ACT I On the heights overlooking the harbor of Mogador, a seaport on the west coast of Morocco, the missionary, in the coolness of the late afternoon, is following the precept of Voltaire by cultivating his garden. He is an elderly Scotchman, spiritually a little weatherbeaten, as having to navigate his creed in strange waters crowded with other craft but still a convinced son of the Free Church and... more...

IT was a particularly hot day in early July. A girl came out on the back porch of an old-fashioned New England house and dropped into a hammock. She looked tired, but her big black eyes were eager with interest. She held a fat letter in her hand which contained many pages. At the top of the letter was a pen-and-ink drawing of a miniature houseboat with five girls running about on the deck, their hair... more...

PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. Among the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupied the place taken by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was to reason not to revelation. To what, asks Cicero in his Offices, are we to look for training in virtue, if not to philosophy? Now, if truth is believed to rest upon authority it is natural that it should be impressed upon the mind... more...

UNGAVA BOB I It was an evening in early September twenty years ago. The sun was just setting in a radiance of glory behind the dark spruce forest that hid the great unknown, unexplored Labrador wilderness which stretched away a thousand miles to the rocky shores of Hudson's Bay and the bleak desolation of Ungava. With their back to the forest and the setting sun, drawn up in martial line stood the... more...

The Woman Who Tried to Be Good [1913] Before she tried to be a good woman she had been a very bad woman—so bad that she could trail her wonderful apparel up and down Main Street, from the Elm Tree Bakery to the railroad tracks, without once having a man doff his hat to her or a woman bow. You passed her on the street with a surreptitious glance, though she was well worth looking at—in her furs and... more...

CHAPTER I CHAMPLAIN'S FIRST VOYAGE TO AMERICA Samuel Champlain, the issue of the marriage of Antoine Champlain and Marguerite Le Roy, was born at Brouage, now Hiers Brouage, a small village in the province of Saintonge, France, in the year 1570, or according to the Biographie Saintongeoise in 1567. His parents belonged to the Catholic religion, as their first names would seem to indicate. When... more...

American Missionary Association. We acknowledge with gratitude to God and to his people the fact that our receipts during the month of February are such as greatly to encourage us. We are cheered, not only by the benevolences which are reporting themselves from the churches, but also by the kind words of sympathy and helpfulness which show us anew that this great and exigent work upon us was never... more...

A CHANNEL PASSAGE 1855Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hourGleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright... more...

THE DOG OF ST. BERNARD.   St. Bernard is the name of one of the high mountains of the Alps. The deep snow hangs so loosely on the sides of these mountains, that great masses often fall into the plains below, with a noise like thunder. Wild snow storms also come on, and the passes in the mountains become so blocked up and covered over, that it is impossible to find them out. In this way many travelers... more...

In great King Arthur’s reign, Tom’s history first begun;A farmer’s wife had sigh’d in vain to have a darling son!A fairy listen’d to her call, and granted her the same;But being very small, Tom Thumb she did him name.To please him every means she’d take,And a pudding large did for him make;But in trying to obtain a sip,Into the batter did he slip!The batter in the pot went plump;Tom made the... more...