of water and a lump of sugar; add a teaspoonful of brandy, and fill up with milk. A little sherry may be used instead of the brandy. EGG PUDDING.-A nice little pudding for an invalid is soon made by beating up an egg (some people prefer only the yolk) in a tea-cup, adding a little sugar and filling up the cup with milk, tie down closely and boil in a saucepan for twenty minutes. When turned out, sift a little white sugar over it, and if the patient is allowed to have wine, a dessert spoonful poured over it is a great improvement. COFFEE. In feverish cases, when the patient has had a restless night, nothing is more refreshing and invigorating than a cup of wellmade coffee with an egg beaten up in it. GRUEL is generally prepared far too hastily, and so is not much relished. The best way to make it is as follows: Have ready a nice bright saucepan, put in cold water, and to every quart allow two ounces of Robinson's Emden groats. Let the gruel boil gently for four hours, stirring frequently to prevent any sticking to the pan; a little water may be added from time to time. Have ready a hair-sieve, and with a spoon rub the gruel through, using another spoon to remove that which hangs beneath it. When as much as possible has been rubbed through, beat the gruel till quite smooth, place in a clean saucepan and let it boil. Serve plain, or beat up the yolk of an egg and pour the boiling gruel on to it; serve with a little sugar. Milk or cream may be added, but should not be allowed to boil. APPLE-WATER is a very refreshing drink. Cut three or four large apples into slices, put them into a jug and pour a quart of boiling water over them; cover the jug. When quite cold, strain and sweeten it; a little lemon-peel may be added. TOAST AND WATER.-Pare the crust of a thin slice of stale bread, toast it brown upon both sides, doing it equally and slowly, that it may harden without being burnt; put it into a jug and pour upon it boiling water, cover the jug and put in a cool place. 'Once and for Ever.' By the Author of Chronicles of Schönberg Cotta Family. JESUS! what once Thou wast, For evermore Thou art : Each moment of the sacred past Lives in the Sacred Heart. Thy 'yesterday' on earth And Thy to-day above, Thy Godhead, Manhood, death and birth, Child on the mother's knee; Mute 'neath the mortal pain,' Nailed to the cross of old We still Thy wounds may greet, For evermore Thou art : Lives in the loving Heart. A Real Fairy Land; OR, Present Day Marvels. LL the world travels now-a-days, and those who least expect it sometimes come in for the advantage and enjoyment of a long ramble. For guidance of such, and the pleasure of those who have to glean knowledge of foreign wonders from books instead of personal observation, I give a short account of two of the most satisfactory afternoons I spent during a recent six months' tour through Italy, Austria, and Germany. Of all these three countries a little Austrian village afforded the grandest spectacle. It would have been lost to us, as it is to most English people, but for some pleasant and very intelligent travelling acquaintances we met one day in Sienna, who remarked, 'Surely if you go to Venice, and have time, you will go on via Trieste to Adelsberg.' 'For what purpose?' 'Why, to see the marvellous caves there, to be sure,' was the answer to witness a sight as wonderful as the world can anywhere afford.' Whether our teachers, or our memories, were at fault, we could not say, but we had to confess ignorance of the world's wonders. And then we received such glowing accounts that before the table d'hôte dinner came to an end, we were full of longing to verify them. In due course of time, therefore, we found ourselves at Adelsberg, and were soon established in the deliciously clean, large 'Adelsberger-Hof,' and seated on its wide verandah, covered in from the sun's rays, and with the hills close round us, from which a healthful, invigorating breeze was blowing, and in one of which we could see the dark mouth that gives entrance to the caves we had come to see. We were so eager to pay them our first visit that we gladly joined a party on the point of starting for them. The first thought that struck one on passing through the rough wooden turnstile, and waiting for admission through the iron grating, was the wonder whether the inquiry would not produce photographs of the Man in the Moon and the King of the Cannibal Islands, for even here, where the world seemed to consist of a big hotel, some little inns, and a dozen small houses, and two little whitewashed churches, surrounded by 'the everlasting hills,'-even here the first thing to be seen was the ubiquitous photograph stall, the first thing to be heard the urgent demand, 'Want a fotograf? Buy a fotograf. For the poor foreigners catch up all English words that help them to make money. But the iron door opened, and with no more delay our party of nine hastened in, lighted for the first few minutes only by our guides' torches, which were held in vessels something like the ancient Roman lamps. We passed on through a sort of vestibule, and then a long gallery or corridor of sand and rock, and felt somewhat depressed, as is the nature of human beings to be in dark, damp, chill caverns, but at the same time a surprise began to arise at our friends' enthusiasm, and the guides' careless hurry. What we were looking at was little more than the sand-caves at Reigate, in which our King John is said to have had to sign the first draft of Magna Charta, but without their historical interest. However, both enthusiasm and hurry were explained, and a general exclamation of surprise and admiration burst from all lips when we issued from the corridor into the 'Poik Cavern,' so called from the river Poik, which we had lost sight of just outside the caves, and which now reappeared from below, boiling, foaming, roaring, as it tore along from its place of entrance over some yards of its dark, rough bed, and rushed again into concealment under the rocks at the other side of the vast space in which we stood, and which had been illuminated for our inspection. All round us were the wide walls, above us the lofty roof, before us the artificially cut steps leading down to the wooden bridge over the river; and here we paused to look down into the seething waters before we again ascended to more galleries, now vividly marked out with lanes of light, and leading, first to ‘the the great hotel, and every little inn in the neighbourhood, is crammed to overflowing; and by twelve o'clock on the Monday morning the people begin to stream along the hill-side country road, and to crowd round the narrow entrance to the grottos, although they are not thrown open until half-past two in the afternoon, when the event is announced by the firing of Cathedral,' as the next cave is called from its resemblance to Gothic architecture, with grand columns and arches, and on one side flutings like organ-pipes. There is, however, a far more beautiful resemblance to an organ,-a beautiful natural model in fact of the white, sweet-toned organ of Haarlem, to be discovered amongst the stalactitic groupings met with on the return voyage of discovery through these grand under-signal guns. The vehicles that throng the road ground sculpture-galleries, in which no very vivid imagination is needed to discover most of the forms of beauty with which travel has rendered the eyes familiar, whether in the regions of nature or art. While in another part of one of the caves you find a tanner's yard, with any number of shrivelled brown skins apparently hanging up to dry; and a magazine of flags, and banners, and narrow streamers for ship's dressing, reminds one of Southampton, or any other sea-port town with the usual shops. Having walked about half-a-mile we come to a tramway, laid down in 1872 for the convenience of visitors, and, rather for the novelty of the thing than for present fatigue, we all take our seats in the light iron chaises propelled by men armed with iron rods. Our singular journey is over a mile in length, and takes some time to perform as the stations, or stopping-places, are numerous. Here we must see a white monkey, there a giant fallen column on which a second giant stalagmite has reared itself. Then there is a round pulpit with sounding-board overhead; farther on an opera-box, with rounded cushions to lean on, and curtains, canopy, and rich fringes of white velvet, or satin, shot with silver. And so on until the great ball-room is reached, the pride of the guides' hearts. There is a grand festival held in these caves annually on Whit-Monday, which of course would be impossible were it not that the air in them is so singularly good and pure, that although we were in them on two occasions for more than three hours at a time we did not feel the slightest inconvenience. The festival is a wonderful affair, and highly appreciated by the Austrians themselves. The previous day are of the most wonderful description, it is almost impossible to imagine how most of them hang together. Some are almost entirely made of old carpet and string! Where they and the thousands upon thousands of people come from it is difficult to say, as the villages are few and small round about. But they do come from somewhere in numbers sufficient to make it very difficult to get into the grottos, and to fill from end to end these miles of caves and their underground galleries. The strange ball-room gets so crowded that the rustic, energetic dancers find it hard to get as much violent exercise as they seem to wish, but the enjoyment of all is beyond any doubt. Twenty thousand candles and oil lamps are used for the illumination; and crystals, stalactites, snow-like domes, brown banners, marble bowers, and stone waterfalls, flash and sparkle, as exquisitely as ever did Aladdin's wonders, or any other creation of Fairy-Land. GRACE STEBBING. A Valuable Record. HE following extract from a country paper has been sent to us, and will, we think, greatly interest our young readers : 'LONG AND FAITHFUL SERVICE. "Died on January 17, Joseph Wood, at the age of eighty-seven, for seventy-five years the faithful and valued servant of three generations in the family of the late Colonel Egerton Leigh, of the West Hall, High Leigh, and Joddrell Hall, in this county." SOMETHING ABOUT THE HOMES OF REST GENERAL FUND. 'FOLLOW THOU ME.'-Be always following, never going before. It were better to be sick in a tent under a burning sun, and Jesus sitting at the tent-door, than to be enchanting a thousand listeners where Jesus was not. Be as a day labourer only in God's harvest field, ready to be first among the reapers in the tall corn, or just to sit and sharpen another's sickle. Have an eye to God's honour, and have no honour of your own to have an eye to. Lay it in the dust, and leave it there. Never et your own inner life get low in your search after the lives of others. 279 Something about the homes of Rest THINK the readers of Friendly of the work done by the Homes of Rest Department for Sick Members of the G. F. S. There are now ten dioceses that have formed their own Department for Homes of Rest. These ten are as follows:-Winchester, Rochester, Worcester, Chichester, London, Lincoln, Peterborough, Hereford, Lichfield, and Salisbury. In the dioceses of London, Peterborough, Rochester, Winchester, and Worcester, funds have been raised, in addition to the grants made from the Central Fund for Homes of Rest. In Rochester especially, Miss Goodrich's exertions have met with a success which ought to encourage those desirous of establishing a Diocesan Home of Rest Fund. This Department is one in which interest continues to be widely and generally felt, as the amount and nature of the contributions sent in prove very pleasantly. Several girls give their good-service premiums, others contribute work done in their scanty moments of leisure, or during the enforced idleness of sickness, to be sold for the benefit of the fund. The offertories at Branch Festivals are very frequently devoted to the same purpose. Many orders for Walton and other convalescent institutions, have been given to G.F.S. Members through this Department. In the course of the year ending Sept. 30, 1880, I have received in sums from 2d. upwards (in addition to what has been sent specially for the Sunninghill Home), 'Hither, page, and stand by me, If thou knowest it, telling; Yonder peasant, who is he, Where and what his dwelling? Right against the forest fence, 'Bring me flesh and bring me wine, Page and monarch forth they went, Forth they went together, Through the rude wind's wild lament, And the bitter weather. 'Sire, the night is darker now, And the wind blows stronger; Fails my heart, I know not how: I can go no longer. Mark my footsteps, my good page, Which the saint had printed. Shall yourselves find blessing. |