- Frail king of dust, man loves to look around
And think,-"For me the elements abound
With life and motion; shade and sunshine wait
In mix'd attendance on my human state;
Light, sea, and air, their glorious spell maintain,
That I alone as Lord of Earth may reign!"
And yet, what art thou ?-but a fleeting breath,
A pulse of life, that throbs away in death!
Myriads of creatures round thee move and die,
Minute beyond the ken of mortal eye;
Perfect as thine, their bright existence teems
With beauty, in a paradise of beams;
Or, in some crystal world of water play,
A floating populace of insects gay:
And He who bade exalted man to be
An image of His own eternity,

To them alike their form and features gives,
And not a mote but in His memory lives!

R. Montgomery.

There is a pow'r

Unseen, that rules th' illimitable world,

That guides its motions, from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould;
While man, who madly deems himself the lord
Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence.
This sacred truth, by sure experience taught,
Thou must have learnt when wandering all alone,—
Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky,
Was more sufficient for itself than thou.-Thomson.

Prudence.

Daughter, the happiness of life depends
On our discretion, and a prudent choice:
Look into those they call unfortunate,

And, closer viewed, you'll find they were unwise;
Some flaw in their own conduct lies beneath :
And 'tis the trick of fools, to save their credit,

Which brought another language into use.-Young.

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendour cannot gild, and exclamation cannot exhilarate,—those soft intervals of unbended amusement in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels, in privacy, to be useless encumbranees, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution. It is indeed at home that every man must be known, by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious benevolence.

- When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection;

Which, if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model?

Pulpit.

There stands the messenger of truth; there stands

The legate of the skies: his theme divine,

His office sacred, his credentials clear.

By him the violated law speaks out

Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet,
As sweet as angels use, the gospel whispers peace.
He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak,
Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,
And, arm'd himself in panoply complete

Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms
Bright as his own.-Cowper.

There seems an implied agreement between preachers and people, that the peace is to be kept upon most of the real practical interests of morality.

Punctuality.

There is not a single office, or profession, or vocation, from the high duties of the monarch to the drudgery of the dustman, that does not owe half its honour and success to punctuality and attention.

- "I will be there to the minute, my lord," said a tradesman to Lord Nelson. “Be a quarter of an hour beforehand,” replied the great man; "I owe everything in the world to being always a quarter of an hour beforehand."

— If you desire to enjoy life, avoid unpunctual people. They impede business, and poison pleasure. Make it your own rule not only to be punctual, but a little beforehand. Such a habit secures a composure which is essential to happiness; for want of it many people live in a constant fever, and put all about them in a fever too.

— Method is the very hinge of business, and there is no method without punctuality. Punctuality is important, because it promotes the peace and good temper of a family : the want of it not only infringes on necessary duty, but sometimes excludes this duty. The calmness of mind which it produces is another advantage of punctuality. A disorderly man is always in a hurry; he has no time to speak to you, because he is going elsewhere; and, when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to another before he can finish it. Punctuality gives weight to character. "Such a man has made an appointment.' “Then I know he will keep it." And this generates punctuality in you; for, like other virtues, it propagates itself. Servants and children must be punctual when the head of the family is so. Appointments, indeed, become debts. I owe you punctuality, if I have made an appointment with you, and have no right to throw away your time, if I do

my own.

Purity:

Men will say to thee, Be pure before the eye of day-be pure before the gaze of the world !—but I say to thee, Be pure before the eye of night-be pure in the most concealed of thy sentiments, in thy imagination!

Quarrels.

Catch not at quarrels. He that dares not speak
Plainly and home, is coward of the two.

Think not thy fame at every twitch will break :
By great deeds show, that thou canst little do;
And do them not: that shall thy wisdom be;
And change thy temperance into bravery.—Herbert.

R
Rain.

Nature's guano, and the Cockney's plague.-One of the attendants on vegetation giving instructions in the art of shooting.

Rainy Day.

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ;
It rains, and the wind is never weary :
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,

And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ;
It rains, and the wind is never weary ;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick on the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining:
Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

The two rarest things in all nature are, a disinterested man, and a reasonable woman.— Warburton.

Reading.

Most people read merely to pass an idle hour, or to please themselves with the idea of employment, while their indolence prevents them from any active exertion; and a considerable number with a view to the display which they are afterwards to make of their literary acquisitions. From whichsoever of these motives a person is led to the perusal of books, it is hardly possible that he can derive from them any material advantage. If he reads merely from indolence, the ideas which pass through his mind will probably leave little or no impression; and if he reads from vanity, he will be more anxious to select striking particulars in the matter or expression, than to seize the spirit and scope of the author's reasoning, or to examine how far he has made any additions to the stock of useful and solid knowledge.— Dugald Stewart.