Messrs. Putnam, of New York, have just ready a little manual on 'Authors and Authorship,' by Wm. Shepard, which will be found of much interest to the literary novice. It treats of the profession of literature, its struggles, temptations, drawbacks and advantages; discusses the relations of authors, editors and publishers; the reasons for the acceptance or the rejection of MSS., the conditions for success, &c., and gives statistics of the sales of popular books, of the prices paid for literary labour, and of fortunes won by the pen.'

The editor of the Canada Educational Monthly announces that with the December number the publication reaches the close of its third volume. Of its progress he speaks thus: We will not say that the success of the publication has outstripped the expectations of its founder; **but it will be satisfactory to our friends to learn that the magazine has passed beyond the stage of good wishes, and has, we doubt not, established itself as a permanent and indis

pensable organ of the profession.' The Montreal Presbyterian College Journal, for December, in the following terms, felicitously commends the publication. It says: Were we asked to express an opinion on our professional friend, Canada Educational Monthly, Toronto, we would put it in a nutshell by adding an s to the first word in its title. Comparisons are odious; but we cannot help observing a marked difference between the Monthly and several so-called teachers' periodicals that lie on our exchange table.' The good word is well merited.

Messrs. James Campbell & Son, Toronto, lately issued a Presbyterian Hymn Book, compiled by a number of competent divines in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, which was at once accepted by the General Assembly for use in the churches. They have now published an edition of the work with the music, which has received high commendation for its excellence and suitableness as a manual of Church psalmody for the denomination. The mechanical appearance of both books is admirable.

Beds of tulips bright and golden,
Hyacinths of every shade,
Pansies, like sweet childish faces,
Looking up to greet the maid.

How they revelled in the sunshine,
While, 'mid clumps of violet blue,
Filling all the air with fragrance,
Glistened still the morning dew.

Then outspoke the little maiden, Looking at her dress of gray, Grandpa can thee tell the reason Why God made the flowers so gay. 'While we wear the quiet colours That thee knows we never meet, E'en in clover or the daisies

That we trample under feet?

'Seems to me a Quaker garden
Should not grow such colours bright,'
Roguishly the brown eyes twinkled,
While her grandpa laughed outright.

True it is, my little daughter,
Flowers wear not the Quaker gray;
But they neither toil nor labour
For their beautiful array.

'Feeling neither pride nor envy,

'Mong their sister flowers, thee knows; Well content to be a daisy,

Or a tall and queenly rose.

'Keeping still the same old fashions
Of their grandmothers of yore:
Else how should we know the flowers,
If each spring new tints they wore?

Even so the Quaker maiden
Should be all content to-day,
As a tulip, or a pansy,

In her dress of simple gray.'

Once again the brown eyes twinkled :
'Grandpa, thee is always right;
So thee sees, by thy own showing,
Some may dress in colours bright.

Those whom thee calls worldly people,
In their purple and their gold,
Are no gayer than these pansies
Or their grandmothers of old.

'Yet thee knows I am contented
With this quiet life of ours,
Still, for all, I'm glad, dear grandpa,
That there are no Quaker flowers.'

-From the Christian Register.

111

The lion is generally regarded as the king of beasts; but the Romans called the ox the bos.

Why is it bad for a boy to be given a man's clothes? Because he would be acquiring loose habits.

'Mamma, can't we have anything we want?' 'Yes, my dears, if you don't want anything you can't have.'

Youthful artist (to countryman); 'Might I go over there and paint those trees?' Countryman: Paint the trees maister! Don't thee think they look very well as they are?'

'That's what I call a finished sermon,' said a lady to her husband, as they wended their way from chapel on a recent wet Sunday. 'Yes,' was the reply ; 'but, do you know, I thought it never would be.'

A man who wanted to buy a horse asked a friend how to tell a horse's age. By his teeth,' was the reply. The next day, the man went to a horse-dealer, who showed him a splendid black horse. The horse-hunter opened the animal's mouth, gave one glance, and turned on his heel. "He's I don't want him,' said he. thirty-two years old.' He had counted the teeth.

say,

In Scotland, the topic of a sermon or discourse of any kind is called by oldfashioned folks its ground,' or, as they would 'Its grund.' An old woman, bustling into the kirk rather late, found the preacher had commenced, and, opening her Bible, nudged her next neighbour, with the inquiry, What's his grund?' 'Oh,' rejoined the other, who happened to be a brother minister, and therefore a priviliged critic, he's lost his grund long since, and he's just swimming.'

an

'We remember one evening,' says a writer in the London 'Spectator, Englishman expressing, more forcibly than politely, his abhorrence of the Japanese custom of eating raw fish. It was said in the presence of Mr. Iwakura, the son of the Japanese Minister, and then resident at Balliol College, Oxford. Expressions of disgust were being fluently uttered, when Iwakura interrupted the speaker. "By the way what shall we have for supper? Wouldn't you like a few oysters? I don't eat them myself, but, "the rest was lost in laughter at the keenness of the repartee.'

IRISH LOGIC (a fact).-Irish groom in charge of trap, asleep (rug and whip stolen). Master: Hallo, Mick! you are asleep.' Groom: No, sir, I am not.' Master: You have been--both rug and whip are gone. The fact of the matter is, you and I part to-morrow.' Groom: 'All right, sir, will oi give you a month's notice, or ye me?'

A stranger riding along the road, observed that all the milestones were turned in a particular way, not facing the road, but rather averted from it. He called to a countryman and inquired the reason. 'Guid bless you, sir,' replied the man, the wind is so strong hereawa' sometimes that, if we wern't to turn the backs of the milestones to it, the figures would be blawn off them clear and clean.'

Biddy (to old Bufkins, who has tried for ten minutes in vain to get his cherished clay to draw); 'Shure, sorr, and it's very sorry I am for breaking it; but how else was I to keep the pieces together if I didn't put the knitting needle inside?

Ord arily we know from what country 1 st people come by the language they use; but in the case of the swearer it is different. He uses the language of the country to which he is going.

--

LESSON FOR YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS.'How can you tell a young fowl from an old one?' 'By the teeth?' 'By the teeth? But fowls have no teeth?' 'I know they haven't, but I have.'

A reformed poacher says: 'It is very embarrassing to a man who has some religious friends staying with him to have his big dog, which has been very quiet during week days, begin after breakfast on Sunday, to run to the gun in the corner, and then to his master, and wag his tail and run back to the gun again.' THEOLOGICAL-Radical: Parson, I hear you say that I am dishonest in my opinions.' Parson: 'The reverse, my dear sir. What I did say was, that your opinions would be honest with the dis' off.'

THE LOST DAY.

BY GARET NOEL, TORONTO.

We rode one day, 'twas long ago;
And like a happy spirit,
The April wind went to and fro,
Awak'ning sweets to ferret;

For Spring had whispered to the earth
What ne'er to us she telleth ;
Our joys have no returning birth
As nature yearly feeleth.

So green the land it was a rest
The weary sight to gladden.
The happy meadows seemed too blest
For human feet to tread on.

The leaves hung lightly on the boughs, Unwearied by the summer,

And whispered of the west wind's vows To ev'ry chancing comer;

While, as the birds had found again
The home they loved the dearest,
From budding hedge, from grove and plain,
They sang their loudest, clearest ;

And as sweet strangers, half in doubt
If earth would bring them crosses,
The early flowers peeped shyly out
From 'midst their friendly mosses.

We rode a long, a pleasant way;
Fair was the earth, and fairer
The light within us made that day,
Its gift of sunshine rarer.

We murmured, 'lovely is the Spring,'
Nor dreamed that lay within us
A mystery of blossoming

No future years would bring us.

Of words, not many passed between ;
For silence seemed the meetest :
But glances something told, I ween,
Of thoughts each held the sweetest.

For poets we that afternoon.
And Love our inspiration;
He quickened us to nature's tone,
And taught us nature's passion.

We felt with all her happy things
Our hearts in unison beating;
A myth seemed human sufferings;
A tale, life's sterner greeting.

And ever, as we onward rode,
In closer chains he bound us,
Until it seemed no common sod,
But fairyland, around us.

Ah! hidden long had been that day,
In chambers nigh forgotten,

When Mem'ry chanced to pass that way

And gathered it unsoughten;

And brought it where, full heavily,

I sat my sorrows keeping;

And, oh! the tears that came to me,But it was summer weeping.

HE advocates of a Republican

THER

form of Government for Canada are wont to dignify the object of their aspirations by the attractive title of Independence. So confident are they of the deeply rooted attachment of the people of Canada to the principles of the British Constitution, and the repugnance of Canadians in general to the system which must be substituted for it in the event of our separation from the rest of the British Empire is so evident to them that they instinctively seek to excite discontent with our present condition rather than enthusiasm for that which they hope is to take its place. This is sought to be done, negatively and positively, by the reiteration of that one word. By its constant use, coupled with that of such taunting phrases as clinging to the skirts of the Mother Country,' as descriptive of our present political condition, we Canadians are expected to be rendered dissatisfied with it, as the very opposite of that 'independence' to which, in all things, people of spirit naturally aspire. There is absolutely

nothing more in the case or the tactics of those who have invented this cry. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, has so great a revolution been sought to be accomplished by the employment of means so trifling. We refer, of course, to peaceful revolutions, and the means by which they are brought about. For we all know that when the minds of any people are predisposed to revolt against a system of government with which they have become profoundly dissatisfied, the veriest trifle may precipitate an outbreak, and may seem to produce consequences to which it merely gives occasion, but which are really due to antecedent causes of quite different weight and significance. In such a state of affairs great may be the power of a phrase, a nickname, a word well or ill understood, caught up by an unthinking multitude.

'Bad dog, bad dog,' the Quaker cried; 'Mad dog, mad dog,' the people quick replied.

Under certain propitious circumstances, hopes of a successful revolt at

tending the application of a leverage of this kind, naturally and apparently insignificant, but adventitiously of great power, would be justified by experience. But what justification is to be found in history for any expectation that success will attend the attempt to seduce a loyal people from their allegiance, and to convert contented Monarchists into unwilling Republicans solely by the use of a word faintly implying a taunt? And yet no less is sought to be done here in Canada by constantly dinging into our ears the one word 'independence.' Not a single complaint against our present political position has ever been put forward, with the exception of that thread-bare one, so disgraceful to our manhood, that it exposes Canada to the danger of being made the battle-field in the event of war between Great Britain and the United States. To say nothing of the far greater and nearer probability of Canada becoming a battlefield when severed from the rest of the Empire, and continuing so until annexed by conquest to the United States, this is a grievance, if grievance it be, which is common to every frontier community, but which is never held to justify timidity or treason. When the French army invaded Germany, and the German army rolled back the tide of invasion upon France, certain portions of both countries suffered cruelly in their turn from the horrors of war; but it does not appear that the inhabitants of those portions of either country had sought to escape from their liability to such a fate by previous political desertion on a large scale, or were deficient in patriotism, courage or endurance when the time came for them to do and suffer for their country. Convinced as we are that those who advocate what they are pleased to call the independence' of Canada are in reality, consciously or unconsciously, advocating the absorption of Canadà into the United States, we can compare this sole and single argument which has ever been put

forth in favour of its being brought about to one thing only. It is as if the officers and sailors of the Channel Fleet were to propose to take our menof-war to Cherbourg, and, hauling down the British flag, deliver them over to the French Admiralty in order to prevent their decks becoming stained with blood in the event of war with France. But, in truth, this battle-field argument, if it is good for anything at all, must be applicable in some degree on the other side of the border also; and it seems to us that it would be more patriotic, for such at least of the advocates of so-called Canadian Independence as are not Amercan emissaries, to urge the States and Territories on our border, from the State of Maine on the coast of the Atlantic to Washington Territory on that of the Pacific, to secede from the Union in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation, and save themselves from a battle-field fate by either setting up for themselves or seeking for annexation to the British Empire.

There is, of course, an argument to the disadvantage of our present state latent in the appropriation of the word 'independence' as descriptive of some impliedly opposite state, which those who affect to sigh for its advent are, however, scrupulously careful not to define or describe, or enlarge upon in any way. It is, or is to be, independence,' and that is all the information vouchsafed to us upon the subject. This being the wise and prudent policy of our opponents, we, the upholders of the existing order of things, have a twofold task to perform. We have not only to demonstrate the strength of the grounds and reasons of our adhesion to that order, but also to expose the utter weakness of our adversaries' case, and thereby further and superabundantly justify that adhesion. It is never safe or prudent to despise an enemy, and he is not a wise advocate who, however strong he may have been able to show his own case to be, resumes his seat before he has