"A rose's brief bright life of joy,
Such unto him was given;
Go, thou must play alone, my boy--
Thy brother is in heaven!"

And has he left the birds and flowers,
And must I call in vain,
And through the long, long summer hours,
Will he not come again?

And by the brook, and in the glade,
Are all our wand'rings o'er?
Oh! while my brother with me play'd,
Would I had loved him more!--

MRS. HEMANS.

* * * * *




ON CRUELTY TO INFERIOR ANIMALS


[Illustration: Letter M.]

Man is that link of the chain of universal existence by which spiritual
and corporeal beings are united: as the numbers and variety of the
latter his inferiors are almost infinite, so probably are those of the