' 
\ y 
Radies’ department. 
MABEL’S CUBE. 
“ The world is even as we take It, 
And life, dear child, ie what we make it.” 
Thus spoke a grandame, bent with care, 
To little Mabel, hushed and fair. 
Bnt Mabel took no heed that day 
Of what she heard her grandame say. 
Years after, when, no more a child. 
Her path in life seemed dark and wild, 
& 
Back to her heart the memory came 
Of that quaint utterance of the dame : 
“ The world, dear child. Is as we take it, 
And lire, be sure, is what we make it.” 
She cleared her brow; and, smiling thought, 
■“ ’Tls even as the good soul taught 1 
“ And half my woes thus quickly cured 
The other half may be endured.” 
No more her heart the shadow wore; 
She grew a little child once more. 
A little child in love and trust, 
She took the world—as we, too, must— 
In happy mood; and, lo! it grew 
Brighter and brighter to her view! 
She made of life—as we, too, should— 
A joy; and, lo 1 all thingB were good 
And fair to her, as in God’s sight, 
When first He said, •' Let there be light 1” 
-w - 
THE POLICY OF LOVE. 
** Do anything but love,” Miss Landon once 
wrote. It was very poor couubcI to her kind. An 
unloving woman is one with the finer part of her 
woman nature dormant. To see such an one goiDg 
through the years fairly alone, however many may 
surround her, with none of the sweetness of her 
life going out to sweeten and purify some other life, 
is very sad, very regretful. 
True, love has wrecked many a woman's life; but 
the lack of it has wrecked many another. Not so 
manifestly, perhaps, but just as completely. Wo¬ 
man was made to love. It is one of the necessities 
of her nature that 6he should love, if her nature 
is to be properly developed and fully beautified. 
Affection for kiadred will not satisfy; only the in- 
tenser, the diviner flow of feeling which crowns her 
womanhood will satisfy. 
Hut may there not be a policy in love? Miss 
Landon- has answered the question in her verse. 
Having said “ Do anything but love,” she adds: 
“-Or, if thou love, 
And art a woman, hide thy love from him 
Whom thou dost worship. Never let him know 
How dear ho Is; flit like a bird before him; 
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to Uower; 
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird, 
Wheu caught aud caged, be left to pine neglected 
And perish iu forgetfulness.” 
There is somewhat of truth in this philosophy; 
or rather, it is true in some cases. A certain amount 
of coyness in the woman he loves oftentimes has an 
attraction for a man which is singularly strong. 
With some men, we doubt not, womaukiud ought 
to make use of a policy in their loving. There are 
some natures that take delight only in a kind of ex¬ 
citing chase after love, and these, when once assured 
that a woman’s whole heart-wealth is given them, 
are soon satiated, aud weary of it. For such, a 
woman would be hardly safe to manifest unre¬ 
strained love, even after marriage. To lead snch 
men “from tree to tree, from flower to flower,” 
would be to give wedded life an added sweetness, 
in their regard, and so would increase the happiness 
of both. 
Yet there are many noble, loyal masculine na¬ 
tures, to whom any policy in love would be utterly 
distasteful; who ask a full and perfect surrender of 
the heart's treasures; and receiving that,—knowing 
they hold complete equivalent for their largess of 
love,—arc thereafter ever glad and content. A man 
of this class finds his supreme earthly enjoyment in 
knowing how dear he is to one loving and trusting 
heart. The knowledge sanctifies him, in a certain 
sense. It keeps him. out of eiu and wickedness; it 
is the good angel which continually allures him 
from unworthy things. Knowing that wherever he 
goes he carries with him this sweet burden of love, 
he feels that, It would be absolute sacrilege to carry 
It into any other than a pure atmosphere. 
Let such a man feel a doubt as to the possession 
of full and complete love, and his happiness is in 
the most imminent peril. lie wants no butterfly 
chase after affection; with him love is a something 
to have and to hold forever. Should he- come to 
believe it slipping away from him, he will hardly 
follow. He will say to himself, “I was mistaken; 
I claimed what was never mine; it is best so.” 
And for bimself, and, it may be, for her who is the 
object of his thought, the policy of love has proved 
a veritable curse. 
Woman’s quick intuition can enable her to rightly 
divine between the two characters named. Acting 
upon such divining, her judgment must decide for 
her whether to be politic in manifestations of love 
will be productive of happiness, or the reverse. 
-■*■■»»•» »♦ » > 
MATRIMONY MADE EASY. 
John Res kin, in a late work of his, entitled, 
“ Time aud Tide by Weare and Tyne,” being twenty- 
five letters to a workingman of Sunderland on the 
£awe of work, offers the following plan to make 
matrimony easy aud prosperous: 
Permission to marry should be the reward held in 
eight of the youth during the entire latter part of 
the coarse of their education, and it should be 
granted as the national attestation that the first 
portion of their lives had been rightly fulfilled. 
* * * No girl should receive permission to 
marry before her seventeenth birthday, nor any 
youth before his twenty-first; and it should be a 
point of somewhat distinguished honor with both 
sexes to gain their permission of marriage in the 
eighteenth and twenty-second year, and a recog¬ 
nized disgrace not to have gained it at least before 
the close of their twenty-first or twenty-fourth. 
* * * In every year there should be two festi¬ 
vals, one on the first of May and one on the feast of 
Harvest Home in each district, at which festival 
the permission to marry should lie given publicly 
to the maidens and youths who had won them in 
that half year, and they should be crowned, the 
maids by the old French title of Rosieres, and the 
youth perhaps by some name rightly derived from 
the supposed signification of the word “ bachelor,” 
“laurel fruit,” and so led in joyful procession 
through the city street, or village lane, and the day 
ended with feasting of the poor. * * * And 
every bachelor and rosiere should be entitled to 
claim * * * a fixed income from the State, for 
seven years after the day of their marriage, for the 
Betting up of their homes. 
THE VALUE OF PERSONAL BEAUTY. 
It has been said that Madame de Stael would glad¬ 
ly have exchanged her rare mental endowments for 
the gift of beauty; aDd there are some w ho appear to 
think this one of her wisest sayings, instead of a 
momentary weakness; who seem inclined to hold up 
this confession as a warning to girls not to emulate 
intellectual attainments, but to cultivate the more 
feminine charms of beauty and gracefulness which 
shall bring all hearts beneath their sway, and make 
them queens in a wider and more eacred realm then 
the world of mind. Girls are only too willing to for¬ 
get the good old maxims their mothers taught them, 
such as “ Beauty is only skin deep;” “ Handsome is 
that handsome does;” and accept as their highest 
aim the attainment of the ait of pleasing, and as the 
surest means to this end the cultivation of personal 
charms. The broom and dishcloth are discarded 
that hands may he soft and white; the dance is fre¬ 
quented to accquire graceful movements; expensive 
and suicidal styles of dress are adopted to set off the 
fine points of face and figure; time, thought, energy, 
everything is sacrificed on the altar of personal 
vanity. 
Bat when we behold, in consequence, a generation 
of frivolon6 womtD, shall we blame the fair culprits 
alone for this wanton waste of “life’s grand possi¬ 
bilities ?” Does not part of the sin lie at the door of 
those who have taught them, directly or indirectly, 
that the highest requirement society makeB of them 
is to be beautiful ? Away with such frivolous teach¬ 
ings, and give us such as will lift girls out of selfish¬ 
ness and inanition ! Give them something to think 
of and work for besides themselves—housework if 
that comes to hand and suits their capabilities best— 
If not, let them do anything to take the nonsense out 
of them, and teach them that this ie a busy working 
world they live in, and that every one who breathes 
its air and eats the fruits thereof is in honor bound 
to bear some part in its toil, to work forsomenobler 
end than personal adornment. 
Yet beauty is not to be despised. It is a glorious 
gift, albeit sometimes a dangerous one to its posses¬ 
sor. Let her on whom so rich a dower is bestowed, 
rejoice with trembling, while she earnestly strives to 
use the influence it gives her for high and noble ends. 
Let her reverence the body God has so adorned, and 
seek to make the soul within a worthy inmate of so 
beautiful a temple. An ancient traveler among the 
cities of Egypt, wrote of magnificent fanes, whose 
exquisite carvings and gorgeous tapestry and splen¬ 
dor of gold and jewels enraptured the eye, but whose 
inner shrine was filled by Borne paltry idol or disgust¬ 
ing beast or reptile. StraDge incongruity! Yet how 
far more strange and sad it Is, when in a lovely hu¬ 
man form, that fair temple of God’s own building, 
we see enshrined a worthless toy, or more appalling 
still, some coiling serpent of deceit, some fierce wild 
beast of passion or selfishness or pride.— Advance. 
♦« ♦ « » 
THE LITTLE WOMAN. 
As a rule, the little woman is brave. When the 
lymphatic giantess falls into a faint, or goes off into 
hysterics, she storms, or bustles about, or holds on 
like a game terrier, according to the work on hand. 
She will fly at any man who annoys her, and bears 
herself as equal to the biggest and strongest fellow 
of her acquaintance. In general 6ho does it all by 
sheer pluck, aud is not notorious for subtlety or 
craft. Had Delilah been a little woman she would 
never have taken to shear Samson’s locks. She 
would have defied him with all his strength un¬ 
touched on his head, and she would have overcome 
him, too. Judith and Jael were both probably 
large women. The work they went about demand¬ 
ed a certain strength of muscle and toughness of 
sinew; but who can say that Jezebel was not a 
small, freckled, auburn-haired Lady Andley of her 
time, full of the consecrated fire, the electric force, 
the passionate recklessness of her type? Regan 
and Goneril might have been beautiful demons of 
the same pattern; we have the example of the Mar¬ 
chioness de Brinvilliers as to what amount of spirit¬ 
ual deviltry can exist with the face and manner of 
an angel direct from heaven; and perhaps Cordelia 
was a tall, dark-haired girl, with a pair of brown 
eyes, and a long nose sloping downward. 
On the whole, theu, the little women have the 
best of it. More petted than their bigger sisters, 
and infinitely more powerful, they have their own 
way, in part, because it really does not 6eem worth 
while to contest a point with such little creatures. 
There is nothing that wounds a man’s self-respect 
in any victory they may get or claim. Where there 
is absolute inequality of strength there can be no 
humiliation in the self-imposed defeat of the 
stronger; and as it is always more pleasant to have 
peace than war, and as big men for the most part 
rather like than not to put their necks under the 
tread of tiny feet, the little woman goes on her way 
triumphant to the end, breaking all the laws she 
does not like, and throwing down all the barriers 
that impede her progress, perfectly irresistible and 
irrepressible in all circumstances and under any 
conditions .—Saturday Review. 
-■ »♦«-» » ♦» - 
GOSSIPY PARAGRAPHS. 
“ I’m afraid you don’t like babies when they cry,” 
said a matron to a gentleman, as she tried to soothe 
the darling in her arms. “Oh, yes,” said he, “I 
like them best when they cry, because I’ve always 
observed that then, they are invariably carried out 
of the room.” 
The Queen of Spain having sold her necklace to 
Madame Musard for £34,000, the ex-Queen of Naples 
has followed her example, aud has sold a pearl and 
diamond necklace, which has been in the Neapoli¬ 
tan royal family for several generations, to a celeb¬ 
rity of the world of Anonymous for £15,000. 
An impatient couple in Chesterfield Co., Va., 
were married in a buggy a few days ago. The affi¬ 
anced bride made a journey to Richmond to select 
the wedding trousseau. When she returned by rail 
she was met by her lover with a top buggy to carry 
her home. On the road they met the pastor of 
their church, and as the license had already been 
obtained, the impatient and too eager bridegroom 
insisted upon the ceremony being performed at 
once,—the preacher on horseback, aud they in the 
carriage,—with a farmer and his wife, who happened 
to he present, as witnesses. 
The Woman’s Club in New York, known at first 
as the Blue Stocking Club, bnt finally re-christened 
the Sorosla, has not proved a perfect success. It is 
said that from the outset all has not been entirely 
harmonious, and that owing to serious dissensious, 
some of the original landers,— Alice and Pikebe 
Caky, Kate Field, and a dozen others,—have re¬ 
tired, and are quietly planning another and more 
modest organization for the social benefit and art. 
elevation of the clever of the sex. The name, the 
lunches, the reporting of the proceedings, and 
Madame Demobest, the milliner, were the stum¬ 
bling blocks in the way of the seceders. 
Choice IffMIang. 
Written for Moore’s Knral New-Yorker. 
THE FOOT BRIDGE. 
BY MARIE B. LAUD. 
Throughout the lone hours of the day 
How many tread its yielding plank 
That safely bear them on their way 
Across the stream to either bank. 
A motley throng, in eager haste 
To chase their phantom, though it flies; 
Once grarping it they hope to taste 
The blisefhl joys of Paradise. 
And yet what thoughts beat through the brain 
In time with footsteps fast or slow,— 
What hopes they carry in their train. 
Or what unrest, we may not know. 
Could all their fancies take dim form, 
And borer in the ambient air, 
How strange and sad an outward charm 
That little quiet bridge would wear. 
But to that bridge who will, repairs; 
And passing, leaves no other trace 
Than that which constant treading wears 
Upon its hard, endnring face. 
Yet on our varied way? in life 
We leave the marks where we have been, 
Disclosing in the restless strife 
The silent path we tread within. 
Written for Moore's Kural New-Yorker. 
FARMING. 
BY MBS. B- M. LINCOLN. 
“ Better stay on the farm a while longer, 
Though profit comes in rather slow, 
Remember you’ve nothing to risk, boys, 
Don’t be in a hurry to go! ” 
Farming is glorious employment, and has always 
seemed to me a most exalted one, from the fact that 
God placed the first man whom he made in His own 
image, in a beautiful garden “ to dress it and to keep 
it.” Dear indeed to our first parents most have been 
their first home, and sad for them and their toiling 
children that sin drove them from it. 
Though we who are representatives of the /soil find 
it cursed with thorns aud thistles, aud in the sweat 
of our face eat. our bread, yet there is a satisfying 
pleasure with all, making our attachment stronger 
for the dear old farm every day. The old farm! 
Not a spot of it but is sacred and loved; not a field of 
it but we’ve watched with tender, loving interest. 
Our flret borne, too: every tree, shrub and flower 
we’ve planted with our hand, watched and tended, 
and nurtured them, too, like very pets. 
The beautiful orchard, set only a little time, how 
fine it looks this spring; and what delicious pears 
aud apples those thrifty young trees bore last year. 
Leave the farm? No, indeed! Stay on it, live on 
it, and enjoy the good that comes from patient, per¬ 
sistent effort. 
1 get almost indignant, though, sometimes, when 
I hear city-bred people talk, aDd,— more than (hat,— 
when the would-be aristocrats of our small towns 
raise their lofty beads aud suffer their tongues to 
ridicule country people, half of them, too, country 
people themselves, retlied from the “ horrible farm.” 
Should all who might, ’eave their farms,—should all 
who have had great in if 'k ments offered them to go 
iDto the city, go,—fa It j.-. odnets would very soon 
get beyond reach of BOfie of these lofty people, who 
think farming is so disgraceful. Their wheat might 
prove corn, and their butter minus. Ye who think 
fanning so ignoble, remember Adam wasn’t placed at 
a stall to sell peanuts and candy, nor in a long, nar¬ 
row prison to sell dry goods. 
Even though by sin a curse fell upon the earth, it 
is bounteous aud beautiful still; and the farmer who 
loves bis employ can make his farm a very garden 
even, “by the sweat of his brow.” He can have an 
allegiance to God and not he driven from his cher¬ 
ished and chosen heritage. Since it is growing so 
popular to “sell out” and retire to the city, maDy 
are affected with this “begira,” and thus the farms 
often pass Into inexperienced hands, (for the rush 
has been made by elderly men, those who knew how 
to do farming well,) and younger men have succeeded 
these, who, after a little time, grew discouraged, or 
caught the prevailing mania and followed to the city. 
The rare facilities for culture and refinement in the 
city may attract many; ease aud fashion may attract 
others; while more are from their foolish pride led 
there. When they hear the country and its repre¬ 
sentatives “made fun of;” when told that these 
uncouth people can’t appreciate anything elegant, 
and care nothing for rare architecture and frescoed 
ceilings; they resolve they will not he classed among 
the illiterate herd, so off to the city they go. 
O, young men, don’t suffer your pride to driveyou 
from the farm. Show yourselves men, indeed, who 
can and will make your business honorable and ex¬ 
alted. To neglect your farm would degrade it aud 
you; to farm thoroughly and well must surely give 
you an independent spirit, and cause you to justly 
value your own mauliuees. While the city would 
afford you great and good meaxs for cultivation,— 
while you might mingle with the noblest and best 
men aud women,— remember the very Sodom of sin 
and temptatatiou which the city so often proves to 
young men. 
How many pure and spotless sons and daughters, 
choosing the glitter and glare, the fashion and folly 
of city life, have left the quiet farm home, —left 
father and mother,—and in a few short months have 
been utterly ruined. Yes, they studied refinement, 
they grew polite, they dressed fashionably, they 
scoffed at “country people,” and lost their purity, 
their simplicity, their truth, their character. Stay 
on the farm. Buy books, take plenty of papers, 
attend lectures within your reach, form debating 
clubB at home, and societies for considering and 
adopting improvements in farming, to do it better 
and more thoroughly, and if you are not happy and 
content the farm won’t be to blame. 
Canandaigua, N. Y., 1868. 
--- 
Personal Influence.— Blessed influence of one 
true loving soul upon another! Not calculable by 
algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, ef¬ 
fectual, mighty as the hidden process by which the 
tiny seed is quickened, and bursts forth into tall 
stem, and broad leaf, and glowing tasseled flower. 
Ideas are often poor ghosts; onr sun-filled eyes can¬ 
not discern them; they pass athwart us in thin va¬ 
por, and can not make themselves felt. But some¬ 
times they are made of fie6h; they touch us with 
soft, responsive hands; they look at us with sad, 
sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; 
they are clothed in a living human soul, with all its 
conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then their presence 
is a power, then they shake as like a passion, and 
we are drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as 
flame i 3 drawn to flame.— Blackwood's Magazine. 
- ■».»»»>*>- 
He that would reprove the world, must be one 
whom the world cannot reprove. 
El, 
m 
A BREATH OF JUNE. 
Somebody,—Frank Taylor, we guess,—has said 
that heaven is nearest to ns just about the leafy 
month of June. One who misses the gradual unfold¬ 
ing of the spring’s beauties, who in the early June 
days goes out from the city’s monotonous din, and 
finds forest and mead in all the freshness of their 
summer livery,— can well believe the saying true. 
For such an one the charm of newly developed 
leaves and blossoms is perfect, and as powerful as 
though the development of leaf and blossom were 
bnt. the work of a moment. It is as though we 
slept last night with the naked branches sighing 
mournfully above ns, and awoke this morning to 
hear the ^Eolian mtisia of boughs rich and glad with 
verdure. 
We looked the youDg June full in the face, the 
other day. We felt that we must see her, before 
she wandered off somewhere to find an hundred 
other Junes that have played truant and gone to 
make beautiful years with no Decembers in them, 
and so we forsook the Rural sanctum,— left, vexa¬ 
tions manuscripts, and dropped onr peD, — turned 
onr back npon city walls,—and found tbe beauty we 
were in search of, hiding In the green fields, out 
among the violets and ihe strawberry blossoms. 
What if the evenings bo sometimes regretful? — 
there are glorious mornings! And one of these glad¬ 
dened the world as we mounted the old stage and 
went bowling acroee the country. The clear, bracing 
air seemed surcharged with vitality ; the woods and 
fields wore the cheeriest smile of all the year; verily, 
it was the time above any other for an “outside” 
ride. Atop the old stage, then,—a vehicle which 
yet haunts the railroad like a memory,—and beside 
a driver whoso four-in-hand recollections droveaway 
back to the gopd old days of staging on the Albany 
and Cherry Valley Turnpike, we enjoyed a breath of 
Jnne worth more than a whole November, with per¬ 
haps a short February thrown in! It was even suf¬ 
ficient to call forth a mental blessing on the old 
stage coach, albeit remembrances of sundry other 
by no means as agreeable rides upon its kind were 
neither vague nor few. 
PERTINACITY OF A BIRD. 
“A robin,” says Mr. Jesse, “lately began itsnest. 
in a myrtle, which wa6 placed in the hall of a house 
belonging to a friend of mine In Hampshire. As 
the situation was considered rather an objectionable 
one, the nest was removed. The bird then began to 
build another on the cornice of the drawing-room, 
but as this was a still more violent intrusion, it was 
not allowed to he completed. The robin, thus 
baffled in two attempts, began a third nest in a new 
shoe, which was placed on a shelf in my friend’s 
drawing-room, It was permitted to go on with its 
work until the nest wa3 completed; but as the uew 
shoe was likely to be wanted, and as it would not be 
benefited by being used as a cradle, the nest was 
carefully taken out and deposited it an old shoe, 
which was put in the situation of the new one. 
Here what remained to be done was completed; the 
undcr-purt of the shoe was filled with oak leaves, 
the eggs were deposited in the nest, and in due time 
hatched, the windows of the room being always left 
a little open for the entrance and egress of the birds. 
My friend informed me that it was pleasing to see 
the great confidence the robin6 placed in him. 
Sometimes, in the morning, the old birds would 
settle on the top of his glass, nor did they 6eem the i 
least alarmed at his presence.” 
-■«».»♦«.».- 
COMMON EVENTS OF LIFE. 
Of old times, Michael ADgelo took his copies 
from the persons in the streets, and wrought them 
out on the walls and the ceiling of the Vatican, 
changing a beggar into a giant, and an ordinary wo- 
mau who bore a basket of flowers on her arm into 
an angel; and the beggar and the flower-girl stand 
there now in their lustrous beauty, speaking to eyes 
that wander from every side of the green world. 
The rock slumbered in the mountain, and he 
reached his hands out and took it, and gathered 
the stones from the fields about him, and built 
them into that awful pile, which, covering acres on 
the ground, roaches up its mighty dome toward 
heaven, constraining the mob of the city to how 
their foreheadB and to vow great prayers to God. 
Bo, out of the common events of life, out of the 
passions put by God into your hearts, you may 
paint on the walls of your life the fairest figures, 
angels and prophets. Out of the common stones 
of your daily work you may build yourself a temple 
which shall shelter your head from all harm, and 
bring down upon you the inspiration of God.— 
Theodore Barker. 
-- 
SANDWICHES. 
The prettiest lining for a bonnet is a pretty face. 
How to find happiness—look in a dictionary. 
Something always on hand—your thumb. 
Representation of Minorities. — Photographs of 
children. 
“You are very pressing,” as the filberts said to 
the nut-crackers. 
Why is a ki6s like scandal? Because it goes from 
mouth to mouth. 
“Give the devil his due,” but be careful there 
isn’t much due him. 
Some ladies use paint as fiddlers do resin — to aid 
them in drawing a how. 
What is that which by losing an eye has nothing 
left hut a nose? A noise. 
A New Orleans gentleman calls the negro a 
“remnant” of the dark ages. 
The lady who had a “ Bpark” in her eye has kin¬ 
dled a “ mateh” without trouble. 
When a woman bestows her hand upon a man, can 
be be said to bear away the palm ? 
The latest novelty iu Bewing machines is one that 
will follow the thread of an argument. 
Whenever the soul is in grief, it is taking root, 
and when it is in smiles it is taking wing. 
I am going to draw this beau into a knot, as the 
young lady said wheu standing at the hymeneal altar. 
We too often make our happiness depend upon 
things that we desire, whilst others would find it in 
a single one of those we possess. 
__ 
THRIFT. 
My ships are blown about the world, 
From Heart’s Content to iceless Ind ; 
The tides play out, the winds, come down 
And perils follow tide and wind. 
When Fancy tricks me into dreams, 
I see my love in royal rooms— 
More than a queen when all are queens, 
And kings beside her sown like grooms. 
Meanwhile she spins her wheel indoors, 
Beginning when the days begin; 
“We shall not want’’— her very words— 
“ Though never ship of thine come in.” 
1 
f 
J>aMatlt fkatUufl. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
A SOLEMN QUESTION. 
BY BBRRY BRIAR. 
How near are we to the viewless ehore? 
We drift along on the sea of life, 
With its cares, its gains, its petty strife; 
We weep for those that are passing o'er,— 
They glide along and are seen no more. 
How near are we to the promised land? 
We cling to the earth and rtf sordid gains; 
Shall we dwell forever amid its pains ? * 
Ah! we think with tears of the broken band, 
We feel that oor hopes are built on sand. 
Does Death, the ferryman, watch and wait 
As still awhile we stop to play 
With the gilded toys that hedge onr way? 
Does he see ne draw, with certain doom 
And heedless steps, towards the tomb? 
How near are we to death’s tideless sea? 
O, let ms be ready to embark. 
Tho’ we sail alone and the way seems dark, 
Jesus, onr brother, has gone before, 
He reaches his hand from the other shore. 
-- ♦.»♦»- ♦-- 
GOD’S WORD EVER-ABIDING. 
We find the following beautiful thoughts In the 
North British Review: 
It is a matter of congratulation that the Bible has 
passed triumphantly through the ordeal of verbal 
criticism. English infidels of the last century 
raised ft premature paean over the discovery and 
publication of so many various readiDg6. They 
imagined that the popular mind would be rudely 
and thoroughly shaken, that Christianity would 
be placed in imminent peril of extinction, and that 
the Church would be dispersed, and ashamed at 
the sight of its Magua Charta. But the result ha& 
blasted all their hopes, and the oracles of God are 
found to have been preserved in immaculate in¬ 
tegrity. 
Tbe storm which shakes the oak only loosens the 
earth around its roots, and its violence enables the 
tree to strike its roots deeper in the soil. So it 
is that Scripture has gloriously surmounted every 
trial. These gather around the Bible a dense 
“cloud of witnesses,” from the ruins of Ninevah 
and the valley of the Nile; from the slabs and bas- 
reliefs of Sennacherib, and tombs and monuments 
of Pharaoh; from rolls of Chaldee paraphrast, and 
Syrian versionifits; from the cells and libraries of 
monastic scribes, and the dry and dusty labors of 
scholars and antiquarians. 
Onr present Bibles are undilated by the lapse of 
ages. Their oracles written amid such strange di¬ 
versity of time, place and condition—amoDg the 
sands and cliffs of Arabia, the fields and hills of 
Palestine—in the palaces of Babylon, and in the 
dungeons of Rome—have come to ub in such un¬ 
impaired fullness and accuracy, that we are placed 
as advantageously toward them as the generation 
ivhich hung on the lips of Jesus, as He recited a 
parable on the shores of the Gallilean lake, or those 
churches which received from Paul or Peter one of 
their epistles of warning exposition. 
Yes! the river of life, which issues out from be¬ 
neath the throne of God and the Lamb, may, as it 
flows through so many countries, sometimes bca; 
with it the earthly evidences of its conquests, but 
the great volume of its waters has neither been 
diminished, nor dimmed in its transparency, nor 
bereft of its healing virtue. 
--» »«♦>. »- 
WHAT ONE SIN WELL DO. 
There was but one crack in the lantern, and the 
wind has found it out, and blown out the candle. 
How great a mischief one unclouded point of 
character may cause us! One spark blew up the 
magazine and shook the whole country for miles 
around. Ooe leak sank the vessel and drowned all 
on board. One wound may kill the body—one Bin 
destroy the soul. 
It little matters how carefully the rest of the 
lantern is protected, the one point which is damaged 
is quite sufficient to admit the wind; and so it little 
matters how zealous a man may be in a thousand 
things, if he tolerates one darling sin; Satan will find 
out the flaw and destroy all his hopes. The strength 
of a chain is to be measured, not by its strongest, 
but by its weakest liuk, for if the weakest snaps, 
what is the use of the rest ? Satan is a very close 
observer, and knows exactly where our weak points 
are; we have need of very much watchfulness, and 
we have great cause to bless our merciful Lord who 
prayed for us that our faith fail not. Either our 
pride, our sloth, our ignorance, our anger, or our 
lust would prove our ruin unless grace interposed; 
any one of our senses or faculties might admit the 
foe, yea, our very virtues and graces might be gateB 
of entrance to our enemies. O, Jesus, if thou hast 
Indeed bought me with thy blood, be pleased to keep 
me by thy power even unto the en&.—Sjmrgeon. 
QUARRELLING WITH GOD’S WORD. 
There are few sins more dangerous than picking 
quarrels at God’s Word and taking up weapons 
against it. It will prove a burdensome Btone to 
those that burden themselves with it. Therefore, 
whenever our crooked aud corrupt reason doth 
offer to except against the ways of God as unequal, 
we must presently conclude, as God doth, that the 
inequality is iu us, and not iu them. Every wicked 
man doth, though not formally and explicitly, yet 
really and in truth, set up liis own will against 
God's, resolving to do what pleaseth himself, and 
not that which may please God; and consequently 
folio weth that reason and council which wait upon 
his own will, and not that Word which revealeth 
God’s. Yet because he that will serve himself 
would fain deceive himself too, (that so he may be 
able to do it with less regret of conscience,) and 
would fain seem God’s servant, bnt he his own; 
therefore, corrupt reason sets itself on work to ex¬ 
cogitate such distinctions and evasions as may Berve 
to reconcile God’s Word and a man’s own lust to¬ 
gether. —Bishop Reynolds. 
- - - 
The Central Good.— It is hard for us to get at 
the central kernel of things. We stop half way and 
feed ourselves on shells and husks. In religion every¬ 
thing depends on getting at the center, and thi6 cen¬ 
ter is love. He who, by faith, has penetrated into 
ibis mystery, is blessed above his fellows. To him 
the Divine law has assumed the form of his own 
personal good pleasure; to him who is himself pure, 
alt things are pure; to him the whole material 
universe is but one grand temple of the Most High, 
iu which the forces of nature and the lives of the 
pure are forever united in one harmonious anthem 
of praise and thanksgiving. 
<S>a5 .cni -r*N. 
