imaginary and real, that our memories take on a sort of negative blur rather than a condition of normal growth. True, the habit of concentration can be abused, and the mind become dethroned by dwelling too long upon one idea or set of ideas; but there exists a "happy medium" between all extremes.

Relaxation even during moments of great concern has been the salvation of many a person that otherwise might have fallen in early defeat. If your memory has an interval of vacancy during which all seems blank and spiritless, close your eyes and let all things go for a time. An hour, a day, or even a week may be necessary to permit the tired forces to catch up. When you resume your work, observe the instant profit arising from your period of rest! You may now take up and remember every separate thread of your task; not a single detail is lost, and the mind's action is normal and complete. Writers and thinkers upon abstruse subjects are usually very loath to wait; they count the present moments as precious, frequently to the defeat of the cause they are serving.

Sentimental persons have sought to condone loss of memory in the aged. Their eyesight, they tell us, should fail as well. Their hearing should be less acute, and, in brief, they must show signs of decrepitude in proportion to their years. When will the popular mind be taught that there is no "age," except as we permit it to affect us? Cases are known in which the memory of centenarians has been found as active as in youth. Rare instances are these, to be sure, because our popular theories of age and longevity are different. We set a milestone here, then another, and another, and count them over from day to day until our memories get threadbare from overuse. If we are consistent we will arise "in meeting" and make the pious admission that we are growing old and feeble, mentally and bodily, because we must! The Lord, we affirm, would scarcely know how to reward us in another world if we didn't grow old and decrepit in this. But we should put behind us all thought of a life "here" and a life "there." There

is but one life, and that is eternal. Then why reckon upon "age" at all?

Our memories should become stronger, ever stronger, as the experiences of our individual careers pile up about us. Our ability to go deeper into the profounder problems should never grow less, but broaden hourly. Better by far that we drop out of the ranks with a smile of youth upon our faces, and with an unimpaired memory, than to be bent to stooping with erroneous teachings, however sincere they may be. Mankind must learn this lesson, and learn it well. Then the evolution of the species will be as easy and uninterrupted as the growth of the petal upon the stem.

We do not realize as we ought what ministries cluster round our life, to aid us in being what we may be. Angels, angels every one, think about us every day, bearing us in their hands and lifting us up when we are fallen. Their faces gladden us when we do well, and grow very sad at us when we sin. Aye! and in some way those that we speak of and think of as in heaven love us still with all the old love of earth and all the new love of heaven together. Robert Collyer.

TO ME the essence of character means self-possession. If I can fully possess and fully use all that is in me, I have fulfilled my destiny. I have indeed sometimes risen to the heights of my Being, but never been able to make my abode there.-Mozoomdar.

MAN cannot be the only or the highest thing that loves in this vast universe. There is-there must be-in it some great, deep heart of sympathy, the infinite counterpart of our faint and feeble human love.-John James Tayler.

He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.-John Ruskin.

MATA THE MAGICIAN.

BY ISABELLA INGALESE.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE THIRTIETH OF NOVEMBER.

As time passed, my professional duties seemed to press more and more heavily upon me, and I began to realize the need of rest with an entire change of scene and surroundings; so I made arrangements to visit the northern Pacific coast for a short time, hoping to recover my failing strength in its invigorating atmosphere. During my absence of six months, Mata wrote me every week and kept me informed concerning the things in which she believed me interested. But when the frosts of autumn began to make all travelers think of their homes and firesides, I returned, greatly improved in health, to take up my duties for the coming winter.

The thirtieth of November had come. It was the fourteenth anniversary of the death of my dear wife, whose image was still enthroned in my heart and worshiped as devoutly as on that saddest of all the days of my life when we were forced apart—she to pass on to a higher sphere of existence and I to continue life's journey without her sunny presence to cheer my loneliness.

On the evening of this anniversary I was sitting before the fire in my study, intending to "watch out" the hours of the night as I had done every year on the corresponding date since her death. I had been reading the precious letters she had written me from school, and was looking at her picture while I wound the curl of golden hair around my fingers, kissing and caressing it as in the old days when the lovely head it adorned rested upon my bosom. I had supposed that all the other members of the household had retired; but as the clock struck eleven I was both surprised and annoyed to hear a knock

upon the door. Wondering who desired admission at that hour, I opened it to find my child, with the strangest look I had ever seen upon her face, waiting to enter. The sight of her unusual appearance startled me, and I pulled her into the

room.

"What has happened? Are you ill?" I asked, putting my finger on her pulse.

"Nothing has happened—yet,” she replied; "but it is coming at midnight—and you must come with me."

Her pulse indicated a condition of intense excitement, and I considered her delirious.

"What is the matter?" I asked, excitedly.

"I am feeling strangely and want your company in the observatory."

She had assumed the language, dignity, and appearance of a person much advanced in years, and her strange behavior alarmed me.

"It is cold and dark," said I, "and I do not understand your reason for wishing to go up there at this hour."

The pupils of her eyes had become dilated till they were a jetty black, and a strange light was shining in them as she said:

"This is the thirtieth day of November! It was twentyone years ago to-night that an event occurred that changed your whole life. Do you remember it?"

"Yes, I remember," said I, perplexed.

"Then come with me!" she commanded. And without further objection I followed her as she slowly led the way to the upper corridor of the house.

There was no moon that night; the stars were obscured by heavy clouds and the darkness was so intense that I had to feel my way up the stairway to the observatory, where she preceded me. When the last step was reached the feeling came over me that we were not alone, but that some invisible presence was there. Then a dim light appeared, showing the

form of the child standing in the center of the room in a listening attitude. Presently the faint tinkle of a bell sounded in the distance. It came nearer and nearer till it seemed to be directly over her head. At the same time the light, which had been so faint at first, grew gradually brighter as the sound of the bell increased till the whole observatory was ablaze with it; and the child stood motionless in the midst of that unearthly halo. The scene was sublime. As I gazed, entranced, a clock in a distant steeple struck the hour of midnight. As the sound of the last stroke died away, Mata began speaking with a voice that was unnatural to herself but that reminded me of the peculiar tones of the old Guru. She said: "Do you remember the work you did for me twenty-one years ago to-night?"

"Yes," I replied.

"You have fulfilled your promise to the last word, and I have returned to-night to fulfil mine. From this hour I shall use this body for functioning here."

"But this is a female body!"

"You should know that all souls are sexless, and that it is only for the purpose of the reproduction of physical bodies that the differentiation is made. It is as I desired it to be, and I will now take possession of my apartments."

I held out the key of the door opening into the rooms from the corridor below, but with a wave of her hand she refused it, saying: "I will use the secret stairway."

"The panels are locked and the man who built them did not teach me how to open them," said I.

Without replying she stepped to the panel at the right and placed her finger upon what I supposed was a knot in the wood, when the door slid noiselessly back and disclosed a dark passageway. She entered and beckoned me to follow. When I had stepped through the opening the panel went back into its former place without assistance, and the click of the spring as it fastened itself warned me of the fact that we were