some, egotistical, solitary, and gloomy people; hates whatever can interfere with total blending of parties, whilst it values all particularities as in the highest degree refreshing, which can consist with good fellowship. EMERSON. Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow-creatures love and respect. If we strive then to become what we strive to appear, manners may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of our duties. JN simple manners all the secret lits, SIDNEY SMITH. Be kind and virtuous, and you'll be blest and wise. XVII. The Golden Mean. Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise why shouldest thou destroy thyself.— Ecclesiastes vii. 16. THE Roman poet called him happy who understands the causes of events; equally so is he who knows "Not too much of any and keeps the golden mean. thing" was the famous saying of one of the seven sages of Greece. The Jewish poet Emanuel Romi applied this rule to our intercourse with men: Be not so sweet that men devour thee; Be not so bitter that men spit thee out; And the profound Soloman Gabirol writes: The ends (of the magnetic needle) are the places of trembling fear; the centre is the place of rest and firmness. In moral excellence there can be excess, defect and the mean. It is possible, f. i., to feel the emotions of fear, confidence, lust, anger, compassion and pleasure and pain, generally too much or too little, and in either case wrongly; but to feel them when we ought, towards whom and as we should do, is the mean, or, in other words, the best state, and this is the property of virtue. ARISTOTLE. NE by one thy duties wait thee; Let thy whole strength go to each; Let no future dreams elate thee: Learn thou first what these can teach. XVIII. Kindly Speech. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; they are heard for appeasing.-Ecclesiastes ix. 17. KIND words never blister the tongue or lips. And we never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much. They help one's own good nature and good will. Soft words soften our own soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it burn more fiercely. Kind words make other people good natured. Cold words freeze people, and hot words. scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. There is such a rush of all other kind of words in our day, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. . . Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls. And a beautiful image it is. They soothe, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. BLAISE PASCAL. XIX. Pure Religion and Undefiled. Thou, O God, art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.-Habakuk i. 13. Justice and judgement are the habitation of Thy throne; mercy and truth shall go before Thy face.— Psalm lxxxix. 14. ET every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. If you fulfill the royal law according to the Scriptures: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well; but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle and easy to be persuaded, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.-Epistle of James. RIGINAL of beings, Power Divine! Since that I live and that I think is Thine. Benign Creator! let Thy plastic hand Dispose its own effect; let Thy command And in my acts, may Thy great will be done. XX. The Consolation of the Righteous. But as for me, I will walk in my integrity; Redeem me, and be merciful unto me. My foot shall ever stand in an even place; in the Congregation will I bless the Lord.-Psalm xxvi. 11, 12. WHEN the ear heard me, then it blessed me; when the eye saw me it gave witness unto me; because I delivered the poor that cried to me, and the fatherless and him that has none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I made the heart of the widow to sing for joy. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was as a robe of honor and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and their cause, which I knew not, I searched out; and so I broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of their teeth. If I have seen any one perish for want of clothing, if he was not warmed with the wool of my sheep; if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw my help in the gate; then let my arm fall from my shoulder-blade and be broken from my bone.— t From Job xxxix-xxxi. HE paths of virtue must be reached by toil, Arduous and long, and on a rugged soil, Thorny the gate, but when the top you gain, Fair is the future, and the prospect plain. XXI. The Greatest is Love. Say not thou, I will return evil for evil: wait thou on the Lord and He shall save thee.-Proverbs xx. 22. THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, and though I have the gift |