the heart and marrow. - - BISHOP ANDREWES.

V.

WHEN we are talking of exor

bitant claims made for the

regard of others, we must not omit those of what is called neglected merit. A man feels that he has abilities or talents of a particular kind, that he has shown them, and still he is a neglected man. I am far from saying that merit is sufficiently looked out for; but a man may take the sting out of any neglect of his merits by thinking that at least it does not arise from malice prepense, as he almost imagines in his anger. Neither the public, nor individuals, have the

time or will resolutely to neglect What pleases us

anybody.

admire and further: if a man in any profession, calling, or art, does things which are beyond us, we are as guiltless of neglecting him as the Caffres are of neglecting the differential calculus. Milton sells his Paradise Lost for ten pounds; there is no record of Shakespeare dining much with Queen Elizabeth. And it is Utopian to imagine that statues will be set up to the right men in their day.-SIR A. HELPS (Friends in Council).

VI.

LEARN from S. Augustine that it is in the first and the last effort of grace that Grace proves

itself truly grace;-that is to say, it is in the vocation which prevents us, and the final perseverance which crowns us, that we see the wholly pure and gratuitous goodness and grace which are our salvation.BOSSUET.

No one is

VII.

one is so blind to his own faults as a man who has the habit of detecting the faults of others.-F. W. FABER.

VIII.

WHAT more passing than words?

A breath! What very very

few words of ours rest with us. We forget them as soon as spoken. God does not forget them. They are

present with Him. They are the expression of our minds; they form our minds by their expression; they do God's or Satan's work on others; they pass in act, they abide in effect.-DR. PUSEY.

IX.

THE French statesman's maxim, "Never do to-day what you can put off till to-morrow," admirable as it is for the prudent discharge of worldly duties, can seldom be safely practised in the spiritual life. Neither would anything but confusion come of Lord Nelson's opposite rule, that a man should always be a quarter of an hour before his time. The great thing is to do each duty as it comes,

2

quietly, perseveringly, and with our eyes fixed upon God.-F. W. FABER.

X.

No man is so confidential as when

he is addressing the whole world.-SIR ARTHUR HELPS.

XI.

Fashion.

FASHION is an odd jumble of

contradictions, of sympathies, and antipathies. To be old-fashioned is the greatest crime a coat or a hat can be guilty of. Fashion constantly begins and ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity. It is the perpetual setting