faint and sick and weary, when the path led | a day, remained full of water when it ebbed. suddenly down toward the shore, down from the hillside to the lower ground which lies beyond the cliffs I have mentioned, and brought him into a tiny cove that appeared to his imagination like a corner cut out of fairy-land. For the moment he forgot his trouble, forgot himself, in astonishment at the place where he stood-a bay hemmed in by high rocks, between which only a only a glimpse of the sea could be obtained, carpeted by the finest, whitest sand and thousands upon thousands of liliputian shells. Beside the path by which he had descended grew brambles and ivy, broom and ferns innumerable; wild flowers decked the little knolls of earth that were piled one above another on the land side of the bay. Great rocks almost like giant stones placed on end, only larger and loftier than any giant stones we know, formed ramparts about the cove; and when Andrew Hardell passed round and between these rocks, he found more tiny bays, each guarded, each sheltered, each with its own special lookout seaward, each with its own peculiar charm-creek within creek, bay without bay, rocks where one could play at hide-and-seek with the sea, places where no man might find, spots where the traveller seemed to have reached the last confines of earth and to be standing on the very shore of eternity. For the first time that day Andrew Hardell felt himself alone, hidden. He was sheltered from the glare of the sun; shaded by the rocks, he could look forth as from a bower with undazzled eyes upon the calm sea rippling lazily, leisurely in on the sand. At the outlet of one of the creeks he found a natural basin that, covered by the tide twice Into this, the sides of which were covered with small shellfish and seaweed, Andrew Hardell plunged his head. Again and again he dipped it into the water; then he shook the moisture from his hair, and with a sense of refreshment, looking up, beheld what he had travelled so far to find-a hiding-place. Far above high-water mark appeared in all directions fissures in the rocks-cracks narrow and deep, such as the sun makes sometimes in the earth. Here no cattle would come to browse, no children's hands be thrust in to discover, no man could get his arm down to search for anything which might lie concealed. All the day All the day long he had been scanning the earth and the sea, the purple heather and the blue expanse of water, searching for a hiding-place in vain, and now, all at once, by the merest accident, as it seemed, he had come upon that which he sought. It was no easy matter to climb the rocks, but he managed at length to do so and search out the most likely fissure in which to rid himself of his burden. He selected one which lay on the westerly side of a rock, standing more out toward the sea than most of its companions-a rock backed against two others, encrusted up to a certain point with limpets and mussels, and clothed all over with gray lichen and long green seaweed. It took him a weary time to coax bit after bit of the coat down through the crevice; and when at length it was completely hidden from view, he had still to find another fissure in which to conceal the remainder of the suit. Patiently he cut the cloth to pieces; with his knife he slit the seams, and separated the whole into portions con venient to thrust down the cracks. When as he beheld the still beauty of the scene, the last morsel disappeared, with a rod, as he felt the lash of the waves coming up which he tore from among the brambles, toward the shore, the strength, the hope, he he measured the depth the pieces had had lost seemed to come back, and he bedropped, and, having thrust them down as thought him-God knows why, for our memfar as he could, he collected sinall stones ories are linked together after a fashion to in his knapsack and half filled up the which man can give no clue of the leper crevices with them. Stones and shells and who dipped seven times in Jordan and came sand he gathered and carried up with a forth clean as a little child. That, Andrew great terror and a great joy contending Hardell knew, might never be his fate, and together in his breast. yet already he commenced to feel that the happiness had not quite departed out of his life, that the face of Nature might once again smile for him as it smiled for others, that it was quite possible Suspicion might never knock at his door, that he might yet return to England and quietly resume the old roads of existence, no one but himself knowing of the secret hidden in his heart-of the evidence on which he had so recently piled sand and stones and shells. In the after-years, whenever by the seashore he beheld children digging in the sand and picking up pebbles and shells, his thoughts flew back to an evening by the Solway when he too scooped up the sand in handfuls and sought for shells and pebbles—not for amusement, but to save his life. A stretch of seaA stretch of seashore with the sun's rays streaming from the west over it always brought in the days which were then all to be passed through-the memory of fairy-bays shut in by rocks where the evidence lay buried that would have sufficed to hang him. When he had finished, he left the creek, and, wandering in and out between the rocks, came to a point from whence he could behold the low coast lying beyond. Looking over the water, there came upon the man an intense desire to plunge into it. Rid of the burden he had carried all day, with a sense of relief upon him, with the door of escape standing at length wide open, he felt he might bathe safely; so, retracing his steps to the nearest of the enclosed bays he had just quitted, he threw off his clothes and swam out, meeting the advancing tide. Looking landward, he could trace the way he had come; he could see the grassy hills, the jagged headlands, the solitary rocks; and Mightily refreshed and invigorated, he returned to the shore and dressed himself; then, just as the sun was setting, he left the beach, and, regaining the grass, struck into a path winding by the shore that seemed to lead off in the direction he desired to go. MRS. J. H. RIDDELL. CHILDREN OF THE POOR. HAVE you ever examined the faces of the neglected children of the poor? Other children have gladness in their faces. When a group of them rush across the road, it seems as though a spring gust had unloosened an orchard of apple-blossoms. But these children of the poor! There is * Published by Messrs. J. Fairbanks & Co. bath. TEMPLE. but little ring in their laughter, and it stops must not go out with them on the Sabquick, as though some bitter memory tripped it. They have an old walk. They do not skip or run up on the lumber just for the pleasure of leaping down. They never bathed in the mountain-stream. They never waded in the brook for pebbles. They never chased the butterfly across the lawn, putting their hat right down where it was. Childhood has been dashed out of them. Want waved its wizard wand above the manger of their birth, and withered leaves are lying where God intended a budding giant of battle. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D. SELECTIONS FROM THE MISHNA.* TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW REDACTED BY JEHUDA M HA-NASSI IN 220 A. D. AT TIBERIAS. SABBATH. AN must not go out with a sword, nor with a bow, nor with a triangular shield, nor with a round one, nor with a spear; if he has gone out (with either of these), he is guilty, (and bound to bring) a sin offering. R. Eleazar saith, "They are ornaments (becoming) to him," but the sages hold "they are nothing else but a stigma (unbecoming), for it is said, 'They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Kneebuckles are clean, and a man may go out with them on the Sabbath; stride-chains are liable to become unclean, and a man * Comprises the body of the "oral law," or the juridicopolitical, civil and religious code of the Jews, and forms, as such, a kind of complement to the Mosaic, or written, law, which it explains, amplifies and immutably forces. Small chains used to contract the length of the stride. They (priests who minister) may replace a plaster on a wound (which plaster they had taken off to perform the service) in the temple, but (this must) not (be done) in the country. (To put) the first (plaster on a wound on the Sabbath) is in either place (alike) prohibited. They (Levites performing on musical instruments) may tie a string (of an instrument which has burst in the middle on the Sabbath) in the temple, but (this must) not (be done) in the country. (To put) a new string (on the Sabbath) is in either place (alike) prohibited. They (the ministers) may remove a wart‡ (from an animal on the Sabbath) in the temple, but (this must) not (be done) in the country; by (means of) an instrument (it) is in either place (alike) prohibited (so to do). A priest (ministering) who hurts his finger may bind it up with reeds in the temple (on the Sabbath), but (this must) not (be done) in the country. To squeeze out the blood is in either place (alike) prohibited. They may strew salt on the stairs (of the altar on the Sabbath) that they (ministering priests) slip not down; also draw water from the well Gola and from the large well with the rolling wheel on the Sabbath, and from the cold well on festivals. (Should the carcase of) a dead reptile be found in the temple (on the Sabbath), the priest moves it out with his belt, as the unclean thing must not remain (within the temple). Such is the dictum of R. Jochanan ben Beroka, but R. Jehuda saith, "It Which is a blemish to an animal intended for sacri fice. must be removed with wooden pincers, that the uncleanness spread not further.' From whence is it to be moved out? From the inner temple, from the hall and from the interspace between the hall and the altar. Such is the dictum of R. Simeon ben Nonos, but R. Eleazar saith, "Every place (the entering of which by an unclean person), if intentionally, (exposes him) to be cut off from his people; and if inadvertently, to bring a sin offering, it must be removed out from. In all other places (within the precincts of the temple) it (the reptile) is to be covered with a copper vessel (till after the day of rest, when it is removed). R. Simeon saith, “In whatsoever the sages permitted, they only grant thee that (the right to do) which is thine own, inasmuch as what they allow only could become unlawful through (their) enactment of the Sabbath rest.' Translation of REV. D. A. DE SOLA* and his coadjutor, REV. M. J. RAPHALL. Z ZOROASTER.† ARATHUSTRA SPITAMA, the prophet and reformer of the fire-worshippers of Persia-the founder of what is now known as the Parsee religion-was born at Bactria. Nothing is known of his family except that the name of his father was Pourushaspa, and that of his daughter, the only one of his children mentioned, was Pouruchista. His life is completely shrouded in darkness, both the Greek and the Roman and most of the Zend accounts of him being legendary and unreliable. It is said that he passed twenty years in the desert; that the love of wisdom and * Appointed translator by the vestry board of the Sphardim synagogue. † Or Zarathrustra. justice compelled him to retire to a mountain, to live there in solitude; that as he descended from it there fell a celestial fire upon the mountain which burned perpetually, and that in the presence of the king of Persia and his greatest lords he came out. of the flames uninjured. The Chronicle of Alexandria says that his body was afterward consumed by a heavenly fire. In the Zend he is to a great extent represented, not as histórical, but as a dogmatical personality vested with superhuman-or, rather, divine powers, standing next to God, above the archangels themselves. His temptations by the devil, whose empire is threatened by him, form the subject of many traditional reports and legends. He is represented as the abyss of all wisdom and truth and the master of the whole living creation. We worship" -so runs one of the prayers in the Fravardin Yasht-" the rule and the guardian angel of Zarathustra Spitama, who first thought good thoughts, who first spoke good words, who first performed good actions, who was the first priest, the first warrior, the first cultivator of soil, the first prophet, the first who was inspired, the first who has given to mankind nature, and reality, and word, and hearing of word, and wealth, and all good things created by Mazda, which embellish reality; who first caused the wheel to turn among gods and men, who first praised the purity of the living creation and destroyed idolatry, who confessed the Zarathustrian belief in Ahuramazda, the religion of the living God against the devils; . . . through whom the whole true and revealed word was heard, which is the life and guidance of the world. . . Through his knowledge and speech the waters and trees become desirous of growing; through his knowledge and speech all things created by the Holy Spirit are uttering words of happiness." In the old Yazna alone he appears like a living reality-a man acting a great and prominent part both in the history of his country and that of mankind. The period of Zoroaster's birth is very uncertain. The dates generally given are as follows: Xanthus of Lydia places him about six hundred years before the Trojan war; Aristotle and Eudoxus place him six thousand years before Plato; others, again, five thousand years before the Trojan war. rosos, a Babylonian historian, makes him a Babylonian king and the founder of a dynasty which reigned between 2200 and 2000 B. C. over Babylon. There is scarcely a doubt that he must be considered to belong to an Be poraries, and even many of the most enlightened men of subsequent ages. If proof were needed for the high appreciation in which he was held in antiquity, it might be found in the circumstance that even the Greeks and Romans not particularly given to overrat ing foreign learning and wisdom-held him in the very highest estimation, as may be seen by their reiterated praises of the wisdom of him whose name they scarcely knew how to pronounce. W. & R. CHAMBERS and PETER BAYLE. SELECTIONS FROM ZOROASTER. COLLECTED BY PSELLUS. ORACLES. age not later than 1000 B. C.; possibly he FOR nothing imperfect circulates from a was a contemporary of Moses. Zoroaster was a voluminous writer. Most of his writings have been lost. Pliny says he was the author of two million verses; this, however, is no doubt an exaggeration. The Gâthas are considered as the writings of him and his immediate disciples, but mostly his own. He taught the existence of one supreme Being, and for man a future state-for the good, of happiness; for the bad, of woe; that the world was governed by two principles, one of good, and the other of evil. He considered fire and light not so much an object of worship as rather the most pure and lively emblems of the eternal God, and was of the opinion that man required something visible or tangible to exalt his mind to that degree of adoration which is due to the divine Being. It cannot be doubted that Zoroaster was a deep and great thinker far above his contem paternal principle. The Father hurled not forth fear, but infused persuasion. The Father has hastily withdrawn himself, but has not shut up his own fire in his intellectual power. All things are the progeny of one fire; the Father perfected all things and delivered them over to the second mind, whom all nations of men call the first. What the mind says, it says by understanding. The soul, being a bright fire, by the power of the Father remains immortal, and is mistress of life and fills up many of the recesses of the world. The paternal mind has sowed symbols in the soul. PARTICULAR SOULS. The soul of man will in a manner clasp God to herself. Having nothing mortal, she |