broadest lines the kind of reading which tends to preserve or to
restore mental health. Away with your "problem" novels and "realistic"
poems stated in the filthy material of moral gutters! Hans Andersen
will take some birds, some flowers, some toys, and will state the same
problems, and get the same eternal solutions, without making the
inquirer run any risk of meanwhile catching moral malaria. Isaiah will
help us to build "castles" for the human race and for our own future,
but he will take care that we shall remember that righteousness and
unceasing vigilance and unflagging repair must go into the laying of
foundations and the upholding of walls. David, even in his "cursing
psalms," will exemplify for you the power of hate and vengeance in
your own heart, and as he holds it up before you, you will see how
small a thing it is, how mean, how ludicrous!

As a man eats and drinks, so is his body: if he is a gross feeder, his
body will be gross and sensual; if his food lacks nourishment, he will
pine and fade. So it is with our minds and our morals. With whatever
original "spiritual body" we may start, it needs spiritual sustenance,
spiritual discipline, spiritual sufficiency and spiritual abstinence.
Too often we ill-use it, as bodies are ill-used, goading its weakness
with fiery excitement, or gorging its greed with sickly sentiment, or
emasculating it by empty frivolity.

All who desire spiritual health must find out what books best promote
it in themselves: and sometimes they are found, like wholesome herbs,
in very lowly places. One good rule is never to recommend what we have
not seen proved in ourselves, or on others.

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

THE SWAN-SONG OF SEPTEMBER.

This fine sonnet is from _Lyric Leaves_, poems by S. Gertrude
Ford. 2s. 6d. net (postage 2d.). (C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor
Street, London, E.C.)

Sing out thy swan-song with full throat, September,
From a full heart, with golden notes and clear!
No rose will wreathe thee; yet the harebell's here,
And still thy crown of heath the hills remember.
Bright burns thy fire, e'en to its latest ember,
The sunset fire that lights thee to thy bier,
Flaming and failing not, albeit so near
Dun-robed October waits, and grey November.
And though, at sight of thee, a chill change passes
Through wood and wold, on leaves and flowers and grasses,
Thy beauty wanes not; thou hast ne'er g