That earth and blossom, sea and sky,
Would be empty without the seeing eye,
That form and color, movement and rhythm
Are not true elements of heaven
Till passed through transforming power of thought;
For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought.
Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art
Of the upright mind and guileless heart.

MARY RUSSELL MILLS.

NOVEMBER 12.

THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH.

After asking the Brakeman if he had been to each of the leading
churches, the querist finally suggested the Baptists. "Ah, ha!" he
shouted. "Now you're on the Shore Line! River Road, eh? Beautiful
curves, lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river; all steel
rail and rock ballast; single track, and not a siding from the
round-house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it through;
double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shops
that can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges. * * *
And yesterday morning, when the conductor came around taking up fares
with a little basket punch, I didn't ask him to pass me; I paid my
fare like a little Jonah--twenty-five cents for a ninety-minute run,
with a concert by the passengers thrown in."

ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
_Pastor Emeritus Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles._

NOVEMBER 13.

Directly opposite sat a Chinese dignitary richly apparrelled, serene,
bland, bearing with courteous equanimity flirtatious overtures of an
unattached blonde woman at his left, and the pert coquetry of a young
girl at the other side. The mother of the girl ventured meek, unheeded
remonstrances between mouthfuls of crab salad. * * *

"But you have not answered my question," he reminded her. "Do you
believe in affinities?"

"I think that I do," hesitatingly.

"You are not certain?"

"N-o; if to have an affinity means to have a very dear friend, whom
one trusts, and whom one desires to make happy--"

"You speak as if you had such a friend in mind," he hazarded.

"I have," she replied simply.

"Happy man!" he sighed.

"I referred to my St. Bernard dog."

"Oh!" Protracted silence. "No use," he drawled. "My pride will not let
me enter the lists with a St. Bernard."

"That is not pride, but modesty," she asserted, and laughed. Her
laughter reminded Horton of liquid sunshine, melted pearls, and
sparkling cascades.

IDA MANSFIELD WILSON,
in _According to Confucius._

NOVEMBER 14.

There's only one thing to do, there can be but o