A train starts daily, let us say, from San Francisco to New York, and one daily from New York to San Francisco, the journey lasting seven days. How many trains will a traveller meet in journeying from San Francisco to New York?

It appears obvious at the first glance that the traveller must meet seven trains—and that is the answer which will be given by nine girls out of ten to whom the question is new.

The fact is overlooked that every day during the journey a fresh train is starting from the other end, whilst there are seven on the way to begin with. The traveller will, therefore, meet not seven trains but fourteen.

The Two Sacks.

"At our birth, the satirical elves Two sacks from our shoulders suspend: The one holds the faults of ourselves; The other, the faults of our friend. The first we wear under our clothes Out of sight, out of mind, at the back; The last is so under our nose, We know every scrap in the sack."

Imitated from Phædrus.

In Debt for Ever.

A man who owes a shilling, proceeds to pay it at the rate of sixpence the first day, threepence the second day, three half-pence the next, three farthings the next, and so on—paying each day half the amount he paid the day before.

Supposing him to be furnished with counters of small value, so as to be able readily to pay fractions of a penny, how long would it take him to pay the shilling?

The answer is that he would never pay it. It is true that he would pay elevenpence-farthing in four days, but after that his progress would be slow and he could never get out of debt.

Good Verses by a Bad Poet.

Few things in Dryden or Pope, it has been remarked, are finer than the following lines by a man whom they both continually laughed at—Sir Richard Blackmore—

"Exhausted travellers, that have undergone The scorching heats of Life's intemperate zone, Haste for refreshment to their beds beneath And stretch themselves in the cool shades of Death."

Love of Country.

"The love we bear our country is a root, Which never fails to bring forth golden fruit; 'Tis in the mind an everlasting spring, Of glorious actions which become a king— Not less become a subject. 'Tis a debt Which bad men, though they pay not, can't forget; A duty which the good delight to pay, And every man can practise every day."

Churchill.

The Passing Cloud.

Cloud and storm only intimate the passing commotion needful to purify the air and the water; and compared with the azure depths above and below, they are superficial and transitory. They retire, and the beautiful blue of heaven reappears, and the ocean again becomes a sapphire foundation on which the sun scatters his jewels of light with regal lavishness.

And so no dark trial, no grievous judgment, can cross our sky without revealing some spot of heavenly blue in the midst of it, or if concealed for a moment, breaking forth again with greater brightness and beauty.

Rev. Dr. Hugh Macmillan.