difficult it is to settle to anything, no matter how much there is to do, until it has come. With what feverish eagerness we anticipate its contents, one moment bright with hope, and the next full of fear. What a thrill we feel we hear the double-knock of the postman at last. How impossible it is to feel at peace although we may remain outwardly unmoved, and how difficult it is to speak in an ordinary steady tone.

as

"Letters ?"

"Yes, but there is none for you."

What a painful feeling comes in the place where hope sojourned but a minute ago! How cold and cheerless the day suddenly becomes! What dense clouds pass over the sun! How rapidly the light vanishes from room and face and heart! How dreary the day looks in which we must live and work and do our duty generally without the dear words upon which our eyes longed to feast!

It is a very common occurrence after all. Everybody knows at least once or twice in a lifetime what it is. But that does not make it the easier to bear. Some, no doubt, can bear to hear the words, "There is no letter" with calm, unruffled feelings. They did not expect any. Or if any had come they would have been business-letters only, and neither very important nor very interesting. Or, perhaps, "No news is good news," the best that could possibly come. But

"Every morning as true as the clock

Somebody hears the postman's knock,"

with feelings of greater depth and excitement than can possibly be described.

The absent are often the dearest. When the mother is away, and all the house seems desolate and empty, what a treasure a letter would be! and what a void is felt when the expected messenger has not come! When one who is very dear is sick, what palpitating eagerness there is about post-time! When a son has just left to make his first venture in the world, how anxiously his letters are looked for and read! Sometimes the news is painful, but few things are so hard to bear as suspense.

What they must have suffered during the late war in this way in poor Paris! How many of us, finding our letters

on the breakfast-table, have given a sigh of sympathy, and, perhaps, something better still, at the thought of our sisters shut up from their nearest and dearest, and able to receive no tidings from them. And who, reading the short but often tender messages in the Times, could help respecting the family feelings, the yearnings for the absent, of which they so eloquently spoke?

While time lasts we suppose men and women must still bear the crushing remark, "No letter." And all that we can do is to try and be as patient, and enduring, and satisfied as possible.

If we

Anybody could tell whether we are great or little by the way in which we are able to bear that reverse. console ourselves with work, and speak just as gently to those about us, and still wear a cheerful face, we are not so bad but we might be worse. If we are sullen, and miserable, and impatient, visiting our wrongs or disappointments upon the unoffending, then the less that is said about us the better.

And yet there is one other thing we can do. We can see that by our prompt writing of letters that are required of us we do not subject those who care for us to the pain with which we ourselves are so well acquainted.

Joy.

THE newspapers are pretty full of sad stories. But it is doubtful if even in these times anything more painfully pathetic has been recorded than the tale told in the following short paragraph:

"A poor widow woman of the name of Bell residing in Marylebone died from over-joy on receiving ten shillings out of the poor-box. She exclaimed, 'God bless the good gentlemen!' and fell back dead."

Death from excess of joy is most likely rare enough, but the remarkable thing here is that the gift of ten shillings from a poor-box should have produced such a

66

result. It speaks a great deal more eloquently than any mere words could do of what life in England in this civilised and marvellous nineteenth century is to some people. It describes, as no forceful language could ever do, what a world is this in which we are compelled for a time to live. It is called often enough a desert," "a vale of tears," a 'waste howling wilderness," but even these names are not half so condemnatory as this story of a woman to whom joy was so strange, and even a small sum of money so wonderful, that it was more than she could bear and live. It ought, surely, to make everybody rich in this world's goods stop and think. It is more eloquent, surely, than the most sensationally worded appeal to the charitable. It ought to touch us if we have any hearts at all, and lead us to use our eyes to try to find out if there are none around us to whom even without practising any very great self-denial we could give a little joy. It is harrowing to picture to ourselves the experiences of that poor woman previous to the time when she presented herself before the "good gentlemen who were so overwhelmingly kind to her. What depths of want she must have known, what shrinkings from future privations, what dread of starvation and homelessness the poor lonely soul must have endured, before the reaction of ecstasy came. We have heard of deaths from overjoy when sudden tidings of large fortunes have been brought to men; but what a strange thing joy must have been to this woman whom ten shillings could kill!

It brings rather an uncomfortable conviction even to those who are disposed to make the best of the world, and give it to the very full all the credit it deserves. After all, notwithstanding sunlight, and warm airs, and spring flowers, it is an uncommonly hard world to live in. Very few of us, in the whole of a life-time, have a chance of being killed with over-joy. Even when we get a taste of sweetness, there is a great suspicion of bitterness underneath. When the brightness comes it is very transitory, the clouds move very rapidly, and soon overshadow the sun. For a few weeks perhaps, some of our brothers and sisters had a little gladness, for were not thousands of men going from the war-fields to the hearts that had wearied for them, and the homes that were empty and

joyless without them? But the shadows will come soon enough, as the men remember in the night the brothers whom they have slain (for no quarrel of their own) and those other homes that they have helped to make desolate for ever.

There are two things of which the scarcity of joy in the world ought to remind us. The first is, that as there is so little, we ought to do our utmost to make a little more. If only we gave ourselves to each other as Christ gave Himself to us, surely the world would not be quite so weary a place. And then, we may rejoice in the thought that this is not all we have.

"There is a happy land
Far far away.'

And there joy is not so strange a thing. One cannot help wondering if that poor woman had heard of the city whose streets are paved with gold, and knew the way thither. If she did,-what a surprise it must have been to her when she found herself there! And what to us who still bear the burden and heat of the day when we also hear a voice, "Come up hither!"

The Old and the New.

AT Conway there is a grand old house, Plas Mawr, which bears date 1585. It is in good repair, and is rendered additionally interesting to the many visitors who annually look over it by the quaint old furniture which still remains in it. It is one of the many objects of admiration in the ancient walled town, and no one can sit in the antique chairs or on the benches which surround some of the rooms without thinking of the bygone days, when the long halls were filled with merry crowds of gaily-dressed ladies and gallant gentlemen, who were born, and loved, and wooed, and won, and died in them. Now, however, it is appropriated to a far different purpose, for the drawing-room is used as an infant school-room, and the ornamented walls

have mottoes for the little ones to spell out and remember; the oaken floor is trodden by little, restless feet, and the people's children sit where lords and ladies formerly sat, while one of the rooms is actually turned into a play-place for the youngest of them.

Is not this emblematical of what is really taking place not only at Conway, but throughout our land? The old times are indeed very, very far away, and the new ones are wondrously different from them. In our day the best places are being given up to the young life, and many things are being done to train the children for the important posts which any of them may have to occupy. And is it not well to think that the power is not to be put into inefficient hands? Our children are not to grow up ignorant; they are to be made observant, thoughtful, and, as far as may be, conscientious. There is a great future before them, which is not to be confined to kings and nobles, but in which the poor man's children, now gathered in infantschools, shall take a great and important part. And we cannot but be glad to think that before this time comes they are being made, so far as they can be, good and strong for the work.

It is very possible that those Conway children will be all the better for their experiences in Plas Mawr. We do not wish the spirit of progress to crush out the love of poetry and romance. Surely there is room enough for them all. And if we had the training of those little ones we would tell them fascinating stories of those other days in which those grand old rooms were so differently peopled. It is a great thing for a nation to have a history even such as ours, which we all know might have been better. But even out of the failures of our fathers the children may learn many a good lesson which shall sink into their hearts, abide in their memories, and bring forth fruit in their lives. And there are heroic deeds to teach them about, great things accomplished, greater still attempted, and grand words spoken which linger until to-day. It is not only the castles which remain as monuments of the good works done in the past. It may be said of most things that we now enjoy, "Other men laboured, and we are entered into their labours." But we wish to say just this one thing for the children. It is well to teach them