Reform, to be practical, must begin in the higher strata of society; for not only to individuals, but also, in a wider sense, to classes, is the keepership of brotherhood entrusted. We _are_ our “brother’s keeper,” and our “brother” is the mass of men who look up to us for guidance. As long as our fathers and husbands care more for their office than their home, so long will the bulk of the nation be mere animated machines snatching after precarious wealth; as long as our wives and mothers care more for the drawing-room than for the nursery and study, so long will the mass of women be heartless coquettes or abandoned harlots. We speak strongly, because we feel strongly. This is an age of initial struggle, which our faith should turn into an era of better things. If we need any “new departure,” let it be the departure from frivolity to domesticity, from contemptible weakness to the manliness of the Gospel. And here let us say one word to the head of the family, to him without whose example even the mother’s influence is incomplete. Business is _not_ the whole of life; it is _not_ even the first earthly good to be sought for. Success often kills happiness, and its exclusive pursuit always kills peace. The father who allows business to isolate him from all the tenderer interests of his home achieves two things: he alienates his children’s affection—after having very likely worn out his wife’s devotion—and he teaches them betimes the baneful lesson that before Mammon all other interests must bow. This false doctrine his children will teach to theirs by an example equally gloomy with his own, and thus God will be forgotten in the very gifts which one word of his mouth could turn in a moment to dust and ashes. Shall this be so, or will Christian parents take heed to their duty? THE PICTURE OF THE RIVIÈRE QUELLE. A CANADIAN LEGEND. FROM THE FRENCH OF M. L’ABBE CASGRAIN. I.—THE MISSIONARY. READER, have you ever been in the old church of the Rivière Ouelle? In one of its side-chapels is an _ex-voto_ which was placed there many long years ago by a stranger who was miraculously preserved from death. It is a very old picture, full of dust, and of no artistic value, but it recalls a touching story; I learned it when very young, on my mother’s knees, and it has remained as fresh and vivid in my memory as when I first heard it.