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 something good for me. It will force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce only one beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots. (Text.)

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PUPILS OF CHRIST

It is customary for students who have been attending colleges and academies to return home during the summer vacation or during the Christmas or Easter holidays, when they will recount to their father their trials and triumphs in the field of literature, and express to him their gratitude for the education they receive. They will gladly listen to his counsel, and will sit once more with joy at the family table.

We all are, or we ought to be, pupils of Christ, preparing ourselves during this life of probation to receive a diploma of sanctity which will admit us to the kingdom of heaven.—

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PURIFICATION

Moral life is often purified by storms, as the air by a rainy day:

The health-giving properties of rain are not appreciated by the general public. Rain is an essential to physical vigor in localities that have any extensive population. Man and his occupations load the air with countless and unclassified impurities. The generous, kindly rain absorbs them, even as a washerwoman extracts the dirt from soiled clothes. The ammoniacal exhalations, the gases resultant from combustion and decay, are all quietly absorbed by a brisk shower. People talk about a "dry climate," but it is a snare and a delusion. There is nothing in it. A very dry climate will never support a large population, for it would soon become so poisoned that it would be fatal to the human race. A scattering few might inhabit it, but not the multitude.—Colliery Guardian.

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The life of God, if allowed to sweep through the earth unhindered, would purify man's life, as ocean waves, described below, purify the lands they reach:

The air of the sea, taken at a great distance from land, or even on the shore and in ports when the wind blows from the open sea, is in an almost perfect state of purity. Near continents the land winds drive before them an atmosphere always impure, but at 100 kilometers from the coasts this impurity has disappeared. The sea rapidly purifies the pestilential atmosphere of continents; hence every expanse of water of a certain breadth becomes an absolute obstacle to the propagation of epidemics. Marine atmospheres driven upon land purify sensibly the air of the regions which they traverse; this purification can be recognized as far as Paris. The sea is the tomb of molds and of aerial schizophytes.—Public Opinion.

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Longfellow pictures life as a wave hastening to cleanse itself in the ocean:

Whither, thou turbid wave? Whither with so much haste, As if a thief wert thou? I am the Wave of Life Stained with my margin's dust; From the struggle and the strife Of the narrow stream I fly To the sea's immensity, To wash from me the slime Of the muddy banks of time.

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God uses many unseen agencies to offset the moral poisons of the universe:

"A device has been perfected by the chemist of the mechanical department of the Erie Railroad," says The Railway and Engineering Review (Chicago), "by which all the cars on the Chicago limited train are thoroughly sterilized at Jersey City after each round trip between Jersey City and Chicago, a run of about 2,000 miles. Experiments looking to this method of cleaning cars so as to kill all disease germs and destroy all bad odors have been in progress for some time. A deodorizing apparatus has also been devised which is placed under the seats in the cars, out of sight of passengers, and gives off an odorless gas, which combines with the stale tobacco-smoke or other offensive odors which may accumulate in the cars, and serves to completely nullify them. This treatment has been so effective that it is expected it will be extended to all the passenger cars in the Erie service."

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See.