in all history, save perhaps the empire of Rome, and, in a less degree, that of Alexander, our rule in India has ever been, and will ever we think continue to be, that of the conqueror. Helpless to govern themselves, yet hating our foreign yoke, unable to appreciate the mushroom growth of laws and customs which we every day enforce by unbending sanctions, India may remain the bright ornament of the British Crown-as it has been styled—for generations, nay, for ages to come. Grant that no great European war like those we have passed through during the last decade, overstrain British energies, we may predict that nothing will occur to show the real feeling of the people of India towards our rule. But that there are elements of discord among the masses, and, despite the decline of Mohammedanism, a leaven still of the old propagandist feeling that might be kindled into enthusiasm, few who have looked deeper than the surface of Indian society will venture to deny.

Miscegenation has miserably failed to effect its boasted object of assimilation. It has but procured for the victims of the conceit the position of outcasts from both the societies with which they are connected. Miserable thought, too, that the question of possible amalgamation, of possible social equality, should hinge on a matter of eating and drinking. Until he has dined with him no ordinary Englishman feels that he can really call any one his friend, or at least accord to him that indescribable sympathy which is indispensable to social intercourse. We are no nearer the attainment of this social intercourse with the natives of India generally than we were a hundred years ago. A native who broke bread with a European would, ipso facto, become an outcast from the society of his fellow-countrymen now, as ever. F. H. F.

AT THE DOOR.

A joy that I cannot share,

A joy which I must not name,
Has silently crept into my heart,

And I ask from whence it came ?

Is it begotten of hope?

Or born of the buried past ?

Shall I find the old words too sadly true-
"What is sweetest doth not last"?

If so, 'twere better at once,

O joy! thou shouldst go thy way.
See! I hold open the door of my heart;
Thou art free to go or stay.

Yet my hand upon the latch
Fasteneth falteringly ;

Love, chiding pride, groweth bold to say,
"Fair guest, abide with me!

"Or my heart will be like a hearth

Where the ashes have all turned grey;
Or the naked boughs of the forest trees
When the leaves have dropped away.
"Or like some sweet stringed instrument
With the touch it answered gone;
Or the empty warmth of a downy nest
When the nestlings all have flown.
"Or curiously-fashioned cup,

From which the wine is drained;
A book with the last few pages lost;
A riddle unexplained."

I stand at the open door,

But to my ears attent

Float the notes of a half-forgotten song,
And I turn with wonderment

To my beloved guest,

Where she sitteth singing low.

I whisper, "Thou wilt not go away?"
She breaks the song with "No."

MERNER MANTON.

THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT.

A SCHOOL BOARD STORY.

BY MARIANNE

FARNINGHAM.

Book the Third.

CHAPTER I.-COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

ARTHUR DALEBURY believed in doing one thing, and doing it well. As the years passed on he might have had his hands filled with many duties, but he gave his life to the work which he had chosen, and had little energy or thought to spare for other occupations. "Come and help us," was a cry to which he had often to close his

ears.

"Why do you bury your talents ?" people would say to him sometimes; but his faith never wavered, and he believed that he was putting them out at good interest.

"You are too enthusiastic," others would object; but he replied,

"No, that cannot be. If a cause is worth anything, it is worth a man's whole soul. I respect enthusiasm. It has done most of the good work of the world. Were not the first missionaries enthusiastic? Were not the noble men who took up the cause of the slave trade enthusiastic? Are not the teetotallers men of one idea? And I tell you that my work is as good, and great, and important as any that has ever engaged the attention of Christian philanthropists. I pray that God will spare me a few years longer, and then I shall live to see a good education become the birthright of every British child."

"There is a splendid opportunity for you to distinguish yourself," his old friends would say to him. "Take up our cause. Throw yourself into every strike, and take the part of the oppressed and thousands of men will bless you."

"I see," was his reply, "that we are passing through a wonderful time of revolution. I will help the right by all means in my power; but it is the children who are nearest my heart, and for them I will live and die. Do you not see what splendid chances we have to influence the future of the world? If only we can get the children and train them up in the way that they should go, we should be doing a better work than any which we could do for the men and women."

It is the peculiarity of all good work that it grows upon the worker. Not only will he find that added years bring added duties and responsibilities, but he will find that, for his own comfort's sake, he must be continually attempting and doing more and more. He who begins by loving his work a little, and doing it as well as he can, will be always learning new ways of doing it, and he will find that he gradually becomes so strongly attached to it that at last he is compelled to continue at it for very love of the work itself. It was so with Arthur Dalebury. His love became a passion, and he could not rest while boys and girls were allowed to grow up in darkness and ignorance.

Two little events will show the kind of things that influenced him in his decision.

He was one day walking through one of the back streets of the large town in which he lived, when he heard cries coming from one of the courts. It was not in him to listen unmoved to the pitiful cry of a boy in distress, and he hurried to the spot. He found a bright lad, with a wonderfully intelligent face, on the ground, and a man standing over him and beating him with a strap.

"What are you doing? Leave off beating the boy, will you ?" The man lifted his face to the new comer in surprise and

anger.

"Who are you that dares to interfere with me? Surely a man

may do what he likes with his own, and it is my own boy that I am punishing."

“And what has the boy done that he should deserve so severe a beating?"

"Ah, tell the gentleman what he has done, if you ain't ashamed to do it?" said a woman who was standing by.

"I am not afraid nor ashamed of any one," said the man; "but it is none of his business."

"I will tell him, then. The boy is cleverer than the common lot of boys, and he wants to get a little book-learning, but his stupid father says he shall not!"

"Why not?" inquired Arthur Dalebury.

"He shan't waste his time over such nonsense," said the man. "He shall go to work."

"How old is he?"

"Nine; but I went to work before I was eight."

"You cannot send him to work," said Dalebury. He is not old enough nor strong enough, and the law would be against you."

"I will break the law," said the man. "It ought to be broken. What business has it coming between a father and his children?" "All the business in the world," said Arthur warmly. “If a man has not Christian feeling enough, or parental love enough, or commonsense enough to know how to treat his children properly, then I say that the law ought to come in and take the side of the oppressed. You are what your neighbour called you, a stupid man, or you would hail with delight your boy's desire to learn. How do you know but that he may prove a really clever man, and be able to help you and all his friends in the future?"

"That's a likely story! Not he! He is an idle young scamp who does not want to work now."

"But learning is very hard work."

66 I don't believe it. It is wasting time. Besides, I shall not let kim go. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. He shall work for me now; when he grows up, I suppose he will want instead to work for himself."

Arthur's face.

Arthur turned to the boy. "You do not care very much about it, I suppose. It is easier to learn than to work, and that is the reason why you want to go to school." The boy's earnest eyes looked full in "I do not mind work, sir," he said. "Father knows that if he would let me go to school I would then do as much as most boys do, for I would get up at four in the morning to go to school."

"I wish I could persuade your father to let you come to my house or my school for an hour or two every day; that would help you," he said.

"But father hates learning. He burns my books and beats me every time he sees me with one in my hand. He cannot read himself, and he says he has done very well without it, and he does not see why I should want to be better than he."

"Never mind, my boy, do not give up hope. Keep picking up all the knowledge you can whenever you have opportunity, and for the rest, be patient and wait. Most things come to those who wait long enough. There was once a boy who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth, who had to wait a long time before He had what He wanted. Do you know who it was?"

"Yes; I have run away from home sometimes to the Sundayschool, and there I have heard of Him."

"Have you a New Testament ? "

"No, sir."

The boy's father had sullenly walked away, and Arthur quietly gave the child a pocket Testament.

"Read a few verses whenever you can, my lad; and if you should at any time want a friend, come to the address that you will find written inside, and I will help you if I can."

"Thank you, sir."

Arthur made a note of this case in his pocket-book. He knew that generally children are kept at home not so much by the stupidity of the parents as by their carelessness and indifference. But he did not suppose this to be an isolated case. He had no doubt there were many others, and he received this as a corroboration of his own idea, that if the children of the people are to be well taught, there must be a law to make their attendance at school compulsory.

He was still further supported in his thought by something else that he saw, and this, too, was only a specimen of other cases that frequently came under his notice. He went past a school, and he saw two children standing outside, and crying so that the very street was full of the sound. A young teacher was trying to coax the little rebels to enter the building.

"Come inside, Tommy. I have such a pretty picture to show you when you get there. Come."

"No, no; I won't come to school. I don't like school."

"You come then, Polly. Be a good girl, and make your brother ashamed of his naughty ways."

But Polly only threw herself upon the ground, and kicked and screamed so that the whole neighbourhood, had it not been too accustomed to such sounds, must have turned out to see what was the matter.

Then the mother appeared on the scene.
"What, won't they go to school again?

I never see such