The frosty autumn is no respecter of person. There is no discharge in this war. The few flowers and leaves which had held out longer than the rest, at last had to succumb to their doom. The dahlias, which with their rich, velvety hues, usually fall the last, have had to droop and die in their turn. The trees are stripped of their beautiful garments. The tall and stately oak and elm, which a few months ago waved their leafy branches so grandly, have been dismantled. How bare and unattractive they now look. The pine alone retains its green leaves, reminding us of the evergreen plants in the house of the Lord, which shall flourish even in old age. Thus death is no respecter of persons. Nor power, nor wealth can avert his shaft.

Very fruitful, too, is this autumn sadness. The dreamy, hazy Indian Summer, is the time of ingathering. Then the red Indian, even, gathers in his scanty winter store. The squirrel and other animals gather into such barns as the kind Creator gives them. After the apples and corn have been housed, the farmer provides warm winter-quarters for his stock. Fuel is provided. The provident house-wife carefully stores away her fruit cans and vegetables, and, after the inevitable house-cleaning, turning every room upside down, the stoves are put in order. And the few weeks of Indian Summer seem especially sent to attend to all this autumn work. Watching all this household commotion, this arranging, preserving and storing away; and then, after all is done, when the cold weather sets in, the manifest sense of abundance and security, we are reminded of God's warning to King Hezekiah. The winter of death was knocking at his door. Had he made the necessary provision, laid in, arranged the needed stores to live comfortably in eternal blessedness? Had he prepared himself a dwellingplace there a heart sanctified? The Lord sends the prophet Isaiah to him, with the message:

Thus saith the Lord, "Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not live." (2 Kings xx. 1)

And this is the lesson of autumn; in due season to improve and finish the work of summer, as this cannot be done in winter. When the harvest is past, and the summer is ended, it will be too late to begin and perform life's solemn work. But the trees shall bud and blossom and bear fruit again next spring. And in the spring season of the resurrection, they that have done good shall come forth from their graves unto the resurrection of life. John v. 29.

Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue.

DAVID AND ORPHEUS.

BY THE EDITOR.

The ancients held that nations had been civilized by the charms of music. They tell us that when the fabled Orpheus struck his lyre, the rocks and trees were moved, and the wild beasts of the forest assembled around him, were held in mute and harmless delight by the spell of his matchless music. On a visit to the realms of Hades, the music of his "golden shell" stopped the wheel of Ixion; Tantalus, dying for want of water, though standing in it up to his chin, forgot his thirst; the vultures ceased to prey on the vitals of Tityus, and Pluto and Proserpine lent a favoring ear to his prayer. There is a beautiful truth in the fable. Trees themselves are lyres. A gentle breath of air will start their leaves into a soft, whispering harmony of sounds, sweet as the plaintive notes of an Eolian lyre. In a very real sense, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are in some way affected by the sweet harmony brought about by the reconciliation of God and man, through Jesus Christ. Does not this pagan fable read like a dim and distant, though unconscious prophecy of Christ's atoning work?

David touched his harp with more than Orphean skill. His music cast out the evil spirit of Saul. Does not this show that music affects our moral and religious nature, inspiring us with peaceful and pure thoughts and affections? No one can hear or practice good music without having his heart made better. We have read of a man who wished to die amid its soothing strains. And we see no harm, rather a comforting fitness, in such a wish. Luther is approaching Worms. It may cost him his life. All of a sudden his courage fails him. He is seized with painful dread and terror. A young student brings him his flute. The Reformer plays on it with his usual sweetness and skill. His courage returns. He enters Worms in a calm, hopeful frame of mind, ready to do or die, as the Lord wills. And as he enters, he sings a beautiful stirring hymn, which he had composed and set to music. On his study door usually hung a flute and a guitar. When he felt wearied and worried, dispirited, persecuted or tempted, he played and He called music "a delightful and lovely gift of God: it

sang.

has often excited and moved me, so that it quickened me to preach." "Satan is a great enemy to music. He does not stay long where it is practiced."

"Music is one of the noblest arts: its notes give life to the text; it charms away the spirit of sadness, as is seen in the case of King Saul." "It is the most certain way by which man can present to God his sufferings and cares, his tears and lamentations, his love and gratitude. It makes men more gentle and tender-hearted, more modest and discreet." "Singing is the best art and exercise: it has nothing to do with the world, with lawsuits or quarrels."

The Germans, above all other nations, excel in this art. They cultivate and practice it as a home accomplishment. It gives a charm to German family life. It finds a home among the poorer classes. Day laborers and limping beggars, scholars and soldiers, usually have a soul to enjoy its charms, and in many cases, are skillful musicians themselves. In the hut of the humblest peasant, that knows of no fare above black bread, a mug of beer and a pipe of tobacco, you can often hear the most enrapturing music. The old parents, stiff and stooping under the burdens of threescore, with their clumsy, heavy hands touch the harpsichord with marvellous dexterity. Here music is shed on all the people, almost as freely as the Almighty sends the sunshine. On market days, while peasants buy and sell their produce in the great market place, their ears are regaled by players from a neighboring balcony or park. In village inns, or crowded streets, in shady parks, on Rhine steamers, everywhere you are greeted with pleasant music. For a few pennies wandering minstrels will give you ten minutes of rarest pleasure. The wandering Bohemian carries his harp, made of common wood, on his back, followed by his wife and children. With one end of his rude instrument placed on the root of a wayside tree, he plays and the family group sing, and soon a cluster of toiling peasants gather around them from their fields, with delight. The clear ringing voices and sweet strains of the wandering family, from the mother to the small child, arrest and charm the most hurried traveller in his journey, and not seldom receive the tribute of tears, a gift more precious than that of silver thalers. The Austrian shepherds with their simple pipes loiter after their flocks to the sounds of sweetest music. And who that has ever heard the hardy Swiss herdsman, climbing on Alpine cliffs after his herds, can forget the clear sweet music, rendered with peculiar pathos, welling up from his sensitive heart, and rolling heavenward through the clear high air! Thus

"Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,

Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes."

THE LIBRARY OF PAUL.

BY THE EDITOR.

"The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments." 2 Tim. iv. 13.

Paul wrote this epistle while a prisoner at Rome. His ever active mind must have craved something more than silent meditation. This and prayer, doubtless, were a sweet relief; still his mind must have longed for communion with other minds-with men still living on in their writings

"The dead but scepter'd monarchs

Whose spirits still rule us from their urns."

The "books" of Paul must have been rolls of written papyrus, corresponding to our paper. It is made of an aquatic plant still found along the banks of the Nile, and along the rivers of Western Africa. From this we get our word paper. It was the paper of the ancient Egyptians, and was extensively used for making sailcloth, and sometimes even for clothing.

"Parchment" is a thick, heavy writing material, prepared from the skins of sheep and goats. After these are tanned and reduced to about half their original thickness, they are smoothed and dried for use. In David's time already the Hebrews had books, written on the skins of animals. Herodotus relates that from the earliest times the Ionians wrote upon goat and sheep skins, from which the hair had merely been scraped off. In more ancient times it was made yellow. Afterwards white parchment was manufactured at Rome. At present it is found in the East of both colors.

How large may Paul's library have been? What might it possibly have contained? In those days, before the art of printing had been invented, and when copies of works could only be multiplied by transcribing them, they cost much money. Even the wealthiest persons could afford to own but few books. There was a large class of professional writers-"scribes" as they were called -whose sole employment was the transcribing of books. Such a person "Zenas the Lawyer," (Titus iii. 13) must have been. Perhaps he transcribed some of Paul's "books." Tradition says that Lazarus of Bethany was a scribe by profession, by means of which

he supported his sisters, Mary and Martha. This writing by hand is a slow work. It would take months for one man to transcribe, neatly and legibly, Homer's Illiad or Odyssey; and to transcribe a Hebrew work would be still more slow and tedious work. The most trifling defect or omission in writing would defile the sacredness of the Law, and in the eyes of some, make the book unfit for use. If a scribe would dip his pen or style into an ink-horn out of which another one had used ink to write a single word from a heathen author, the whole book thereby became worthless. In the most trifling details the purity of the written Law was guarded with punctilious watchfulness. This greatly increased the price of the ancient writings. Works which we now buy, neatly bound, for a few dollars, must then have cost from fifty to a hundred dollars, and some even more. Paul, like many of his successors, being a poor man, could therefore not have had a large library. If he had a dozen copies of different authors he did well.

But Paul's library could have had but little chaff. No "light reading," or useless books to fill up the shelf. No stuff such as novelists spin out of their imaginations. His must have been substantial books. Perhaps some of his reading matter was in the form of ore, simply dug from the mine; bullion or solid metal, precious lumps which his skillful mind polished and purified for current circulation. He had the Scriptures-such books of them as were then in use; each book written on a separate scroll. This he studied and understood thoroughly. Few, if any, excelled him in a thorough mastery of Hebrew literature. But his studies could not have been wholly confined to inspired sources of knowledge. He must have had the works of heathen authors, too, in his small library. Perhaps those of Aratus and Cleanthes, from whom he quotes in Acts xvii. 28. Perhaps those of Menander, to whose Epicurean views he alludes in 1 Cor. xv. 32. Perhaps those of Epimenides, whom he quotes to prove the degraded character of the Cretians. Titus i. 12. If he did not really possess these, he had at least studied them; showing that a minister of the Gospel, like the bees, should gather honey from every flower-should know how to use even profane literature in the service of Christ. Of course, the Holy Bible always comes first, and the whole field of secular learning is merely used as a help to its understanding and exposition. Homer and Horace, Pindar and Shakespeare help to sharpen the sword of truth, but the sword itself can only be gotten from the Scriptures.

Did Paul, an inspired Apostle, really use and study the books others had written? read what others had said before him? read what the vile heathens had produced? "Nay, verily," say some,