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TRUE WISDOM.

neighborhood, or family do not culti

LIGHT.

Surely it is true wisdom to consider vate a kind and affectionate temper, our present existence, with its cares, there will be discord and every evil joys, sorrows, relationships, and en- work." Lone Star," an American gagements, as a scene of discipline and Paper. trial, yet as a sphere where we may become blessed, be made blessings, and be trained up for a glorious des- Edwin Sherratt, in the introduction tiny. We should, therefore, study to his "Popular Treatise on Light," "every-day life" in the light of infal- says, "What an immense and unlible truth, and with relation to that bounded field does light throw open coming existence, compared with to our vision-enabling us to gaze which the present, with all its noise into the spacious atmosphere by sunand turmoil, its songs and sighs, its lit day, or moon or star-lit night. It gettings and its losings, is but "a is in itself a grand and indescribable vapour, which appeareth for a little phenomenon, and it must have been while, and then vanisheth away." created by a Being possessing an Sketches and Lessons from Daily Life Almighty hand, and an eye of infinite by FELIX FRIENDLY.

THE EVIL OF A BAD TEMPER.

wisdom. When we gaze into the firmament by night, or look into the azure vault, lighted by one central luminary by day, the reflecting mind is smitten with mysterious awe at the imposing sight!"

EXTRAORDINARY CHARITABLE

DISPOSITION.

A foreign jew named Simeon Cafton, whilst rich was exceedingly charitable. Having sunk into poverty, and consequently unable to give money himself, this benevolent man to satisfy the cravings of his heart and his long cherished charitable disposition, actually performed the work of a common laborer, in order to gain the means for relieving the distressed.

A bad temper is a curse to its possessor, and its influence is most deadly wherever it is found. It is allied to martyrdom to be obliged to live with one of a complaining temper. To hear one eternal round of complaint and murmuring, to have every pleasant thought scared away by their evil spirit, is a sore trial. It is like the sting of a scorpion-a perpetual nettle, destroying your peace, rendering life a burden. Its influence is deadly; and the purest and sweetest atmosphere is contaminated into a deadly miasma wherever this evil genius prevails. It has been said truly, that while we ought not to let the bad temper of others influence us, it would be as unreasonable to spread a blister upon Honor the good, that they may love the skin, and not expect it to draw, thee; be civil to the bad, that they as to think of a family not suffering may not hurt thee. Lend money to because of a bad temper of any of its an enemy, and thou'lt gain him; lend inmates. One string out of tune will to a friend and thou'lt lose him. destroy the music of an instrument Withhold not thy money where there otherwise perfect, so if all the members is need, and waste it not where there of either a church, Sunday school, | is none.

GOOD ADVICE.

RICHARD I.

Foulques de Neully, a celebrated preacher of his day, addressing himself in a prophetic style to Richard I. King of England, told him he had three daughters to marry, and that, if he did not dispose of them soon, God would punish him severely. "You are a false prophet," said the King; "I have no daughter." "Pardon me, sir," replied the Priest," your Majesty has three, Ambition, Avarice, and Luxury; get rid of them as fast as possible, else assuredly some great misfortune will be the consequence." "If it must be so then," said the King, with a sneer, "I give my Ambition to the Templars, my Avarice to the Monks, and my Luxury to the Prelates."

INGRATITUDE.

Ingratitude is a crime so shameful, that there never was a man found that would own himself guilty of it. The ungrateful are neither fit to serve God, their country, nor their friends. Ingratitude perverts all the measures of religion and society, by making it dangerous to be charitable and goodnatured: however, it is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than to be wanting to the distressed,

The

to keep it till he should meet with
one who was a greater fool than him-
self. Not many years after, the noble-
man fell sick, even unto death.
fool came to see him. His sick lord
said to him, "I must shortly leave
you."-" And whither are you going?"
said the fool.-"Into another world,',
replied his lordship.—“And when will
you come again? Within a month ?"
66 No."-
"No."-" Within a year?”
"When then?" "Never."-"Never!"
said the fool: "and what provision
hast thou made for thy entertainment
there, whither thou goest?"
at all."-"No!" said the fool, "none
at all! Here, then, take my staff;
for, with all my folly, I am not guilty
of any such folly as this."

ETIQUETTE.

"None

It has been urged as an excuse for etiquette, that it produces, or is conducive to good order. But upon analyzing the forms, they are found, for the major part, to be nothing more than polite ceremonies, to blind the proud, the foolish, and the unwary; and in their garb many of the worst injuries to private society are effected. Depend upon it the Truth does not require dressing. Error alone needs artificial support; Truth

Great minds, like Heaven, are pleas'd with do- can stand by itself."
ing good;

Though the ungrateful subjects of their favours
Are barren in return.

DEATH.

ABORIGINAL IGNORANCE. When the Tumbese Indians first heard the crowing of Chanticleer, "O that they were wise, that they they supposed he was talking to them, would understand these things, and and therefore eagerly inquired what consider their latter end!" Death is he said; and Pizarro having taken a the introduction into an eternal state; negro with him, they set about washand to live unprepared for it must, ing his face, but finding that they therefore, be the extreme of folly.-A could not in the least impair the certain nobleman kept a fool, to whom blackness of it, they all burst out he one day gave a staff, with a charge laughing.

PUNCTUALITY.

CHRISTIANITY AND

Washington was a minute man.

INFIDELITY.

An accurate clock in the entry at Infidels should never talk of our Mount Vernon controlled the move- giving up Christianity, till they can ments of the family. At his dinner propose something superior to it. parties, he allowed five minutes for Lord Chesterfield's answer, therefore, difference of watches, and then waited to an infidel lady was very just. for no one. If members of Congress When at Brussels, he was invited by came at a late hour, his simple apology Voltaire to sup with him and with was, "Gentlemen, we are too punctual Madame C. The conversation hapfor you;" or, "Gentlemen, I have a pened to turn upon the affairs of Engcook who never asks whether the land. "I think, my lord," said Madame company has come, but whether the C., "that the parliament of England hour has come." Nobody waited for consists of five or six hundred of the General Washington. He knew the best informed and most sensible men value of time, and would not consent in the kingdom." "True, madame, to be robbed, or to rob others, of that they are generally supposed to be so." which could never be restored, or "What, then, my lord, can be the paid for. reason that they tolerate so great an absurdity as the Christian religion?" "I suppose, madame," replied his lordship, "it is because they have not been able to substitute any thing better in its stead: when they can, I don't doubt but in their wisdom they will readily adopt it.

SOLITUDE.

Solitude is the hallowed ground which religion has in every age chosen for herself. There her inspiration is felt, and her secret mysteries elevate the soul. There falls the tear of contrition; there rises towards heaven the sigh of the heart: there, the soul melts with all the tenderness of devotion, and pours itself forth before Him who made and redeemed it.

UNNECESSARY MODESTY.

WHAT IS GRATITUDE ?

At a public examination of a school for educating the Deaf and Dumb at Paris, the following question was put to a pupil of the Abbé Sicard :'What is gratitude?' when he answered with great quickness, 'the memory of the heart.'

BAD PRECEPT.

"where

'My grandfather,' say Mr. Orton, once asked a very excellent but "Tell me," said a gentleman to a modest minister to pray in his family, poor drunkard, when urging him to when there were several others pre-give up the intoxicating cup, sent; he desired to be excused, alleg-it was you took your first steps in this ing that he had not thought of it, and intemperate course?" there were so many other ministers ther's table," replied the unhappy "At my fapresent. My grandfather replied, young man ; "before I left home to "Sir, you are to speak to your become a clerk, I had learned to love Master, and not to them; and my the drink that has ruined me. Bible tells me, He is not so critical first drop I ever tasted was handed and censorious as men are."" me by my now broken-hearted mother.

The

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small pittance, he deliberated with himself for a long time whether he should lay it out in the purchase of something to allay his hunger, or of a pair of shoes, of which he was in extreme want; and his countenance expressed the deep interest he felt in this consultation. A merchant, seeing his embarrasment, asked him the cause, which he ingenuously confessed to him; and did so in a manner so agreeable, that the merchant, perceiving him to be a man of talent, took him home with him, to dinner, and thus settled the question. When Sixtus became Pope, he did not forget his old friend the merchant, but repaid

LIFE'S SALT.

Courage is an occasional act or effort of the soul; patience, a continuous habit. Courage is the mission of some; patience, the duty of all. Courage courts observation, and sustains itself by every possible outward prop and stimulus; patience, is as a prince the service he had received lovely and quiet-its warfare is within, as a beggar. its victory without sound of trumpet, for the eye of God and the award of heaven. Courage may give its strength Riches have made more men coveto evil, and may nerve the arm of the tous than covetousness hath made thief or the manslayer; patience, rich. As much as you excel others in dwells only in the bosom of piety, and fortune, so much ought you to excel always beholds the face of her Father them in virtue. Let great actions in heaven.-Rev. A. P. Peabody. encourage greater; and let honor be your merit and your design. Recreation is a second creation, when weariness has almost annihilated one's spirits One hundred hours of vexation, says the Italian proverb, will not pay a farthing of debt. False wit like false money, only passes current with those who have no means of comparison. The clouds that intercept the heavens from us come not from the heavens, but from the earth.

THE RULING PASSIONS. M. P called on me one day, at the time when daily regulations were taking place in Paris, with regard to the change of the coinage. He told me he had just been visiting M. de L., a rich banker, who was on the point of death. The dying man, after telling him he was perfectly reconciled to the will of God, and recommending himself to his prayers, turned to him as he was leaving his bed-side, and said to him, "Well-any news of specie to-day ?"— Valesiana.

POVERTY & PROSPERITY. Pope Sixtus V. was so poor when he came to Rome, that he was obliged to ask alms. Having at last saved a

LEARNING.

Human learning gives place to the knowledge of the word of God. A scholar, in the near view of eternity, said to his mother, "I have been endeavouring to obtain one of the highest seats in the literary world, but I can now willingly resign it, to obtain the lowest seat in heaven.'

THRONES AND KINGDOMS.

MEAN MEN.

"The liberal soul shall be made Bajazet, after his capture, observing his conqueror to laugh at him, said, fat; and he that watereth shall be "Do not laugh at my misfortunes, watered also himself." How true that Tamerlane: it is God that has subdued is, even in all the relations of life. me, not you. He is able to reverse The liberal man never loses anything our situations, and to undo to-morrow by his generosity. On the contrary, what he has decreed to-day." Tamer- he gains by it for " he shall be watered lane, assuming a more serious counte- also himself" in return; and yet, nance, replied, "I did not laugh with strange as it may seem, the world is any design of exulting over you, but half full of niggardly, mean, pennyfrom a sudden impression of the low wise men. When will these men estimation in which thrones and king- have their eyes opened? When will doms must be held in heaven, since they divorce themselves from their royalty has been bestowed on such a littleness ? blink-eyed man as you are, and such a limping one as myself.

DOES SUCH A QUALITY AS

REASON EXIST?

There are persons of much talent who treat reason as a chimerical existence, and wholly insufficient to demonstrate great metaphysical truths. But this is a mere sophism on their part; for in denying the existence of reason they do it with the aid of reason, or not in the latter case, they fail in their argument; and in the first, they betray their own cause, and establish that which they have undertaken to deny.

DEPLORABLE IGNORANCE. It is related by a minister who resided at Bedford, that in taking a ride one afternoon, he overtook a decent-looking woman on the road, to whom, after a little conversation on other subjects had passed, he said, 'Good woman, you seem to be an intelligent person, pray, do you know anything of the Lord Jesus Christ?' She replied, 'No, sir; there is no such nobleman living hereabouts that I know of,'

THE GLORIOUS SUN.

Many have been the souls overwhelmed with gratitude while contemplating this "sublime illuminator of worlds',-this "diamond of the heavens"-this "golden lamp of God." Amongst them we have Thomson, the roet, who beautifully sings of the sun, when he says,

"Prime cheerer of all light!

of all material things first and best!
Effiux divine! Nature's resplendent robe !
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom! And thou, O Sun!

Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best scén,
Shines out thy Maker, may I sing of thee!"
And another poet, Baker, says of him,

"Along the sky the sun obliquely rolls,
Forsakes by turn, and visits both the Poles;

Different his track, but constant his career.

Divides the time, and measures out the year;
To climes returns where freezing winter reigns,
Unbinds the glebe, and fructifies the plains;

Vines crown the mountain tops, and corn the

The crackling ice dissolves, the rivers flow,

[vales below."

Of the sun when setting, the poet,
Rogers says-

"Lo! the sun is setting, earth and sky,
One blaze of glory;

And lessening to a point,

Shines like the eye of heaven."

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