LIFE.

WE deliberate, says Seneca, about the parcels of Life, but not about Life itself; and so arrive all unawares at its different epochs, and have the trouble of beginning all again. And so, finally, it is that we do not walk as men confidently toward death, but let death come suddenly upon us.

VENT AU VISAGE

FAIT UN HOMME SAGE.

When Hercules was taken up to the consistory of the Gods, he went up to Juno first of all, and saluted her.

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How," said Jupiter, "do you first seek your worst enemy to do her courtesy ?"

"Yea," said Hercules, "her malice it was made me do such deeds as have lifted me to Heaven."

German.

PRECEDENCY.

1.

A QUESTION of precedence arose among the beasts. "Let Man be the judge," said the Horse, "he is not a party concerned." "But has he sense enough," said the Mole, "to distinguish and appreciate our more hidden excellencies ?"

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Ay-can you vouch for that?" said the Ass. But the Horse said to them, "He who distrusts his own cause is most suspicious of his judge."

2.

"By what scale, O Man, wilt thou

Man was sent for. measure us?" said the Lion. fulness to me," said Man.

"By the measure of your use

"Nay then," replied the Lion, "at that rate the Ass is worthier than I. You must leave us to decide it among ourselves."

3.

"There,” cried Mole and Ass, "you see, Horse, the Lion thinks with us!"

4.

But the Lion said, "What, after all, is all the dispute about? What is it to me whether I am considered first or last? Enough-I know myself." And he strode away into the forest.

German.

IMAGINARY EVILS.

I AM more afraid of my friends making themselves uncomfortable who have only imaginary evils to indulge, than I am for the peace of those who, battling magnanimously with real inconvenience and danger, find a remedy in the very force of the exertions to which their lot compels them.

W. Scott.

A gentleman of large fortune, while we were seriously conversing, ordered a servant to throw some coals on the fire. A puff of smoke came out. He threw himself back in his chair, and cried out, "O Mr. Wesley, these are the crosses I meet with every day!"

Surely these crosses would not have fretted him so much if he had had only fifty pounds a year instead of five thousand. John Wesley.

"On n'est point malheureux," wrote Horace Walpole to Madame Du Deffand, "quand on a loisir de s'ennuyer.”

ACTION AND ASPIRATION.

66 NEVER SIGH, BUT SEND."

Nihil lacrimâ citius arescit. Cicero.

THE danger of a polite and elegant education is, that it separates feeling and acting; it teaches us to think, speak, and be affected aright, without forcing us to do what is right.

The

I will take an illustration of this from the effect produced on the mind by reading what is commonly called a Romance or Novel. Such works contain many good sentiments; characters too are introduced, virtuous, noble, patient under sufferings, and triumphing at last over misfortune. great truths of religion are upheld, we will suppose, and enforced; and our affections excited and interested in what is good and true. But it is all a fiction; it does not exist out of a book, which contains the beginning and end of it. We have nothing to do; we read, are affected, softened, or roused; and that is all; we cool again: nothing comes of it.

Now observe the effect of all this. God has made us feel in order that we may go on to act in consequence of feeling. If, then, we allow our feelings to be excited without acting upon them, we do mischief to the moral system within us; just as we might spoil a watch, or other piece of mechanism, by playing with the wheels of it; we weaken the springs, and they cease to act truly.

Accordingly, when we have got into the habit of amusing ourselves with these works of fiction, we come at length to feel the excitement without the slightest thought or tendency to act upon it. And since it is very difficult to begin any duty without some emotion or other, (that is, on mere principles of dry reasoning,) a grave question arises, how, after destroying the connexion between feeling and acting, how shall we get ourselves to act when circumstances make it our duty to do so? For instance, we will say we have read again and again of the heroism of facing danger, and we have glowed with the thought of its nobleness. We have felt how great it is to bear pain, and to submit to indignities, rather than wound our conscience; and all this again and again, when we had no opportunity of carrying our good feelings