marries, that the wife must have no sympathy nor share with him in the pursuit of it-in which most of the pleasure truly consistsand the young married people must set out with as large and expen· · sive an establishment as is becoming those who have been wedded for twenty years. This is very unhappy; it fills the community with bachelors, who are waiting to make their fortunes, endangering virtue, promoting vice; destroys the true economy and design of the domestic institution, and it promotes inefficiency among females, who are expecting to be taken up by fortunes and passively sustained without any care or concern on their part, and thus many a wife becomes, as a gentleman once remarked, not a 'helpmeet,' but a 'help-eat.""

แ IN YE OLDEN TIME."

The early settlers of Haverhill, Massachusetts, denied the right of any man to live alone, even if he chose to do so. Old bachelors couldn't do as they pleased then in Haverhill, and the court went for them roughly. Here is the record: "This court being informed that John Littlehale livest alone, in a house by himself, contrary to the law of the country, whereby he is subject to much sin, etc." So John was allowed six weeks to remove to 66 some orderly family," but John was an incorrigible old bachelor, and wouldn't give up his way of living in single blessedness until FORTY-FOUR YEARS afterwards, when he married, and then probably found out how big a fool he had persistently been for forty-four years at least. But they did worse than that to old maids-they hung some of them for witches.

Ministers in those days were not so prostrated with their church services as a presiding elder of the African M. E. church in Georgia was recently, when at the close of a quarterly meeting, a couple presented themselves for marriage, when he said to them to "Go away and wait until I come again, I am too tired to marry you now." No doubt he felt weaker than Oliver Wendell Holmes said he should be, when he answered a lecture committee thus: "The state of my health is such that if I should deliver my lecture before your lyceum, I should be so weak when I got through, that if you should tender me a fifty dollar bank note, I wouldn't have strength enough left to refuse it."

Perhaps we have over-drawn the picture a little and made it too

somber; yet no doubt after all we have said, some young man will not heed our suggestions, and rush recklessly into the bands of matrimony! "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished."

Every home is not destitute of happiness. There are hundreds, thousands, of happy, very happy homes, where love reigns supreme. It does not require a stately mansion, elegant furniture, plenty of servants, horses and carriages and magnificent leisure to make a happy home.

THERE IS NOTHING TOO GOOD FOR MAN.

"I never saw a garment too fine for man or maid; there never was a chair too good for a cobbler or a cooper or a King to sit in; never a house too fine to shelter the human head. These elements about us, the glorious sky, the imperial sun, are not too good for the human race. Elegance fits man. But do we not value these tools for housekeeping a little more than they are worth, and sometimes mortgage a house for the mahogany we bring into it? I had rather eat my dinner off the head of a barrel, or dress after the fashion of John the Baptist in the wilderness, or sit on a block all my life, than consume all myself before I got to a home, and take so much pains with the outside that the inside was as hollow as an empty nut. Beauty is a great thing, but beauty of garment, house and furniture are tawdry ornaments compared with domestic love. All the elegance in the world will not make a home, and I would give more for a spoonful of real hearty love than for whole ship-loads of furniture, and all the gorgeousness all the upholsterers in the world can gather."-Dr. Holmes.

"Nothing is sweeter than Love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth; because Love is born of God, and cannot rest but in God, above all created things."-Thos. A'Kempis.

"Blest be LOVE, to whom we owe
All that's bright and fair below;
Song was cold and painting dim,

Till song and painting learned from him."

- Thomas Moore.

"Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away."

"By your truth she shall be true,
Ever true, as wives of yore;

And her yes, once said to you,

Whittier's "Maud Muller."

Shall be YES forevermore." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"Dark is the night, and fitful and drearily

Rushes the wind like the waves of the sea;

Little care I, as here I sit cheerily,

Wife at my side and my baby on knee.

King! king! crown me the king!

Home is the kingdom and Love is the king!

"Flashes the firelight upon the dear faces,
Dearer and dearer and onward we go,
Forces the shadows behind us, and places
Brightness around us with warmth in the glow.
King! king! crown me the king!

Home is the kingdom, and Love is the king.

"Flashes the lovelight, increasing the glory,

Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the soul,
Telling of trust and content the sweet story,
Fighting the shadows that over us roll.

King! king! crown me the king!

Home is the kingdom and Love is the king.

"Richer than miser with perishing treasure,

Served with a service no conquest could bring; Happy with fortune that words cannot measure, Light hearted I on the hearthstone can sing. King! king! crown me the king!

Home is the kingdom, and love is the king."

-Rev. William Rankin Duryea.

ACTION! ACTION!! ACTION!!!

It is action that wins. Action is everything. People dying of ennur never accomplish anything, but block up the way of others who are trying to strike out for themselves. We are sick, heartsick of that class who hang around and grunt, and whine, and do nothing for themselves, or anybody else.

The spirit that nerves one up to do his best, in whatever place or avocation he is engaged, is worthy of the highest praise. To excel, to do a little better to day than yesterday, to do a little better than a companion is doing, is commendable. Hitting the mark counts one ahead. The leap that carries you an inch beyond your competitor, is a mark in your favor. Ambition to do good, to develop one's talents to their utmost capacity, is praiseworthy. Ambition, controlled by right motives, never harms any one. Linked to patriotism it makes heroes and martyrs. What a noble example in Admiral Farragut at the battle of Mobile Bay, when he ascended the rigging, and was firmly lashed to the mast, there to remain until the battle was lost or won. What courage it must have inspired in his men on deck to see their commander above them exposed to the sharp-shooters of the enemy, with no possible chance to shield himself, or escape. He was there to direct the battle and face the deadly fire of the enemy. If his vessel went down, he went down with it.

"A sacred burden is the life ye bear,
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win."

- Frances Anne Kemble.

TALENT AND AMBITION.

No amount of practice will develop talent where there is no ambition to excel. Where every luxury that money will buy is enjoyed, even to the fullest capacity; where the daily life is but a round of indulgences that weaken the constitution, and deaden the

intellectual faculties, there is not the least inclination to study a branch that requires labor to achieve success.

Political ambition is not worthy of consideration for a moment. It is detrimental to the best interests of any young man. If he allows himself to be drawn into the political arena, it will be one of the worst moves he ever made. It will be at the sacrifice of all his principles of honor and integrity. It is next to an impossibility for the best and the most conscientious man living to make politics his chief ambition and study, without his reputation becoming tarnished. Office-seeking is fraught with many perils. There are too few offices, and too many who want to fill them; all cannot be satisfied. The sad examples of those who have tried, only to fail in the end, and have gone down to their graves before their time, wrecks of their former greatness, ought to be sufficient warning to all.

John C. Calhoun came the nearest of any man living or dead, of reaching the highest pinnacle of his ambition, and only to miss it by a step. When Calhoun graduated from Yale College, he said: "Now for the Presidency!" And he concentrated his entire energies to accomplish his purpose, to gain the coveted place. He came as near the door as any man could, and not pass over its threshold, being elected Vice President on the ticket with Andrew Jackson. Webster, Clay, Everett, Seward, Chase, Douglass and Greeley, all wanted to be President. They all failed. All spent their last days in sorrow over disappointed ambition. They had worked and toiled hard for years to accomplish a purpose only to fail, and to die with an ambition unsatisfied.

POLITICAL HONORS UNSATISFYING.

Men who are ambitious for political preferment, are seldom satisfied with the honors secured. If the highest places are reached, the fruits are unsatisfying and delusive; the honors of doubtful substantiality. Even the President of the United States at the end of four years, or eight years at the farthest, must relinquish the power and honor placed in his hands, and step down and become one of the common people, perhaps to be neglected and forgotten. "One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas."

Pope.