LIX.-VARIETIES. 1.-PURE AIR. 1. NOTHING is more detrimental to health than foul air. The air drawn into the lungs is the great purifier of the blood; from the blood every part and fiber of the body receive growth and nourishment; and if this be allowed to carry impurities through the system, health will be speedily destroyed. Either immediate death, or eventual disease, will unavoidably ensue. As you are going to rest at night, suspend a bird at the top of your curtained bedstead, on the inside, and you will find it lifeless in the morning. It is for this reason that domesticated birds are so fre quently short-lived and sickly. They need to inhale the free air from the lakes and mountains. 2. Washington Irving remarks, that, on his endeavoring to sleep in a close room, after his famous wild-wood rambles in the west, he found the air so oppressive as almost to banish sleep from his eyelids. Dr. Franklin states, that he seldom or never slept in a room, at home or abroad, either in summer or in winter, without having raised in his apartment one or more of the windows. Let parents, teachers, and invalids be sure to furnish for themselves, and for those under their guardianship, the purest air that circulates about them. Many a cheek will look fairer, and many a heart will beat fuller and freer, if all will attend to this salutary caution. 2.-THINKING. MAN may see and hear, and read and learn, whatever he pleases, and as much as he pleases-he will never know any thing, except that which he has thought over; that which, by thinking, he has made the property of his mind. Man, by thinking only, becomes truly man. Take away thought from man's life, and what remains? 3.-FRETTING. 1. "FRET not thyself," says the Psalmist. Mankind have a great proneness to fret. Their business does not prosper; customers do not pay promptly; competition is sharp; friends prove treacherous; malice and envy hurl their shafts; domestic affairs go contrariwise; the wicked seem to prosper, while the righteous are abased. In every lot there is ample material of which to make a goad, that may pierce and rankle in our souls, if we are only so disposed. Disease is ometimes acute coming on suddenly in the midst of health, raging violently through the system, causing fever and racking pains. So with fretting. At times it overtakes the constitutionally patient and gentle. Strong provocations. assail them unawares, throw them off their guard, and cause an overflow of spleen. 2. Diseases, however, often assume the chronic type, hecoming imbedded in the system, deranging its organs, interfering with the performance of the natural and healthful functions, and lingering, year after year, like a vampire, to extract the vital juices. In like manner fretting becomes chronic. Peevishness, irritability, censoriousness, and complaining, indulged in, assume a habit. It arguesa sadly diseased condition of the soul, when this distemper of fretfulness becomes one of its fixtures. To such an one every thing goes wrong. The whole mechanism of society is thrown out of gear; and instead of moving smoothly, as when lubricated by the oil of kindness and charity, its cngs clash, and its pivots all grate harshly. LX.-POETICAL SELECTIONS. 1.-FAITH AND DUTY. 1. SOMETHING ever doth impress us 2. There's a silent, voiceless teacher, Unto each weak, earth-born creature 3. Trust the high hopes that impel us, They alone can well fortell us, Human works how frail and brief: He will guide, and guard, and love us, 4. Heed the heavenly aspirations Earth would be a paradise. 2. MORAL COURAGE. NEAL BERNARD DARE nobly then; but, conscious of your trust, But chief, be steady in a noble end, And show mankind that truth has yet a friend. 3.-WORK. WORK with your hands, work with your mind, Build ye a temple, hew out a stone, Do ye a work, just to call it your own. PC PE Write out a thought-to lighten the labor Of that one who reads, it may be your neighbor. Bearing along the bright and the gay; Having bestowed on the source of your birth Garlands in works, to brighten the earth! HENRY PROVERD. LXI. VARIETIES. 1. RULES FOR CONVERSATION. 1. THAT conversation may answer the ends for which it is designed, the parties who are to join in it must come together with a determined resolution to please and be pleased. As the end of the conversation is either to amuse or instruct the company, or to receive benefit from it, you should not be eager to interrupt others, or uneasy at being yourself interrupted. 2. Give every one leave to speak in his turn, hear with patience, and answer with precision. Inattention is ill manners, and shows contempt, and contempt is never forgotten. 3. Trouble not the company with your own private concerns. Yours are as little to them as theirs are to you. Contrive, but with dexterity and propriety, that each person shall have an opportunity of discoursing on the subject with which he is best acquainted; thus, he will be pleased, and you will be informed. When the conversation is flowing in a serious and useful channel, never disturb it by an ill-timed jest. 4. In remarks on absent people, say nothing that you would not say if they were present. "I resolve," says Bishop Beveridge, "never to speak of a man's virtues before his face, nor of his faults behind his back." This is a golden rule, the observance of which would, at one stroke, banish flattery and defamation from the earth. 2. GOOD SENSE. 1. GOOD sense will preserve us from censoriousness, will lead us to distinguish circumstances, keep us from looking after visionary perfection, and make us see things in their proper light. It will lead us to study dispositions, pecu liarities, accommodations; to weigh consequences; to determine what to observe, and what to pass by; when to be immovable, and when to yield. 2. Good sense will produce good manners, keep us from taking freedoms, and handling things roughly; will never agitate claims of superiority, but teach us to submit ourselves one to another. Good sense will lead persons to regard their own duties, rather than to recommend those of others. LXII. LITERARY PURSUITS AND ACTIVE BUSINESS. 1. HEED not the idle assertion that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life. Point out to those who make it, the illustrious characters who have reaped, in every age, the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes, forging, by the light of the midnight lamp, those thunderbolts of eloquence, which "Shook the arsenal, fulmined over Greece, To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." 2. Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whe ther Cæsar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from heaven and the scepter from the hands of the oppressors. 3. Do they say to you that study will lead you to skepti. cism? Recall to their memory the venerable names of Ba con, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure? Tell them they are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. KIDD.-17 |