bubble of accident on the ocean of time, not as the production of a momentary whim in being, but as the Godwilled and God-stationed, God-like to rule the earth, to serve the purposes which God has writ across the stars and chiselled with his artist hand into the rocks.

Without this thought there can be no ethies. When ethics is truly taught and ethics is preached, whether God be named or not, He is. Why should I live for others? Why should I forego my pleasures? Because I am weaker, perhaps. But I may supply my weakness by cunning. Are right and wrong merely matters of results, not matters of beginnings, of "principles ?" But thousand and one considerations vitiate the calculation of the end. Society may coerce me? Perhaps I am more cunning than all society. Society will punish me? Ah, there are a thousand and one ways of escaping punishment. War of one against all, and all against one, is this the ultimate? God is within us! This thought alone gives dignity to man and sweep to human love.

EMIL HIRSCH.

rest,

IN the peace of hearts at re breast,

In the lives that now surround us,
In the deaths that sorely wound us:
Though we may not understand,
Father, we behold Thy hand.

XXVIII. What is Most Precious in Man.

THE

I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonder

fully made; marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.-Psalm cxxxix. 14.

HE grandeur of man's nature turns all outward distinction to insignificance. His power of intellect, of conscience, of love, of knowing God, of perceiving the beautiful, of acting on his own mind, on outward nature and on his fellow-creatures-these are glorious prerogatives. Through the vulgar error of undervaluing what is common, we are apt, indeed, to pass them by as of but little worth. But as in the outward creation, so in the soul, the common is the most precious. Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent, but these are all poor and worthless compared with the light which the sun sends into our windows, which he pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and love, are of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments which give celebrity to a few. CHANNING.

XXIX.

Prosperous Adversity.

Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel : As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof when I shall bring back their captivity: The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice and mountain of holiness. For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.- Jeremiah xxxi. 23, 25.

For one man that can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity. CARLYLE.

THE poet says: Misery doth bravest mind abate; but

may not prosperity have the same effect? Is it so rare that an increase of wealth causes a decrease of faith in the higher aims of life? that rising in the social scale is accompanied by a sinking into sensualism, and that freedom from ordinary cares leads to bondage to the fashions of the world? If God, by visitations, as it were, tries to call us back from our erring ways, should we murmur at His corrections? Should we refuse to learn the lesson which Shakespeare voiced:

His overthrow heaped happiness on him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself
And found the blessedness of being little.

OUNT each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou
With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;
And ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;

G. G.

Then lay before him all thou hast, allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave

Of mortal tumult to obliterate

The soul's marmoreal calmness: grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;

Strong to consume small troubles; to commend

Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.

AUBREY DE VERE.

XXX. The Artificer of His Own Happiness.

MAN

Great in counsel, and mighty in work, Thine eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways and after the fruit of his doing. Jeremiah xxxii. 19.

AN is the artificer of his own happiness. Let him beware how he complains of the disposition of circumstances, for it is his own disposition he blames. If this be sour, or that rough, or the other steep, let him think if it be not his work. If his look curdles all hearts, let him not complain of a sour reception; if he hobble in his gait, let him not complain of the roughness of the way; if he is weak in his knees, let him not call the hill steep. This was the pith of the inscription on the wall of a Swedish inn, "You will find at Trolhate excellent bread, meat, and wine, provided you bring them with you."

H. D. THOREAU.

R

RABIA.*

OUND holy Rabia's suffering bed

The wise men gathered, gazing gravely— "Daughter of God!" the youngest said,

“Endure thy Father's chastening bravely; They who have steeped their souls in prayer, Can every anguish calmly bear."

She answered not, and turned aside,

Though not reproachfully nor sadly;
"Daughter of God!" the eldest cried,
"Sustain thy Father's chastening gladly;
They who have learned to pray aright,
From pain's dark well draw up delight."

Then spake she out-" Your words are fair;
But, oh, the truth lies deeper still;
I know not, when absorbed in prayer,
Pleasure or pain, or good or ill;
They who God's face can understand,
Feel not the workings of His hand."

A holy Arabian woman,

From "Palm Leaves," by LORD HOUGHTON.

who lived in the second century of the Hegira.