comes most surely, when a man is keeping close to Christ and loving him most warmly. ECONOMY.-It is not necessary that our boys should become stingy and miserly, in order to be careful and provident. "Save all you can," was Mr. Wesley's rule. Never buy a cigar. It is money worse than wasted. Ten cents a day saved in ten years amount to three hundred and sixty-five dollars, which is more than one-half the people in the United States are worth in middle life. YOUTH'S WARNING. Beware, exulting youth, beware, When life's young pleasures woo, For sake of silver spent to-day, Why pledge to-morrow's gold! To turn the balances of Heaven For every white there is a black, In summer among the flowers, You must atone, you shall repay, In winter among the showers.-CHARLES MACKEY. TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE By thine own soul's law learn to live, Hope thou thy hope and pray thy prayer, Keep thou thy soul-worn steadfast oath, And play out thine appointed part; Fix on the future's goal thy face, And thou may'st look back from thy place And see thy long day's journey done.-SPECTATOR. KEEP THYSELF PURE.-There are young men who seem to think that experience in the darker phases of life is essential to perfect manhood. If ever an idea issued from the froth and foam of the pit, this did. It is a self-constituted lie. It is more dangerous and deadly to the soul than the bite of a mad canine to the body. Recovery is rare, and never perfect. Keep thyself unspotted from the world. OUR MISSION.-Our mission is to do good as well as to receive good. We are to mould and shape the things around us, as well as to be moulded and shaped by them. Life should be a grand series of efforts to accomplish something worthy of immortal souls; not simply an idle waiting through the continuous roll of years for the inevitable end. There is work to do, noble work for every one, and opportunity will soon be gone. IMPROVEMENT OF TIME.-There is no enjoyment so permanent as the right improvement of time. What the idle and careless man throws away and loses forever, the diligent and holy man gains. None of us will live much longer than is necessary to perform our work. Every day brings its own duties, and he who would not have the present hour torn like a blank from the book of life must use it as it passes never to return. "We protract the career of time," says Zimmerman, "by employment; we lengthen the duration of our lives by wise thoughts and useful actions. Life to him who wishes not to have lived in vain, is thought and action." Any other human existence is a living death. INDEPENDENCE.-Cultivate independence of thought. Be loyal to religious convictions. Aim at honest action every time. If you want money, earn it by careful industry. If you have money, use it with wise discrimination. Strive to make every gift and faculty add something to a godly career. "The superiority of some men is merely relative; they are great because their associates are little." PLEASURE." True pleasure consists in clear thoughts, sedate affections, sweet reflections, a mind even and staid, true to its God, and true to itself." CARNAL JOY.-Lightning and light represent aptly the natures of carnal joy and spiritual. Carnal joy, like lightning, is short, lurid, transient and scorching. Spiritual joy, like sunlight, is lasting, healthful, and healing.-Bowes. EXCESS OF FEAR.-The excess of fear is not only an extreme weakness, but it is dangerous. Where fear is improperly placed, precaution will also be improperly directed; and thus will the mind be thrown off its guard against the approach of evils. It settles also into pusillanimity, which disqualifies either for acting or suffering with propriety.—Cogan. EXCESS OF HOPE.-In excess, hope, beneficent as it is, may be a source of mischief. It then incites to extravagant expectations and unfounded confidence. It is the parent of the credulity so often witnessed where advantages are anticipated. It is upon this frequent frailty, that rascaldom relies, as offering so wide and wealthy a field for fraud to cultivate. The ready victims of bubble schemes are they by whom the faculty of hope is possessed in undue degree.-Cox. BE CHEERFUL.-Be cheerful and hopeful. If your lot is a hard one, strive to bear it patiently, and do what you can to improve it. Nothing is gained by despondency. It is not comforting to yourself, and is very distressing to your friends. Trust in God, work heroically, and look on the sunny side of things. WORK WINS.-It is work that wins. Work tells everywhere. Work in the field, work in the office, work in the Church is full of results. Hard work, earnest work develops its own proofs and yields its own fruits. No man need expect the wages of a laborer when he is only an idler in this busy world. CONTENTMENT.-Thousands of discontented and unhappy Americans are as well situated, and ought to be just as restful and pleasant as Sydney Smith was when he wrote to Lady Holland, that though he was not quite as prosperous as he would like, he was nevertheless reconciled to the situation. "If it be my lot to crawl," said he, "I will crawl contentedly; if to fly, I will fly with alacrity; but, as long as I can avoid it, I will never be unhappy. If, with a pleasant wife, three children, a good house and farm, many books, and many friends who wish me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish fellow, and what becomes of me is of very little consequence." CLIMBING UP. One of the first lessons a young man should learn when he starts out for himself is that men are not taken into business confidence on sight. They must work their way along. The day is past when young men bound into lucrative positions at one stride. As a rule they must begin at the lowest round of the ladder, and climb up as best they can. All lines of business are crowded full, FENELON'S PRAYER.-"O Lord, take my heart, for I cannot give it; and when thou hast it, oh, keep it, for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." PERSEVERANCE. The proudest motto for the young, If in misfortune's dreary hour, Or fortunes prosperous gale, Just "go ahead" with all your power, SELFISHNESS.-" Live for some purpose in the world. Always act your part well. Fill up the measure of duty to others. Conduct yourselves so that you shall be missed with sorrow when you are gone. Multitudes of our species are living in such a selfish manner that they are not likely to be remembered after their disappearance. They leave behind them scarcely any traces of their existence, and are forgotten almost as though they had never been. They are, while they live, like some pebble lying unobserved among a million on the shore; and when they die, they are like that same pebble thrown into the sea, which just ruffles the surface, sinks, and is forgotten, without being missed from the beach. They are neither regretted by the rich, wanted by the poor, nor celebrated by the learned. Who has been, the better for their life? Who has been the worse for their death? Whose tears have they dried up? Whose wants supplied? Whose misery have they healed? Who would unbar the gate of life to re-admit them to existence? or what face would greet them back again to our world with a smile? Wretched, unproductive mode of existence! Selfishness is its own curse; it is a starving vice. The man who does no good gets none. He is like the heath in the desert, neither yielding fruit nor seeing when good cometh, a stunted, dwarfish, miserable shrub." THE FAULTS OF OTHERS. My neighbors faults I see, And yet My own delinquency Forget. I have a standard high You see, The dust for them, the sky For me. |