It was Deacon Smith who one Sunday asked his pastor to put a petition for rain into his afternoon prayer, as moisture was very much needed by the deacon's parched fields and meadows. Accordingly, Dr. Peters, who was something of a rhetorician, alluded in his prayer to the melancholy prospects of the harvest unless rain should soon be sent, and requested that the Almighty would consider their sufferings and dispense the floods which He held in His right hand. After service, as the reverend doctor left the church, he saw Mr. Smith standing rigid in the porch, perhaps looking for a rising cloud, and remarked to him, "Well, deacon, I hope our petition may be answered." He received only a snort of wrath and defiance in reply. Rather puzzled as to what had vexed his parishioner, Dr. Peters said blandly, "You heard my prayer for a shower, Deacon Smith?" The deacon turned grimly: "I heard you mention the matter of rain, Dr. Peters, but, good Heavens, sir! _you should have insisted upon it!_" A.T. THE JARDIN D'ACCLIMATATION OF PARIS. This beautiful garden, one of the most attractive places in the world, was established in the Bois de Boulogne in 1860. It was in the most flourishing condition at the time of the breaking out of the war with Germany. That war nearly ruined it. During the siege elephants and other valuable animals were sacrificed for food. The carrier-pigeons that did such noble service during the siege were mostly raised in this establishment, and those that survived the war are kept there and most tenderly preserved. "Many died gloriously on the field of honor," as we read in the records of the society, which preserve a full account of their wonderful feats. Some of them again and again dared the Prussian lines, carrying those precious microscopic despatches photographed upon pellicles of collodion--so light that the whole one hundred and fifteen thousand received during the siege do not weigh over one gramme, a little over fifteen grains!