8.-DR. ARNOLD AT RUGBY.

THOMAS HUGHES was born at Uffington, Berkshire, England, in 1823. He was educated at Rugby, under Dr. Arnold, and entered Oriel College, Oxford, in 1841. He published Tom Brown's School-Days in 1856, and somewhat later The Scouring of the White Horse and Tom Brown at Oxford. He has also written some sermons, and a number of discourses on political economy. His style is clear, firm, and simple, and his Tom Brown's School-Days teems with humor, vivacity, power, and tenderness. His writings are full of a hearty, pure, and vigorous morality which cannot fail to impress his readers. The following extract is from Tom Brown's School-Days.

1. MORE worthy pens than mine have described that scene, the oak pulpit standing out by itself, above the school seats; the tall gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice,—now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light-infantry bugle,—of him who stood there Sunday after Sunday, witnessing and pleading for his Lord, the King of righteousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, and in whose power he spoke; the long lines of young faces, rising tier above tier down the whole length of the chapel, from the little boy's who had just left his mother, to the young man's who was going out next week into the great world rejoicing in his strength.

2. It was a great and solemn sight, and never more so than at this time of year, when the only lights in the chapel were in the pulpit and at the seats of the præpostors of the week, and the soft twilight stole over the rest of the chapel, deepening into darkness in the high gallery behind the organ.

3. But what was it, after all, which seized and held these three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes on Sunday afternoons? True, there always were boys scattered up and down the school who in heart and head were

worthy to hear and able to carry away the deepest and wisest words there spoken. But these were a minority always, generally a very small one; often so small a one as to be countable on the fingers of your hand.

4. What was it that moved and held us, the rest of the three hundred reckless, childish boys, who feared the doctor with all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth,-who thought more of our sets in school than of the Church of Christ, and put the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the laws of God?

5. We couldn't enter into half that we heard: we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts or the knowledge of one another, and little enough of the faith, hope, and love, needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men, too, for the matter of that), to a man whom we felt to be with all his heart and soul and strength striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world.

6. It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm living voice of one who was fighting for us and by our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life,—that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battle-field, ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death.

7. And he who roused this consciousness in them showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pul

pit, and by his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought, and stood there before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. The true sort of captain, too, for a boys' army,-one who had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood.

8. Other sides of his character might take hold of and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted courage which, more than anything else, won his way to the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them believe first in him and then in his Master.

6. Se rene', calm.

DEFINITIONS.—2. Præ pos'tors, monitors. Sluggard, a lazy person. Or dained', established. 7. Con'sciousness, immediate knowledge. Truçe, a temporary cessation of hostilities.

NOTE.-Dr. Arnold was the head-master of the celebrated school at Rugby, founded in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Rugby is a small town in the county of Warwick, England, about eighty miles from London.

9. THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

MRS. CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER was born in 1823. She is the wife of the Bishop of Derry (Londonderry), Ireland. She has written two volumes of poetry, and a number of hymns. The poem which follows is her finest production.

1. By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave.

And no man dug that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er;

For the angels of God upturned the sod

And laid the dead man there.

2. That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling
Or saw the train go forth.
Noiselessly as the daylight

Comes back when night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun;

3. Noiselessly as the spring-time

Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves,—
So, without sound of music

Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.

4. Perchance the bald old eagle,
On gray Beth-peor's height,
Out of his rocky eyrie

Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking

Still shuns that hallowed spot;

For beast and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.

5. But when the warrior dieth, His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum,

Follow his funeral car.

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute-gun.

6. Amid the noblest of the land
We lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place,
With costly marble dressed,

In the great minster transept,

Where lights like glories fall,

And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings

Along the emblazoned wall.

7. This was the truest warrior

That ever buckled sword;

This, the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage

As he wrote down for men.

8. And had he not high honor?
The hill-side for a pall;

To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall ;

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
To lay him in the grave,-

9. In that strange grave, without a name,
Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again-O wondrous thought!—
Before the judgment-day,