san* 
iafiiM’ f cprtracttt. 
THE GUESTS OF THE fiEAET. 
Soft falls throagh the gathering twilight 
The rain from the dripping eaves, 
And stirs with a tremulous rustle 
The dead and the dying leaves; 
While afar in the midst of the shadows, 
I hear the sweet voices of bells 
Come borne on the -wind of the Autumn, 
That fitfully rises and eweds. 
They call and they answer each other— 
They answer and mingle again— 
As the deep and the shrill in an anthem 
Make harmony still in their strain; 
As the voices of sentinels mingle 
In mountainous regions of snow, 
Till from hill top to hill top a chorus 
Floats down to the valleys below. 
The shadows, the fire light of even, 
The sound of the rain's distant chime, 
Come bringing, with rain softly dropping, 
Sweet thoughts of a shadowy time: 
The slumberous sense of seclusion, 
From storm and intruders aloof, 
We feel when we hear in the midnight 
The patter of rain on the roof. 
When the spirit goes forth In its yearnings, 
To take all its wanderers home, 
Or, afar In the regions of fancy 
Delights on swllt pinions to roam, 
I quietly sit by the fire-light— 
The fire light so bright and eo warm— 
For I know that those only who love me 
Will seek me through shadow and storm. 
But should they be absent this evening, 
Should even the household depart— 
Deserted, I should not be lonely; 
There still would be guests in my heart. 
The faces of friends that 1 cherish, 
The smile, and the glance, and the tone, 
Will haunt me wherever I wander; 
And thus I am never alone, 
With those who have left far behind them 
The joys aud the sorrows of time— 
Who sung the sweet songs of the angels 
In a purer and holier clime! 
Then darkly, O evening of Autumn, 
Your rain and your shadows may fall; 
My loved and my lost ones you bring me— 
My heart holds a feast, with them all. 
[Chambers' Journal. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
IS WOMAN MENTALLY INFERIOR? 
fed with the right food, will finally narrow down to 
just the demands made upon it. It is a fact that 
many of ns American women are truly troubled 
Marthas. The many duties devolving upon us 
compel us to be 60 . It is impossible for us to 
“step out of the groove in which we are running,” 
and to which, oftentimes, onr fathers and husband 6 
themselves condemn us by their money-making and 
money-saving habits; and how are we to “rise 
above these circumstances that would and do en¬ 
slave us?" 
Alas! if we dare step out of the narrow track in 
which our foremothers have walked for generations, 
we are dubbed “strong-minded,” which, spoken by 
masculine lips, means everything that is indelicate 
and unwomanly, and which, applied to us, is a 
strong term of reproach. Will some philanthropist 
who has the welfare of mankind close to his or her 
heart tell us, that we may teach our daughters, how 
we are to acquire and retain that blending of indus¬ 
try and intellectuality, of physical and mental per¬ 
fection, which constitute the 
“ — perfect womaD nobly planned,” 
and which alone can hold in flowery chains our 
lovers and husbands ?—and also how best .to appre¬ 
ciate their kind condescension in noticing us at all ? 
And then, when we have bad our dormant faculties 
aroused, and our aspirations have become more ele¬ 
vated, with our natural aptness to learn and quick¬ 
ness to adapt, shall we not outstrip our self-suffi¬ 
cient lordB, and compel them to look upward, with 
envious yet admiring eyes, to our far distant com¬ 
prehensive minds ? Aud will they not wish us to 
descend again to terrestrial things, and be the same 
little, plain, unpretending, know-nothing women of 
“lang syne?” For, indeed, the other sex must 
know, by the many examples of smart and talented 
women we have in our days, that woman can be¬ 
come both capable and intellectual if she chooses; 
and if women, as a class, leave the fields of nobler 
gleaning to the opposite sex, it is because their 
gentlene6B and affection find a more congenial field 
in the exercise of domestic duties as affectionate 
Bisters, wives and mothers, and as ministering 
angels to the sick and unfortunate. Bbrrt Briar. 
Choice fpsttMang. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
TWO MOODS. 
BY CLIO STANLEY. 
“ memory’s bitter-sweet.” 
Oh, for the Summer loDg, long dead, 
With beauty of varied bloom! 
The days slide down to the silent Past, 
And the flowrets to their tomb. 
Oh, for the bine of Summer skies, 
And breath of Summer air; 
But, most of all, for the bonny one 
Who made the Summer fair! 
Bring her again in her robes eo soft, 
With her wealth of golden hair, 
And let her kneel at my footstool here 
Repeating her tender prayer. 
Can it be that my darling no longer needs 
Love and a fond caress ? 
Must my trembling lips no longer glow 
Her upturned brow to bless t 
She comes not when the heavy night 
Gathers the shadows here; 
The night grows long while the shadows fall, 
And the silence grows so drear! 
There is no out-look of hope or rest, 
No miracle for me,— 
The gray clouds drift o’er the summer sky, 
On, on o’er the summer sea. 
‘as a little child. 
Come into the garden bowers I I am content! 
With this hunch of starry flowers, 
With the golden, sunny hours. 
With my quiet, soft gray towers 
Where the birds sing to the flowers. 
7 am content! 
WARM CLOTHES. 
With the violet’s tender blue! I am content! 
Never was there rarer hue, 
Never bine that seemed so true; 
Many flowers bloom for you, 
But for me, a very few. 
7 am content! 
An article in the Rural of Aug. 1st, entitled 
“ The Mental Outreach of Woman," set me to 
querying if woman, by devoting herself to the 
necessary round of home duties, does actually limit 
the capacity of her miud, or does unfit herself to 
he the intellectual companion of her wiser, better 
informed, and smarter-generally better-half. To 
solve this query I am assiduously sifting all the 
people of my acquaintance, and trying to find out, 
by actual observation, if, as regards intelligence, 
women are chaff and men are wheat. Thus far I 
have found nothing which leads me to believe that 
Buch is the case. Taken as an example, any score 
of men in ordinary middle station are not so intent 
on storing their minds with all sorts of useful 
knowledge, or on soaring with ambitious eagle 
wings far above the highest flight of their poor lit¬ 
tle pigeons at home, as they are in observing the 
haps and mishaps of their fellows, and, above all, 
in striving to obtain a goodly store of dollars, 
which, albeit they are goodly things and convenient 
to have, cannot supply every need. Moreover, the 
striving after dollars is not a vocation, taken in 
itself, that is likely to broaden the mind or quicken 
the intellect. 
It is often said “Matches are made in Heaven.” 
If the saying be true, why do people get so awfully 
mismated oa this otherwise well regulated planet? 
Why do we so often see a man with fine tastes and 
high aspirations joined irrevocably to one who has 
no ambition outside of her domestic duties,—whose 
life is centered in her good house-wifery, her chil¬ 
dren and their clothing,- and her capacity to please, 
with her culinary skill, the gastronomic tastes of 
her family and guests, — who makes these little 
things the end and aim of existence, — who never 
stops to think that there are other needs than the 
mere physical wants of the body; the need of the 
soul for companionship, its inborn longing for kin¬ 
dred, its hopes, aspirations aDd sympathies ? And, 
on the other hand, we often see a woman—or a 
lady, if you please —who has delicate tastes and 
feelings, — who loves the refined and beautiful in 
nature,—who can appreciate a good book, poem or 
picture, or auy work of art,—whose soul rejoices in 
all the good and lovely things our Creator has given 
us, but whose hands must always be busy with ar¬ 
duous and urgent duties,—whose mind would soar 
if it could, but who must look on a coveted volume 
as forbidden fruit,—with a better half wholly insen¬ 
sible to the sacrifice she > makes, because, having no 
sympathy with her tastes and pursuits, he cannot 
perceive it. She must choke back her tears at the 
vague sense of the uncongeniality of tbeir hearts, 
for her practical companion sees no beauty in any¬ 
thing less substantial than the realities of life, and 
his and her own wearing duties in the sphere in 
which they are. placed. We are not speaking now 
of those in the highest station, nor yet of those 
who are compelled to labor with head and hand for 
daily bread; but of those whom Providence has 
placed in the happy middle station, — who have 
enough for their wants and something for luxuries. 
After all, leaving individual cases, and supposing 
woman mentally inferior, how is she to become in¬ 
tellectual ? Her education is rather superficial as 
conducted by modern seminaries. She is taught to 
consider showy accomplishments as more to be de¬ 
sired than profound learning of ’ologies and mathe¬ 
matics. She leama by intuition that as a general 
thing literary ladies are not attractive to the other 
sex; and she desires, of course, to please them, as 
is perfectly natural, so she only cultivates those 
branches that shall make her pleasing in the eyes of 
father, brother or future husband. After marriage, 
and the round of domestic duties is entered upon, 
and children come to claim her time and open new 
channels of affection, how is she to bend her ener¬ 
gies to some new and unexplored field, in order to 
keep pace with her husband ? 
But the question is, will a woman be a better wife 
and mother in proportion as her intellect is devel¬ 
oped and kept active? No doubt she will be; but 
how is she to reach that point, under her present 
system of education, with father, brother and others 
discouraging her by the slighting way in which they 
treat an intellectual lady, and the profound defer¬ 
ence they pay to a weak little doll with a pretty 
face, who has no higher motive in life than to copy 
the latest fashion plate in her dress ? And allowing 
her to have a well developed mind, how is she to 
be kept up to that point as the mother and manager 
- of a household? For the mind, if not constantly 
In choosing a warm dress get it as light as you 
can. Think how light animals, which have to en¬ 
dure great cold, are clothed. What is lighter than 
feathers and fur ? A bear can thus teach us a lesson 
of civilized science, and a goose can impart wisdom. 
The principle of the advice given by the wise man, 
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard," might well be ex¬ 
tended to the example of the way in which the 
Creator clothes the- dumb animals he has made. 
They are not heavily laden, unless, indeed, it is 
necessary to protect them with armor, but even 
then the material used is remarkable for its combi¬ 
nation of lightness with strength. The tortoise is 
shielded more by the arched shape of its shell than 
by Its thickness. 
There are some animals which float in water 
which are covered heavily, bnt the weight of their 
clothes facilitates their movements in the elements 
in which they are intended to live, inasmuch as it 
enables them to sink to the depth necessary for 
them to subsist in. But for the warmth, weight is 
needless, and for equable warmth, weight is a posi¬ 
tive hindrance, since a heavy dress adds the heat of 
pressure to that of protection to those more prom¬ 
inent parts of the figure upon which it rests. If 
you want to be warm, choose a material that is not 
only thick but light, and when yon wish to be pro¬ 
tected from wind as well as still cold, wear under 
or over a woolen or furry fabric, the thinnest im¬ 
pervious texture you .can get. Then yon have an 
arrangement similar to that with which the animals 
of cold climates are provided — namely, thin skin 
and thick feathers or hairs .—Leisure Hours. 
All my eager bands can hold! I am content! 
Sunlight fades, but leaves the gold 
For the heartB, alert and bold, 
Ivy covers up the mold 
That seemed once eo dark and cold. 
7 am content! 
All the good Lord seeth beet! I am content! 
With strong confidence in Him 
That no grief can ever dim; 
With a sense of utter loss 
Save through Hie beloved cross! 
7 am content! 
Philadelphia, Autumn. 1868. 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
THE STRATA OF CHARACTER. 
CONTACT WITH THE WORLD. 
It is by coming in contact with people that we 
improve; we must see life as it really is. We can¬ 
not concur in the opinion that young children ought 
to see only that which is pure and good. They 
must meet the world as it is, and meet it when 
young. They must have the opportunity to com¬ 
pare. Comparison is a great power in the formation 
of character. 
A young lady that has seen nothing of real life, 
and only knows what Bhe has heard aud read, is 
greatly astonished when she meets the distinguished 
men aud women of any country. They are not equal 
to her standard, Young people may be made better 
by contact with that which is not so good. Instead 
of falling themselves, they should try to make the 
bad good. To be thrown in early life among all 
classes and conditions of people ought to be esteem¬ 
ed an advantage rather than a misfortune. The 
people from whom we can obtain the most sensible, 
the truest and wisest views of life, are found among 
those who struggle for an existence. No one can 
truly understand life unless be has suffered. A 
truly wise mother might justly be distressed if her 
child never knew grief.— Mrs. Hanks, 
GOSSIPY PARAGRAPHS. 
Jean Paul says, “ Remembrance is the only para¬ 
dise out of which we cannot be driven away.” 
Ms. Short says the only thing he can pay these 
times is his addresses to the ladies; and these he 
never allows to get overdue. 
They are having marriages on horseback out 
West. They are called bridle ceremonies, but the 
husband must give the wife the rein. 
The girls in England have taken to cricket. This 
is a better game than the lazy croquet, but then 
there is no chance to flirt in it. 
An old bachelor thinks that the trains of ladies' 
dresses are infernal machines, from the fact that a 
blowing up took place directly after he put his foot 
on one. 
Flesh-colored gaiters, with the toes6tiched with 
black, to look as if the foot was bare, are reported 
to be the newest mode. They are said to have a 
shockingly natural effect. 
“I have never felt willing,” said Dr. Dewey in 
one of his lectures, “in performing the marriage 
ceremony to use the word obey in reference to the 
wife—wedlock being a state of entire reciprocity.” 
When little Jane, the moral miss, 
Declares 'tie very wrong to kiss, 
I’ll bet a shilling I see through it; 
The damsel fairly understood. 
Feels just as any Christian should, 
She'd rather suffer wrong than do it 1 
Several gentlemen, having praised the Queen of 
Prussia as an excellent connoisseur of works of art, 
Madame Ratazzi said:—“Bab, gentlemen, France 
eclipses Prussia even in this respect. If the Queen 
of Prussia is an excellent connoisseur of works of 
art, the Empress of the French is herself a work 
of art." 
As one by one the layers of organic and inorganic 
matter are piled up to form our world, so in the 
structure of character we lay up our strata to form 
the grand whole of human existence. Like the 
older nnstratifled rocks, the impressions of our 
early days are a heterogenous mass of the good 
and evil, and havl but few if any traces of order 
or apparent design 5 but as succeeding years ad vance 
the symmetry of *jo structure becomes more and 
more apparent. Every achievement and every fail¬ 
ure is constantly making depressions aud elevations 
that stretch out and extend even to the boundary 
of our lives. As the days go by, the winds and 
waves of fortune are leaving mauy ripple marks; 
and broad, deep streams of influence are washing 
away useless material and leaving wide channels for 
better deposit. 
In this wondrous structure are resources of hid¬ 
den worth more valuable by far to man than the 
wealth of Golconda’s mine or India’s golden sands. 
Nor do we fail to notice the strange configuration 
of the outline of the completed whole. There are 
many, the towering heights of whose genius are 
but barren waste places, adown whose rugged sides 
the bleak winds 6weep, bearing desolation and heart 
ache, and breathing melancholy dirges for lost lives. 
Yet there are others whose noble natures are tower¬ 
ing forests to which all may resort for shelter and 
refreshment, and toward these noble oaks the cling¬ 
ing tendrils of our hearts ever creep. .To the great 
and good we go for strength and protection, and by 
the influence of their good works strive to elevate 
the tone of our own aspirations. 
Experience is a good teacher, we are told. Many 
of us may have proved it to our cost, when we have 
learned that contact with trifling objects has made 
a lifelong impression, like scratches left upon the 
enduring grauite by glaciers in their frozen track. 
Not only in the world's grand laboratory are 
changes constantly being effected, but in the heart 
transformations as important are constantly going 
on. Many of the rough points of our natures are 
being blown to atoms, like the rocks, by the ex¬ 
plosion of unseen forces; and pearly streams of 
purity, having strayed far from the fountain, are 
losing themselves in the weeds and ferns that flour¬ 
ish in the wilderness of the heart. As we know 
that, many times, even the alluvium stratum of earth 
has demanded deep drainage and costly fertilization, 
and we see that many times our country must be 
deluged in the heart’s blood of its best friends to 
insure future prosperity, so often we find the soil 
of the heart needs the plowshare of affliction to 
break up the hardened surface, and to be watered 
with tears ere it bring forth fruit meet for the Mas¬ 
ter’s use. If we notice the order of creation, -we 
can but observe how each succeeding act of Divine 
Power seemed to rise in the scale of greatness. So 
let us hope that each successive accretion to char¬ 
acter shall be more noble than the last, and in the 
end the perfected whole may be a thing so good 
and true and holy that aDgel choirs shall chant new 
praises and bear the glad tidings to the listening 
hosts beyond. Selene. 
HOW TO LIVE. 
Put out thy talentB to their use— 
Lay nothing by to rust; 
Give vulgar ignorance thy scorn, 
And innocence thy trust, 
Rise to thy proper place in life— 
Trample upon all sin, 
But still the gentle hand hold out 
To help the wanderer in. 
So live, in faith and noble deed, 
Till earth returns to earth— 
So live that men shall mark the time 
Gave such a mortal birih. 
PATIENCE. 
If any essential is lacking in the American char¬ 
acter it is patience. Patience is not indifference, or 
indolence, or want of ambition, or trusting every¬ 
thing to Providence. It is simply giving, in every 
plot, plan or expectation, Its proper place to the 
element of time. A man may drive business to the 
utmost, and yet be a model of patience. If be 
recognizes the fact that certain events cannot occur 
until after certain other events, that certain pro¬ 
cesses require so much time and certain others so 
much; if while wasting nothing in unnecessary de¬ 
lays, he never tries to bring about a result before 
its proper tnm ou the programme, which must be 
determined by natural and unalterable conditions, 
as well as his own will, he is practically patient. 
And the exercise of patience is the sublimest, of 
all arts. It is impatience which has given us so 
many shabby railroads, leaky canals, wild-cat busi¬ 
ness concerns, break-neck roads, and bouses uufit 
to live in. It i3 impatience which so often reverses 
the programme of household economy, and puts 
the spending before the earning. It is Impatience 
which makes bad mechanics and superficial stu¬ 
dents. It is impatience which has needlessly creat¬ 
ed the most serious issue of the present political 
campaign —the disposition of the public debt. It 
is impatience which induces so many young men 
and boys te enter callings in which they get imme¬ 
diate pay, and which they are compelled to remain 
in all their lives with little or no increase of remu¬ 
neration. It is impatience which makes so many 
farms large and half cultivated, instead of small 
and thrifty. 
"What we all want is more patience —the recogni¬ 
tion of the fact that time is an element in every 
problem, which cannot be overlooked without viti¬ 
ating the solution. Great results never spring from 
momentary efforts. The brilliant invention, the 
living book, the military triumph, are merely the 
suddenly announced consequences of long contin¬ 
ued processes. The inventor may have been all his 
life turning his one idea over and over, and shaping 
his bits of metal so that it will work harmoniously 
with the laws of mechanics. The author has spent 
years in learning to write a correct paragraph, to 
say nothing of the time required for the collection 
aud arrangement of facts and the transformation of 
plot aud circumstances. The commander has been 
slowly drilled into the mastery of the principles 
whose judicious application makes his day of vic¬ 
tory. The study of natural sciences suggests con¬ 
stantly this suggestive lesson; aud in the latter 
developments of geology the mind is lost in wonder 
at the stupendous example, beneath our feet, of the 
divine art of patience. 
WRITING. 
Many a man’s destiny has been made or marred 
for time and for eternity, by the influence which a 
single sentiment has made on hi6 mind, by its form¬ 
ing his character for life, making it terribly true 
that mdments sometimes fix the coloring of our 
whole subsequent existence. Hence those who 
write for the public should do so under a deep 
Bense of responsibility, and endeavor to do it iu 
that healthful and equable state of mind and body 
which favors a clear, unexaggerated and logical ex¬ 
pression of ideas. If men wrote nothing for print 
until after forty, the world would be happier and 
better, for age and a more extensive and accurate 
observation cause many a change of sentiment in 
later life. 
No one should write when very hungry, or imme¬ 
diately after eating, nor under the influence of any 
unnatural stimulant, nor while in a passion; else, 
in the latter ca3e, he will most certainly make a 
fool of himself. Those who write under a depres¬ 
sion of spirits will always write nonsense or untrue 
things. Those who write a great deal late at night 
will lose their health or die prematurely. The best 
time for writing with freshness, vigor and logical 
truthfulness is in the morning, when the brain has 
been recuperated aud renovated by the natural stim¬ 
ulus of healthful sleep, before its force has been ex¬ 
pended or divided on the common affairs or life. 
No man ought to write over four hours in twenty- 
four, and not over one hour at a sitting; even oft- 
ener, it would be better to walk a few minutes, in¬ 
door or out, to rest the brain; but always write 
when the mind takes hold of the subject, when the 
spirit is on you, be it day or night.— Hall. 
WISDOM IN BRIEF. 
Some do first, think afterwards, and repent forever. 
Wise men make more opportunity than they find. 
Boast of your treasures of grace, and you are soon 
robbed. 
It requires greater virtue to support good than 
bad fortune. 
Beauty unaccompanied by virtue is a flower with¬ 
out perfume. 
Levity of behavior is the bane of all that is good 
and virtuous. 
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but 
they hold him. 
The duty of the happy is to help the suffering to 
bear their woe. 
Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; 
prayers hinder no work. 
We are not worthy of loving truth when we can 
love anything more than that. 
The more any one speaks of himself, the less he 
likes to hear another talked of. 
Good breeding shows itself most when, to an 
ordinary eye, it appears the least. 
Our prayers and God's mercy are like two buckets 
in a well—while the one ascends the other descends. 
The most knowing are the most desirous of knowl¬ 
edge ; the most virtuous are the most desirous of 
improvement in virtue. Ou the contrary, the igno¬ 
rant imagine themselves wise enough; the vicious 
are, in their own opinion, good enough. 
funding, 
THE GOLDEN SIDE. 
There is many a rest on the road of life, 
If we only would stop to take it; 
And many a tone from the better land, 
If the querulous heart would make it. 
To the sunny soul that is full of hope. 
And whose beautiful trust ne’er faileth, 
The grass is green and the flowers ate bright 
Though the wintry storm prevaileth. 
Better to hope, though clouds hang low, 
And to keep the eyes still lifted; 
For the sweet bine sky will soon peep through 
When the ominone clouds are lifted t 
There was never a night without a day, 
Or an evening without a morning; 
And the darkest hour, as the proverb goes, 
Is the hour before the dawning. 
There is many a gem in the path of life, 
Which we pass in our idle pleasure, 
That is richer far than the jeweled crown, 
Or the miser’s hoarded treasure; 
It may he the love of a little child, 
Or a mother’s prayers to Heaven, 
Or only a beggar’s grateful thanks 
For a cup of water giveu. 
Better to weave in the web of life 
A bright and golden filling, 
And to do God’s will with a ready heart, 
And hands that are swift and willing, 
Than to snap the delicate, minute threads 
Of our curious life asunder. 
An then blame Heaven for the tangled ends, 
And eit and grieve ami wonder. 
REVELATION. 
Christians spend far too little time in the study 
of the book of the “Revelation of Jesus Christ, 
which God gave to him to show unto his servants 
things that must shortly come to pass.” “ Blessed 
is he that readetb, and they that hear the words of 
this prophecy, and keep those things that are writ¬ 
ten therein — for the time is at hand " There is a 
general impression that this book is so dark that it 
is impossible to comprehend any of it; and that 
whoever becomes deeply interested in the study of 
it soon gets astray in ms ideas, and makes wild and 
crazy calculations. This is all wrong. If the book 
is a revelation, there is something revealed. If it 
is given to Christians to comfort them and instruct 
them, and strengthen their faith, they ought to use 
aud not fear and shun it. Said a gifted preacher, 
speaking of this portion of the Lord’s word:—“ The 
prophecies are like the Aurora Borealis — they are 
not meant to be understood until fulfilled. They 
are lights in the heavens before us, saying, have 
courage and hope and press forward. God is this 
way. You are marching towards his glorious king¬ 
dom. The lights will be all steady by-and-by. 
Now they are but glancing, glittering intimations 
of what is before.” 
Though much of this sure word of prophecy 
must long remain hidden from us, we may certainly 
understand quite enough of it to encourage us 
during all the triumphs of infidelity, superstition 
and wickedness. We may learn how much of the 
riddle of revelation has already been read, and by 
that may stand the firmer on our faith that all is to 
be accomplished according to the will of onr Lord. 
Think of what the Bible says of the Africans, the 
Arabians, Turks, Jews, Papists, ef Tyre, Babylon 
and Nineveh; also of the seven churches of Asia, 
of Jerusalem and Ryme, and of how every word of 
many of these prophecies has already been accom- 
Xilished, and how fast some of the others are now 
hurrying towards fulfillment, and then be staggered 
by the arguments of infidel, or by the whispers of 
Satan, if you can. — Advance. 
LIFE FROM GOD ALONE. 
In the course of hi6 address at the opening of the- 
Belfast Methodist College, the Rev. W. Arthur, 
President, said: — No man knew the sublime teach¬ 
ing, but the man who felt faith in the active inter¬ 
vention of God for the regeneration of human 
beings. Every visitor to Rome had stood before 
that wonderful horse on the Capitoline Hill, and 
almost fancied that he saw Michael Angelo standing 
before it, and staring at it till it had impressed itself 
upon his soul, and then saying— “Animal! march, 
march.” This was not the utterance of hope, bnt 
of despair. It was his aspiration striking against 
the cage that held in his ambition. With wbat faith 
would that man have gone to work if there was a 
possibility that at some point of his progress, on the 
touch of the chisel, a fire from the unseen world 
wouid enter, and his work would begin to live! 
Now, that was the position of the Christian teacher. 
He was working upon an immortal being, working 
upon the image of God with an instrument pointed 
by God, and moment by moment expecting that 
God liimself would appear in the midst of thqwork, 
and send through it the unseen tire that would light 
up within that 60 ul the principles of eternal life. 
Incarnation. — Humanity was never so honored 
as when Christ allied his divinity to it, when the 
divine “word became, flesh and dwelt among os.” 
Think of a human form on the earth, filled with all 
the splendor of the Shekinah, a tabernacle, of clay, 
with all the fullness of the Godhead! Is it strange 
when dust has been thus honored by being knit to 
divinity, that it shall be honored again; that as 
onr Lord’6 earthly body was like man’s present 
body, man’s resurrection body shall be “fashioned 
like unto Christ’s glorious body,” be as immortal, 
as incorruptible, as glorious ? Every feature beauty, 
every motion grace, every thought praise, and every 
movement ecstacy! 
Love is of the nature of the burning glass, which, 
kept still in one place, lireth; changed often, it 
doeth nothing. 
Men are like bugles; the more brass they contain 
the more noise they make, and the farther you can 
hear them. 
Carefully avoid those vices which most resem¬ 
ble virtue; they are a thousand times the most 
ensnariDg of all vices. 
Your own discontent is that which arms your 
troubles with a sting; you make your burden heavy 
by struggling under it. 
“ Our life is made up of little things.” Our at¬ 
tention to them is the index of our character, and 
often the balance by which it is weighed. 
Engage not hastily, as a party, in a difference be¬ 
tween others, but reserve thyself impartial and 
unengaged, that thou mayest moderate between 
them. 
To be free from desire is money: to be free from 
the rage of perpetually buying something new is a 
certain revenue; to be content with what we possess 
constitutes the greatest and most certain of riches. 
Believing.— It is related of Napoleon, that when 
Marshal Duroe, an avowed infidel, was once telling 
a very improbable story, giving his opinion that it 
was true, the Emperor quietly remarked:—“There 
are some men who are capable of believing every¬ 
thing but the Bible.” This remark finds abundant 
illustrations in every age. There are men all about 
ub, at the present day, who tell ns they cannot be¬ 
lieve the Bible; but their capacities for believing 
everything which opposes the Bible are enormous. 
The greediness with which they devour the most 
far fetched stories—the flimsiest arguments—if they 
only appear to militate against.the word of God—is 
astonishing. 
Truth. —Some one has beautifully said:—“ Truth L 
is immortal; the sword cannot pierce it, lire cannot 
consume it, prisons cannot incarcerate it, famine 
cannot starve it.” 
Said a member of a church to another member 
“ I can give five dollars for this object and^not feel * 
it.” “Then,” said his companion, “give ten and $ 
feel it. Did not the Saviour feel what he did for you?” 
