habits, hopes, and faiths. There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies,—not a moment of which, once past, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. Take your vase of Venice glass out of the furnace, and strew chaff over it in its transparent heat, and recover that to its clearness and rubied glory when the north wind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God's presence, and to bring the heavenly colors back to him—at least in this world. MYSTERY OF LIFE. Ruskin. Of all miracles, far the most wonderful is that of life,—the common, daily life which we carry with us, and which everywhere surrounds us. The sun and stars, the blue firmament, day and night, the tides and seasons, are as nothing compared with it! Life—the soul of the world, but for which creation were not! It is life which is the grand glory of the world; it was, indeed, the consummation of creative power, at which the morning stars sang together for joy. Is not the sun glorious, because there are living eyes to be gladdened by his beams? Is not the fresh air delicious, because there are living creatures to inhale and enjoy it? Are not odors fragrant, and sounds sweet, and colors gorgeous, because there is the living sensation to appreciate them? Without life, what were they all! What were a Creator himself, without life-intelligence -understanding-to know and to adore Him? Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies; Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, IN THE NURSERY. It had happened that amongst our nursery collection of books was the Bible, illustrated with many pictures. And in long dark evenings, as my three sisters with myself sat by the firelight round the guard of our nursery, no book was so much in request amongst us. It ruled us and swayed us as mysteriously as music. One young nurse, whom we all loved, before any candle was lighted, would often strain her eyes to read it for us; and, sometimes, according to her simple powers, would endeavor to explain what we found obscure. We, the children, were all constitutionally touched with pensiveness; the fitful gloom and sudden lambencies of the room by firelight suited our evening state of feelings; and they suited, also, the divine revelations of power and mysterious beauty which awed us. Above all, the story of a just man-man and yet not man, real above all things, and yet shadowy above all things, who had suffered the passion of death in Palestine-slept upon our minds like early dawn upon the waters. De Quincey. TRUTHS OF THE BIBLE. That the truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in man, under every variety of character, learned or ignorant, civilized or savage,—that they make bad men good, and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social relations,—that they teach men to love right, to hate wrong, and to seek each other's welfare, as the children of one common Parent,-that they control the baleful passions of the huinan heart, and thus make men proficient in the science of self-government, and, finally, that they teach him to aspire after a conformity to a Being of infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes infinitely more purifying, more exalted, more suited to his nature, than any other which this world has ever known,- -are facts as incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics. ENDURING INFLUENCE. We see not in this life the end of human actions. Their infiuence never dies. In ever-widening circles it reaches beyond the grave. Death removes us from this to an eternal world; time determines what shall be our condition in that world. Every morning, when we go forth, we lay the moulding hand upon our destiny; and every evening, when we have done, we leave a deathless impression upon our characters. We touch not a wire but vibrates in eternity,—we breathe not a thought but reports at the Throne of God. Let youth especially think of these things; and let every one remember, that, in this world,-where character is in its formation state,-it is a serious thing to think, to speak, to act. BEAUTIES OF NATURE. Pause for awhile, ye travelers upon the earth, to contemplate the universe in which you dwell, and the glory of Him who created it. What a scene of wonders is here presented to your view! If beheld with a religious eye, what a temple for the worship of the Almighty! The earth is spread out before you, reposing amid the desolation of winter, or clad in the verdure of the spring, smiling in the beauty of summer, or loaded with autumnal fruit,-opening, to an endless variety of beings, the treasures of their Maker's goodness, and ministering subsistence and comfort to every creature that lives. The heavens, also, declare the glory of the Lord. The sun cometh forth from his chambers to scatter the shades of night, inviting you to the renewal of your labors, adorning the face of Nature, and, as he advances to his meridian brightness, cherishing every herb and flower that springeth from the bosom of the earth. Nor, when he retires again from your view, doth he leave the Creator without a witness. He only hides his own splendor for awhile to disclose to you a more glorious scene,— to show you the immensity of space filled with worlds unnumbered, that your imagination may wander without a limit in the vast creation of God. CHILD AND SEA-SHELL. Moodie. Years ago a child held a sea shell to his ear as he sat on his mother's lap, and said. "Mamma, what is that?" And the mother answered: "The shell once lay upon the sea beach, where the waves rocked it gently to and fro, and it listened to their song and learned it well, and even now away up here, it still murmurs with the ocean's melody." The child smiled and put the shell to his ear again, and yet again, and when weary with his other playthings, he returned to it, once more to listen to the music of the loud resounding sea. Was what he thought and learned fantastical? I think not. But the more modern child, alive with the instinct for poetry and beauty, despite the unfavorable character of his intellectual atmosphere, puts the shell to his ear and is struck and awed by its faint yet mighty echo. He runs to his mamma and says: "Mamma, what is this I hear ?" and the mother, with more knowledge than wisdom, replies: "My child, your blood coursing through your veins and arteries from your little heart, as a result of its systole and diastole, sets the shell in vibration, and its vibrations are in turn communicated to the auditory nerve by a membrane called the tympanum and three little bones-the hammer, anvil and stirrup-and thence to the brain, where they are transmuted into consciousness." And the child drops the shell. No wonder; he didn't suppose that he heard any such thing as that; he asks for bread and is given a stone. How different the atmosphere of the Greek child, who heard in the thunder the voice of Zeus, and saw in the red lightning the evidence of his dread omnipotence (positive and negative electricity can never fill the places of the gods) who looked for a nymph in every fountain and a dryad in each wooded glade. Small wonder that he developed a taste for perfection in form and expression, a talent for hearing and seeing, which the genius of a Phidias or a Sophocles alone could satisfy. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. In his recent work on "American History from an English standpoint," Prof. Goldwin Smith bestows this unstinted and heart felt praise upon President Lincoln: "Abraham Lincoln is assuredly one of the marvels of history. No land but America has produced his like. This destined chief of a nation in its most perilous hour was the son of a thriftless and wandering settler. He had a strong and eminently fair understanding, with great powers of patient thought, which he cultivated by the study of Euclid. In all his views there was a simplicity which had its source in the simplicity of his character. Both as an advocate and as a politician he was 'honest Abe.' As an advocate he would throw up his brief when he knew that his case was bad. He said himself that he had not controlled events, but had been guided by them. To know how to be guided by events, however, if it is not imperial genius, is practical wisdom. Lincoln's goodness of heart, his sense of duty, his unselfishness, his freedom from vanity, his long suffering, his simplicity, were never disturbed either by power or by opposition. To the charge of levity no man could be less open. Though he trusted in Providence, care for the public and sorrow for the public calamities filled his heart and sat visibly upon his brow. His State papers are excellent, not only as public documents, but as compositions, and are distinguished, by their depth of human He feeling and tenderness, from those of other statesmen. spoke always from his own heart to the heart of the people. His brief funeral oration over the graves of those who had fallen in the war is one of the gems of the language." ENTHUSIASM. The value of your teaching is not the information you have put into the mind, but the interest you have awakened. If the heart is trained, the rest grows out of it. Interest the heart, the feelings, the emotions, for they are the fundamental facts. The mind is evolved out of heartiness. People do not have mind worth thinking of unless they have capacity for sensitiveness. The characters of great men prove this. Whether in picture or in prose, we are always coming up against the great fact that it is enthusiasm that governs the world. We have not realized the educational possibility of it. Of all things in the world, love is the most plastic; it can entwine itself about the low and degrading things of the world and spend its energies there, or it can climb the heavenly ladder, as Plato said, and identify itself with all that is most worthy, most precious, and most lovely. SUCCESS AND FAILURE. Hall. All that a man can do in this world is to live honestly, faithfully, and loyally, from day to day. What the immediate end will be, neither he nor any one else knows. He knows only this, that the highest success crowns those who work in the highest spirit, and that the supremest failure confronts those who work in the worst spirit. No man knows what a day may bring forth in the way of opportunity, nor at what point the door may be thrown open, which shall be the entrance into his great chance for life. The only assurance that we are not missing the one opportunity lies in making the most of every opportunity; in treating every day as if it were the one eventful day of life; in trying every door as if it were the one entrance to the palace; in doing every piece of work as if upon our fidelity depended all our future lives. The man who works in this spirit may safely leave the future with God. Whatever material success is worth having, he will command. Better than all, he will be sure of that greater success which is expressed in character, that " sublime health which values one moment as another, and makes us great in all conditions, and is the only definition we possess of freedom and power.' 66 THE HERO. The admiration which every one has for the hero springs from man's innate love for what is noble in human conduct and character. We worship a hero because we think his heroic deed proves him to be far superior to other men. And it is true he is lifted above the level of his fellows by the heroic quality which made the heroic act possible. Yet the nobility which marks heroism is, like all the best things offered to man by God, nature and the world, absolutely free, and an attainable possession for all who desire it. Every boy and girl may decide whether his or her life shall be a noble or an ignoble one. Nor does the choice depend upon circumstances or condition of life. There have been and there are even more heroes, noble men and women, among those of an |