are powerless to subdue. When the golfer's
legs fail him, and he can no longer tramp
eight or ten miles after his ball, he
betakes himself to his donkey or his pony,
dismounts to strike the blow, and remounts
in the pursuit, with as much zest as in
his youth. Golfers of eighty years of age
are by no means rarities on the Scottish
links. And one sturdy veteran of eighty-three,
still "to the fore," never fails to appear
on the links upon Mondays, because he
is of opinion that the Sunday's rest gives
new vigour to his Monday arm. "I wadna'
lose my Monday," he says, "for a' the days
in the week."

The game of golf may be compared to
the battle of life. All the qualities of mind
and body requisite for success in the world,
and for the enjoyment of a genial and
respectable old age, are brought into
requisition by it. You must strike hard, but not
too hard, lest your ball fly beyond the point
arrived at, plump into the river or the sea.
You must have a quick eye for difficulties,
a prompt hand to surmount them, a keen
appreciation, when within sight of the goal
or hole which it is your object to attain, of
the slightest inequalities of ground which in
the final and gentle push, may, if great care
be not taken, deflect the ball in its course.
You must sometimes urge your ball in a
circle to win, rather than aim straight at
the mark. You must go round about, like
a politician and a strategist. When you are
in a difficulty you must extricate yourself
bravely, and with the least possible loss of
chances. You must be bold, you must be
strong, you must be patient, you must be
alert, and take all nature into your
companionship. You must know the defects of
your friends, and you must not underrate
their virtues, or over-estimate the virtues
or the defects of your opponents. Above
all, you must stand firm when you strike,
and continue vigorously to the end, ever
doing the best you can; and if you be not
rewarded with the good fortune for which
you have striven, you will be rewarded with
the approval of your own conscience; and
when the struggle is ended, be able to say,
with a clear conscience, "I have done my
best."

In short, golf is the most varied and
exhilarating of all the games which are played
with a ball: better than hand-ball, fives,
foot-ball, tennis, racket, or cricket itself:
the only one of the list that may claim to
compete with it in healthfulness. It
requires youth for cricket, but both youth
and age can play at golf—and enjoy it!
And if this be not a feather in the cap of
the royal game, it is of no further use to
argue the question.

GREEN TEA.

A CASE REPORTED BY MARTIN HESSELIUS, THE
GERMAN PHYSICIAN.

IN TEN CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER VI. HOW MR. JENNINGS MET HIS
COMPANION.

THE faint glow of the west, the pomp of
the then lonely woods of Richmond, were
before us, behind and about us the darkening
room, and on the stony face of the
sufferer—for the character of his face,
though still gentle and secret, was changed
—rested that dim, odd glow which seems
to descend and produce, where it touches,
lights, sudden though faint, which are lost,
almost without gradation, in darkness. The
silence, too, was utter; not a distant wheel,
or bark, or whistle from without; and
within the depressing stillness of an invalid
bachelor's house.

I guessed well the nature, though not
even vaguely the particulars, of the revelations
I was about to receive, from that fixed
face of suffering that, so oddly flushed,
stood out, like a portrait of Schalken's,
before its background of darkness.

"It began," he said, "on the 15th of
October, three years and eleven weeks ago,
and two days—I keep very accurate count,
for every day is torment. If I leave anywhere
a chasm in my narrative tell me.

"About four years ago I began a work,
which had cost me very much thought and
reading. It was upon the religious
metaphysics of the ancients."

"I know," said I; "the actual religion
of educated and thinking paganism, quite
apart from symbolic worship? A wide
and very interesting field."

"Yes; but not good for the mind—the
Christian mind, I mean. Paganism is all
bound together in essential unity, and, with
evil sympathy, their religion involves their
art, and both their manners, and the subject
is a degrading fascination and the nemesis
sure. God forgive me!

"I wrote a great deal; I wrote late at
night. I was always thinking on the subject,
walking about, wherever I was, everywhere.
It thoroughly infected me. You
are to remember that all the material ideas
connected with it were more or less of the
beautiful, the subject itself delightfully
interesting, and I, then, without a care."

He sighed heavily.