the earth, on its extreme outside, and peering up into that strange sky, which we can only ascend into with our bodies such a miserable little space.

Then there are some whose work requires them to be out-of-doors all night. The watchmen in our cities walk up and down, and see some sights that are not at all heavenly. The engine-driver of the night train peers out beyond his engine as it dashes through the darkness. He cannot look up into the sky much, he must keep on the lookout for signals ahead. How many ships are sailing over the ocean all night long, with a few men muffled up, pacing the deck, or sitting together in chat, or minding the wheel.

In countries where it is warm there is a great deal of out-door life in the night, and the flocks upon the hill-side are watched by the shepherds. They can look at the stars, and watch the meteors that flash across the sky. A stranger sight they saw once on a hillside in Judea, when, as they kept watch of their sheep, a great light shone around, and the angel of the Lord came upon them with that wonderful annunciation, at the words of which the heavens were opened, and a multino man could number them praised

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God in the hearing of these simple shepherds. Perhaps, too, at that very moment the Wise Men of the East were journeying toward the place.

The shepherds kept their flocks by night, and thirty years afterward, other shepherds watching, might have seen Him, the True Shepherd, going at midnight on the quiet hill. Did they know that He whom they saw moving along in the distance, His outline growing fainter, was going out into the cold and darkness to pray to the Father?

"Cold mountains, and the midnight air,

Witnessed the fervor of his prayer;"

and on the lonely mountain the Shepherd was watching his sheep.

AT THE STUDY TABLE,

THE SLEEPY OLD TOWN OF BRUGES.

In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes,
From the Belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.

LONGFELLOW.

AT whatever hour of day or night one were to enter Bruges, he would be welcomed by the ringing of bells. Long before he reached the city, unless now he were coming, as probably he would come, by the noisy railway, he would hear the pleasant tunes sounding; and if lying in his room at the Hotel de Flandres he were to wake in the night, he would not have to listen long before he would hear the bells again at their work, ringing out the bright music. High up in the Belfry of Bruges, which rises so lofty above