One of our party greatly needed some elder-flower water for her face, upon which the sun was working great mischief. It was in the Italian town of Varallo, and not a word of Italian did I know. I entered a chemist's shop, and surveyed his drawers and bottles, but the result was nil. Bright thought--I would go down by the river, and walk until I could gather a bunch of elder-flowers, for the tree was then in bloom. Happily the search was successful. The flowers were exhibited to the druggist; the extract was procured. When you cannot tell in so many words what true religion is, exhibit it by your actions. Show by your life what grace can do. There is no language in the world so eloquent as a godly life. Men may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.--_C. H. Spurgeon._ IT is a great shame to a man to have a poor heart and a rich purse.--_Chaucer._ DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH. "_He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground._"--GENESIS xix. 25. The following extract from "Word Pictures from the Bible," by G. H. Taylor, furnishes a good specimen of pictorial teaching, and will serve to illustrate the lesson on the above subject:-- In the southern part of Palestine, and about thirty miles south-east from Jerusalem, stands the Dead Sea. It is a lake of about forty miles in length, with an average breadth of ten miles. On the east and the west, steep, rugged, and barren mountains of limestone rise up to the height of two thousand feet, and enclose the waters as in a huge cauldron. A death-like stillness prevails all around, unbroken save by the scream of the wild fowl on the bosom of the lake, or the footstep of some daring and solitary traveller. Its shores are deserted. No human habitation exists within miles. Even the wandering Arab approaches it with superstitious dread. Nothing can exceed the gloomy grandeur of its scenery. Rocks piled upon rocks, like ruin upon ruin, look down from the east and the west, and are reflected in its sluggish waters. In its immediate vicinity all vegetation languishes and dies, and the shores are covered as with a coat of salt. In the waters themselves no living thing exists. Everything contributes to the ideas of solitude, silence, sterility, mystery, ruin, and death.