Raiyat az gard i rah o ranje rakáb,
Guft ba parda az tarikh e itáb,
Man o to har do Khwaja tá shánem
Bande bárgáh e Sultánem.
Man zi khidmat dame na ásudam,
Gáh o begáh dar safar budam,
To na ranj azmudai na hisár,
Na bayabanon bad e gard o gubár,
Qadam i man ba sayi peshtar ast,
Pas charra rahat e to beshtar ast,
To bar e bandagán i mahrui,
Bá gulámán e yasaman bui,
Man fitádá badast i shágirdán,
Ba safar paeband o sargardán.
Guft man sarbar ástár dáram,
Na cho to sar bar ásmán dáram.
Har ki behudá gardan afrázad
Kheshtan rá ba gardan andázad.

TRANSLATION.*

Attend to the following story: In the city of Bagdad there happened a contention between the flag and the curtain. The flag, disgusted with the dust of the road and the fatigue of marching, said to the curtain in displeasure, "You and myself are schoolfellows, both servants of the sultan's court. I never enjoy a moment's relaxation from business, being obliged to travel at all seasons; you have not experienced the fatigue of marching, the danger of storming the fortress, the perils of the desert, nor the inconveniences of whirlwinds and dust; my foot is more forward in enterprise; why, then, is thy dignity greater than mine? You pass your time among youths beautiful as the moon, and with virgins odoriferous as jasmine; I am carried in the hands of menial servants, and travel with my feet in bands and my head agitated by the wind." The curtain replied: "My head is placed on the threshold, and not, like yours, raised up to the sky. Whosoever, through folly, exalts his neck, precipitates himself into distress."

II. PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY.

A king was sitting in a vessel with a Persian slave. The boy having never before seen the sea, nor experienced the inconvenience of a ship, began to cry and lament, and his whole body was in a tremor. Notwithstanding all the soothings that were offered, he would not be pacified. The king's diversions were interrupted, and no remedy could be found. A philosopher who was in the ship said, "If you will command me I will silence him." The king replied, "It will be an act of great kindness." The philosopher ordered them to throw the boy into the sea, and

* Gladwin's.

after several plunges, they laid hold of the hair of his head, and dragging him toward the ship, he clung to the rudder with both ⚫ his hands. When he got out of the water he sat down quietly in a corner of the vessel. The king was pleased and asked how this was brought about. The philosopher replied, "At first he had never experienced the danger of being drowned; neither knew he the safety of the ship. In like manner he knoweth the value of prosperity who hath encountered adversity.'

III. LIP SERVICE.

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A rich miser having a son that was sick, his friends represented that he ought either cause the Koran to be read from beginning to end, or else offer sacrifice, that the high God might restore his son to health. After a little consideration he said: "It is better to read the Koran, as it is at hand, and flocks are at a distance." A holy man, hearing this, said: He preferred reading the Koran because the words are at the tip of his tongue and the money is in the inside of his heart. Alas! if the performance of religious rites was to be accompanied with alms, they would remain like the ass in the mire; but if you require only the first chapter of the Koran, they will repeat it a hundred times."

IV. ON A MISER.

Were heaven's bright spheres placed in the miser's hands,
To roll obsequious at his high commands;

If all the wealth of Croesus were his own,

Or this huge globe became the wretch's throne;
Fortune, his slave, could not produce one claim,
To crown her lord with Fame's exalted name.
What are their hoards of gold but dross the whole,
Who lack that glowing mine, a feeling soul?
Poor sordid worms may crawl for years in pain,
By land or sea, and look to heaven in vain.
Religion says: "Sure nought avails his store,
Whose aching heart is craving still for more."
While noble minds wealth's purest fruits enjoy,
Gold's growing cares the miser's peace destroy.
Those live indeed-these life's rich harvest blast,
Nay, daily starve, and die of want at last..

The "Bostán" (Tree Garden) is a work wholly in verse, divided into ten books, and embodying chiefly the religious sentiments of the author. A short selection from the third book may suffice:

The wise select the kernel, not the husk,

And fools are all beside. He the pure wine
Alone has drunk, who, by remembering God,
Has all things else in both worlds clean forgot.

In conformity with such sentiments as these, Sadi built for himself, in his declining years, a hermitage near the walls of Shiraz; and here he lived absorbed in religious meditation. He received both visits and gifts from persons of exalted rank, but after appropriating to himself what was necessary to a bare subsistence, he distributed the rest to the poor. He is said to have lived to the age of 116, and to have been buried on the spot where his last days were spent. His tomb is still pointed out to travelers.

ART. V.—REV. EGERTON RYERSON, D.D., LL.D.

1. Educational Reports; 2. Letters to Foreign Ecclesiastics; 3. Letters to the Hon. George Brown; 4 Civil Government-A Discourse; 5. First Lessons in Agriculture; 6. Christian Morals; 7. The Loyalists of America and Their Tunes. Vols. I, II.

IT was at the Methodist Conference in Canada, held at Saltfleet, or Fifty-Mile Creek, in 1825, that Egerton Ryerson was received on trial into the Methodist ministry. It is a somewhat singular coincidence that at the said Conference six were received on trial, six others remained on trial, and six more were received into full connection. The total number of the members of Conference, including the above, was thirty-three. Of this number Dr. Ryerson was the last survivor, and he now has also passed on before.

Of those admitted on trial, two besides Mr. Ryerson became men of more than ordinary celebrity: James Richardson, afterward Dr. Richardson, Bishop of the Episcopal Methodist Church in Canada, and Anson Green, afterward Dr. Green, who was three times president of Conference, and for many years book steward, and was often sent as representative to other ecclesiastical gatherings; he was a constant associate with Dr. Ryerson. They spent the evening of their lives together, and often walked to the house of God in company. When Dr. Ryerson preached the funeral sermon for his friend Green, he said that he "now felt lonely in the world, as he had outlived all the companions of his youth and the friends of his riper years." But

after three more years he, too, has been called to his final rest in heaven. The event took place on Sunday, February 19, 1882, in the city of Toronto, Ontario, on which day one of the most distinguished men that was ever connected with Methodism in Canada passed away. His age was 79. He had been connected with all the doings of the Church, and had taken part in many of the stirring events that had occurred in the country.

Dr. Ryerson belonged to a family in which there were six sons, five of whom became ministers in the Methodist Church: one traveled only a few years; another, on being sent as a delegate to England, became a follower of the late Edward Irving, and is now, though more than ninety years of age, "the angel of the Apostolic Church" in Toronto. Of the others, William was for many years the most popular preacher in Canada. It is the opinion of some that at no period in the history of Methodism in Canada has there ever been one to excel him for pulpit oratory. To see him at a quarterly meeting in the olden time, or at a camp-meeting, was a sight never to be forgotten. Dr. John Carroll says: "We can remember masses of people being moved by his word, like forest trees swayed to and fro by the wind." A public controversy was held on "the Clergy Reserve Question and Voluntaryism," in which Mr. W. Ryerson and several others took part. The late Bishop Cronyn declared that "Mr. Ryerson's sarcasm was unequaled by all that he had ever heard, and that it was worth the journey from London to Simcoe to hear it." For several years he was presiding elder, on two occasions was president of Conference, and was occasionally chosen as representative to the General Conference.

John, the elder brother of Egerton, was a great ecclesiastical leader. He was a shrewd man, and at an early period of his ministry he was appointed by the venerable Bishop Hedding to the office of presiding elder. An amusing incident occurred in connection with this appointment. The ordination class was being examined, and one of the members, having heard of the Bishop's design, was asked by Mr. Ryerson, "Brother Black, who was Polycarp?" "Polycarp, Polycarp, your reverence? I think I have heard that he was presiding elder of Smyrna." The poor examiner, though usually one of the

gravest of men, was unable to suppress his smiles, while the rest of the company was thrown into convulsive laughter. The class, of course, greatly enjoyed the wit of their brother, and passed through the remainder of the ordeal successfully. As a preacher, Mr. John Ryerson excelled in beauty of thought and chasteness of diction. He was truly apostolic, as he always used "sound speech that could not be condemned." He was, also, often intrusted with important duties which required more than ordinary tact and skill to perform. He filled the presidential chair with great dignity. He was several times sent to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and to the Wesleyan Conference, England. He was, also, a member of the Evangelical Alliance which met in London in 1846. He was associated with Dr. Green on that important occasion, at which they were the representatives of Methodism in Canada.

But we must return from this digression. Egerton Ryerson, like most of great men, was much indebted to his mother, who was a strong-minded woman and exerted great influence for good in her family. He was converted in the eighteenth year of his age, and joined the Methodist Church, as his elder brothers had done. His father disapproved of his doing so, as he intended him to follow the profession of law, and, in a fit of anger, he commanded him to "either give up the Methodists or leave home." His brother George had established a grammar school near London. Egerton went thither, and for two years acted as usher in his brother's school, and at the same time pursued the study of classics.

From early life he was an earnest student, and as the country did not afford many educational facilities he made up for the lack by intense application. His father called him home; he obeyed the mandate, and for some time was engaged with the duties of the farm, but he often rose at three o'clock in the morning that he might study a few hours before commencing his daily labor.

In those days it was customary for the minister to call upon some one to exhort after the sermon. Soon after his conversion, Egerton Ryerson was summoned to this duty. The poor young man obeyed, but he was so timid that he broke down, and, as a consequence, was very sad and discouraged, but he