Enjoying his appetites to the highest, he has preserved the power of enjoying them. As he drains the cup of life, there are no lees at the bottom. His organs will reach the goal of existence together. Painlessly as a candle burns down in its socket, so will he expire; and a little imagination would convert him into another Enoch, translated from earth to a better world without the sting of death.

But look on an opposite extreme, where an opposite history is recorded. What wreck so shocking to behold as the wreck of a dissolute man!—the vigor of life exhausted, and yet the first steps in an honorable career not taken; in himself a lazar-house of diseases; dead, but by a heathenish custom of society, not buried! Rogues have had the initial letter of their title burnt into the palms of their hands; even for murder Cain was only branded on the forehead, but over the whole person of the debauchee or the inebriate the signatures of infamy are written.

How nature brands him with stigma and opprobrium! How she hangs labels all over him to testify her disgust at his existence, and to admonish others to beware of his example! How she loosens all his joints, sends tremors along his muscles, and bends forward his frame, as if to bring him upon all-fours with kindred brutes, or to degrade him to the reptile's crawling! How she disfigures his countenance, as if intent upon obliterating all traces of her own image, so that she may swear she never made him! How she pours rheum over his eyes, sends foul spirits to inhabit his breath, and shrieks, as with a trumpet, from every pore of his body, "Behold a Beast!"

LX.-ACCESS TO GOD.

HOWEVER early in the morning you seek the gate of access, you find it already open; and the midnight moment when you find yourself in the sudden arms of death, the winged prayer can bring an instant Savior near. And this

wherever you are. It needs not that you ascend some special Pisgah or Moriah. It needs not that you should enter some awful shrine, or pull off your shoes on some holy ground.

Could a memento be reared on every spot from which an acceptable prayer had passed away, and on which a prompt answer has come down, we should find Jehovah-shammah, the Lord hath been here," inscribed on many a cottage hearth and many a dungeon floor. We should find it not only in Jerusalem's proud Temple, and David's cedar galleries, but in the fisherman's cottage by the brink of Genesareth, and in the chamber where Pentecost began.

Whether it be the field where Isaac went to meditate, or the rocky knoll where Jacob lay down to sleep, or the brook where Israel wrestled, or the den where Daniel gazed on lions and the lions gazed on him, on the hill-sides where the Man of sorrows prayed all night, we should still discern the prints of the ladder's feet let down from heaven-the landing-place of mercies, because the starting-point of prayer. And all this whatsoever you are.

It needs no saints, no proficient in piety, no adept in eloquent language, no dignity of earthly rank. It needs but a blind beggar, a loathsome lazar. It needs but a penitent publican or a dying thief. And it needs no sharp ordeal, no costly passport, no painful expiation, to bring you to the mercy-seat. The Savior's merit-the name of Jesus, priceless as they are, cost the sinner nothing. They are freely put at his disposal, and instantly and constantly he may use of them. This access to God in every place, at every moment, without any price or personal merit, is it

not a privilege?

-James Hamilton.

THE NATIONAL BANNER.

ALL hail to our glorious ensign! Courage to the heart, and strength to the hand to which, in all time, it shall be

intrusted! May it ever wave in honor, in unsullied glory and patriotic hope on the dome of the capitol, on the country's stronghold, on the tented plain, on the waverocked topmast!

Wherever, on the earth's surface, the eye of the American shall behold it, may he have reason to bless it! On whatsoever spot it is planted, there may freedom have a foothold, humanity a brave champion, and religion an altar! Though stained with blood in a righteous cause, may it never in any cause be stained with shame!

Alike, when its gorgeous folds shall wanton in lazy holiday triumphs on the summer breeze, and its tattered fragments be dimly seen through the clouds of war, may it be the joy and pride of the American heart! First raised in the cause of right and liberty, in that cause alone may it forever spread out its streaming blazonry to the battle and the storm! Having been borne victoriously across the continent, and on every sea, may virtue and freedom and peace forever follow where it leads the way.

-Edward Everett.

LXI. HE LIVETH LONG WHO LIVETH WELL.

HE liveth long who liveth well!
All other life is short and vain;
He liveth longest who can tell
Of living most for heavenly gain.

He liveth long who liveth well!

All else is being flung away;
He liveth longest who can tell

Of true things truly done each day.

Waste not thy being; back to Him
Who freely gave it, freely give,
Else is that being but a dream,—
'Tis to Be, and not to Live.

Be wise, and use thy wisdom well;
Who wisdom speaks must live it, too;
He is the wisest who can tell

How first he lived, then spoke the true.

Be what thou seemest,-live thy creed;
Hold up to earth the torch divine;
Be what thou prayest to be made;
Let the great Master's step be thine.

Fill up each hour with what will last;
Buy up the moments as they go;
The life above, when this is past,
Is the ripe fruit of life below.

So if thou the truth would reap;

Who sows the false shall reap the vain;
Erect and sound thy conscience keep;
From hollow words and deeds refrain.

Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure;
Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright
Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor,
And find a harvest-home of light.

-Horatius Bonar.

LXII. MENTAL ACTIVITY.

IF the water runneth, it holdeth clear, sweet, and fresh; but stagnation turneth it into a noisome puddle. If the air be fanned by winds, it is pure and wholesome; but from being shut up, it groweth thick and putrid. If metals be employed, they abide smooth and splendid; but lay them up, and they soon contract rust. If the earth be labored with culture, it yieldeth corn; but, lying neglected, it will be

overgrown with bushes and thistles, and the better it is, the ranker weeds it will produce. All nature is upheld in its being, order, and shape by constant agitation; every creature is incessantly employed in action conformable to its designed use. In like manner, the preservation and improvement of our faculties depend on their constant exercise; to it God hath annexed the best and most desirable reward-success to our undertakings, wealth, honor, wisdom, virtue, salvation,-all which, as they flow from God's bounty, and depend on his blessing, so from him they are usually conveyed to us through our industry as the ordinary channel and instrument of attaining them.

-Barrow.

THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE.

A PERFECT thought will always clothe itself in appropriate language; and when people suppose that they are in want of words to express themselves, they are really in want of thought-they have only got hold of a part of a thought instead of the complete thought, and are in difficulty about the clothing of an unformed thing. De Retz says that strong emotions find their utterances in monosyllables, and the language of the poor, in grief, is often of an earnestness and simplicity rising to eloquence. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh."

INDUSTRY.

THE more a man accomplishes the more he may. An active tool never grows rusty. You always find the most enterprising the most busy. Men of industry start our railroads, our steamships, machine shops, and our factories. We go for activity-in body, in mind, in every thing. Keep all things in motion. We would rather have death find us breasting a whirlpool than sneaking from a cloud.

K. N. E.-20.