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height. I have seen, I suppose, churches as beautiful as this one, but I do not remember ever to have been so fascinated by superpositions and vertical effects.

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7. Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z! A monster of iron, steel and brass, standing on the slim iron rails which shoot away from the station for half a mile and then lose themselves in a green forest.

Puff-puff! The driving wheels slowly turn, the monster breathes great clouds of steam and seems anxious for the race.

A grizzly-haired engineer looks down from the cab window, while his fireman pulls back the iron door and heaves in more wood, more breath and muscle for the grim giant of the track.

The fire roars and crackles-the steam hisses and growls; every breath is drawn as fiercely as if the giant was burning to revenge an insult.

Up-up-up! The pointer on the steam-gauge moves faster than the minute-hand on a clock. The breathing becomes louder, -the hiss rises to a scream, the iron rails tremble and quiver. "Climb up!"

It is going to be a race against time and the telegraph.
S-s-s-sh!

The engineer rose up, I looked ahead, glanced at the dial, and as his fingers clasped the throttle he asked the station-agent:

"Are you sure that the track is clear?"

"All clear!" was the answer.

The throttle feels the pull, the giant utters a fierce scream, and we are off, I on the fireman's seat, the fireman on the wood. The rails slide under us slowly-faster, and the giant screams again and dashes into the forest.

This isn't fast. The telegraph poles dance past as if not over thirty feet apart, and the board fence seems to rise from the ground, but it's only thirty-five miles an hour.

"Wood!"

The engineer takes his eyes off the track and turns just long enough to speak the word to his fireman. The iron door swings back, and there is an awful rush and roar of flame. The firebox appears full, but stick after stick is dropped into the roaring pit until a quarter of a cord has disappeared.

"This is forty miles an hour!" shouts the fireman in my ear as he rubs the moisture from his heated face.

Yes, this is faster. The fence posts seem to leap from the ground as we dash along, and the telegraph poles bend and nod to us. A house-a field—a farm-we get but one glance. A dozen houses a hundred faces-that was a station.

Houses-faces-a yell! That was another station. We made the last five miles in six minutes.

Like a bird-like an arrow-like a bullet almost, we speed forward.

Scream! Hiss! Roar! Shake-quiver-bound!

Now a mile a minute! Fences? No-only a black line, hardly larger than my pencil! Trees? No-only one tree, all merged into one single tree, which was out of sight in a flash. Fields? Yes-one broad field, broken for an instant by a highway,—a gray thread lying on the ground!

It is terrible! If we should leave the rails! If-but don't think of it! Hold fast!

Eight miles in eight minutes, not a second more or less! Four and a half miles to go, four minutes to make it! We must run a mile every fifty-three seconds.

Scream! Sway! Tremble!

We are making time, but this is awful, this roar, this oscillation!

One mile! Two miles! I dare not open my eyes! Three miles! Can I ever hear again? Will I ever get this deafening roar out of my ears? Will the seconds ever go by?

Scream!

The engineer shuts off steam, the fireman hurrahs.

I open

my eyes—we are at the station! The lightning express is not two seconds away!

"I told you!" says the engineer, "and didn't I do it?"

He did, but he carried three lives in the palm of the hand that grasped the throttle.

"As the Pigeon Flies."

C. B. LEWIS.

8. Observing the wide and general devastation, and all the horrors of the scene of plains unclothed and brown; of vegetables burned up and extinguished; of villages depopulated and in ruins; of temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoirs broken down and dry-he would naturally inquire, what war has thus laid waste the fertile fields of this once beautiful and opulent country? SHERIDAN.

CONCENTRATION

The practise of being interested is recommended as the best means of developing concentration. We are most interested in those subjects that give us pleasure, arouse our expectation, or possess some degree of familiarity. To be able to focus the attention upon a single subject and single objects belonging to it, is a rare accomplishment and of great advantage to a public speaker. It can be acquired only through long and patient study and exercise. No great mental achievement is possible without this power of continued attention. There is an inseparable connection between attention and memory, it being impossible to develop one without the other.

Professor James says: "There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time. What is called sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind. The topic once brought back, if a congenial one, develops; and if its development is interesting it engages the attention passively for a time. This passive interest may be short or long. As soon as it flags, the attention is diverted by some irrelevant thing, and then a voluntary effort may bring it back to the topic again; and so on, under favorable conditions, for hours together. During all this time, however, note that it is not an identical object in the psychical sense, but a succession of mutually related objects forming an identical topic only, upon which the attention is fixed. No one can possibly attend continuously to an object that does not change.'

The subject of attention is well illustrated by Professor Loisette in his system for cultivating the memory. He says: "You may have seen a shoemaker putting nails into the sole of a boot. With his left thumb and finger he pricks the point of the nail into the leather just far enough to make the nail stand upright. It is so feebly attached that at the least shake it falls on the floor. Then down comes the hammer and drives the nail up to the head. Now the sensations that are continually pouring in upon us by all the avenues of sense-by the eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin

as well as the ideas streaming into our minds, are on their first arrival attached as feebly as the nails to the boot. But then down comes the attention like a hammer, and drives them into consciousness, so that their record remains forever."

The degree of attention that we can give to an object will

depend upon our habitual methods of study and thought. Professor Joseph Stewart offers the following suggestions: "The habits of thought should be rational. Vagaries should be avoided. The mind must be trained to hold its concepts clearly without obliquity or blur. Therefore, innuendo, indirectness, and slackness of thought and expression should be guarded against. The processes of the mind should be carried on logically. Avoid irrelevancy. The habit of the mind should be selective. Choose the order and kind of thought you put into your mental house.

Rule a square of cardboard in columns and place therein a series of symbols or characters, with each of which there is to be associated in the mind a particular thought. Place the board where it may be conveniently seen, and, beginning with the first symbol, go over the series in regular order, holding in mind for a particular time the special concept or thought, and that alone, associated with each symbol. The student may elaborate this plan as to symbols, the associated concepts, or the order of viewing them, and make it as complex as he desires. The principle of concentration is the persistent but gentle calling back of the mind to the original thought, and is effected by merely substituting it for the intrusive one.

Concentrate without using muscular force. The clearest mind dwells in the healthiest body, and this is the best condition for concentration.

EXAMPLES

1. On a sudden the field of combat opens on his astonished vision. It is a field which men call "glorious." A hundred thousand warriors stand in opposed ranks. Light gleams on their burnished steel. Their plumes and banners wave. Hill echoes to hill the noise of moving rank and squadron, the neigh and

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