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Mad all Her Days.
By MRS. AMELIA V. PURDY.
CHAPTER IV.
Pearl observes to him one day as they drive
home from the cemetery so beautiful and peace
ful, that one might be glad—the broken hearted
and the desolate,—to lie down there and sleep
forever. . , ,
‘Mr. Camber ! a long time from now, perhaps
twenty years, and there may be a grave between
you, but sometime never-the-less, you are going
to marry Vale. You will remember this pro
phesy years and years from now, when the
memory of me, will be like a dream.
He looks down at the daintily delicate face,
in its frame of rich golden curls and the solemn
beauty of the eyes like midnight-stars, and an-
sweis sorrowfully and sadly. ‘I cannot bear
you to talk of death ! How can I get along with
out my child friend? I don’t think I would go
to your house at all, only for the welcome you
give me, and the deep delicious sense of parity,
I experience, when my little sister pillows her
innocent head on my breast. I have been so
wicked, so evil before 1 knew you that death
might well, terrify me.’
‘But you are a good man now,’ she says sob
erly ‘sister Vale says the change of heart takes
place, the instant one sickens of sin and re
solves to do right. There is nothing terrible
about death only to those who stop at the grave
and the dissolution of the body, without which
the higher life could not evolve. There would
be no butterfly if the caterpillar were always
a caterpillar, there would be no angel life if
this body did not decay. I think of it daily
and it grows more and more pleasant. There
I shall be able to walk, and in heaven there will
be no more pain. Why death is just as natural
as birth and as great a blessing as life.’
•But to lie in the grave,’ he says seriously
‘alone in the silence and darkness with the cold
pitiless rains beating upon your grave. In all
other journeys, we can have companionship,
in this—none. It is this going out alone, into
the darkness and vastness of Eternity, and meet
ing God, that makes us shiver with fear.’
She does not understand him, she has been
pious from her cradle and patient alwaj s un
der intolerable anguish. She is ignorant of the
crimes that make man wish to veil his face
before the eyes of an offended God, that make
the bravest man a veritable craven and coward,
abject as the worm we tread upon but she re
members her Christian training.
‘ What does the silenee and the darkness
amount to,’ she says gently. ‘When the body
has ceased to feel, it is like the empty cup of
the acorn, and decay is the one thing desirable.
If the earth were filled with preserved bodies, I
think it would be terrible. The sooner the dead
return to dust the better. As regards God—
trust Him and He will never cast you off.’
She repeats, ‘ -Just as I am without one plea,’
and he listens as of old Abraham listened to
the angels and his soul reaches out hungrily
towards the life, which is indeed High, in which
no thought of mammon enters and no earth soil
stains. When he leaves her, he presses a kiss
on the white forehead and whispers:
‘I’ll remember your prophecy and thank you
for the compliment. She too, is worthy a Sir
Galahad or King Arthur, but I believe you
would oonsider it, knowing me, an insult.’
The bridal tour is over and the bride has ta
ken possession of the palatial mansion, and so
ciety is on the qui vive. but as time elapses,
and there are no splendid Jralls, and it is dis
covered mat Mrs. Horton is no mere wotiddag,
and prefers the role of philanthropist, society
sneers, discusses her sharply and drops her.
Out of the splendor of her surroundings, she
went into clouded households and filled her
oarriage with delicate women and ailing babies,
who needed air and sunlight, and, whose car
riage rides in years could be counted upon the
fingers, and drove around the parks and upon
the life-giving hills, while the world wondered.
Men and women distinguished for heart-grace
and intellect and moral wortn filled her parlors.
The hotels and boarding houses were watched,
and refined men in quest of situations and their
heart-broken wives were invited to her house,
and situations found for them. For the reduced
her sympathies were the strongest, as their
sufferings are always the greatest and these she
assisted by scores. The .poor who have been
poor for generations feel not a tithe of the ago
ny that the gentleman and gentlewoman feel
who have been accustomed to refinement of at
tire and surroundings from birth. It W9re bet
ter to assist these than to endow libraries or
furnish equestrian statues and fountains, or to
endow colleges, in which the poor and aspiring
may not enter. It gave her the keenest enjoy
ment to carry out the charitable projects cher
ished for years. The superb dresses lay in
their dainty boxes, while there was so much
suffering about her. She refused to adorn her
self in the garments, the cost of which, would
support half a dozen poor families for a month.
She tried to break down the barrier of ca3te and
the opposition she met with made her the more
determined.
‘ I wonder how long Horton will be able to
stand his wife's extravagance,’ commented the
world. ‘It must cost a great deal to help all
those people.'
The world was mistaken. It cost much less
than trips to Europe, cottages at Long Branch,
or Paris dresses, or making feasts for people
who eat your ices and drink your champagne
and laugh at you. Fools make feasts and the
cynics eat and pay you for your trouble in car
icatures and ridicule, a la Nast. When the in
toxication of the honeymoon was over, Salome
saw with the keenest pain, that Mr. Horton was
not strictly truthful. He made promises with
out thought of fulfillment and others he care
lessly foagot. No man should ever forget
things of importance, and anything is import
ant the non-fulfillment of which, will cause pain,
disappointment or loss. He kept his employees
spurred to greater effort by promises of prefer
ment he did not mean and it was a common
thing for him to say with a beaming counte
nance, in itself a compliment, ‘Some of these
days I’ll do something handsome for you Ma
son 1’ or ‘Jones ! yoa must not let that cough
run into consumption, I’ll want a junior part
ner some of these days ?' which observation
would keep Jones in a fever of vigilance and de
light for days. Lhar ng this Salome’s heart
would sink slowly in he • breast, and the honest
eyes drooped in very shame of his deceit.
‘ Don’t raise expectations that can never be
realized, Edgar !’ she said one day in strong dis
pleasure. ‘It is vile to dupe and deceive. You
told me that Smith was such a poor book-keep
er that daily corrections were necessary and
that you kept him half through charity. ’
‘It is the truth,’ he replies, ‘he could fill no
other position in the house, and he does not
fill creditably the position he is in.’
‘Then, is it kind or honorable to give him
hopes of preferment ? Isn't it better to make
him understand his capacity and be satisfied
with his salary, low, as it must be ? It hurts
me.’
‘Hurts you ?’ he speaks coldly. ‘I don’t see
how it could possibly effect you one way or an
other. ’
He looks at her with surprised eyes, she catch
es her breath nervously and swallows a sob.
es, it hurts me to be compelled to acknowl-
that you are just an average man. I
thought you were too strong and too proud to
practice the acts of the common herd. I thought
you the incarnation of truth and honor, I don't
want you to be like other men, the ordinary
man is abominable to me, if you are going to
turn out no better than your neighbors, it will
kill me.’
His face clouds.
‘If you love me as you ought to do, you would
not magnify every piccadillo—you wou’d not
see so much to censure. Look at Wilson's wife
—she has clung to him through disgrace, trou
ble and want, and ho is not even good to her.
She is as bad as he is who counternances any
man in his villainy; I would cling to you while
you were innocent, or while I believed you in
nocent, if the whole world turned against you;
i I would not stay with you, after your guilt be-
! came clear to my mind. Don’t mention Wil
son to me Elgar! He is a drunkard and an as-
I sassin, and the woman who clings to him, and
j takes his blows as caresses and his kicks and
; oaths as compliments, is not good enough to be
j a mat for good people to clean their feet on.’
As she concludes her cheeks are scarlet and
! the great unfathomable, splendid eves are red-
j olent of disgust aud indignation. This sort of
i woman is unfit to be the companion of any man
| who is not constitutionally honorable. A man
; with any degree of moral turpitude, will be
i afraid o( her, and in endeavoring to keep her
! in the dark, will sink deeper and deeper in the
I sewer of guilt. He will shrink from the un
spoken reproach of her eyes, her pallor, her sad
ness, as he would not shrink frqm the shrew
with a temper as fierce as fire, a tongue as dead-
lv as corrosive sublimate. It occurs to Mr.
Horton right here, that in case she is ever ini
tiated into the mysteries of his business, that
she would be altogether an undesirable com
panion. He sees the necessity of still greater
craft and vigilence in regard to the frauds and
swindling that are strictly ligitimate—so long
as they are not discovered—and which is the
corner-stone of business.’
‘Child, your head is turned,’ he says quietly,
and looking hurt. ‘Bayard, Sidney, King Ar
thur and the rest of them, were men deified by
hero-worshippers. Each historian has added
another page of adulation to that already writ
ten, enlarged upon and magnified their virtues.
If I died to-morrow,and the estate was solvent,’
his lips curled, ‘all men would magnify me, and
my obituaries would make me laugh in the shad
ow land, if I could read them, and the faults
that my wife considers so great, would not be
observed at all. Salome, you are only fit for
the millenium; I wish you had more practical
sense. Gods cannot be men, nor men gods,
and history is only badly authenticated ro
mance. ’
Her conscience reproaohes her; she is too
severe; he has more virtues than faults, as has
almost every created being. She thinks of her
neighbor's husbands, with any one of whom,
had she married them, she would'nt have staid
a week, and who show their Darwinian descent,
spite of all that can be written to the contrary,
in the coarse protruding mouths, the narrow
small heads, elongated and arched, the crooked
legs, the coarse natures, profane, uncultured,
uses of tobacco and diinkers of liquor, compared
to whom Horton is of another and higher race
and blood, as were in the old days, before the
Flood the ‘sons of God’ the race of which
David was to be born, higher and loftier and
nobler, in personal and mental gifts than were
the ‘children of men’ the lower types, the non
intellectual races then peopling the earth.
‘ Excuse me dear,’ he says hastily as a sad
looking man walks by, and in a moment Horton
is beside him with sympathetic face. She leans
from the window and hears the man reply;
‘It died at day sir, and my wife is quite ill
with grief,’ he draws his cuff across his eyes as
he sneaks and looks ntterlv broken
‘It was a girl,’ Horton savs gently. ' ‘My
friend God is good when he takes the little girl
babies away from this miserable worid—the life
of a woman at the best is a moan; think how
they suffer from the cradle to the grave, of their
narrow and dreary life, she might have been
like her mother, never known a well day. She
is so much better off, think. We would grieve
less, if we reflect that grief is the one intensly
selfish emotion of the heart, we love so much, we
miss them, we are lonesome, we want their love
their companionship, their assistance and we do
not consider for a moment their happiness or
benefit in the matter.’
This is a revelation to the man. He has not
looked upon grief from this stand point, and
the truth refreshes him.
‘You are right Mr. Horton,’ he remarks sober
ly, ‘but it never occurred to me before that we
think only of ourselves in our grief, I will tell
the mother that; it will comfort her, as it has
comforted me, God knows I leant to study my
child’s happiness first aud she does too. Good
day sir, and thanks.’
He mingles in the crowd and Horton comes
back.
• He is the messenger in the 1st. National,’ he
explains. ‘A man true as sunlight. I call him
a real hero, he has a sickly wife and five small
children, an aged mother to support, the little
girl who died to-day was five years old and sick
ly. I am no admirer of the world’s heroes, nor
spasmodic heroines. I glory in every day hero
ism only. I would not go around the corner to
see NelsoD, Turcnue or Napoleon. That man is
greater in my estimation for he is never remiss
in duty. Half of the time he does all the house
work too, for his wife is in bed most of the time,
and his mother too feeble, even to dress herself.
My dear, suppose you arrange it, so that onoe a
week the poor can come to the kitchen and get
soup and bread and coffee. It promises to be
an awful winter, already the destitution is
fearful. By the way, as you go home, stop at
Mrs. Brown’s, and tell her that I have found a
situation for her husbaud, at $00 per month
with promise of advancement in the spring.’
He kisses her, hands her into the dainty
basket pLueton, drawn by beautiful Shetland
ponies, and hands her the reins. When she
reaches home the lavender veil is wet through
with tears. She has cried because she reproach
ed him and because the stain as yet but the size
of a mnstard seed in comparison, has been dis
covered on the soul escutcheon, she thought
whiter than any lily, that ever nodded time to
the waters murmur, any pearl that ever
decked the throat of royalty. Ah the tears that
youngfwives shed, they are to the torrenrs that
sear and blister as they fall, ahbd afterwards,
when the real troubles set in, the sun-kissed
summer showers spanned with rainbows that
reflect the hues of every jewel that is worn by
morn. She is a strong woman indeed, who sheds
not many a tear in her early bridal days over
tne lighthearted, care-free girlhood she has for
ever relinquished, that will never return to her,
that is as utterly dead, as the rocks the wild
waves sweep over, as the hyacinths the beauty
has worn and cast out withered and shrunken
into the street.
A month later Mrs. Horton is at a party plain
ly dressed and wears no ornaments. A superbly
dressed woman drops down beside her.
‘How good of you Mrs. Horton,’ she says
smilingly, ‘not to eclipse us; your jewels aud
laces are the envy of the city.’
‘Three hundred men and women slept at the
station house last night,’ Salome answers. ‘I
would not wear splendid things when so many
lellow-beings were without a bed to sleep in.'
The lady laughs, ‘Do they ever have beds—
that class, or three meals a day ? Laziness and
crime make them homeless. I must confess I
have no sympathy for them. My husband closed
his mill last week beoause the workmen refused
to work for lower wages, and it did not justify
him to keep the mill open unless he economized
some way. I am sorry, but really, the poor and
the beggars never interest one. They are band
ed together against capital; the town is swarm
ing with men who voluntarily quit work and
prefer starvation to work at low wages. Now I
do not profess to understand men’s business,
but it seems to me that half a leaf is better than
no bread and two dollars a week is better than
not a cent.’ t
‘I-do not think that Bach men are safe,’ Sa
lome answers, ‘ any wages are preferable to
idleness and the station house. Still, I don.t
see why large manufacturers in hard times al
ways want to lower wages already alarmingly
low; why don’t they economise at home, in dres3,
expensive parties, presents, etc. There is Mr.
Mason, he discharged half his men —about ten—
last week, and a few days later paid fifteen hun-
hred dollars for a set of diamonds for his dangh-
sort to little tricks, duplicity, and often down
right falsehood. Whatever sins he clung to
himself, he was unmerciful to the sins of others,
especially sin in his wife. Onoe he got a
glimpse of this dual nature he condemned her
entirely. But he could not banter and tor
ture as he had done the clinging vine Kitty.
No indeed; this imperious queen had a way of
turning upon his delinquencies, a sharp worldly
way that was ever lady like, yet the effect was
potent. The Col. found but one sure retreat
from her quick, ready tongue, and that was
down at his office, where like a caged bear he
passed most of bis time.
The years sped od. The heads of this couple
were silvered with grey. As time subdued the
fiery pride and ambition of Col. Calmer he found
himself yearning for a true heart to love and
rest upon. He remembered in the far off time
most vividly a love that had been once given
smile. At this late date he saw things with ter
rible distinctness—saw Kitty’s love, grand, no
ble, pure, saw Kitty’s death—and trembled at
last to feel it w.as his own work.
But all this time Mrs. Calmer, true to her in
stincts, lived in gay scenes. She was growing
old, but paints and hair dyes came into play.
Time did not improve her temper or her morals,
but people from habit accorded her the palm as
a fashionable worn an.
A TALK TO THE YOUNG FOLKS.
BY BEV. DAVID WINTERS.
ter Hortense, for a birth-day gift That amount him—a heart that could not live without his
would have kept those ten men at work till the
severe winter is over; and I could point you out
a dozen such instances.’
‘You are talking Greek now, Mrs. Horton,’
the lady laughs good humoredly. She has a
black velvet herself, lately purchased at twenty-
five dollars a yard. ‘And I don’t understand you.
We poor mortals whose thoughts are confined to
a lower strata are really afraid of you. Jast
look at Mary Harris, she has on a new set of em
eralds, there’s taste for you! and her complexion
like ham rinde, Have you noticed Pauline Clay?
She has on the loveliest Paris dress, cost eleven
hundred dollars. ijfce’s over in tho alcove flirt
ing with Ferdinan^olardwicke and they say he’s
worth a cool million. Well, I hope she wont
catch him, she walks over everybody now, and if
she married a million there’d be no standing her
at all. By the way, your old admirer. Camber,
has reformed and abandoned society. Rumor
says he is paying his devoirs to Yale Dsane. She
is a milliner in a back street and a relative of
Mrs. General Deane. I have joked Hardwioke
about it but he says Camber keeps his own coun
sel, and he knows nothing about it, They say
Yale is educated and accomplished and was
wealthy onoe, so he could do worse of course.’
She had not found Mrs. Ho r tonatall interesting
and floats away in search of more congenial so
ciety, while Salome ponders. Dresses at eleven
hundred, emeralds, velvets on the one hand
and starvation on the other. To her kitchen
come orowds eyerv day for food, and every day
she is out in the fearful alleys, relieving distress
and warming up rooms long strangers to fires;
and yet these heartless women are church mem
bers and she is not. Every Sunday in royal
raiment they sit in luxurious pews and sing,
while the great solitaires, like petrified dew-
drops, rain down tfcj'jr splendor:
‘Strip me offrhis robe of pride,
Clothe meVth humility.’
When we part with our friends they generally
say to us, as they shake our hand: ‘Take care of
yourself.’ This is good advice, and I will now
make it the subject of my talk to my young
friends.
I like to talk to young people because I was
once as yonng myself as any of them, and I
think I am young yet, and I intend always to be
young. Of course my body shall grow old, if
I live long enough, but I hope my spirit shall
always remain young. It is only when I am
pressed by the most stern realities of life that I
can bring mjself to believe that I am not still a
boy, and seldom feel happier than when I find
myself in the midst of a group of laughing,
frolicking boys and girls.
But now for my advice to you, my young
friends,—‘Take cart of yourselves.’
Take care of your time. Time i3 the warp of
life, and we may weave into it, just as we please,
threads of shoddy or of gold. Time is like a
block of precious marble. We are sculptors,
who, out of it, must out a statue. Every day we
must do some part of the work. By and by it
will be finished. If we fashion it properly it
will make us glad with its smiles everlastingly;
andlfor * moment Jfre feels that the Deonle are I if We 8 P oil il ‘ ik wil1 ca8k iks dark and a PP allm 8
andjtor a moment *,T»e leeis tnat tne people are shado n HS f orover .
fiends and humanity accursed, since tney know 8ometi £ ea 8ee written ovor the doorfl of
that the naked and hungry are aoout them and - J
they harden their hearts. * Starving children
and the maddened and despairing whooould be
rescued and relieved. ‘Verily it will be easier
for a oamel tp'pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heav
en,’ she said in a low tone, and sick at heart with
the frivolous women, beckoned to Mr. Horton
and went home.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
The Lawyer's Second
Wife.
A Sequel to the True Story of Kitty
McGlane.
Grief did not soften the lawyer politician.
Closing his doors to the gaze of the world, he
was wrapped in impenetrable gloom, maybe, or
plodding over his ambitious schemes. None
could solve the mental state of the man who
stood beneath the fearful shadow of a suicide’s
death.
After a time he came forth, and threw him
self into the contest with a giant's strength. He
gave himself no rest, but here, there, wherever
his strong, guiding hand was needed he flew.
He won the day. In his hour of success people
forgot the dead wife's tragic end, and cried
hurrah for the brave invincible Col. Calmer.
Alas ! that since the days of our Saviour the same
voices that ring hosanna to-day, can to-morrow
cry ‘crucify him ! cracify him !’
But the hoarsest guttural voioe crying out
the name of the nev, leader, was sweeter to his
ears than the divinsst music. It was not for
him to pause and philosophize over human
fickleness. i
I appears the siurplest, easiest performance
for men to marry. We are constantly amazed
when some hideous Mr. 8aooks, or dilapidated
Mr. Brown, enters he noose matrimonial. It
was of course very tasv for Col. Calmer, now
that all eyes were bint upon him in admiration,
to choose whom he veuld of the fairest of the
fair. He was not tc be hood winked this time
by bewitching fairis, coy home-lovers like Kitty
McClaue.
When a year had passed a stately queen, a
world-wise fashioiable woman, entered the
handsome dwellings Mrs. Calmer. She brought
into the wealthy litle town a new life by her gay
balls, splendid dimers, theatricals, and more
than all of these, Dr undisputed reign as mar
ried belle. None ould dress so well, glide so
gracefully throughthe dance, or display such
generalship in a sysem of manouvering that won
scores of the dissected over to the Colonols’
side. She would live been the queen of lob
byists at Washingtc, as it was she was purely
a splendidly successful woman of the world.
Verily the Col. haffound the pearl for which he
sighed. Was he siisfied ? Surely he had sac
rificed the tenderer love of the fondest heart
for this gem. H Q !had no cause to complain
since she was alld^ had craved for so long.
Time passed or Kitty McClane could not
always be a bride, neither could her successor
remain forever in ill dress, and company man
ners. The queenl form must needs be some
times attired in eery day garb and every-day
ways and actions As it had been impossible
for Kitty to play le role of a grand, queenly
woman, so it wa3 eyond the present Mrs. Cal-
mer’s power to bonne the endearing, busy
thoughtful home tdy Kitty had been. There
was no disorder l the now almost gorgeous
dwelling, mere pile kept things presentable,
but there was sure? a lack of heartiness in the
home ways and fedags. Col. Calmer was wait
ed upon like a pitee by the best of servants,
but beyond this m»r) administration to his bod
ily wants, he wasBhrved like a pauper. No
love word escapm; fom an overflowing heart,
no tender caress to him now. He did not
know he valued tleo little trifles once, but now
they were maguifiidnto very important bless
ings. Mrs. Calmir lad lived so long in the
hollow atmosphere othe world that her heart
had wasted away ini painfully small dimen
sions. Yet she wis juice itself to her husband.
She bargained only f< her fine, attractive pow
ers as a leader oAhe In, and more he had no
right to expect or denfcid. Mrs. Calmer’s life
since girlhood hai bet given to the fashiona
ble existence of a coned belle. If her mind
had dwarfed in a trutdeep sense for want of
oulture, could her hu».nd complain that after
a few years had passed j became weary of the
little sparkle of wit thalt first so pleased him ?
He saw too after a very ng time that his wife,
the better to win for hitor herself, could re- <
workshops, in large letters, these words intend
ed to keep idlers and loungers from intruding:
—‘No admittance, except on business. Time is
money.’ Now I think it is a good thing when
we have work to do to keep lazy people out of
our way that they may not waste our time. But
I also say that, time is not money. It is far more
than money. You cannot buy it with money.
Queen Elizabeth of England is said to nave
cried in terrible anguish, when lying upon her
death-bed, ‘Millions of money for a moment of
time.' But she could not purchase it. Voltaire,
a French infidel, told his physician, a short
time before his death, that he would give him
half of what he was worth if he would give him
six months longer to live. ‘Sir,’ said the doc
tor, ‘you cannot lire six weeks.’ ‘Then,’ said
the dying infidel, ‘I shall go to hell and you
shall go with me.’ Cotton Mather, an eminent
clergyman, said one day, when a man had taken
—a great r>e .H\. tiron '( had ratliar hava
given that man a handful of money than have
him waste my time thus.’ A very learned man
in the United States, a few years ago said to a
number of gentlemen who waited upon him
and offered to pay him five hundred dollars an
evening to deliver a number of lectures in the
city of New York: —‘Gentlemen, I can’t waste
my time in making money.’
Young friends, God has plaoed us in this world
to prepare for another world, and according to
the manner in which we spend the few years
allotted to ns here will it fare with ns to all
eternity. Every day, every hour, every moment
of our time upon the earth will exert an influ
ence upon our eternity
“ ‘Tis not for man to trifle. Eife is brief
And sin is here.
An age is but the falling of a leaf,
a dropping tear.
We have no time to sport a way the hours;
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
“Not many lives, but only one, have we—
Frail, fleeting man:
How sacred should that one life ever be;
That narrow span !
Pay after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.’
down she found that it had blackened not only
her hand but also her white dress. ‘You see,’
Raid he, ‘one oannot be too careful about
handling coals, even when they are dead; for
though they won’t burn they may blacken.’
‘Just so, my child,’ said the father; ‘and we can
never be too careful about the company we
keep.’
Perhaps you begin to think my talk has last
ed long enough, so I will stop with one more
word cf advice. Take care of your aims in life.
God did not make us merely to eat, and driuk,
and sleep, and dress ourselves, and have what
people call a pood time in this woild. He made
us to work. Everybodyshonld have something
to do, and that something should be worthy of
the dignity of a creature made in the image of
God. People may be divided into four classes,
according to the way they spend thc*ir time.
The first class is made up of lazy people, who
spend their time in doing nothing.
The second class is composed of busy people,
whose life is occupied with trifles. They never
do anything that is useful. They are the triflers
of society, or the busy idle people. Into the
third class we may put the people who are busy
all the time, but who busy themselves in doing
mischief—in trying to do harm and to make
the world worse than it is. In the fourth class
are to bo found all the people who are serving
God, and who are trying to leave the world
better when they go out of it. than they found
it when they came into it. These people have
gotten the only proper aim in life.
But some of my young friends may, perhaps,
say: —Suppose one is a farmer, or a tradesman,
or a servant, or a merchant, or a magistrate—
suppose one has some very busy occupation —
how is he going to get time to make the world
any better? I will give the Bible’s answer to
that question. Here it is:—Whatsoever ye do
in word or deed, do all in the name of Lord Je
sus, giving thanks to God and the Father by
him. We are to do everything for God, and
of course, it is everything for God, as it is to
do it for ourselves, or for the world, or for Sa
tan.
But our chief aim in life should be to make
sure that we have given our hearts to Christ;
that we believe on him in this life, so that we
shall be sure of living with God and serving
him in heaven forever. This is the mark at
which we must aim, and if we miss it it would
have been better for us not to have lived at all.
Batter far would it have been for us to have
died the moment we were born, than to go
through this world, and into the next, without
faith in the Lord Jesus.
I told you, at the beginning of my talk, about
Queen Elizabeth who cried on her death bed,
“Millions of money for a moment of time.”
Most people would think she had not wasted
her time. She could write in five different lan
guages. It was said that she knew as much as
any man of her time in all Europe. She tul6d
a loyal aud strong people who loved her. She
had ten thousand beautiful dresses in her war
drobe, but she was very unhappy when she
came to die, because she had not lived to glori
fy God.
Youug friends, we must go hence, by and by.
We shan't Btav here very long, and we canno
go out of the world with comfort and hope, i
we miss the one true aim of life, the one fo
which we were created—to serve God.
Again, I say to you, Take care of the habits
you form. By our habits we mean our accus
tomed way of doing things. Some one has said
that a man is just a bundle of habits; and this
may be said of boys and girls as truly as of
men and women. We make this bundle up
when we are young. Every day we put some
thing into it. By and by it will be a very big
bundle, and we shall have to carry it with us
as long as we live, so you see we should take
care what we put into it. Some young people
have idle habits. They sleep late in the morn
ing. Their mothers can hardly get them out of
bed, and when they get np they won’t do any
thing. They remind us of what the farmer said
of his horse. He said his horse had only two
faults. One was that he was hard to catch, and
the other, that he was not good for anything
when he was caught. Some have dilatory hab
its. They never do anything at the proper
time. They seem to have been born a little too
late, and they have been behind time ever
since. Other people have prompt habits. When
they have anything to do they do it at once.
Next to economy in the expenditure of our time,
nothing is so important as care iu the forma
tion of our habits.
I must next advise my young friends to take
care about the company they keep. You know
it is often said that we are known by our com
pany. This is quite true. There is a little crea
ture called the chameleon which always takes
on the color of the ground, or pieces of wood,
or leaves, or whatever happens to be close to it.
We are very much like the chameleon, in some
respeots. One is that we are sure to become
like the people in whose company we take pleas
ure. Or we are like a lake whose water is very
clear.. If you stand where you can look down
upon it you will see refleeted in it every change
which takes place iu the clouds above it. So
do our lives reflect the lives of our companions.
If yoa associate with people who are peevish,
and cross, and contrary, aud untruthful, and
dishonest, aud who use bad language, you will
soon become j ust like them. It you keep the
company of persons who are gentle, and kind,
and truthful, you will soon begin to be like
them.
A gentleman onoe told his little daughter that
he did not wish her to keep the compauy of some
other cfiildjjpii, because they were naughty, and
he did not think it was best for her to go with
snoh persons. ‘Do you think, papa,’ said she,
‘that I caunot go with them without being in
jured by them ? Her papa then took a piece
of a dead coal from the grate and offered it to
her. She did not wish to take it into her hand;
but he urged her, saying, ‘It cannot burn you,
my child.’ She took it, but when she laid it i
The Brave Little Flower Girl.
At the entrance of one of the large hotels in
Boston, you will frequently see, at noon, and
earlv in the evening, a littie flaxen-haired girl,
with button-hole bouquets to sell. She is rath
er tall of her age, has a sweet, gentle face, and
looks as if she might have a story, and so she has.
Well, here it is. jast as little bluje-eyed M«;-
told it to me herself; and tnougu It does read
“like a book” I find it all true.
“I was nine years old, ma’am when I first be
gan to sell flowers; but that was four years ago.
You see we were very poor. Father was dead,
and mother was sick in bed. I was the oldest,
and there were lots of little ones younger than
me. One day mother was sicker than usual, and
we hadn’t a bit of coal in the house, or anything
to eat. Mother had just twenty-five cents left
in her pocket nook—tnat was all—but I happen
ed to remember how an aunt of mine used to
make a good deal of money by selling flowers.
So I asked mother to let me take the quarter an 1
see what I could do with it. Well, she let me
have it, and I went right to a florist and got
some flowers—it don’t take many, you know,
for a button hole, just a little bit of green and a
few buds are enough—and then I went around
to the St. James’ and some other hotels to sell
them. Folks were real kind, ma’am, and I made
fifty cents on that first quarter!
“Ever since then, I’ve kept on selling flowers
I never go near the saloons, ma’am, but I hav’
found good sales for my bouquets at the larcre
hotels. Now, I always come here, for the ladies
and gentlemen all know me, and do a great deal
to help me. Sometimes they give great,
beautiful bouquets, that I can make up into lots
of little ones. Here are some of them,” and the
little girl showed me two or three dainty littie
bunches—a pansy and white pink with a bit of
smilax between—rosebud aud heliotrope bou
quets—that she sold at fifteen cents a piece.
“They used to give me nice things, too, to
carry home to mother—pieces of chicken, vou
know, and such like—why ! there’s one particu
lar place in the dining-room now, where they
put my brown paper bag; and I’m always sure
to find it full when I go home at night! Moth
er died last winter about Christmas time, so I
live with grandmother now. Usually, I earn
about six dollars a week, that I carry” home to
her, but sometimes I can make ten.”
Brave little Mary ! She tells her story iu the
simplest, most unaffected way; but I know that
for nearly four years she was the soie support
and comfort of that poor sick mother, and those
little helpless children.
Going to House Keeping.
Aunt Susan’s Advice to Young Wives.
My dears, you. who havejnst launched your
matrim'ouial barque and wish to trim your
sails aright, let me whisper a few words in your
pretty ears, If I could write poetry I might
weave a beautiful web for yon, but I caunot.
I want to say a word in prose. There are
some men who are utter fools, (not your man,)
and who would go inextricably in debt if urg
ed on by a sweet wife. There are some young
wives who are utter fools,(not you,) aud who
would spend the last copper her newly acquir
ed husband has, in order to make an appear
ance in starting in life, supposeing that all
will be right at the end of the year. If you
who read this article know of any such, please
go and tell them that Aunt Susan, says that it
is better to make a start according to ability
and accumulate enough to get a home, than to
spend all the young husband’s earnings for a
year to come, thus discouraging him, and per.
haps bringing a world of trouble upou your
self. There are men now who are well-to-do in
the world, who, if they had not had the indus
trious, frugal housewife they have, would have
been as poor as any inmate of your county
poor house; and there are men now utterly bro
ken down in purse, who, if they had had in
dustrious, frugal wives, would to-day have en
joyed a noble independence. I do not say that
every vicissitude of fortune is to be credited or
charged to the wife, but I say that what Isaid
above is true.