the sweetest chords of pleasure cease to vibrate, who can tell the power of one kind word? One little word of tenderness, gushing in upon the soul, will sweep the long neglected chords, and awaken the most pleasant strains.

When borne down with the trials and troubles of life, we are ready to sink faintly by the way, how like the cheering rays of sunshine, do kind words come! They disperse the clouds, dispel the gloom, and drive sorrow far

away.

Kind words are like jewels in the heart, never to be forgotten, but, perhaps, to cheer, by their memory, a long, sad life; while words of cruelty are like darts in the bosom, wounding, and leaving scars that will be borne to the grave by their victim.

Why is it, then, that we do not always seek, by kind words, to scatter sunbeams along the pathway of others?

CCXI.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

ADVERSITY.

SWEET are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

REVENGE.

-Shakespeare.

MUST I despise thee too, as well as hate thee?
Complain of grief! Complain thou art a man.
Priam from fortune's lofty summit fell;
Great Alexander, 'mid his conquests, mourned;
Heroes and demi-gods have known their sorrows;
Cæsars have wept-and I have had my blow!
But 't is revenged; and now, my work is done!
Yet, ere I fall, be it one part of vengeance
To make even thee confess that I am just.

Thou seest a prince, whose father thou hast slain,
Whose native country thou hast lain in blood,
Whose sacred person-oh! thou has profaned,
Whose reign extinguished! What was left to me,
So highly born? No kingdom, but revenge!
No treasure, but thy tortures and thy groans!
If cold, white mortals censure this great deed,
Warn them they judge not of superior beings,
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue!

NOTHING is a misery,

MISFORTUNE.

Unless our weakness apprehend it so;
We can not be more faithful to ourselves
In any thing that's manly, than to make
Ill fortune as contemptible to us

As it makes us to others.

-Young.

-Beaumont and Fletcher.

CCXII. PUTTING UP STOVES.

THE first step a person takes toward putting up a stove is to put on a very old and ragged coat, under the impression that, when he gets his mouth full of plaster, it will keep his shirt-bosom clean. Next, he gets his hands inside the place where the pipe ought to go, and blacks his fingers, and then he carefully makes a black mark down the side of his nose. It is impossible to make any headway in doing this work until this mark is made.

Having got his face properly marked, the victim is ready to begin the ceremony. The head of the family, who is the big goose of the sacrifice, grasps one side of the bottom of the stove, and his wife and the hired girl take hold of the other side. In this way the load is started from the woodshed toward the parlor. Going through the door, the head of the family will carefully swing his side of the stove around and jam his thumb-nail against the door-post. This part of the ceremony is never omitted.

Having got the stove comfortably in place, the next thing is to find the legs. Two of them are left inside the stove since the spring before; the other two must be hunted after twenty-five minutes. They are usually found under the coal. Then the head of the family holds up one side of the stove while his wife puts two of the legs in place; next, he holds up the other side while the other two are fixed, and one of the first two falls out. By the time the stove is on its legs, he gets reckless and takes off his old coat, regardless of his linen.

Then he goes off for the pipe, and gets a cinder in his eye. It don't make any difference how well the pipe was put up last year, it will be found a little too short or a little too long. The head of the family jams his hat over his eyes, and, taking a joint of pipe under each arm, goes to the tin-shop to have it fixed. When he gets back, he steps upon one of the best parlor chairs to see if the pipe fits, and his wife makes him get down for fear he will scratch the varnish off the chair with the nails in his bootheel. In getting down he will surely step on the cat, and may thank his stars it is not the baby. Then he gets an old chair, and climbs up to the chimney again, to find that in cutting the pipe off, the end has been left too big for the hole in the chimney. So he goes to the wood-shed, and splits one side of the end of the pipe with an old axe, and squeezes it in his hands to make it smaller. Finally he gets the pipe in shape, and finds that the stove does not stand true.

Then himself and wife and the hired girl move the stove to the left, and the legs fall out again. The next move is to the right. More difficulty with the legs. Move to the front a little. Elbow not even with the hole in the chimney, and he goes to the wood-shed after some little blocks. While putting the blocks under the legs the pipe comes out of the chimney. That remedied, the elbow keeps tipping over, to the great alarm of his wife. He then gets the

dinner-table out, puts the old chair on it, gets his wife to hold the chair, and balances himself on it to drive some nails in the ceiling, and drops the hammer on his wife's head. At last he gets the nails driven, makes a wire-swing to hold the pipe, hammers a little here, pulls a little there, takes a long breath, and announces the ceremony completed. Job never put up any stoves. It would have ruined his reputation if he had.

CCXIII.-WORDS OF STRENGTH.

THERE are three lessons I would write
Three words as with a burning pen,

In tracings of eternal light,

Upon the hearts of men.

Have hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow,

No night but hath its morn.

Have faith.

Where'er thy bark is driven—
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth;-
Know this-God rules the hosts of heaven,
The inhabitants of earth.

Have love. Not love alone for one,

But, man as man thy brother call,
And scatter like the circling sun,

Thy charities on all.

Thus grave these lessons on thy soul

Hope, Faith, and Love-and thou shalt find

Strength when life's surges rudest roll,

Light when thou else wert blind.

ENGAGING MANNERS.

-Schiller.

THERE are a thousand pretty, engaging little ways which every person may put on, without the risk of being deemed either affected or foppish. The sweet smile, the quiet, cordial bow, the earnest movement in addressing a friend, or

more especially a stranger, whom one may recommend to our good regards, the inquiring glance, the graceful attention, which is captivating when united with self-possession,— these will insure us the good regards of even a churl. Above all, there is a certain softness of manner which should be cultivated, and which, in either man or woman, adds a charm that almost entirely compensates for lack of beauty. The voice may be modulated so to intonate, that it will speak directly to the heart, and from that elicit an answer; and politeness may be made essential to our nature. Neither is time thrown away in attending to such things, insignificant as they may seem to those who engage in weightier

matters.

CCXIV.-COURAGE.

COURAGE!-Nothing can withstand
Long a wronged, undaunted land
If the hearts within her be
True unto themselves and thee,
Thou freed giant, Liberty!
Oh, no mountain-nymph art thou,
When the helm is on thy brow,
And the sword is in thy hand,
Fighting for thy own good land.

Courage! Nothing e'er withstood
Freemen fighting for their good;
Armed with all their father's fame,
They will win and wear a name,
That shall go to endless glory,
Like the gods of old Greek story,
Raised to heaven and heavenly worth,
For the good they gave to earth.
Courage! There is none so poor
(None of all who wrong endure),
None so humble, nonc so weak,
But may flush his father's cheek,

K. N. E.-41.