The best hearts are ever the bravest, said my Uncle Toby (Sterne). There is no more potent antidote to low sensuality than the adoration of the beautiful (Schlegel). Even from the body's purity the mind receives secret sympathetic aid.

Virtue is that which must tip the preacher's tongue and the ruler's sceptre with authority (South). Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be; such thy deeds as thy affections; such thy life as. thy deeds (Socrates). I would give nothing for the Christianity of a man whose very dog and cat were not better for his religion.-Rowland Hill.

God made the human body, and it is by far the most exquisite and wonderful organization which has come to us from the Divine hand. It is a study for one's whole life. If an undevout astronomer is mad, an undevout physiologist is still madder (Beecher). Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep (Milton). The mind is the atmosphere of the soul.-Foubert.

Vicious habits are so odious and degrading that they transform the individual who practices them into an incarnate demon (Cicero). Age has deformities enough of its own; do not add the deformity of vice (Cato). Modesty is the conscience of the body (Balzac). "One soweth and another reapeth" is a verity that applies to evil as well as good.

Blessed is the memory of those who have kept themselves unspotted from the world! yet more blessed and more dear the memory of those who have kept themselves unspotted in the world (Mrs. Fameson). Breed is stronger than pasture (Eliot). Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty (Consin). Beauty is God's handwriting, a wayside sacrament.-Milton.

Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image (Goethe). Common sense, alas! in spite of our educational institutions, is a rare commodity (Bovee). Ye may be aye stickin' in a tree, Jock; it will be growin' when ye're sleepin' (Scotch Farmer). He who plants a tree plants a hope.

He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small;
For the dear Lord that loveth us, He made and loveth all.
My fairest child, I have no song to give you;

No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make life, death, and that vast forever

One grand, sweet song. "A Farewell," Charles Kingsley.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life is but a means to an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things-God.

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep.
Tempest.

289.-BEAUTIFUL SNOW.

J. W. WATSON.

Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow!
Filling the sky and the earth below;
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet;
Dancing, flirting, skimming along,
Beautiful snow! it can do nothing wrong;
Flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek,
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak-
Beautiful snow, from the heavens above,
Pure as an angel, and fickle as love!

Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go !
Whirling about in its maddening fun,
It plays in its glee with every one.

Chasing, laughing, hurrying by,

It lights up the face, and it sparkles the eye;
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around.
The town is alive, and its heart in a glow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow.

How the wild crowd goes swaying along,
Hailing each other with humor and song!
How the gay sledges like meteors flash by,
Bright for a moment, then lost to the eye!
Ringing, swinging, dashing they go,
Over the crest of the beautiful snow;
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,

To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by-
To be trampled and tracked by thousands of feet,
Till it blends with the filth in the horrible street.

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow
Should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go!

How strange it would be, when the night comes again,
If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain!
Fainting, freezing, dying-alone!

Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan
To be heard in the crash of the crazy town,

Gone mad in their joy at the snow's coming down;

To lie and to die in my terrible woe,

With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow!

290-THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.
F. M. FINCH.

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;

Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day ;-
Under the one, the Blue;

Under the other, the Gray.

From the silence of sorrowful hours

The desolate mourners go,

Lovingly laden with flowers

Alike for the friend and the foe;-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;-
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.

So with an equal splendor
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch, impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all ;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
'Broidered with gold, the Blue,
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.

So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.

Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;

In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won ;-
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day ;-
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,

Waiting the judgment day;-
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.

291.-WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

It was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailòr,

Had sailed to the Spanish Main,

"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,

And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring, O say, what may it be?"

"'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?"

"Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light,
O say, what may it be?

But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That savéd she might be:

And she thought of Christ who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;

It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.