Give to me the life I love,

Let the lave go by me,

Give the jolly heaven above

And the by-way nigh me.

Bed in the bush with stars to see,

Bread I dip in the river

There's the life for a man like me,

There's the life for ever.

R. L. Stevenson.

In our reading it would be an excellent thing if we could establish the rule of neglecting the unimportant, the superfluous, and devoting our time and attention to the really important things. The present condition in literature is like that which is said to have prevailed on earth immediately after Noah entered the ark. A deluge has set in. It rains and rains books and reviews and magazines and pamphlets; and then there are the newspapers. The flood rises higher and higher. It comes into our houses, empties itself on our book-shelves, and loads our tables. We are up to our necks in it, and in alarm we cry that we shall drown!

Felix Adler.

That best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.

William Wordsworth.

Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart,
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;

But, haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the soul, And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.

Robert Burns.

In the effort to appreciate various forms of greatness, let us not underestimate the value of a simply good life. Just to be good; to keep life pure from degrading elements, to make it constantly helpful in little ways to those who are touched by it, to keep one's spirit always sweet, and avoid all manner of petty anger and irritability — that is an ideal as noble as it is difficult.

Edward Howard Griggs.

FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT

Is there for honest poverty

Wha hings his head, an' a' that?

The coward slave, we pass him by;

We dare be poor for a' that.

For a' that an' a' that,

Our toils obscure, an' a' that;

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, an' a' that;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, —
A man's a man for a' that.

For a' that an' a' that,

Their tinsel show, an' a' that;

The honest man, though e'er sae poor,

Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that,

Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that;

For a' that, an' a' that,

His riband, star, an' a' that;

The man of independent mind,

He looks an' laughs at a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,

As come it will for a' that,

That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, an' a' that.

For a' that, an' a' that,

It's comin' yet, for a' that, —

When man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brithers be for a' that!

Robert Burns.

Some genuine exhibitions in living simply are being given by the Japanese. It is not a fad with them. It is conviction and reality. We may argue until the crack of doom about the relative height reached by civilization in Asia and America. The question is too general for absolute decision. But on some specific points no doubt exists, and plain living as an adjunct to high acting is one of them. The record of the Japanese hospitals is the most brilliant of all their accomplishments in this war.' They may or may not surpass Europeans in various military attributes. They are, however, as shown by their official reports, just seventy times as proficient as Americans in fighting disease, and the Boer War put the English in this respect about where the Spanish War put us. Out of twenty-five thousand cases of serious illness the Japanese lose forty. From typhoid they lose, between May 6th and December 1st, three out of 133; from dysentery, four out of 342. It is fair to assume that their ability in preventing disease is at least as great, relatively, as in curing it. When Napoleon said that in war sickness was a more dangerous foe than bullets, it was true, and it remained true until the Japanese appeared upon the scene. Can we imitate them? It will be no easy matter, for their medical success depends in large part upon the willingness of soldiers to live 'The Russo-Japanese War.

hygienically. They do not eat for pleasure. They do not drink for fun. They are the only inspiring examples of what the simple life can do.

Anon.

If we look into the manners of the most remote ages of the world, we discover human nature in her simplicity: and the more we come downward toward our own times, may observe her hiding herself in artifices and refinements, polished insensibly out of her original plainness, and at length entirely lost under form and ceremony, and (what we call) good breeding. Read the accounts of men and women as they are given us by the most ancient writers, both sacred and profane, and you would think you were reading the history of another species.

Joseph Addison.

There is a great mistake made on the subject of simplicity; there is one simplicity of circumstance, another simplicity of heart; there is many a man who sits down to a meal of bread and milk on a wooden table, whose heart is as proud as the proudest whose birth is royal; there is many a one whose voice is heard in the public meeting loudly descanting on regal tyranny and aristocratic insolence, who, in his own narrow circle, is as much a tyrant as any oppressor.

F. W. Robertson.