He chooses his text in the Book Divine,
  Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine:—­
  “’Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do,
  That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue;
  For no man is wealthy or wise or brave
  In that quencher of might-bes and would-bes, the grave.’ 
  Bid by the Bridegroom, ‘To-morrow,’ ye said,
  And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed;
  Ye said, ‘God can wait; let us finish our wine’;
  Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!”

  But I can’t pretend to give you the sermon,
  Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German;
  Whatever he preached in, I give you my word
  The meaning was easy to all that heard;
  Famous preachers there have been and be,
  But never was one so convincing as he;
  So blunt was never a begging friar,
  No Jesuit’s tongue so barbed with fire,
  Cameronian never, nor Methodist,
  Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist.

  And would you know who his hearers must be? 
  I tell you just what my guide told me: 
  Excellent teaching men have, day and night,
  From two earnest friars, a black and a white,
  The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life;
  And between these two there is never strife,
  For each has his separate office and station,
  And each his own work in the congregation;
  Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears,
  And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears,
  Awake in his coffin must wait and wait,
  In that blackness of darkness that means too late,
  And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls,
  As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls,
  To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine
  Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine.

* * * * *

FOUQUET THE MAGNIFICENT.

Modern times began in France with the death of Mazarin.  Spain, Austria, and Italy no longer led the world in politics, literature, and refinement.  The grande nation, delivered from Ligue and Fronde, took her position with England at the head of civilized Europe.  This great change had been going on during eighty years of battle, murder, anarchy, and confusion.  As always, the new grew up unnoticed, until it overtopped the old.  The transformation was complete in 1661, when Louis XIV. appeared upon the scene, and gave his name to this brilliant period, with not much better claim to the distinction than had Vespucci to America.

There had been a prodigious yield of brains in France.  A host of clever men developed the new ideas in every direction.  Philosophy and science, literature and language, manners, habits, dress, assumed the forms with which we are so familiar.  Then commenced the grand siecle, the era Frenchmen date from.  They look upon those gallant ancestors almost as contemporaries, and still admire their feats in war, and laugh over their strokes of wit.  The books they wrote became classics, and were in all hands until within the last twenty or thirty years.  Latterly, indeed, they have been less read, for thought is turning to fresh fields, and society seems to be entering upon a new era.