SOMETHING FOR BOYS. and sullen words on their lips, I think how ill they are fitting their place. What rough, jagged edges they are making on their part of the mosaic of life, edges which will never fit smoothly into the place meant for them, and so must spoil the perfect pattern God meant they should help to form. 285 Small specs stain the whiteness of a fair robe. It is perfection in the little things of daily life that makes a Therefore, any thing that helps a girl to see and to "Fit into your place, day by day, doing whatsoever thy hand findeth to do with thy might." You are not responsible for the whole of God's mosaic work-not even for any other piece of it; but you are responsible for your own, and it is in your power to spoil the whole by refusing to fit into your place. Away with unwillowing list of ten things that, some lingness and discontent! Fit into your place with the earnest determination that you will make, not mar, the exceeding beauty of God's great mosaik work plan of life. P. K. SOMETHING FOR BOYS. Many people seem to forget that character grows; that it is not something to put on, ready made, with womanhood or manhood; but, day by day, here a little and there a little, grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength, until, good or bad, it becomes almost a coat of mail. Look at a man of business-prompt, reliable, conscientious, yet clear-headed and energetic. When do you suppose he developed all these admirable qualities? When he was a boy. Let us see the way in which a boy of ten years gets up in the morning, works, plays, studies, and we will tell you just what kind of man he will make. The boy who is late at school stands a poor chance to be a prompt man. The boy who neglects his duties, be they ever so small, and then excuses himself by saying, "I forgot; I didn't think," will never be a reliable man. And the boy who finds not do. It may be that some of the one says, the right sort of a girl will faults seem very trivial, but the little blemishes in conduct or character are the beginnings of greater ones that by and by will destroy all the beauty of the life. Here is the list: She will not start off to school in such a hurry that she must stop and tie her shoes along the street. She will not use her pocket handkerchief to keep her face clean when she ought to use soap and water. She will write her name in her books and not leave her thumb-marks on them, as people used to do to mark their property before the days of writing. She will enjoy swinging in the hammock, but not when mother has to wash and wipe the dishes. She won't almost smother her baby brother with kisses and endearing terms when he comes from mamma's hands neatly dressed and his hair curled, and call him a troublesome thing and push him out of the way when he comes to her crying, his face streaked with dirt, and puts his muddy hands upon her dress. She will not sharpen her pencil up on her book, nor in her lap, nor upon the carpet, but will go to the waste basket or door or some other place where refuse matter will not be so much out of place. She won't put on a clean apron to hide a dirty dress nor clean gloves to hide dirty hands. She won't leave the stopper out of her cologne or ink bottle, and scold her little sister for upsetting it by pulling at the table-cover. She won't cultivate wrinkles upon her face in the place of smiles. She won't be always excusing herself for doing and saying disagreeable things by claiming she forgot. CHARACTER. Character grows, for the most part, insensibly, as the life grows at first. Now and then it gets notable impulses which we can mark, but commonly it grows imperceptibly, like our bodies. It drinks in food, like the tree, from both earth and sky, and from hidden sources in both, and, like it, shows its whole history on its boughs and branches from the first. The sunshine and the storm, the cold north wind and the soft south, the knife or the neglect, write themselves all over life, in its knots and gnarls, or smooth branches, in its leaning this way or that, in its stunted barrenness broad shadow, its bending fruitfulness or its woody wantonness-not a leaf but leaves it mark, not a sunbeam but has told on it, not a rain-drop but has added to it. The same tree that is soft and spongy in a fat swamp, with its heavy air, grows hard and noble on the hillside. Spitzbergen forests are breast high, and Novia Scotia hemlocks mourn their cold, wet sky in long, werid shrouds of white moss. or The influences round us are self-registering. Our spirits, like the winds, unconsciously write their story in all its fulness on the anemometer life; slowly in light air, quickly in storms, all goes down. Little by little, the whole comes in the end. Single acts may show character, but they seldom form it, though some are supreme and ruling. It grows ring by ring, and the twig of this year becomes the bough of next. Our habits are another mame for it, and they grow like the grass. The man's face lies behind the boy's, but it comes out only after a round of winters and summers.-Dr. Geikie. The physician then went and lay down on a sofa, and asked the gentleman to count his pulse again. "It has gone down to sixty-four," he said, in astonishment. "What an extraordinary thing!" "When you lie down at night," said the physician, "that is the way nature takes to give your heart rest. You may know nothing about it, but the organ is resting to that extent; and if you reckon the rate, it involves a good deal of rest, because in lying down, the heart is doing ten strokes less in a minute. Multiply that by sixty, and it is six hundred; multiply it by eight hours and within a fraction, there is a difference of five thousand strokes; and THE DEMORALISATION OF Debt. as the heart is throwing six ounces of blood at every stroke, it makes a difference of thirty thousand ounces of life during the night. When I lie down at night without any alcohol, that is the rest my heart gets. "But when I take wine or grog, I do not allow that rest, for the influence of alcohol is to increase the num ber of strokes. Instead of getting repose, the man who uses alcohol puts on something like fifteen thousand extra strokes, and he rises quite unfit for the next day's work, until he has taken a little more of that 'ruddy bumper' which he calls the soul of man below.'"- Well Spring. THE DEMORALISATION OF Debt! There is no worse demoraliser of character. The sad records of defaulting, embezzling, and dishonest failure which we meet with so constantly in the daily press, are often, indeed most frequently, the result of demoralisation of debt, and consequent desperate efforts at extrication. The financial props have given way. The little debt, which at first was as small as a grain of mustard seed, like the rolling snowball has gathered weight and multiplied itself a thousandfold. And still it grows, and like the fabulous hydra which Hercules was sent to kill, no sooner strike off one head than two shoot up in its place. The struggle is severe, but in the end decisive; either confession is made of a hopeless bankruptcy which might and should have been avoided, or integrity is sacrificed to the temptation of the moment. Debt ruins as many households, and destroys as many fine characters as rum; it is the devil's mortgage on the soul, and he is always ready to foreclose. Pay all your bills. Look every man in the face, conscious you 287 that you owe the world no more than it owes you. Be indebted for nothing but love, and even that be sure you pay in kind, and that your payments are frequent.-De Witt Talmage. REVOLUTIONS HARMFUL. Let us never glorify revolution. it, and of making progress at once Statesmanship is the art of avoiding continuous and calm. Revolutions are and good Christian hates while they not only full of all that a good citizen last, but they leave a long train of bitterness behind. The energy and exaltation of character which they call forth are paid for in the lassitude, the depression, the political infidelity which ensue. The great spirits of the English Revolution were followed by the men of Charles II. Whatever there was of moral grandeur in the French Revolution, was followed by Bonapartism and Talleyrand. Even while the great men are on the scene, violence and onesidedness mar their greatness. . . . But the chiefest authors of revolutions have been not the chimerical and intemperate friends of progress; those who, in defiance of nature, strnggle to avert the inevitable future, to recall the irrevocable past; who chafe to fury by damming up the river which would have flowed calmly between its banks; these blind obstructors of progress are the chief authors of revolutions.--Goldwin Smith. SACRIFICE FOR GAIN. If a man wants money, he must seek it; if he wants learning, he must pay its price in hard study. Ignorance he may have without effort. To raise thistles, a man need not prepare the ground or sow the seed; to raise wheat, he must do both. Toil is evermore the standard of value. Cost and worth are ever close neighbors. Only by the rugged path of toil do men reach the heights of great attainment; only by paying the price of heroic effort do they write their names high in the temple of fame. We are all familiar with the answer of Enclid to King Ptolemy Lagus when he asked, "Is there not a shorter and easier way to the study of geometry than that which you have laid down in your Elements?" His reply was, "There is no royal road to geometry." There is no road to heaven but that of sacrifice, that of cross-bearing; we must go in this narrow way or not at all. But it is also a way of joy, a path of pleasantness and peace. You must not expect to become a Christian by accident. That blessed experience must be the result of deliberate determination, of intelligent seeking, and of faithful enduring. This truth is earnestly affirmed in many parts of Christ's teach ing. Christ's honesty is worthy of commendation. He clearly lays down the conditions of discipleship; we must take up the cross and follow Him.-Robert S. MacArthur, D. D. HOW BIRDS LEARN TO SING. A wren built a nest in a box on a New Jersey farm. The occupants of the farmhouse saw the mother teaching her young to sing. She sat in front of them and sang her whole song very distinctly. One of her young attempted to imitate her. After proceeding through a few notes its voice broke and it lost the tune. The mother recommenced where the young one had failed, and went distinctly through with the remainder. The young bird made a second attempt, commencing where it had ceased before, and continuing the song as long as it was able, and when the notes were again lost the mother began again where it had stopped and completed it. This done, the mother sang over the whole series of notes the second time with precision, and again a young one attempted to follow her. The wren pursued the same course with this one as with the first, and so on with the third and fourth, until each of the birds became a perfect songster. GEMS OF THOUGHT. SENSUALITY is the death of the soul. -Balzac. We make our fortunes and we call them fate.-Disraeli. Ir is by women that nature writes on the hearts of men.-Sheridan. A WOMAN'S thoughts run before her actions, not before her words.Shakespeare. REST is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics; let your brains rest, you wearied, worried men of business; let your limbs rest, ye children of toil.-Carlyle. asunder it is a shade better to be the WHEN two loving hearts are torn one that is driven away into action than the bereaved twin which petrifies at home.—Charles Reade. POVERTY is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known a man to be drowned who was worth saving.-James A. Garfield. BUT if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, I willingly err; nor while I live would I wish to have this delightful error extorted from me; and if after death I shall feel nothing, as some minute philosophers think, I am not afraid lest dead philosophers should laugh at me for the error.-Cicero. |