Thou must be contented for Christ's sake to be esteemed as a fool in this world, if thou desire to lead a holy life. The wearing of a religious habit, and shaving of the crown, do little profit; but change of manners, and perfect mortification of passions, make a true religious man. He that seeketh anything else but God, and the salvation of his soul, shall find nothing but tribulation and sorrow. Neither can he remain long in peace, that laboreth not to be the least, and subject unto all. Thou camest to serve, not to rule. Know that thou wast called to suffer and to labor, not to be idle, or to spend thy time in talk. Here, therefore, men are proved as gold in the furnace. Here no man can stand, unless he humble himself with his whole heart for the love of God. Complete. "Imitation of Christ,» VI-153 2434 CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819-1875) INGSLEY'S "Prose Idyls" are unique among his productions for their restful quality. His career in literature and in the ministry of the Church of England was inspired by the spirit of unrest which makes progress possible. He was not content to accept anything as a substitute for the best unless it were the best possible, and as he failed to find that in the religious, social, commercial, or political life of his time, he did his best to bring it about. Born in Devonshire, January 12th, 1819, he graduated at Cambridge, and entering the ministry of the English Established Church, became Canon first of Middleham, then of Chester, and finally of Westminster. The "agnostic" spirit of science moved him to write “Hypatia, or Old Foes with New Faces," a very remarkable historical study, more widely read, no doubt, than "Yeast" and "Alton Locke," two novels with a sociological motive which preceded it. His "Water Babies" is a child's book with a concealed motive of protest against theories he did not approve. He died January 23d, 1875. A CHARM OF BIRDS S IT merely a fancy that we English, the educated people among us at least, are losing that love for spring which among our old forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves and the returning song birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the Old World, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and returned in spring to life, and health, and glory; when the death of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by the Syrian women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, by all living things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocks furrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youth and love, went forth over the earth each spring, while the flowers broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcome her with song; when, according to Olaus Magnus, the Goths and South Swedes had, on |