinion
Kept another from the snare;
And the life that sin had stricken
Raised another from despair.
Each loss has its compensation,
There is healing for every pain:
But the bird with a broken pinion
Never soars as high again.

Hezekiah Butterworth.

BEGIN AGAIN

Every day is a fresh beginning,

Every morn is the world made new;
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you-
A hope for me and a hope for you.

All the past things are past and over,

The tasks are done and the tears are shed;

Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover;

Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

Yesterday now is a part of forever,

Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight;

With glad days and sad days and bad days which never Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight, Their fullness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot relive them,
Cannot undo, and cannot atone;
God in His mercy, receive, forgive them;
Only the new days are our own,
Today is ours, and today alone.

Here are the skies all burnished brightly,
Here is the spent Earth all reborn,
Here are the tired limbs springing lightly
To face the sun and to share with the morn,
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

Every day is a fresh beginning:

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,
Take heart with the day, and begin again.

Susan Coolidge.

BETTY AND THE BEAR

In a pioneer's cabin out West, so they say,
A great big black grizzly trotted one day,
And seated himself on the hearth, and began
To lap the contents of a two-gallon pan
Of milk and potatoes-an excellent meal-
And then looked about to see what he could steal.
The lord of the mansion awoke from his sleep,
And, hearing a racket, he ventured to peep
Just out in the kitchen, to see what was there,
And was scared to behold a great grizzly bear.

So he screamed in alarm to his slumbering frau, "Thar's a b'ar in the kitchen as big's a cow!"

"A what?" "Why, a b'ar!" "Well, murder him, then!" "Yes, Betty, I will, if you'll first venture in.

So Betty leaped up, and the poker she seized,

While her man shut the door, and against it he squeezed. As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows,

Now on his forehead, and now on his nose,

Her man through the keyhole kept shouting within,
"Well done, my brave Betty, now hit him again,
Now poke with the poker, and poke his eyes out."
So, with rapping and poking, poor Betty alone
At last laid Sir Bruin as dead as a stone.

Now when the old man saw the bear was no more,
He ventured to poke his nose out of the door,
And there was the grizzly stretched on the floor.
Then off to the neighbors he hastened to tell
All the wonderful things that that morning befell;
And he published the marvelous story afar,
How "me and my Betty just slaughtered a b'ar!
O yes, come and see, all the neighbors hev seed it,
Come and see what we did, me and Betty, we did it."
Anonymous.

A PRISON INCIDENT

It is said that there are no more horrible prisons than those found in certain provinces in Russia. A traveller, just returned from these provinces, gives an interesting incident in connection with prison life there. A colonel was appointed to take charge of one of the largest and most noxious of the prisons. It was situated in the center of an important

province, and was filled with turbulent men and abandoned women. Harsh discipline, poor food, insufficient ventilation, uncleanliness and hopelessness-all conspired to brutalize the inmates.

Especially was this true of the women. The longer they were imprisoned, the more depraved and unmanageable they became, until it needed a disciplinarian of the severest type to keep them under control. The colonel could manage the men, but the women defied him, and he began to think that he must resort to flogging to subdue them.

One morning the colonel's young wife took a walk in the prison yard. She was a gentle enthusiast, who had made up her mind when her husband first entered upon his official duties, to reform, if possible, the women prisoners by kindness. This purpose she failed to accomplish; for kindness seemed to have no more influence over them than solitary confinement. As she walked in the yard one morning she became apprehensive and nervous lest some harm might be done her baby whom the nurse carried beside her and for the first time had taken into the enclosure.

As soon as the women prisoners caught sight of the child they ran to it, gesticulating wildly. The mother gave a shriek and stood at bay before them, prepared to defend her babe from violence. The guard came running up; but instead of the abusive language which had heretofore greeted the young wife, the poor women broke into raptures over the babe.

"Oh, the darling! Let me hold him." One after another stretched out her marred arms in entreaty toward the obdurate nurse.

"Isn't he the innocent!" exclaimed the vilest of the prisoners. At that word several of them peered into the pure face of the child and then broke down, tears streaming down their cheeks.