utilize wood as a material for paper-manu- | warmed to the temperature of the body facture, but which has not turned out well. before reaching the lungs; but if he takes Wood has been tried in two different in air between the lips and through the forms, the one mechanically, and the mouth, the cold air comes in contact with other chemically prepared. In the former the delicate lining membrane of the throat case, pieces of wood, as cut from the tree, and lungs, and gives rise to a local chill, are reduced, by means of a grindstone, to frequently ending in inflammation. Many pulp, or to the condition of flour; this persons, without knowing the reason why pulp or flour, however, contains but a they are benefited, wear respirators over small amount of "fibre, and that fibre pos- their mouth in winter, if they happen to sesses very little felting property, an es- go out of doors. By doing this they disential for a good sheet of paper;" so minish the amount of air which enters that it can only be used as, in point of between the lips, and virtually compel fact, a kind of adulterant in the manufac- themselves to breathe through the nostril.s ture of the commonest papers. Of wood But they could attain just the same result chemically prepared, Mr. Routledge re- by keeping the lips closed, a habit which marks that it is "costly in production, as is easily acquired, and conduces to the it is only possible to reduce it into pulp proper and natural way of breathing. We by boiling under very high pressure with believe that if people would only adopt very strong caustic_alkali; several mills this simple habit― in other words, if they established both in England and Scotland would take for their rule in breathing, to carry out this manufacture, have aban-"Shut your mouth!" there would be an doned it, and such pulp as is now used in the trade is derived exclusively from the countries where the wood is grown. The pulp thus produced, although somewhat hard and harsh, if the wood be carefully selected and properly prepared, will, blended with other material, produce a fair quality of paper." Wood-pulp, thus chemically prepared, sells (unbleached) at from 24 to £25 per ton, but is never likely to be used to any considerable ex

tent.

From Public Health.

HOW TO BREATHE PROPERLY.

Most people breathe properly, often more by accident or instinct than by design; but, on the other hand, hundreds of thousands do not breathe properly, while many thousands at this present moment are suffering from more or less severe affections of the lungs or throat, owing to a faulty mode of respiration-in other words, because they breathe through the mouth instead of through the nostrils. The mouth has its own functions to perform in connection with eating, drinking, and speaking; and the nostrils have theirs, viz., smelling and breathing. In summertime the error of respiring through the mouth is not so evident as at the present season, when it is undoubtedly fraught with danger to the person who commits this mistake. If any one breathes through the natural channel, the nostrils, the air passing over the mucous membrane lining the various chambers of the nose becomes

immense diminution in the two classes of affections, viz., those of the lungs and throat, which count many thousands of victims in this country in the course of a single year. Man is the only animal which has acquired the pernicious and often fatal habit of breathing through the mouth. It commences in childhood, and becomes confirmed in adult life, often engendering consumption, chronic bronchitis, relaxed sore throat, or some other disease of the lungs or throat which is set down, usually, to a different cause altogether. In concluding this short article, we venture to ask our readers to judge for themselves. When they step out in the morning into the fresh, but cold, air, let them try the difference of feeling arising from the two modes of breathing through the nostrils, and between the lips. In the former case they will find that they can breathe easily and freely, yet with comfort, while the fresh air, warmed to the temperature of the body by its contact with the nasal mucous membrane, is agreeable to the lungs; in the other case, if they draw in a few inspirations between the parted lips, the cold air, rushing in direct to the lungs, creates a feeling of coldness and discomfort, and an attack of coughing often comes on.

From The Month.

THE MONASTERIES AND THE POOR-LAWS.

THE view has often been taken that the dissolution of the monasteries was the cause of pauperism and the poor-laws.

SILENCED AND FORGOTTEN.
A MONK'S SOLILOQUY.

I DID not know that I had gifts: I knew
That something in my soul seemed burning
through,

This view has been opposed by Hallam | lieved poverty for the love of God," came and Froude with great warmth, so that a (Mr. Froude notwithstanding) the "worldly clear statement of the case is needful. harshness of a poor-law." I have now The monasteries in the Middle Ages, be- given the main points in the history of the sides being centres of religion, art, learn- great wrong done to the English small ing, and popular instruction, fulfilled two proprietors and agricultural labourers unimportant economical functions. One of der the Tudors, a wrong that preceded, these was that as land-owners they were accompanied, and was in close casual conthe best of "landlords," so that their ten- nection with outbreak and spread of herants had only to render moderate service esy. From James the First to the later or rents, were secure from inclosures and years of George the Second there was an evictions, and in times of distress were interval between two periods of colossal not in danger of being compelled to part robbery and cruel oppression. In the with their holdings, but would rather be seventeenth century there still remained helped to get over their difficulties. The a numerous class of small proprietors, and second economical function of monas- the yeomanry formed the strength of teries was to serve as houses of shelter for Cromwell's army. The labourers, also, travellers, as hospitals for the sick, and as were well off. The woes of the hapless centres of relief for the poor. These crowd that had been driven from their were their functions all through the Mid- homes in the sixteenth century had ended dle Ages; but in the time immediately pre- in the grave. ceding the Reformation the office of relieving the poor assumed a new character and importance. The monasteries were the one source of refuge for the multitudes who had been chased out of house and home by inclosures and "expropriations;" they enabled the victims of oppression to drag on their existence, and by this existence to be living witnesses to the sin of the rich inclosers. Hallam and Froude are, after all, not very far from the truth. The "blind eleemosynary spirit inculcated by the Romish Church" truly enough interfered with the operation of some of Malthus' "positive checks" to population-death by starvation or frost truly enough "encouraged" able-bodied beggars, by opening their hospitable doors to the ejected peasantry, whose homes and means of livelihood had been seized by the rich, and enabling them to be ablebodied and to beg a little longer. Naturally with the dissolution of the monasteries this resource failed, and, moreover, the number of impotent as well as of ablebodied poor was enormously increased by the fresh evictions of the peasantry from the lands that were seized from the Church. Cold and hunger went hand in hand with busy hangmen and foreign mercenaries to clear off the "surplus population," and free the rich plunderers from the odious presence of their victims. When this work was well advanced it became possible to deal with normal and ordinary poverty; and a poor-law, which before it would have been impossible to carry out, took the place of the old office of the monasteries. Instead of "God's poor," came parish paupers; instead of the "charity of the monasteries which re

That I must speak or perish; and I spake,
And lo, the faces round me seemed to wake,
Till through each form I saw an angel shine,
And still my voice spoke words that were not

mine.

I said that He on whom Madonna smiled

Shared all his birthright with each mother's

child;

That sin and weakness could not touch the

soul

Whose source was God, and God its only goal;
And that each heart, by tenderest love it bore,
Could scarcely guess our Father's more and

I

more!

I did not plant the way of life with flowers;
said our Master's way must still be ours,
Living and dying; that gain comes as loss;
And heaven's true crown shows earthward as

a cross.

Nor did I close the purgatorial door,
I but wrote love where wrath was writ before.

Ah, God! how did the weary faces light,
I felt mine own catch glory at the sight.
One woman, whose grey head was ever bowed,
Looked up at last and blessed the Lord aloud;
And one dark man dropped something on the
ground

- Next day the sacristan a dagger found.

I know not how I ended; like a dream
Did abbey, altar, choir, and concourse seem.

But something else waxed real as they waned | To sit in silence. But to know the pain

faint,

-They came about me, angel, martyr, saint,
Earth lay a mist below heaven's sunlit hill,
And nameless heights were rising round it still.

Was it agony or rapture? Can I say?
I only know that when it passed away
It was as if a sea had rolled between
Me and mine old self that once had been;
For even Marco's praises seemed to pall,
And Carlo's sneering touched me not at all.

Next day the cardinal would speak with me,
And full of gentleness and praise was he;
Only he bade me always recollect

I had the Church's interest to protect,
The times were perilous, and such as I
Were raised by God, the Church to fortify.

I thanked him humbly. (I was simple then,
And dreamed "the Church" meant struggling
souls of men.)

And so I went on preaching, and I thought
The cardinal would thank God when I brought
Some heretics (who long had strayed away)
Back to God's holy house on holy day.

Of all those weary hearts, and how a chain
Binds them to steadfast love, and yet to sit
And leave them sbut in hell, by fearing it!

I cannot paint as Angelico could,
I cannot join the anthem, or I would,
And if to plead the suffering of the poor
I with the brothers go from door to door,
Fra Marco, with his soft, persuasive tones,
Wins bread and coin where I get gibes and

stones.

I could do this one thing, but may no more,
And I am changed from what I was before,
I who have told of love, seem full of spite.
I cannot bear, I stand upon my right;

I am a useless and an evil man,

God planned my life, and let men spoil His plan.

But, hush, what is the utmost that I would,
To give my life to God is all I could;
And this may be the way He wills to take,
This daily death may be for God's own sake ;
He gave and took. So let my soul be still

He has a thousand sons to do His will.

I would have given my body to the flame,
He asks instead my genius and my fame;

It was so sweet to see sad faces cheer,
And have sad hearts to one's own heart draw I would have let my youth and bloom depart,

near,

That kept me glad and humble in those days,
So that I marvelled not at no more praise,
And when the mandate came "to preach no
more,"

The brethren said it should have come before!

'Twas like the day of death - when words are

new

He asks for broken nerves and failing heart.
(Our own dear Master did not grudge the day,
His weakness asked the cup might pass away.)
There is a sweet dream sometimes comforts
me,

In some far land, a crowded fane I see,
And one, with eyes which watch a dawning
day,

From the dear lips that speak no more to And I am in the throng which hangs above,
Is saying more than all I tried to say;

you,

And you can't realize the days to come,
The unbroken silence in the empty home.
There is no sorrow while the eyes are dim,
The dead stays with you while you weep for

him.

Where man translates one word of God's great
love.

But then I dwell on heaven's sunlit hill,
Gazing on heights that rise above me still.
And I come down no more to chilling praise,
To sneers, to wearing out of empty days,
But rest, rejoicing in the power I've won,
To go on learning, though my crying's done.
And then the dawn comes whitely to my cell,
The brothers wake me, and I say, ""Tis well,”
And rise and turn to my slow, idle day.
(Letters of rose are graven well on grey;
He lightly spares a bud who holds the flower;
A moment's patience sometimes saves an hour.)
ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.

Sunday Magazine.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

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