Most interesting entertainments, provided by the Convent for the boarding-school, are the stereopticon views, with lectures given by the Reverend Professors of the College of Boom, in which are represented and discussed all the important scenes in and on the route to the Holy Land by those who have actually visited the scenes and secured the views themselves. Another object of great interest is the “Play of the Birds,” presented by a French Gentleman, when requested by the Superiors, for the pleasure and instruction of the pupils. There are several cages of birds of the smaller kinds. These birds are exactly trained, and, being perfectly obedient to their master, perform a series of exquisite feats, which leave a lasting impression on the memory. But the lesson which is intended to be impressed upon the minds of the pupils is the result which can be obtained from even the unreasoning creatures around us, by the unceasing, unwavering influence of a loving, gentle, patient and persevering character. When the children had entered the classroom in the morning, the monitor stood for a moment and glanced around to see if the yard was in order. Her eye fell upon a paper forgotten by one of the pupils. She opened it and saw the portraits of the murdered Crown Prince and his noble consort, of Austria-Hungary, little recking the awful import of that heinous crime to her own fair country. Was it the heat, or was it the harbinger of coming woe? A feeling of sadness so seldom experienced in the life of a zealous religious took possession of the Sister and carried her for the moment beyond her Convent walls, far away to the battlefield of life, where Pride, Ambition and Materialism, like unto monstrous autocrats, wage war against the human race. A moment she pauses while her heart exclaims, “Sursum Corda” (Lift up the hearts). “One day in Thy house, O Lord, is better than thousands in the dwellings of sinners.” She glanced around the yard and went slowly to her room. From the window could be seen the sunny, cloudless sky, the trees laden with ripening fruit, and far away those fertile, well-tilled fields in which, perhaps, there never had been raised before, a more plentiful or luxuriant crop of wheat and barley. Who could have ever thought that within a few short weeks that same, sunny sky would be raining death-dealing bombs upon the innocent inhabitants of a peace-loving nation, while her crops, over-ripe for the harvest, were being trampled under foot and her plains and meadows deluged in a sea of blood?