ning, "has our Creator placed within our reach, by surrounding us with an atmosphere which may be shaped into sweet sounds! And yet this goodness is almost lost upon us through want of culture of the organ by which this provision is to be enjoyed." How much would the general cultivation of the gift of music improve us as a people! Children ought to learn it in schools, as they do in Germany. The voice of music would then be heard in every household. Our old English glees would no longer be forgotten. Men and women might sing in the intervals of their work, as the Germans do in going to and coming from their wars. The work would not be worse done, because it was done amidst music and cheerfulness. The breath of society would be sweetened, and pleasure would be linked with labor.-SMILES. Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass may grow, and his steed starve: as, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates is ever mowing, never whetting; laboring much to little purpose. As good no scythe as no edge. Then only doth the work go forward when the scythe is so reasonably and moderately whetted that it may cut, and so cut that it may have the help of sharpening.-BISHOP HALL. It must always be remembered that nothing can come into the account of recreation that is not done with delight.-LOCKE. There is no position in the world more wearisome than that of a man inwardly indifferent to the amusement in which he is trying to take part. You can watch for game with an invincible patience, for you have the natural instinct, but after the first ten minutes on the skirts of the woods I lay my gun down and begin to botanize. Last week a friendly neighbor invited me to a boarhunt. The boar was supposed to be in the middle of a great impenetrable plantation, and all I did during the whole morning was to sit in my saddle awaiting the exit of the beast, cantering from one point of the wood's circumference to another, as the cry of the dogs guided me. Was it pleasure? A true hunter would have found interest enough in expectation, but I felt like a man on a railway-platform who is waiting for a train that is late.-HAMERTON. Wey-Notes. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. ST. JOHN IV. 34. What should a man desire to leave? A flawless work, a noble life, Some music harmonized from strife, Some finished thing, 'ere the slack hands at eve Drop, should be his to leave. -F. T. PALGRAVE. No man can end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.-SIDNEY SMITH. -Live a life of truest breath, And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. -TENNYSON. Sacrifice and self-devotion hallow earth and fill the skies He who works, and feels he works-he who prays and knows he prays has got the secret of transforming life-failure into life-victory. -F. W. ROBERTSON. Let all the rest remain a mystery, so long as the mystery of the Cross gives us faith for all the rest.-CHARLES KINGSLEY. (232) The Two Helpers. WHISPER came that all our actions bend What then is Charity's reward? I said. The great in soul, by what strong impulse led, Trusting in God until they reach the skies? Goethe, thou hast proclaimed in this one line Weareth no other robe of mystery; The source alike of all great thoughts and deeds, 16 (233) |