there was little to object to in the sentiments she expressed, excepting that all her expletives were breaches of the Third Commandment, and her few terms of endearment were so coarse that you would not care that they should be recorded here. It was her ordinary language, she knew no other. We are taught that mortals are answerable for all their idle words-it is not for me to gauge that young person's responsibilities.

In recent hill warfare with the Afreedees, who are human beings not a whit more degraded than the aborigines of Westminster, some of the native population zealously took our side. On one occasion an officer on duty pointed out to a native sentry a certain black fellow whom he had observed skulking, with others round the fort, evidently with sinister intentions. 'I see him, sar,' said the sentry-'had two shots at him aʼready, him dam hard to hit, he hardest man to hit I know.' 'Oh, you know him, do you?' said the officer. 'Oh, yes, sar, I know de dam rascal. I been tryin' to shoot him all de week.' 'Well, who is he? What's his name?' 'Oh, de dam rascal-he my father.'

Something of the same kind may be said of an elderly South Sea Islander, who was observed peering over a pool in the rocks, and on being asked how he lived, and what he did, he replied, with his very limited command of English, 'Pokin' dam crabs, out dam hole, with dam stick'-an unconscious satire

on the scope of English invention in the art of cursing.

Oaths are occasionally used in the very queerest fashion and on the most incongruous occasions. I have heard of a man anathematising the law of gravitation because he had tumbled down and hurt himself. Then Hogg, the Shepherd-Poet, was a touchy man, and after his quarrel with Scott (who never quarrelled with anybody) he wrote Scott a fierce letter, which began, 'Damned Sir,' &c.; and again, if you turn to that interesting reprint of the first edition of the 'Pilgrim's Progress' (Mr. Holford has the only, or almost the only, copy of the original known to exist), you will see that John Bunyan describes Christian's path to the valley of the Shadow of Death as being 'Damnably muddy.'

A citizen of the United States of America, on being admonished for using strong language, thus excused himself: You wouldn't say the Lord's Prayer if you'd trod upon the business end of a tin tack.'

THE GRAVES OF THE COVENANTERS.

'There are few more interesting episodes in Modern Ecclesiastical History than that of the Scottish Covenanters. But the school in which that episode must be studied is Scotland itself. The

caves, and moors, and moss-hags of the Western Lowlands; the tales, which linger still, of the black charger of Claverhouse, of the strange encounters with the Evil One, of the cry of the plover and peewit round the encampments on the hill-side, are more instructive than many books. The rude gravestones which mark the spots where those were laid who bore testimony to "the covenanted work of reformation," and "Christ's kingly government of His house," bring before us in the most lively, because in the most condensed, authentic, original form, the excited feeling of the time, and the most peculiar traits of the religion of the Scottish people. Their independence, their fervour, their fierceness, may have belonged to the age. But hardly out of Scotland could be found their stubborn endurance, their thirst for vengeance, their investment of the narrowest questions of discipline and ceremony with the sacredness of universal principles. We almost fancy that we see the survivors of the dead spelling and scooping out their savage rhymes on the simple monuments—each catching from each the epithets, the texts, the names, almost Homeric in the simplicity and the sameness with which they are repeated on those lonely tombstones from shore to shore of the Scottish kingdom.'

Arthur P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster.

CONUNDRUM.

A. What do you do with your eyes?

B. I do not know.

A. Do not you dot them?

B. Oh yes, of course, I dot them.

A. But you ought not to dot them.

B. Why not?

A. Why, because they are capital eyes.

CHAOS AND THE CREATION.

Hans Sachs (who lived 1494-1576) describing Chaos, said it was so pitchy dark that even the cats ran against each other.

I do not know whether the exigencies of the drama require it, but there is a German play, in which, when the curtain rises, our first parent Adam is discovered crossing the stage-going to be created.

AN ENGLISH CLERGYMAN.

The following was a black Australian's description of an English clergyman: White fellow, belonging to Sunday, wear 'im shirt over trouser, get up in tree, and make long corrobory-bobbery all 'bout debil, debil.'

AN ENTHUSIAST IN GRAMMAR.

The good Abbé de Dangeau, when he received the tidings of the disasters of Ramillies and Blenheim, said, as he affectionately laid his hand on his old bureau, 'Come what may, I have safe here three thousand verbs all correctly conjugated.'

TO HIS SONNE.

'Three things thear bee, that prosper all apace,

And flourish while they are asunder farr;

But on a day, they meet all in a place,

And when they meet they one another marre.

'And they be these; the Wood, the Weed, the Wagge : The Wood is that that makes the gallowes tree! The Weed is that which strings the hangman's bagge; The Wagge, my pretty knave, betokens thee.

'Now marke, dear boy, while these assemble not, Greene springes the tree, hemp growes, the Wagge

is wild ;

But when they meet it makes the timber rot,

It fretts the halter, and it choakes the child.

God bless the child!'

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618).