imself, loses his misery!"

_Matthew Arnold._

A LITTLE PRAYER

We should strive to bring what happiness we can to others. More still,
we should strive to bring them no unhappiness. When we come to die, it
is, as George Eliot once said, not our kindness or our patience or our
generosity that we shall regret, but our intolerance and our harshness.

That I may not in blindness grope,
But that I may with vision clear
Know when to speak a word of hope
Or add a little wholesome cheer.

That tempered winds may softly blow
Where little children, thinly clad,
Sit dreaming, when the flame is low,
Of comforts they have never had.

That through the year which lies ahead
No heart shall ache, no cheek be wet,
For any word that I have said
Or profit I have tried to get.

_S.E. Kiser._

A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT

It is said that once at a laird's house Burns was placed at a second
table, and that this rankled in his breast and caused him to write his
poem on equality. He insists that rank, wealth, and external
distinctions are merely the stamp on the guinea; the man is the gold
itself. Snobbishness he abhors; poverty he confesses to without hanging
his head in the least; the pith of sense and the pride of worth he
declares superior to any dignity thrust upon a person from the outside.
In a final, prophetic mood he looks forward to the time when a democracy
of square dealing shall prevail, praise shall be reserved for merit, and
men the world over shall be to each other as brothers. In line 8
gowd=gold; 9, hamely=homely, commonplace; 11, gie=give; 15, sae=so; 17,
birkie=fellow; 20, cuif=simpleton; 25, mak=make; 27, aboon=above; 28,
mauna=must not; fa'=acclaim; 36, gree=prize.

Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden-gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is King o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Tho' hundreds wo