Mother, I am thy little Son The birds sing blithe, the birds sing gay, The leaf laughs on the tree. Oh, hush thee! The leaves do shiver sore; I see it hewn, and bound, to bear Mother, I am thy little Son The Night comes on apace When all God's waiting stars shall smile Oh, hush thee! I see black starless night! Now, by the hawthorn hedge of Death- AT CHRYSTEMESSE–TYDE BY WILLIS BOYD ALLEN Two sorrie Thynges there be A Neste from which ye Fledglings have been taken, A redde leaf from ye Wilde Rose rudely shaken. Of gladde Thynges there be more - A Larke above ye olde Neste blithely singing, In safety to a Rock, a Shepherde bringing A Lambe, found, in his armes, and Chrystemesse Bells a-ringing. PARABLES IN MOTORS THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB THE other day I was escorting an elderly philanthropist across a crowded street. She is a lady of vigorous opinions and free speech, gems of which I herewith string together without exhibiting the thread of my own colorless rejoinders. "Did you ever see anything so outrageous as these motors!" she exclaimed in righteous wrath, as we just escaped being crushed between a taxi-cab and a huge touring-car. "Automobiles are such insolent advertisements of wealth! I don't see how their owners can endure being either hated or envied by that portion of the world that has not yet lost the use of its legs. For every human being automobiles kill, they create a socialist. They are vulgar, hideous, death-dealing machines, put in the ignorant hands of the fools who own them and the knaves who run them. Now look at those little children trying to cross the street and that poor old lady! I declare the chauffeur is simply chasing her for his own cruel sport hunting her as he would a fox, and blowing his horn." Then, - in italics, "I can't see how a self-respecting person with any love or regard for humanity can own a motor." The next time I saw my vindictive friend she was tucked up in borrowed plumage, and comfortably installed in the limousine of an acquaintance who had kindly placed her car at our disposal to visit some distant charitable institution of which we were both directors. It was my friend's maiden trip in an automobile, and as we bowled gayly along she seemed to have forgotten entirely our last meeting and conversation. "I must say the motion of these cars is delightful,” she said, sinking back among the cushions with an air of perfect ease and familiarity. "How safe we seem! I really think it would do no harm if the chauffeur should go a little faster. Do look at those stupid women rushing across the street like frightened hens! I should think they'd see that we're not going to run into them. Now look at those children! It's outrageous that they should make it so hard for the chauffeur to avoid running over them. If we killed one of those foolhardy little idiots, people would blame us, and it would n't be our fault at all it would be simply a case of suicide." I acquiesced in her views, as I had done once before. "After all, there is a great deal to be said for these motors," she continued judicially. "They are not only perfectly delightful to ride in, but they make all kinds of difficult things easy, and really, most of the people who own them are apt to be very considerate to those who are less fortunate. There are certainly two sides to automobiling.' There you have the chief function of the motor. There is nothing else I can think of which changes one's point of view so completely and so suddenly. A logical mind must therefore ask itself, "If by simply stepping into an automobile I can see motors and motoring from an entirely different point of view, cannot I believe that the same metamorphosis would take place if I could jump into a mental motor and speed rapidly from one side of a question to another?" Surely the parable of the motor should make us believe in the existence of a missing link in the chain of mutual understanding which ought to bind all humanity together. And if that lost link cannot be found, may we not ourselves manufacture one? (As a moral-monger it is with difficulty that I here refrain from alluding to the flaming forge of Life" as an appropriate workshop for the manufacture of missing links.) It is, at least, in harmony with my parable to suggest that every good chauffeur should be a skilled mechanic as well as a driver. 66 By way of an irrelevant postscript, I will mention that when I stepped in yesterday for a cup of tea with the lady who "could not see how any self-respecting person could own a motor," I found her snowed under a pile of circulars stating the rival claims of various automobiles. "Should you advise me to get a runabout, or a touring-car?" she asked with perfect seriousness. But I could not choose between them, for what I consider the most important part of motors - the parable was equally sound in each. SCHOOL CHILDREN OF FRANCE BY OCTAVE FORSANT THE four compositions given below, taken from the collection of papers written for the examinations for the Diploma in 1915, and reproduced word for word, give a clearer idea than any commentary of the mental qualities of the children of Rheims. I may add that the details given are as exact as possible. This is how young André Deligny describes the entry of the Germans at Rheims on September 4, 1914. "After breakfast, and without asking my parents' leave, because I knew very well that it would not have been granted, I started out alone to see the Germans, who had just arrived in the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. In front of the Mayor's office I saw ten or twelve horses hitched to lamp-posts; some German cavalry were going to and fro on the opposite sidewalk, with their hands behind their backs and looking rather ill at ease. One of the policemen who were holding back the crowd made us fall back, saying that the German Staff was just coming. It was n't long before they came. A magnificent limousine drove out of rue Colbert. Five officers got out, revolvers in hand, and the car went in under the arch at the left. "Suddenly there was a loud report like a clap of thunder. We pricked up our ears, but the policeman reassured us, saying that the Germans were firing blank |