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ITTLE MAUD,

LETTERS FOR THE MONTHS. WOODFORD.

L' I walked through the woods to-day. Have you been watching the leaves dimming and brightening on the trees? The ash leaves grow pale yellow; the elm leaves grow deeper orange; the beeches brown; the chestnuts are ablaze with crimson and gold.

This early afternoon the forest keeps state. The sun has so flushed all its vistas -one is but aware of a glory, a brooding of utter peace. The late love of Autumn is on it, the finger too of its decay. Mixed with the brilliant leaves are clusters of crumpled brown.

And the fungi-do you note the fungi? Dim green, rose colour, pyramids of pure snow. The flowers are dead among the hedge-roots;-dead among the roots of the

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oaks. But flecks of glorious colour are left still among the withered things,-lights with their lingering benison and their touches of late joy.

While I walked, little Maud, I listened, and the forest seemed to chant a psalm. I do not know where it found voice, for there was neither breeze nor bird. But the psalm was so very lovely, I sat on a low mound, and said:

'If my fairy Maud were here, would she hear the same words as I?'

I do not think she would. Little Maud has all the years to fill. She would only hear the happy music of her own young hope.

That is well, little Maud. Hope on joyfully. More than hope or dream has imagined, life, perhaps, has hid for you.

PRIZE BIBLE QUESTIONS.

One of God's sacred gifts is this, the unutterable hope of youth; in itself a glory and a beauty, and an earnest of all the possible.

But when life lies half behind, we hear other voices in the trees.

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Through the parted branches of the trees let us look up and see the sky, and remember diviner words, with a promise of the yearned-for good.

'My peace I give unto you.' Dear and sweet promise. Yet we take the gift so seldom. And the beautiful floods our hearts with sorrow as often as with calm. Good-bye.

H. W. H. W.

This old and lovely village lies in the forest, as you know. A mass of ancient cedar stands out black against the paler foliage; a tremulous acacia lifts its long feathered branches, in tender lace-work, on the blue, faint, autumn sky. And between and among the green, rise the clustered, twisted chimnies of the quiet, old dreamy PASSING along the village street,

houses, of their dormer windows perched high up in nests of ivy green.

'Tis so sweet a village, little Maud, I wish you could be always here. We should walk, in scarce half-an-hour, to this forest glade where I sit.

We should listen together then, for the forest-psalms in the trees. I think in these same shadows Herbert made some of his hymns. Woodford was his home for a year, when delicate health forced him to withdraw to some such quiet spot. One could wish no lovelier quiet for thoughts of God and heaven.

And the hymn of another voice, hushed many years ago, comes back with the same sweet music as rings through these autumn trees.

'Our God, we thank Thee who hast made The earth so bright,

So full of splendour and of joy,

Beauty and light!

So many glorious things are here,

Noble and right.

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THE TEETOTAL MAN.

Where some children merrily ran,
I heard amid the rush of feet,
'Hurrah, for the teetotal man!'

I looked, and saw a chubby boy,
Whose years were but merely a span,
O'er all his face were gleams of joy-
Hurrah, for the teetotal man!

The neighbours knew his word was sure,
For he'll do whatever he can
To follow all that's good and pure-
Hurrah, for the teetotal man!

Poverty clogs the drunkard's wife,

And her face is sickly and wan;
A curse seems hanging o'er each life-
Hurrah, for the teetotal man!

Stick to the pledge. Be earnest, boys!
Keep well in the temperance van,
For there you will have truest joys-
Hurrah, for the teetotal man!

D. C.

PRIZE BIBLE QUESTIONS. THREE Prizes are offered for the largest number of correct answers to the Questions during 1880. The Competition is limited to those under 14 years of age. The answers to be sent to the REV. JOHN KAY, 2 Cumin Place, Grange, Edinburgh, by the 25th of each month.

28 In which verse of one of the Old Testament prophets does the writer quote from an earlier prophet?

29 Where does a prophet tell us that he understood, by having studied the writings of another prophet, that God was about to deliver His people?

30 Where does one apostle refer to epistles written by another apostle?

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FINDING A NEST.

OR, MAN'S DUTY TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.

ALFRED,' said little Annie Maitland,

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one bright spring morning as she skipped lightly in by the open study window to where her brother sat reading, 'I have found such a beauty of a nest in the old tree; can it be our pretty Robin that has built there?'-Not if it is in a tree,' explained Alfred. 'Robins build on the ground, generally at the root of a tree or hedge. Anyhow, put away that tiresome book and come to the garden with me.' 'Indeed, Annie, how do you know that it is tiresome,' was the laughing reply, 'seeing you haven't read it?' Of course the book was not tiresome to Alfred. He was fond of tales of adventure; and this was an account of a real voyage to the Artic Regions, that strange weird land of snow and night.' But Alfred Maitland had already learned to be able cheerfully to give up his own wishes for the gratification of others; and so now, closing the book, he joined his young sister and led her off in a merry gallop down the garden path, as only big brothers know how, prudently pausing, however, before coming to the tree, lest the unusual noise should frighten the bird. Alfred admired the nest quite as much as his sister expected, and well he might; for a chaffinch's nest, as this was, is one of the neatest of nests, and with its green moss walls and soft lining it forms such a cosy resting place for the pretty speckled eggs. 'But, Annie,' said her brother, 'we must not come here very often until after the eggs are hatched; then there will be no danger of the bird forsaking its young, and we can watch the father and mother carrying food, which the funny little creatures make such wide mouths to receive.'

After carefully removing all signs of their footsteps from the grass about the tree, our two children went off for a walk by the river side. A short way down the road they were met by one of the village boys, who was carrying something very cautiously in his cap, which the young Maitlands soon perceived to be a bird's nest

with four lovely blue eggs, that Tom had just helped himself to from a hedge close by.

'You cruel wicked boy,' exclaimed Annie, to have robbed the poor bird of her nest.'- That is none of your business,' was the rude answer. 'But indeed it is, and I shall tell my papa to have you punished.' The boy only laughed at this foolish threat, but Annie had that very morning heard her father speaking of some one who had been taken up for interfering with game on a neighbouring estate, and in the eyes of our little girl a hedge sparrow was as precious as a pheasant.

'But, Tom,' said Alfred more gently, 'it doesn't seem quite fair, does it, to run off with the poor birds' property. They must have spent a great deal of time and labour in building themselves so beautiful a house : it is enough to break their hearts when they come back and find it gone. We get so much pleasure too from the singing of birds, it is rather hard lines to give them only pain in return.'

This was quite a new view of the case to the country Arab,' and he began to look a bit ashamed of himself; for Tom was not so much a really hardhearted boy as that idle habits had been his snare, and we know that Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to de. 'It can't be helped now any way,' was the half repentant answer. Here a bright thought struck Annie. 'Oh, Alf, 'she said, 'couldn't we put back the nest if Tom is willing to give it up?' Alfred was doubtful if the bird would return, but they might try. And so this was accomplished to the entire satisfaction of the children, but whether or not to that of the original owners of the nest we dont pretend to say.

Tom now rather puzzled Alfred by asking if there was any difference between -'a fellow like me taking a shie al a bird and the gentry going out for the same thing with dogs and guns?''I am not sure that I can explain this rightly, Tom, but there is papa coming along the meadow path; let us ask him. When Mr Maitland heard what was wanted

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