"I don't think you'd like it either, though there's plenty of gaslight when the people are all in; and then, when the music's going, and everybody's dressed up till you wouldn't know 'em, it's all very grand. But when it's all over, and the gas smells, and the sawdust and the smoke and the gin, and you're tired and got the headache, then you wish there was no theatre, for everybody's cross and "

"I am sure I wish there was no theatre," said her friend; "but now let us talk about the school and forget the theatre. God wants you to go to school, Annie, that you may learn to be a useful woman, I am sure." "But what can I do when there's so many people in the world? Nobody wants me; mother don't, I know."

"Well, if you go to school you may find out a way of being useful. My sister will take you and speak to the teacher for you, and while you are there I'll send for your mother and talk to her about it."

This last condition proved irresistible to Annie, and she agreed to go home and wash herself, and come again at six o'clock to go to school.

Six o'clock struck, and with it came Annie, all her bright hair bundled up under an old bonnet of her mother's. She looked a quaint, demure little creature, trudging through the wet streets in her mother's bonnet and shawl, beside the kind friend who had so often longed and prayed to be able to do something to save her from the perils of such a life as lay before her.

When they reached the school, so warm and bright and inviting after the wet cold streets, Annie looked up gratefully into her friend's face. "It's nice here," she said.

The teacher came forward to welcome her new scholar, and a few words were spoken by the lady who had brought her; for they were not unknown to each other, and she had often spoken of this child and her wish to befriend her. On her way back, she met Annie's mother, who was not unknown to the sisters. "Are you in a hurry, Mrs. Morris ?" she asked.

"Well, no; I was just looking round for my Annie; she ain't at the theatre to-night, you know, ma'am."

"So I hear, and I think my sister wants to speak to you about her, if you will come into the shop."

"Ah, Annie has been telling you of the misfortune, I suppose?" said the woman. She had been drinking as usual, and her red bloodshot eyes were full of tears.

"Well, I don't see that it is such a misfortune for the child to grow. You would not have her a child all her life?"

"Well, no, ma'am ; but-but your sister knows what I mean."

They had entered the shop by this time, and she looked up appealingly as she spoke. "You are talking about Annie, I suppose. She is in a great deal of trouble, poor child; but, as I told her, you could not be angry with her, for she could not help growing."

"Well, I don't know so much about that. You see, ma'am, she would eat. The breadand-butter that Annie eat for her breakfast would frighten you."

"I don't think it would. Growing children always have a good appetite."

"That's just what I said. She was growing, and instead of eating the bread-andbutter, and every bite of anything she could get hold of, she should have took a drop of gin now and then. It would have stopped the craving at her stomach, and stopped the growing; but not a drop of gin would she touch; and now see what's come of it. She's no good for nothing: she's just too big and too little."

"But, Mrs. Morris, I think you ought to be very glad that Annie would not take the gin. How often have you told me that if it had not been for the drink you would have been a much better woman? and I quite believe it."

"That's all very well, ma'am, as far as it goes," hiccuped the woman; "but you see, it was for her good that I wanted her to take it, and she ought to have done as I told her, and I'll make her take it yet."

"Come, come, Mrs. Morris, don't be angry and unreasonable with the poor child; you ought to be glad she is growing such a fine girl."

"But what is she to do? how is she to get her living? If she was to grow faster than girls ever do grow, she couldn't go on the stage for two years, and who is to keep her all that time? I can't and I won't."

Some customers coming in the conversation was interrupted for a few minutes; but after they were gone Mrs. Deane said

"And you would like your little girl brought up respectably, too, would you not?" "Yes, ma'am, I should; but how's a poor woman like me to do it? As for Annie, she's just been and thrown her best chance away, and now, I suppose, she'll have to get her living out of the streets, like the rest of them do."

"I should be very sorry to see her thrown on the streets, Mrs. Morris. If I can persuade some friends to do something for Annie now get her into a school, or something of that kind-will you promise not to interfere with her by-and-by, when she gets older?"

"Well, I don't know, ma'am, what you mean about interfering. I'm her mother, and of course I should like to see her get on."

I

"That is quite natural; but the friends am thinking of would not like to have a girl they had taught and taken care of dragged back to such a life as Annie's now is-a life on the stage."

"Well, ma'am, I should be glad, of course, if you could do anything for Annie just now, and, if I may say so, it 'ud only be a bit fair, too, for it is, as I may say, through you that she's just no use now."

Why, how can that be?" said Mrs. Deane.

'Well, ma'am, you've always been very kind to Annie, and she thinks there's nobody like you. I suppose it's because your ways are different from most folks; and so when you told her never to drink the gin or stuff that the children often get a sip of, why, of course, she must mind what you say, though she didn't care for her own mother, and not a drop would she have from nobody."

"I am very glad to hear it," said Mrs. Deane; "and I am sure you will be one day, when you see Annie growing up a respectable good woman, as I trust she will, if you will only give her up for a few years."

"Well, ma'am, your offer is a kind one, certainly; but I don't know what to say to it all at once. You see Annie is pretty, and bids fair to be a pretty woman, and looks is money on the stage."

"Will you let Annie choose for herself? She is a sensible child, and I will agree to this, that if she does not like her home in three months, she shall come back to you."

"Very well, I'll agree to that. Three months off my hands will be something," she muttered to herself as she walked out of the shop.

When Annie came out of school she made her way back to her friends, and, watching for an opportunity when there were no customers

in the shop, she darted in, and asked, in an eager whisper, "Have you seen mother?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Deane, "and she has given you up for three months, and I am going to find some friends to take care of you. Do you think you will like that, Annie ?" asked her friend.

"I don't know, ma'am," said Annie dubiously.

"Well, come in and have some supper now, and we will talk about it afterwards. You will stay with us to-night, Annie."

"Yes, I shall like that," said Annie, brightening, and she followed her friend into the old-fashioned parlour behind the shop, where she made a hearty meal of bread-andbutter, sitting on a low stool beside the fire.

"What did you learn at school to-night, Annie?" asked Mrs. Deane as the child sat looking meditatively into the fire.

"Well, ma'am, about the same thing as you've told me, and I've been wondering whether it's true, after all." "Whether it is true! What do you

No, you couldn't help growing tall, of course; but there are some things God wishes us to do that He does not force us to do; He leaves us to choose for ourselves what we will do. He knows what is best for us, and He does all He can to make us choose the best; but after that He leaves it to our own choice."

"Is He going to let me choose which I will do ?" asked Annie.

"Yes. He wants you to grow up a good, useful woman, Annie, and He has made you grow tall that you may have the chance offered you of choosing which you will be by-and-by; because, if you are to be of any use then, you must begin learning many things now that you never heard of at the theatre, and try to forget many things you learned there. Now, Annie, which shall it be? Shall I go and see my friend to-morrow, and ask her to take you into the Home she has made for little girls like you, or will you go back to your mother and the streets?"

Annie shuddered at the word streets ;" but still, she did not speak at once. "What will it be like? what will they do to me at the Home?"

"Well, my dear, they will be kind to you, I know, and give you food to eat and a comfortable place to sleep; but there will very likely be some things you do not like. You will have to do as you are told, and obey the rules, and, perhaps, do some kind of work as well as learn to read."

"Is that all?" said Annie. "I think that will be all. You will certainly not be asked to do anything that you cannot do if you try."

"Then I choose, and I'll try; I'll try to be good, like you've told me, and I'll let God take care of me His way."

So Annie was sent to the Home, and her friends soon heard that she gave every satisfaction by her willing, obedient, tractable behaviour. Indeed, everybody loved the fair-haired girl, and the lady who had charge of the Home wished to take her to Canada.

But her mother would not hear of it at first, and accused Mrs. Deane of trying to rob her of her child. But she contrived to see her once or twice when she was sober, when she was willing to confess that her drinking habits had ruined herself and the child too; and by following up this advantage and telling her that she now had an opportunity of undoing part of the wrong, at least, inflicted upon Annie, and also a chance of joining her child by-and-by, if she would only overcome her evil habit, she was at last brought to consent that Annie should go out in the spring to the new country, where she had heard so many poor children had found good

homes. Annie herself was quite willing to go with her new friends, upon Mrs. Deane promising to look after her mother, and persuade her, if possible, to give up drinking and come out to her.

Mrs. Deane was most thankful that she had been able to rescue the child; but she felt the parting when it came most keenlyalmost as keenly as the poor besotted mother herself, who, as usual, had been drinking, and only half comprehended that the warmlydressed, pretty little girl who clung round her neck was her Annie bidding her farewellit might be for ever.

A few months afterwards came the news that Annie had found a good home in the Far West, for a lady had been attracted by Annie's gentle winning ways, and adopted her as her own daughter, and in the quiet Christian home the memory of her fairy life was fast fading from her memory.

And what of her mother? some of my readers may ask. I wish I could say that she followed up with action the good resolutions she made about giving up the vice that had ruined her, and almost ruined Annie too. But this is no sketch of the imagination, but an event of real life, which took place only three years ago, and the last time the writer asked about this poor mother-whether she was likely to join her daughter in the far-off land-there was only a sad shake of the head, and the words, "But, thank God, the child is safe from her influence now."

EMMA LESLIE.

THAT HAT men possessed by one and the same feeling show that feeling in widely different ways, is not only true in the affairs of the Church, but also in the concerns of man's common nature. In that sphere to which Paul had devoted his strong intellect and warm heart-the sphere of the soulthe working of "faith" produced one universal inward experience, that of love. Yet the outward manifestation of this love was greatly varied; barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, owned the same Lord, but His worship was in no two nations absolutely alike. "Diversity of operation" prevailed where there was "the same spirit." What is true in the Church is true in the world; the diversity which prevails in matters of faith is found also in man's

every-day life; and in nothing is this law of humanity more strikingly displayed than in the last tribute which the survivors pay to their dead. Prompted by the same tender and sorrowful yearning to do honour to the departed friend, each nation has its own peculiar and distinct way of rendering these marks of respect, and what one people regards with the deepest awe another counts ludicrous and even loathsome. A contemplation of the world's ways with its dead may help us to get a little nearer to the hearts of mankind, and to understand, in some slight degree that mysterious kinship which binds together all the children of God's great family. In all ages "every human heart is human," and many a strange custom and

hideous rite may owe its origin to some vague and feeble striving after an uncomprehended good.

The desire expressed by Abraham when he stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, is the natural instinct of all: "Give me possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight." "Out of sight," that is the common end, but the means to that end are as varied as the nations that seek it. The simple enclosing of the body in stone or earth seems to have been the earliest form of burial; and the most terrible of threats or prophecies was that of Jeremiah against Jehoiakim" he shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." To sleep with their fathers in that place which later Jews have finely termed, "the house of the living," was the desire of the Patriarchs. "I will lie with my fathers," said Jacob to Joseph, "and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place."

The devotion with which Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, watched over her slaughtered sons, and suffered "neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night," has often been told by the painter and sung by the poet. How natural we all feel that watch to be: and yet her jealous vigil was not more "natural" to her and to us, than is the strongly contrasting custom of the Parsee mothers and fathers to them! The Times of last year has given a graphic account of a visit to a Parsee burying-place, known as the Towers of Silence. "These towers," says the writer, "erected on a hill which rises above the city of Bombay, are five in number, and are built of the hardest black granite, covered with white chunam. The oldest and smallest of the five was constructed two hundred years ago, when the Parsees first settled in Bombay. Three Sagris, or houses of prayer, overlook the Towers of Silence, and the principal Sagri contains the sacred fire, which is fed day and night with incense and fragrant wood, and never extinguished. Although wholly destitute of ornament, the parapet of each tower possesses an extraordinary coping which instantly attracts and fascinates the gaze. It is a coping formed, not of dead stone, but of living vultures. After these structures have been once solemnly consecrated, no one except the corpse-bearers is allowed to enter, nor is any one permitted to come within thirty feet of the immediate precincts. The dead are laid in open stone

coffins, ranged in circles within each massive cylinder. At the approach of a funeral there is a stir among the vultures, and as soon as the bearers have deposited the corpse and retired, the birds swoop down upon the body, and leave nothing behind but a skeleton."

In answer to the natural objections of a European, an intelligent Parsee ably defended his Towers of Silence. "We spare no expense," said he, "in constructing them of the hardest materials, and we expose our dead in open stone receptacles, resting on fourteen feet of solid granite, not necessarily to be consumed by vultures, but to be dissipated in the speediest possible manner, and without the possibility of polluting the earth or contaminating a single living being dwelling thereon. We form a united body in life, and we are united in death. Even our leader, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, likes to feel that when he dies he will be reduced to perfect equality with the poorest and humblest of the Parsee community." Since this account was written, the great leader of the Parsees has indeed gone to his rest, and awaits, in his Silent Tower, that day of general resurrection in which all Parsees believe. In that day, they hold that death will be slain, and the earth, whose elements they regard as so sacred, shall be regenerated and made pure for ever. To us, "the fools of habit," it sweeter seems

"To rest beneath the clover sod

That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God."

He

In Madagascar the dead are held in high respect, and to deceased sovereigns almost divine honours are paid. A Malagasy will expend far greater sums upon his buryingplace than on his dwelling-house. He is content to live in a mean habitation, whose walls are made of clay or bamboo, but his tomb must be built of massive stone. will cheerfully wear a jacket of hemp or ròfia cloth, and a lamba of some coarse material; but his dead must be wrapped in costly scarves of dark-red silk, with stripes and borders of lighter colours. The construction of his vault is one of the principal events of his life, and as soon as he becomes the head of a household he sets about preparing a family sepulchre. No coffins are used in the grave; around the sides of the