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WOOD-VIOLETS. 
’Tis but a tiny wood-violet, 
Gathered by childish hands, 
Just in the edge of the forest, 
Where the gnarled old oak tree stands. 
Yet it stirreth thought’s deepest fountain, 
And turneth my memory back, 
To the years that have flown forever, 
Swift-winged adown time’s track. 
’Neath the old oak’s wide-spreading branches. 
I’ve lingered in days agone. 
Lingered when day was declining, 
To catch the last glimpse of the sun. 
Bee with what beauty and splendor 
He lit up the western skies. 
Tints no earth painter can rival, 
Are these glorious sunset dyes, 
’Mid the hush and the .quiet of eve’n, 
And breath of wood-violet sweet. 
For silent self-communings 
This seemeth a place most meet. 
Here, lessons of life, and God’s wisdom. 
Are ’round upon every hand, 
Phi inly writ on the lace of all nature, 
Who seeth may understand. 
The glorious sun, in beams refulgent, 
Sinks him in the western way. 
To let earth-life, as eve approacheth, 
Its most beauteous hues display. 
Well we know by laws of nature, 
Day succeedeth unto day. 
That ere long the sun will greet u» 
With his cheering morning ray. 
When we’ve trod the mystic valley, 
May not our proud spirit rise. 
To a morn of life eternal, 
To a home in purer skies. 
Dainty violets round us blooming, 
Fill the air with sweet perfume, 
From the seeming death of winter, 
They have risen to beauteous bloom. 
So may we, through death's cold winter 
Rise, ’tis the same God controls 
Wild-wood violets in their beauty, 
And bids these bodies bloo.ii to souls.” 
Hind a. 
PICTURES AS FURNITURE. 
“ I don’t know much about pictures, but they do 
furnish a room beautifully,” said a lady one day as we 
were talking of bouse furnishing, and many parlors 
filled with handsome furniture, and with their walls 
utterly hare and desolate, or else covered with unsuit¬ 
able, unsightly pictures, illustrate, by most melancholy 
contrast, the truth of her words. 
In furnishing our houses, we usually try to adapt 
our carpets aud furniture to the rooms for which they 
are intended, hut our pictures, bought as they happen 
to please our fancy, or that of our friends, aud too 
often because they are considered cheap, are usually 
hung without a thought being given to their fitness for 
their place, unless we make their size an exception to 
this rule. They seem frequently to he bought as Mr. 
Potiphar purchased the books for his library, “by the 
foot,” or because they will fill certain spaces, without 
any regard to their subjects, or to the general harmony 
of the room for which they are intended. 
Pictures are considered by many as an extravagant 
luxury, hut when the pleasure they give to every one 
that enters the house is considered, and we compare 
notes in regard to their price, and that of some other 
luxuries, specially of tobacco, which gratifies one per¬ 
son alone, and is often very annoying to others, render¬ 
ing the atmosphere of a room impure and disagreeable, 
it must he conceded that a taste for pictures is com¬ 
paratively unselfish and inexpensive. If “my lord” 
would save his tobacco money, and “my lady” that 
which she spends for candy in a year, there is no 
doubt that they might buy, with their savings, two 
pictures, that would not only be a pleasing reminder 
of their self-denial, but be “ a joy forever” to them aud 
to their guests. In a family of children the refining 
and elevating influence of pictures can hardly he over¬ 
rated, and they will teach lessons of faith and love, 
hope, trust, and heroism that will be felt for a life¬ 
time. A house without pictures is almost as cheerless 
as a house without windows, and many rooms fur¬ 
nished at comparatively little cost, which have beau¬ 
tiful pictures upon their walls, are prettier, and give 
more pleasure and comfort than rooms filled with 
costly and expensive furniture without pictures, or else 
with pictures unfitly chosen. 
A lady living in a plainly furnished house, but with 
some of Brockman’s photographs of Raphael’s and 
Holbein’s pictures upon its walls, who taught a class 
in a mission Sunday-school, and was in the habit of 
inviting her scholars to her house, had occasion to 
explain in one of her Sunday-school lessons the word 
palace. She mentioned the handsomest buildings in 
the city in which she lived, and said that palaces were 
usually much more beautifully furnished; to which 
one of the girls, who always had an opinion of her 
own, responded with an air of the greatest incredulity, 
“A house nicer than your’n, Miss Mary? ” as if such a 
thing were not to he credited for a moment. If the 
lady’s house had been stripped of its copies of the old 
masters, we doubt whether her scholars would ever 
have been impressed by its grandeur. 
As it is very easy to furnish a house on paper, a few 
suggestions in regard to pictures suitable for different 
rooms may fee useful to some reader. In parlors, 
landscapes and beautiful faces appear to best advantage, 
oil paintings if we can afford them, if not, photographs 
or engravings, only let the subjects be pleasant, aud 
let there be uniformity in regard to the style of tho 
picture. Oil paintings and photographs, or engrav¬ 
ings, rarely appear to advantage near each other, and 
as a general rule, ought not to he hung in the same 
room, never on the same wall or aside of each other. 
Most persons hang their pictures so high that their 
visitors can only see them after tiresome and fatiguing 
effort, and near-sighted persons lose most of the pleas¬ 
ure that pictures afford by reason of their being fre¬ 
quently entirely out of their range of vision. Pictures, 
as a general rule, should he hung upon a level with 
the eye, and in that way can hardly fail to give satis¬ 
faction. Good oil paintings are an expensive luxury, 
but good photographs and engravings are within the 
reach of all, and chromos flood tho country. Some of 
these are not to he despised. Some of Prang’s are 
very pretty, and some chromos of water colors, espec¬ 
ially English ones after Birket Foster’s pictures, can 
hardly be distinguished from the pictures after which 
they are made. 
One word for the illuminated texts and mottoes; 
they certainly show the religious character of a house, 
and many a guest, careless in regard to sacred things, 
may, by their silent teachings, he led to a better and 
purer life. 
In a library, historical pictures seem to he most 
suitable. Pictures that record heroic deeds, or por¬ 
traits of men and women who have lived noble lives,^ 
will teach us as valuable lessons as the hooks upon 
our shelves; and they have this advantage over the 
books, that almost all who see them, even the little 
ones, can read and comprehend. In our dining-rooms 
let us have pictures of fruit and flowers, of animals 
(and I shall add, of game), but our restaurants seem 
to have the monopoly of pictures of game, and most 
of us are unwilling to deprive them of their rights in 
that direction. It is pleasant to enjoy game upon our 
tables with our friends; hut most repulsive to many, 
to see pictures of lifeless birds upon our walls. We 
have even heard of a dining-room that contained a 
picture of Herodias, with John the Baptist’s head in a 
charger, hut the story is almost too marvelous for 
belief. In sitting-rooms let there he placed portraits 
of friends and interior views, glimpses into cottages, 
and happy homes; scenes taken from pleasant hooks, 
as “Priscilla,” by Margaret Gillies, from the “ Courtship 
of Miles Standish,” or Huntingdon’s “ Mercy’s Dream,’’ 
or “Christiana and her children,” from the “Pilgrim’s 
Progress,” or Faeds “ 0 Nannie wilt thou gang wi’ 
me.” In the nursery, gather all that is bright and 
beautiful for the little ones; dogs aud kittens, and 
pretty faces of children, pleasant Bible characters, any 
picture that will point a moral or adorn a tale; any 
thing that will make the room bright, cheerful and 
attractive. Little home pictures like “ His only pair,” 
by Thomas Faed, are always pleasing to the little 
ones. In our bed-rooms let us have pictures of the 
Saviour, of His mother, and of the saints, no crucifix¬ 
ions or martyrdoms, but pictures which will inspire 
faith and hope; saintly pictures with a holy repose 
upon their faces, that has been the fruit of life-long 
struggle, and unto which we also, striving feebly to 
follow in their footsteps, may in the end attain. 
Verily such pictures, when the toils of the day are 
over, 
-“ have power to quiet 
The restless pulse of care, 
And come like the benediction 
That follows after prayer.” 
Reading, Pa. M. C. E. 
WORSTED FLOWERS. 
Select the finest wire (which can be purchased at any 
drug store); take a large sewing needle, wrap the wire 
around it very tight and close ; cut the wire any length 
you desire; for a common-sized leafl cut the wire two 
fingers’ length; I wrap the wire around the needle; I 
then slip it off carefully; stretch the wire out a little, 
then putting the two ends together aud twisting them; 
and then you can bend them in any way you wish; 
wrap the zephyr from right to left, until you get to 
the top of the leaf ; draw the yam hack under the leaf, 
and over the top, and hack under again To make 
buds, I take a hair pin ; wrap the zephyr around it; 
then I cut the wire about one and a half fingers in length, 
and bend it over the zephyr, and twist it very tight; 
slip the zephyr off the pin; take the scissors and clip 
the zephyr the shape you want your buds. Make a 
group of white buds, they are as pretty as they can he. 
For another way to make leaves, take about three 
knitting needles, more or less, if desired; cut your 
wire five fingers in length ; bend it in the middle over 
needles; then throw the zephyr over the needles; bend 
the wire from right to left, and so on until you get 
your wire all used up. I have made some very pretty 
flowers in this way ; they are very much admired by 
those who have seen them. I cannot tell you how 
pretty they are. I have fourteen colors of zephyr. 
When you get your flowers all made, take a wire the 
size of a coarse knitting needle ; wrap it with green 
zephyr (stems should all be wrapped with green). 
You then arrange the flowers, and bend your wire the 
shape you want it, and place your flowers upon it. 
They are very pretty when framed, and cost hut little; 
my frame is 24x26 inches. If the work is done ac¬ 
cording to directions, you will have some very pretty 
flowers. I have quite a variety of flowers, leaves and 
buds. Hair flowers can he made in the same way. 
