On the west side of the city down-town it is the rider's first object to get to Eighth Avenue as directly as possible. He then has a clear course out. Starting from the Grand Central Station, a good seven-mile ride is to go, as already described, up the Boulevard to 106th Street, then turn east to the Park, and come back to the Plaza. On a dry day one of the most beautiful, perhaps _the_ most beautiful, ten-mile ride in America is from the Grand Central, as described, to the Plaza, thence through the Park to West Seventy-second Street to Riverside Drive, by Grant's Tomb to Claremont, at the end of the Drive, and back, turning east through 108th Street to Boulevard to 106th Street, thence east to the Park, and so down.
This department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.
While we are discussing our favorite books, I want to tell you something about the treasury of rich and rare literature which you and I and everybody may be free of in opening the covers of our Bibles.
Is it your habit, dear child, to read a few verses or a chapter of the best of books every day, perhaps before you leave your room in the morning, or before you go to bed at night? Have you your very own Bible, and do you keep it in your room, and just where you can easily put your hand upon it? Each of us should have her own Bible, for this is not a book to share with others. If we are studying a foreign language we should have, in addition to our English Bible, a French or German or Italian Bible, a Bible in the language we are trying to learn, and by reading in it every day we will greatly add to our vocabulary, and find ourselves rapidly growing used to the looks and sounds of the most familiar words.
No single book in the world has so many interesting features as the Bible, partly because it is a library or collection of books in itself, written by many different authors, in different periods of the world. The Old Testament, which some people neglect, is full of the most exciting and beautiful stories. There is the story of Job, one of the very oldest in literature, telling how this "man in the land of Uz had seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and a very great household, and was the greatest of all the men of the East." By a series of calamities, robbers, fires, earthquakes, and cyclones, Job lost all his wealth, in the twinkling of an eye; and then follow a wonderful series of chapters in which he and his three friends and the Lord God, "out of a whirlwind," discuss the situation. There are the stories of David and Saul, of David and Goliath, of David and Jonathan, of David and Absalom; indeed the whole history of David is a succession of amazing stories most splendidly told. Coming down from David are the stories of Solomon and the great temple he built, "a mountain of snow and gold"; and then we have the narratives of Nehemiah and Ezra; of Daniel and his wonderful life; of the three friends who were thrown into a fiery furnace, but stepped out unhurt; of many others whom I cannot mention here. Long before David's days we find the beautiful story of Ruth; and we have the story of little Samuel, and of Samuel grown to be a man and a prophet. We have in the old Testament the histories of Elijah and of Elisha, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.