=Value of Biography.=—The Bible is, of course, a storehouse of most inspiring biographies; but it would be well if we could manage our teaching so as to bring out in each character the master-thought of all his thinking. The late Queen has done this with singular tact and power in the Albert Memorial Chapel, where, as we know, Prophets and Patriarchs are presented, each showing in action that special virtue or form of endeavour which seemed to her the keynote of his character. This is a happy effort to revive the mediæval object teaching of which I have already spoken. The same thing occurs again in the School of Song of the Edinburgh Cathedral, where Mrs Traquair has frescoed the walls to illustrate the _Benedicite_, where ‘holy and humble men of heart,’ for example, is illustrated by three men of our own day of different schools of thought—Cardinal Newman is the only one I recollect. The force of this kind of master-idea, and the unity it gives to life, cannot be better illustrated than by the perhaps apocryphal ‘I will be good’ of our late beloved Queen. There are few children in the kingdom whose hearts have not thrilled to the phrase. Perhaps she will one day know how much was done to give moral impulse to this great Empire by that simple child-like promise so abundantly fulfilled. =Of Patriotic Poems.=—Next in value to biographies from the point of view of inspiration are the burning words of the poets,—Tennyson’s _Ode to the Iron Duke_, for example. Perhaps no poet has done more to stir the fire of patriotism amongst us than Mr Rudyard Kipling: “We learn from our wistful mothers to call Old England ‘home,’” opens the door to a flood of patriotic feeling; as indeed do the whole of the poems, _The Native-born_ and _The Flag of England_:— “Never was isle so little, Never were seas so lone, But over the scud and the palm trees The English flag has flown.” From another point of view, how this (of Browning’s) makes the heart quick with patriotic emotions!— “Buy my English posies, Kent and Surrey may, Violets of the undercliff Wet with Channel spray, Cowslips of the Devon combe, Midland furze afire; Buy my English posies And I’ll sell you heart’s desire.”