Rapids are below you." "Ha, ha! we have heard of the Rapids, but we are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then we shall up with the helm and steer to the shore; we shall set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed to land. away!"

Haste

4. "Young men, ahoy there!" "What is it?" "The Rapids are below the RAPIDS!" "Ha, ha! never fear! Time enough to steer out of danger when we are sailing swiftly with the current. On! on!"

5. "Young men, ahoy!" "What is it?" "Beware! beware! The Rapids are below you!" Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard!-quick, quick!-pull for your lives! -pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and the veins stand like whipcord upon the brow! Set the mast in the socket! - hoist the sail! Ah, ah!—it is too late! Shrieking hopelessly, over you

go.

Thousands go over " rapids " every year, heedless of the still, small, warning voice.

– J. B. GOUGH.

Bad habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

- DRYDEN.

XXIV. I LIVE FOR THOSE WHO LOVE ME

I. I live for those who love me,

Whose hearts are kind and true,
For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit, too;

For all human ties that bind me,

For the task by God assigned me,
For the bright hopes left behind me,
And the good that I can do.

2. I live to hail that season,

3.

By gifted minds foretold,
When man shall live by reason,
And not alone by gold;
When man to man united,
And every wrong thing righted,
The whole world shall be lighted,
As Eden was of old.

I live for those who love me,

For those who know me true,

For the heaven that smiles above me,
And awaits my spirit, too;

For the cause that lacks assistance,

For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,

And the good that I can do.

- Dublin University Magazine.

XXV. SOCKS FOR JOHN RANDALL

1. It was a matter of talk that Widow Randall knit so many socks for the soldiers. She was a poor woman, and had little to do with; but she must have spent a great deal of money for yarn, buying so much of the best at war prices. Knitting seemed almost a mania with her. She was sometimes seen knitting before breakfast. No sooner was her housework done, than out came her knitting, and her needles flew, click, click, click, even faster than they did when her fingers were young and supple; while her pale, sad face bending above them made one almost weep to look at her. She was one of those who do not weep, but who ever carry a full fountain of tears sealed up within them.

2. Not a box in all the country near was sent to the soldiers that did not contain a pair of Widow Randall's socks; and box after box from the Sanitary Commission carried her contributions. Always welcome, so soft, so warm, so nice, were her socks. The appreciative could not help unrolling them, feeling their softness and speaking their praise; and always carefully stitched within them they found a letter. Sometimes it was only, "To my dear son, John Randall, from his ever loving mother"; sometimes it told of her love and hope and earnest prayer;

sometimes it implored him to write to her, and tell her that he lived, and tell her of his welfare if he lived.

3. How many soldiers were blessed through her love for one! How many felt a glow of thanks as they drew her comforting socks over their benumbed feet, and dropped a tear upon her tender letter to the son who might then be perishing uncared for, unknowing how a mother's love had sought for him, prayed for him, unceasingly.

4. A pair of "socks for John Randall" once fell into the hands of a poor motherless English boy. His lone, yearning, orphan heart responded to the maternal tenderness which he had missed and mourned for in his own life; and with the instincts of a son, he wrote the widowed mother a letter of love and thanks in the name of all the absent and wandering sons, and sent her gold, and offered to be her son, if God had bereaved her of her own.

5. A pair of "John Randall's socks" worked their way into a Kentucky regiment at the west. There a rough, hard old soldier got possession of them, and found the note within them, and read it aloud to the silent group around him. In that group was a lone youth who had come a stranger into the regiment, and who never spoke of his home or friends. No one listened to the note so intently as he, and it was strange to see how his color came

and went as he listened. Then the tears rolled fast down his cheeks.

6. "Give me the letter," he said; "it is from my mother. The letter and the socks are mine." "Yours! is your name John Randall?" "Yes." A hearty laugh. Randall! You can't come that game so easy, Boy George.'

7. Boy George," as the youth was familiarly called, colored deeper than before, but persisted. My real name is John Randall, and the letter and socks are mine." Yours when you get 'em and not much before," answered the man who had them. "If you've changed your name once, you may change it a dozen times, but that won't give you my socks.'

8. "Boy George " said no more about the socks, but again asked for and received the letter. He sought a quiet place and read it, and read it again.

My dearest son, dearest beyond all expression, if you are still living, write to me and tell me so; if you love me still, be a good boy, and try to meet me in heaven."

9. This was all, but was enough for the heart of that undutiful and suffering son. Wild and adventurous, and failing to obtain his mother's consent, he had gone to the war without it, changing his name, and enlisting in a regiment of a distant State. He had taken care that none of his early friends