tleman in Norton Bury who, if you had come to burn his house down, would not have had the constables or the soldiers shoot down one half of you like mad dogs, and sent the other half to the county jail. Now, for all your misdoings, we let you go quietly home, well fed, and with food for children, too. Why, think you?"

"I don't know," said Jacob Baines, humbly.

"I'll tell you.

a Christian."

Because Abel Fletcher is a Quaker and

"Hurrah for Abel Fletcher! Hurrah for the Quakers!" shouted they, waking up the echoes down Norton Bury streets, which, of a surety, had never echoed to that shout before. And so the riot was over.

NOTE. This extract is from "John Halifax, Gentleman," a story, the object of which is to portray the development of a true Christian gentleman from a poor orphan boy. Wandering from place to place in search of employment, John Halifax was hired as a cart driver by Abel Fletcher, a Quaker tanner and miller. Phineas Fletcher, the invalid son of the Quaker, tells how, through unswerving honesty, John Halifax wins the confidence and esteem of his father. During the English famine in 1800 a mob of starving workmen attacked the house of the Quaker, but they were appeased and dispersed in the manner here narrated. The entire story is well worth reading.

SONG OF THE RIVER.

BY ABRAM J. RYAN.

A river went singing a-down to the sea,

A-singing low-singing

And the dim rippling river said softly to me,

To the shores that are white where the waves are SO

weary,

To the beach that is burdened with wrecks that are

dreary.

"A song sweet and calm

As the peacefullest psalm ;
And the shore that was sad

Will be grateful and glad,

And the weariest wave from its dreariest dream
Will wake to the sound of the song of the stream;
And the tempests shall cease
And there shall be peace.
From the fairest of fountains
And farthest of mountains,

From the stillness of snow

Came the stream in its flow.

Down the slopes where the rocks are gray,
Through the vales where the flowers are fair-
Where the sunlight flashed - where the shadows lay
Like stories that cloud a face of care,

Day and night, and night and day.
Going and going, and never gone,
Longing to flow to the "far away."

Staying and staying, and never still, —
Going and staying, as if one will

Said, "Beautiful river, go to the sea,'

And another will whispered, "Stay with me"

And the river made answer, soft and low,
"I go and stay"-"I stay and go.'

"But what is the song?" I said at last To the passing river that never passed; And a white, white wave whispered, "List to me, I'm a note in the song for the beautiful sea, A song whose grand accents no earth din may sever, And the river flows on in the same mystic key That blends in one chord the 'forever and never.""

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before a thousand.

Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem, that the kings and his princes and his wives might drink therein.

Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God, which was at Jerusalem, and the kings and his princes and his wives drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins

were loosed, and his knees smote one against another. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake

and said to the wise men of Babylon, "Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom."

Then came in all the king's wise men; but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof. Then was king Belshazzar greatly troubled, and his countenance was changed in him, and his lords were astonished.

Now the queen, by reason of the words of the king and his lords, came into the banquet house. And the queen spake and said: "Oh, king, live forever! Let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor let thy countenance be changed. There is a man in thy kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Forasmuch as an excellent spirit and knowledge and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel. Now, let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.

Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spake and said unto Daniel, "Art thou that Daniel which art of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king, my father, brought out of Jewry?

"I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods