ing, and share his crust with the starving. I need not go on to enumerate all that should be done or not be done when I can briefly impress on our pupil a law of duty between man and man like this: All that you see, including things human and divine, forms One Whole. We are members of that body. Nature made us akin when she produced us out of the same elements, for the same purpose. She planted within us the seed of mutual affection, and formed us for fellowship. It was she that determined what was right. By her ordinance it is worse to do than to suffer injury. According to her law should hands be trained to help; that wellknown line should ever be in mind and mouth:

Man am I, and to all things human I am kin.

We were born, let us remember, for the common good; society is just like an arch which is supported simply by the reciprocal pressure of the several stones, without which the structure must fall. SENECA.

MHO, full of viles, his neighbor's harm contrives,

False to himself, against himself he strives;

For he that harbors evil in his mind,

Will from his evil thoughts but evil find.

And, lo! the eye of God that all things knows,

Can, when He will, the heart of man disclose;
Open the guilty bosom all within,

And trace the infant thoughts of future sin.

XXVI.

Praise and Prize of Virtue.

I had grown faint unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.— Psalm xxvii. 13.

THE virtues we aspire to are great in their way, not

however, because emancipation from evil is by itself such a blessed thing, but because every virtue expands the mind, fits it for the knowledge of heavenly things, and renders it capable for communion with God. Man only then attains the fulness and perfection of his destiny, when, having trodden all evil under foot, he lifts his mind above and penetrates into the inner heart of nature. Then he begins to apprehend God; for what is God but the Mind of the Universe? Then only do we ascribe to Him the perfection that is His due.

What difference, then, is between God's nature and ours? Simply this; while with us the mind is the nobler part, He is nothing but Mind-He is all reason. SENECA.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.-From the Sermon on the Mount.

O near is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When duty whispers low: thou must,

The youth replies, I can.

XXVII The Sweet Uses of Bitter Words.

And when the Israelites came to Marah they could not drink of the waters, for they were bitter . . . and Moses cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.-Exodus xv. 23-25.

OES a man reproach thee for being proud, illnatured, envious or conceited, ignorant or detracting? Consider with thyself whether his reproaches are true. If they are not, consider further that thou art not the person whom he reproaches, but that he reviles an imaginary being, and perhaps loves what thou really art, though he hates what thou appearest to be, If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thyself another turn; become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee will naturally cease; or, if they still continue, thou art no longer the person whom he reproaches. EPICTETUS.

All who speak truth to me commissoned are;
All who love God are in my church embraced.

ETTER have an act that's kindly

Treated sometime with disdain; Than, by judging others blindly

Doom the innocent to pain.

XXVIII. The Vanity of Caunting.

When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord annointed thee King over Israel ?—1 Sam. xv. 17.

WHO art thou, O man, that presumest on thine own wisdom? Or why dost thou vaunt thyself on thine own acquirements? The first step towards being wise is, to know the things wherein we are ignorant; if thou wouldest not be esteemed foolish in the judgment of others, cast off the folly of being wise in thine own conceit. As a plain garment adorneth a beautiful woman, so a modest behavior is the greatest ornament of wisdom. The speech of a modest man giveth lustre to truth and the diffidence of his words absolveth his errors. He turneth away his ear from his own praise and believeth it not; he is the last in discovering his own perfections. Yet, as a veil addeth to beauty, so are his virtues set off by the shade which his modesty casteth upon them. The vain man is puffed up with the vanity of his own imaginations, his delight is to hear and to speak of himself all the day long. He swalloweth with greediness his own praise and the flatterer, in return, eateth him up. ANON.

H

IS magic was not far to seek,

He was so human; whether strong or weak,

Far from his kind he never sank or soared,

But sate an equal guest at every board.

No beggar ever felt him condescend,
Nor prince presume; himself he always bore
At manhood's simple level, and where'er
He met a stranger, there he left a friend.

XXIX.

Love's Hour Always Now.

I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief.-Job xvi. 5.

Have pity on me, have pity on me, O, my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.-Job xix. 21.

O not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friend is dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled by them. The things you mean to say, when they are gone, say before they go. The flowers you mean to send for their coffins, send to brighten and sweeten their homes before they leave them... I would rather have a bare coffin,

without a flower, and funeral without an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and sympathy. Let us learn to anoint our friends beforehand for their burial, Post-mortem kindness does not cheer the burdened spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance backward over the weary days.

HENRY W. BEECHER.