my guests, I set you free. Go where you like, and take your holiday garment with you!"

And the kind master returned with his guests to the house; but the Devil, grinding his teeth, fell down from the tree, and sank through the ground.

Read the account of Washington's bitter struggle to gain self-control at the time of General St. Clair's disastrous defeat. The story is well told in Theodore Roosevelt's Winning of the West, Part V, "St. Clair and Wayne" (G. P. Putnam's Sons).

APRIL: FORGIVENESS

Tell the story of the Prodigal Son (Matthew, Chap. xviii). Show Murillo's picture of the Prodigal Son.

Questions: Was it right for the good brother to be angry? If he had been good all his life, why was not the fatted calf killed for him? What did the father say? Why did the father forgive his prodigal son? If he was kindly received, would he do better than if the family was cold to him?

Read the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke, Chap. xviii, verses 9 to 15).

Learn: "Peter said unto him: 'Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?' Jesus saith unto him, 'I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven.'

Learn: "But I say unto you: 'Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.'

What are the best ways of learning to love our enemies? How can we control our anger against them?

COALS OF FIRE1

Guy Morgan had inherited from his father a hot temper. One day he came into the house with an ominous look in his eyes, glanced up quickly at his mother for an instant, and exclaimed: "I've done something for you, mother, that I would n't do for any one else. I've taken a blow without returning it."

"Oh! tell me about it, Guy!"

"It was all Dick Osgood's fault. I told him he'd got to quit nagging the younger boys, and that made him mad, and he struck me in the face. I guess the mark of his claws is there now."

"Oh! Guy, what did you do?"

"I did n't strike him, mother. I remembered what I'd promised you for this year. He shouted out 'coward' after me. Now you've got to let me off my promise, mother. I am going back to thrash him."

"Better heap coals of fire on his head," she said quietly.

"Yes! he deserves a good scorching!" said Guy, pretending to misunderstand her.

"No! you know what kind of coals I mean. 'If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing ye shall heap coals of fire on his head.' Try it, Guy. I can't let you off your promise."

"Well, I promised you, and I'll stick to my word," said Guy slowly, "but you don't know how tough it is."

On the last day of school a picnic was given on the banks of the Quassit River. All the school went, and with Dick Osgood was his little sister Hetty. After dinner on the grass, the boys and girls scattered in different directions, picking flowers, playing baseball, and fishing off the banks.

1 Abridged from Bed-Time Stories. Copyright, 1873, 1901, by Louise Chandles Moulton.

Suddenly a wild cry rose above the sultry stillness of the summer afternoon - Dick Osgood's cry: "Hetty's in the river, and I can't swim. Oh, save her, save her!"

Before the words left his lips, all saw Guy Morgan running. He unbuttoned coat and vest as he ran and threw himself over into the water. He went under, rose again, and struck out toward the golden head that rose for the second time.

Mr. Sharp, the head teacher, got a rope, and running down the bank, threw it out on the water just above the falls. The water was deep where Hetty had fallen, and the river ran fast, sweeping her on. When she rose for the third time, she was near the falls. A moment more and she would go over. But that third time Guy Morgan caught her by her long glistening hair. Mr. Sharp shouted to him. He saw the rope and swam toward it, his right arm beating the water, his left motionless, holding his white burden.

A moment more and he reached the rope, clung to it, and the boys and teacher drew the two in over the slippery edge out of the seething waters. Both were unconscious, but Guy was the first to revive.

"Is Hetty safe?" was his first question.

"Only God knows," Mr. Sharp answered solemnly. "We are doing our best.”

It was almost half an hour more before Hetty opened her eyes. Dick, who had been utterly frantic, was beside himself with joy.

Mr. Sharp drove Guy Morgan home, but he got out at the gate for fear his mother would be alarmed by seeing any one helping him.

"Where have you been?" she cried, seeing his wet, disordered plight.

"In Quassit River, mother, fishing out Hetty Osgood. I went in after the coals of fire."

Mrs. Morgan's laugh was a glad one. "I've heard of

people smart enough to set the river on fire," she said, "but you're the first one I ever knew who went in after the coals."

Read: Tolstoi's "A Spark Neglected Burns the House," in Twenty-Three Tales.

Tell of the friendship of Socrates and his disciples. Read the Crito of Plato.1

Crito, his old friend and disciple, comes into the prison just before dawn and finds Socrates calmly sleeping, although he realizes that in two days he will be put to death. Crito enters softly and sits a long time motionless, watching Socrates till he awakens. Then, in his eagerness to persuade Socrates to escape, Crito uses the argument that it would be disloyal to his friends. if Socrates did not accept their help.

"My dear Socrates, there is still time; listen to me even now and save yourself. You must know that your Ideath will be a twofold disaster to me. I shall lose such a friend as no time or chance may replace; and besides that, many persons who know us but slightly will blame me, supposing I might have rescued you with my money. And what opinion of me could be more hideous than that I valued my money above my friends? Very few will ever believe that you yourself refused to escape when we were eager to help you."

Then Socrates in the gentle, clear way characteristic of him discusses the question of his right to escape as impartially as though it concerned not his own life, and little by little, against his will and his ardent hope, Crito is convinced that it would be unworthy of Socrates to break his bonds. He would not be himself, therefore he would not be the true friend of Crito, if he tried to escape.

1 In The Judgment of Socrates, translated by Paul Elmer More, Riverside Liter ature Series.

In the first and last pages of the Phado of Plato, the death of Socrates is described:

He received it [the cup of poison] quite cheerfully, never trembling or changing color or countenance.

"Until then," said Phædo, "most of us had been able to hold back our tears pretty well; but when we saw him drinking and the cup now drained, it was too much. In spite of my efforts my own tears began to fall fast, so that, covering up my face I gave myself to weeping, not for him, but for my own hard fortune in losing such a comrade.”

MAY: THE DUTY OF SERVICE

On the grounds of Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a wide meadow called The Soldiers' Field and used for athletics. It was given by a soldier in memory of six intimate friends who died in the Civil War. They were all young men when they died, the youngest only twenty-six, and all were schoolmates or classmates of the donor. He himself was wounded in the war, and his six friends died. Ever since that time, during forty years, he has lived with the impulse of their friendship in his life.

When this soldier gave the playground he said:1

These dear friends gave their lives, and all they had or hoped for, to their country and to their fellow-men in the hour of real need. These friends were men of mark and were dead in earnest about life in all its phases. They lived in happy homes, had high hopes for the future, and with good cause, too; but at the first call of our great captain Abraham Lincoln, they went gladly, eagerly to the front, and stayed there. Not

1 The extracts from this address are used by permission of the author.