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We cannot comprehend all the mysteries that surround us in this life; but God reigns; and trusting in his divine wisdom and goodness, we should cheerfully, with an uncomplaining spirit, endure. You cannot have a sweet Christian spirit and be a constant grumbler.

HASTE NOT-REST NOT.

"Without haste! without rest!

Bind the motto to thy breast!
Bear it with thee as a spell;

Storm or sunshine, guard it well!

Heed not flowers that round thee bloom,

Bear it onward to the tomb!

"Haste not-let no thoughtless deed

Mark for e'er the spirit's speed;

Ponder well and know the right
Onward, then, with all thy might
Haste not-years can ne'er atone
For one reckless action done!

"Rest not! life is sweeping by,
Do and dare before you die;
Something mighty and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time;

Glorious 'tis to live for aye

When these forms have passed away!

"Haste not! rest not! calmly wait,

Meekly bear the storms of fate;
Duty be thy polar guide-

Do the right, whate'er betide!

Haste not-rest not-conflicts past,

God shall crown thy work at last!"

-GOETHE.

BE CHEERFUL.

Live right. Think right. Pluck up your spirits. Don't be easily provoked. Don't groan too much, even if wounded. Look

on the bright side, if there is a bright side. It is a hard case that admits of no cheerful view. "A soldier, looking at a bullet-hole through his leg, said, 'Well, that's a fancy hole. Now that'll get me a furlough,—just what my wife wants." He had a merry heart.

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When the heart is cheerful the countenance will mirror it, the words will echo it. When the poet Carpani inquired of his friend Haydn, how it happened that his Church Music was always so cheerful the great composer made a most beautiful reply. "I cannot," he said, "make it otherwise. I write according to the thoughts I feel; when I think upon God, my heart is so full of joy that the notes dance and leap, as it were, from my pen; and since God has given me a cheerful heart it will be pardoned me that I serve him with a cheerful spirit. It is always so. Some people-some few Christian people-wear wretched faces, long, pinched up, awry, sour. Their hearts are wretched. Their countenance would be pleasant if all back of them were pleasant. An uncheerful Christian is an unnatural-or rather an unspiritualChristian. Religion makes people happy as well as pure. "Happy art thou O Israel! Who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord." Be happy, brother. Get grace enough to make you happy. If you can't shout, sing; if you can't sing, laugh. Smile now and then, at any rate. You can smile, and yet be serious. You can be cheerful, and yet earnest.

BE CHARITABLE.

The immortal Lincoln, in his second inaugural address, expressed this beautiful sentiment: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." The more God enlightens our understanding, the more will we recognize in others to claim our sympathy and good will, our kind words and practical help. Common blood courses all our veins. Common faults mar all our lives. Common necessities call us to

a common mercy seat. There is less real natural difference in people than many suppose. It is to be deplored that we do not know each other better, and do not cherish for each other a heartier

spirit of charity. Well might the celebrated poet Hood heave this sigh:

"Alas for the rarity

Of Christian Charity

Under the sun!"

We almost believe, with Burke, that no sound ought to be heard in the Church but the healing voice of Christian Charity.

BE KIND.

"If I had another life to live," exclaims the venerable Dr. Prime," and two thousand letters to write again, with God's help, I would not hurt the feelings of the humblest of all God's creatures honestly trying to do good. He might be as big as Daniel Lambert, and I would not call him fat and unctuous; he might be as lean as Calvin Edson, and I would not call him a bag of bones. I would count each day lost on which I had not made some hearts gladder than they were in the morning; on which I had not plucked up some thorns, or planted some flowers on the path of human life. No man can so live without enjoying life. Dogs will snarl at him, but angels are around him. He may never have riches or fame, but better than both are friends and God." Kindness of heart ought to be reflected in kindness of speech. We have heard it said of some harsh spoken man that he "has a kind heart in him." We never believe such a remark. The man who has a kind heart will have a kind tongue. It will be the rule of his life to speak kind words. These never blister the tongue nor lips. They give no mental trouble. They cost so little, but accomplish so much. They soften one's own soul. They help one's own good-nature and make other people good-natured. "Cold words," says one, "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 days that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and silly words, and empty words, and boisterous words, and warlike words. Kind words also produce their own image in 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."

The genial sentiment expressed in the following stanzas we commend to all:

"Speak not harshly-much of care
Every human heart must bear;
Enough of shadows darkly lie
Veiled within the sunniest eye.
By thy childhood's gushing tears,
By thy griefs of after years,
By the anguish thou dost know,
Add not to another's woe.

"Speak not harshly, much of sin
Dwelleth every heart within;
In its closely covered cells
Many a wayward passion dwells.
By the many hours misspent,
By the gifts to errors lent,

By the wrongs thou didst not shun,
By the good thou hast not done.
With a lenient spirit scan

The weakness of thy fellow-man."

LOVE THY NEIGHBOR.

Why not?

His happiHe is cheered

A heavenly precept requires it, and all earthly interests are the better for it. Your neighbor is a fellow-being, possessing flesh, and blood, and spirit like your own. ness is just as important to him as yours is to you. by kind words, made glad by kind deeds, and improved by sympathy, like yourself. Let no distinction of color, feature, or condition in which Providence has placed him, make you recreant to the best principles of human nature. Love for our neighbor is the "bond of brotherhood," the sympathetic nerve of society, which, when "one member suffers," causes all the members to suffer with it, and when one member is honored, makes all the members rejoice with

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