"A very good rule is, never to say anything to a girl that you would not like another fellow to say to your sister. You know the word 'flirt.' Don't be one. It is unkind to a girl to be played with. Anyone who is a flirt will never be married happily. He will be despised. . . . Treat all those of the opposite sex as sisters; and from this treatment will not only follow repugnance and shame at personal action, but repugnance against others treating womankind not as sisters."

Here is the spirit of chivalry in a modern dress. The late Bishop Wilkinson of St. Andrews, who had ministered to Mr. Gladstone on his death-bed, made this striking allusion in his Funeral Sermon:

"I like to think of him in his young manhood, on that day when, in the presence of only one intimate friend, he solemnly made up his mind that, whatever else he accomplished in his life, whether he succeeded. or whether he failed, he would by God's help not rest until he was able to bring back from the dreary wilderness some of those poor women whose lives had been ruined by man's selfishness, man's thoughtless cruelty. I like to see him as the young knight in the ancient legend, girding on his armor for that lifelong effort."

Chivalry again. But, though we are pledged soldiers for a great campaign, we need not always be fighting. Ours must be the attitude of the strong man armed, ready to strike a blow whenever the cause demands it; and our sisters will be all the readier to give us their friendship and their confidence because they know that we should be, if occasion arose, their champions. A

woman's perception of the chivalrous nature in man -and its reverse- is the triumph of intuition. Whatever is good in man, woman's influence draws out and makes more gracious. It was a famous saying about a famous woman that "to have loved her was a liberal education"; and the society of good women is the most educative process through which a man can pass. It is not educative only, but disciplinary. A bumptious, or forward, or self-satisfied youth, reminded by a word or even a look that he has gone too far or made too free, has received a lesson by which, if there is any good in him, he will profit to the end of his days. I said when I first touched on this subject, that the great drawback to the system of Boarding-Schools is that it withdraws a boy too soon from his mother's care; and this might be added, that it secludes him from women's society. It deprives him of those daily lessons in courtesy, chivalry, and selfforgetfulness which the presence of women insensibly impresses; and then as Gibbon says, outraged nature will have her revenges.

"Home! Sweet Home! " is still a possibility, and a good home is the nursery of all virtues and all graces. The goodness of a home is not dependent on wealth, or spaciousness, or beauty, or luxury. Everything depends upon the Mother. Her love is a sacramental benediction, and her watchfulness a spell which Satan fears. The Prophet of old time, when he desired to heal the noxious stream, "went forth unto the spring of waters, and cast the salt in there." A Mother's influence on the home is the salt cast in at the spring

of the waters. "There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land." From a good home, thankfully and reverently used, flows the stream of a good, a pure, and a profitable life.

* By permission of Grant Richards Company, Ltd.

MEPHIBOSHETH

BY NATHANIEL P. WILLIS

As if he were a vision that would fade,
Rizpah gazed on him. Never, to her eye,
Grew his bright form familiar; but, like stars,
That seem'd each night new lit in a new heaven,
He was each morn's sweet gift to her. She loved
Her first-born, as a mother loves her child,
Tenderly, fondly. But for him the last-
What had she done for heaven to be his mother!
Her heart rose in her throat to hear his voice;
She look'd on him forever through her tears;
Her utterance, when she spoke to him, sank down,
As if the lightest thought of him had lain
In an unfathom'd cavern of her soul.

The morning light was part of him, to her-
What broke the day for, but to show his beauty?
The hours but measured time till he should come;
Too tardy sang the bird when he was gone;
She would have shut the flowers - and call'd the star
Back to the mountain-top- and bade the sun

Pause at eve's golden door to wait for him!

Was this a heart gone wild?

or is the love

Of mothers like a madness? Such as this
Is many a poor one in her humble home,
Who silently and sweetly sits alone,
Pouring her life all out upon her child.

What cares she that he does not feel how close
Her heart beats after his-that all unseen
Are the fond thoughts that follow him by day,
And watch his sleep like angels? And, when moved
By some sore needed Providence, he stops

In his wild path and lifts a thought to heaven,
What cares the mother that he does not see
The link between the blessing and her prayer!

THE MOURNING MOTHER

(OF THE DEAD BLIND)

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Dost thou weep, mourning mother,
For thy blind boy in the grave?
That no more with each other,

Sweet counsel ye can have?
That he, left dark by nature,

Can never more be led
By thee, maternal creature,
Along smooth paths instead?

That thou canst no more show him

The sunshine, by the heat:

The river's silver flowing,

By murmurs at his feet?

The foliage by its coolness;
The roses, by their smell;
And all creation's fulness,
By Love's invisible?
Weepest thou to behold not

His meek blind eyes again,-
Closed doorways which were folded,
And prayed against in vain —
And under which, sate smiling
The child-mouth evermore,
As one who watcheth, wiling
The time by, at the door?
And weepest thou to feel not
His clinging hand in thine
Which now, at dream-time, will not

Its cold touch disentwine? And weepest thou still ofter,

Oh, never more to mark

His low soft words, made softer
By speaking in the dark?
Weep on, thou mourning mother!

II

But since to him when living

Thou wast both sun and moon,

Look o'er his grave, surviving
From a high sphere alone.
Sustain that exaltation,

Expand that tender light,
And hold in mother-passion

Thy Blessed in thy sight.