men of action; we die without it; nay, we go faster and faster as the years go by, speed our machinery to the utmost, stretch the silver cord of life until it snaps. We have not even leisure to die a natural death; we go at high pressure until the boiler bursts. We have actually changed the type of our diseases, to suit our changed constitution. Instead of the lingering maladies of our fathers, we drop down and die of heart disease or apoplexy. Even death has adopted our terrible gait.

"It is not work that kills men," says Beecher; "it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. But worry is rust upon the blade. It is not movement that destroys the machinery, but friction."

The busy bee stops not to complain that there are so many poisonous flowers and thorny boughs in his path, nor that disgusting bugs and flies are but soiling the flower from which he would gather sweets, but buzzes on, sucking up honey wherever he can find it, and passing quietly by the places where it is not.

"It is not the cares of to-day," says George Macdonald, "but the cares of to-morrow that weigh a man down. For the needs of to-day we have corresponding strength given."

"How much have cost us the evils that never happened!" exclaims Jefferson.

"Do not anticipate trouble," says Franklin, " or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight." Charles Lamb tells of a chronic grumbler who always complained at whist, because he had so few trumps. By some artifice his companions managed to deal him the whole thirteen, hoping to extort some expression of satisfaction, but he only looked more wretched than ever as he examined his hand. "Well, Tom," said Lamb, "have n't you trumps enough this time?" "Yes," grunted Tom, "but I've no other cards."

The Puritans went through life tormented with the

fear of sin and terror of the Judgment Day, and their melancholy taints their descendants. We are a nation of dyspeptics. We can earn our bread, but cannot digest it. We believe "there is not a string tuned to mirth, but has its chord of melancholy," that evil always stands behind good, and that the devil always has the whisk of his tail in everything. It seems impossible for some people to rid themselves of an inherent gloom which colors their whole life. They cannot enjoy a beautiful day. To them it is only one of those infernal" weatherbreeders." Their lives are set to a minor key, and they hear only plaintive sounds. Our religious creeds, philosophy, and hymns are tinged with the spleen of jaundice of unfortunate authors who sometimes mistook bile for inspiration.

Many writers have honestly believed they were giving the world valuable religious doctrines, when in reality they were writing an account of their own jaundice and dyspepsia.

Calvin, though unquestionably honest, was a dyspeptic and could eat but once a day. Who can say that his writings were not tinged by his malady? How can men shut out from the pure air and sunlight in convents and studies, away from the great throbbing, pulsing heart of Nature and humanity, write healthy, vigorous, religious doctrines for a hardy, healthy, robust, and practical world?

We should fight against every influence which tends to depress the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. A depressed mind prevents the free action of the diaphragm and the expansion of the chest. It stops the secretions of the body, interferes with the circulation of the blood in the brain, and deranges the entire functions of the body. Scrofula and consumption often follow protracted depression of mind. That "fatal murmur” which is heard in the upper lobes of the lungs in the first stages of consumption, often follows de

pressed spirits after some great misfortune or sorrow. Victims of suicide are almost always in a depressed state from exhausted vitality, loss of nervous energy, dyspepsia, worry, anxiety, trouble, or grief.

Christ the great Teacher did not shut himself up with monks, away from temptation of the great world outside. He taught no long-faced, gloomy theology. He taught the gospel of gladness and good cheer. His doctrines are touched with the sunlight, and flavored with the flowers of the fields. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and happy, romping children are in them. True piety is cheerful as the day.

Joy is the mainspring in the whole
Of endless Nature's calm rotation.
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great timepiece of Creation.

SCHILLER

CHAPTER X.

A FORTUNE IN GOOD MANNERS.

Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes wherever he goes; he has not the trouble of earning or owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess. - EMERSON. With hat in hand, one gets on in the world. - GERMAN PROVERB. What thou wilt,

Thou must rather enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to it with thy sword.

SHAKESPEARE.

Politeness has been compared to an air cushion, which, although there is apparently nothing in it, eases our jolts wonderfully. — GEORGE L. CAREY.

Birth's gude, but breedin 's better. SCOTCH PROVERB.

You had better return a dropped fan genteelly than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; and you had better refuse a favor than grant it clumsily. Manner is all in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your air, your manner, if good, may. - - CHESTERFIELD.

Conduct is three fourths of life. MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I learnt that nothing can constitute good breeding that has not good nature for its foundation. - BULWER.

The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in her presence. GEORGE ELIOT.

"WHY the doose do 'e 'old 'is 'ead down like that?" asked a cockney sergeant-major angrily, when a worthy fellow soldier wished to be reinstated in a position from which he had been dismissed. "Has 'e 's been han hofficer 'e hought to know 'ow to be'ave 'isself better. What huse 'ud 'e be has ha non-commissioned hofficer hif 'e did n't dare look 'is men hin the face? Hif ha man wants to be ha soldier, hi say, let 'im cock 'is chin hup, switch 'is stick habout ha bit, han give ha crack hover the 'ead to hanybody who comes foolin' round 'im, helse 'e might just has well be ha Methodist parson."