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We print this letter from a boy who wants to go to school.  We give it just as he wrote it, and hope to have the privilege of printing a letter from him five years hence with a view to the contrast.

Augst 25th.

Mr. Proseser D.: 

Der ser i hav bin in form of the ——­ coldge and is it quite a distant and i thout i would rite you afew lines i want you to write to me how i can get Bord and what it will cost me a week or a munth and what is tuisson I want to noe before i come and i want to start in a short time rite to me all about it i will ickspeck anser soon, and Adress me.

When I start in I want to goe 2 sesson’s before I stop i think can conplet most of inlesh studys in that time.

Does The Lord Understand His Business? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rev. J.H.H.  Sengstacke.

THEN.

All through the early spring I heard complaints as follows:  “The season is against us and we shall not make anything.”  “Unless a change we must starve.”  The season paid no attention to complaints but kept right on.

Now.

To-day God has blessed all with a good crop; plenty to eat and plenty to sell.  What next?  The grumbling still continues.  “There is so much that we cannot get a high price for our produce.”

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If “resemble” means like, as one of the girls found when consulting the dictionary, why is it not proper to say as she did, “I ‘resemble’ very much to be at home?”

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Letters From Very Little Pupils.
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My dear teacher:—­I would like to have grace and truth before God, and I hope I am now his little girl.—­LUCY.

Dear teacher:—­I want religion.—­ARTELIA.

My dear teacher:—­If I had my choice of anything I wanted, I would choose a Christian life, so when I came to die I would die in Jesus, like Daisy Holt died.—­ROXY.

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Pictures In The Pines.
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Prof.  Amos W. Farnham.

In the Sunny South, in the Land of Pines,
Is a whitewashed cottage, old and grand;
Its ample grounds of jessamine vines,
Are bright with crystals of sparkling sand. 
Broad stairways lead to its airy hall
And cool piazzas, where the sun
His shining arrows ne’er lets fall
Till his daily race is almost run.

Within are walls of panels high,
And great fire-places that laugh at night,
When the blazing splinters of lightwood fry
And wrap the rooms in a flood of light. 
’Tis then the cabins in the rear,
Low and little and plain and old,
Are vocal with the Negro’a cheer,
For his heart is light when the day is told.

But there’s one who sits from the rest apart,
With folded hands and turbaned head,
With a nameless burden upon her heart,
And the light of youth forever fled. 
And she sits a swaying to and fro,
Like the billowy pine with plume and cone,
While a minor strain subdued and slow,
She sings in a plaintive monotone: