This was a subject upon which Hans had evidently not reflected. He looked puzzled. He was so accustomed to think that money embraced everything else that was desirable, that he could not imagine it possible for a rich man to be miserable. But I told him of some rich men whom I knew, and of others of whom I had heard, and at last bade him think of the prosperous brewer in the town below, who had so much trouble in his family, and who walked the streets with his head hanging down.

I saw that Hans was not a bad boy; he was simply restless, impatient, and perhaps a little inclined to envy those in better circumstances. This lonely life on the mountains was not good for a boy of his nature, and I knew it would be difficult for him to change his habits of thinking and wishing. But, after a long talk, he promised me he would try, and that was as much as I expected.

Now, you may want to know whether he did try; and I am sorry that I cannot tell you. I left the place soon afterwards, and have never been there since. Let us all hope, however, that he found the real key-flower. -BAYARD TAYLOR.

THE OLIVE TREE

Said an ancient hermit, bending
Half in prayer upon his knee,
"Oil I need for midnight watching,
I desire an olive tree."

Then he took a tender sapling,
Planted it before his cave,

Spread his trembling hands above it,
As his benison he gave.

But, he thought, the rain it needeth,
That the root may drink and swell;
"God! I pray Thee send Thy showers!"
So a gentle shower fell.

"Lord, I ask for beams of summer, Cherishing this little child."

Then the dripping clouds divided,

And the sun looked down and smiled.

"Send it frost to brace its tissues,
O my God!" the hermit cried.
Then the plant was bright and hoary,
But at evensong it died.

Went the hermit to a brother
Sitting in his rocky cell:

"Thou an olive tree possessest;
How is this, my brother, tell?

"I have planted one, and prayed,
Now for sunshine, now for rain;
God hath granted each petition,
Yet my olive tree hath slain!"

Said the other, "I entrusted
To its God my little tree;
He who made knew what it needed,
Better than a man like me.

"Laid I on Him no condition,
Fixed no ways and means; so I
Wonder not my olive thriveth,

Whilst thy olive tree did die."

-SABINE BARING-GOULD.

hermit: a person who lives far away from other people, usually in some cave, and spends his time in prayer.-sapling: a young tree.-benison (běn' I-z'n): blessing.

THE MARINER'S COMPASS

"Do not speak to the man at the wheel" is printed on the wheelhouse of many seagoing steamers. Why must we not speak to the man at the wheel?

Because, during his two-hours' turn, his attention. ought to be fixed upon his compass. Let him turn to

a passenger to answer a question, and the vessel will depart slightly from her course. Time will be lost, force will be wasted, and the steersman will hear a short, sharp word from the officer of the deck, calling him back to his duty.

The compass is the very eye of the ship. It is the compass that enables the captain to shoot his arrowy steamer over the trackless Atlantic in less than a week, through fog, darkness, and storm, without swerving from his course.

Man possesses few instruments more valuable than this, and yet no one knows who invented it. If we ask the Chinese, the people who invented so many useful things, they point to some obscure passages in their ancient books, which do not prove their claim. If the Chinese had the compass, why did they not use it? From time immemorial their lumbering junks hugged the shore, and rarely ventured farther out to sea than Japan, which is only a few miles from the coast of Asia.

If we ask the Greeks, we begin to get a little light on the subject, for the Greeks at least knew something of the attractive power of the magnet.

They tell us in their mythological way, that a shepherd named Magnes, while pasturing his flock upon Mount Ida, found one day that the iron at the end of his staff adhered to the ground, as did the nails upon his shoes. He picked up some of the dark-colored

stones under his feet, and brought them home with him, and thus gave to mankind a knowledge of the magnet, which was named after him.

The Greeks were great story-tellers. They had their legends about everything, and this about Magnes is one of them, from which we can at least learn that they were acquainted with the magnet's power of attraction; but they knew nothing of that valuable quality which it imparts to the needle of the compass. They knew no method of steering vessels in the open sea except by the stars, the flight of birds, and glimpses of the distant headlands.

Nor did the Romans. The Roman writers were lost in wonder at the magnet's attractive power, but there their knowledge of it ended.

It was at some time near the end of the twelfth century of the Christian era that the mysterious power of the magnet upon the needle became known to a few of the learned men of Europe. Probably the knowledge of it was brought to them by the crusaders returning from the Holy Land, and there is much reason to believe that this power of the magnet was first observed by the Arabs, an ingenious race and the most skillful travelers in the Middle Ages, whether on land

or sea.

The crusaders began to return home in numbers about A.D. 1100, and the knowledge of the magnetic needle gradually spread over the north of Europe.