"Honor thy father and thy mother." This Commandment was written on the same tablet (one of the two Moses brought from the mount) on which our duties towards God were engraven; because the honor due to these representatives of God equals that we owe to Him.-The Pharisees.

The mother, when she hears her son called "a full man," rejoices more than when she gave him birth, It is pleasant to the greatest that their children should be still greater.—Hindu.

Defer humbly to thy parents out of tenderness, and say: Lord, have compassion on them both, even as they reared me when I was little.-Arabic.

X.

Presents of Perennial Price.

And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that which I do, seeing that he will surely become a great nation, and all the people of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment. -Genesis xviii. 17, 18.

WHAT presents will you give to the children? Give

them first and before everything else, so that they can carry it with them their whole lives long, the memory of a happy home. More than any other inheritance is this, if you wish to keep the children loyal to you, loyal to the heavenly Father, loyal to the highest and sweetest and finest things of life. Create for them day by day

and hour by hour such an atmosphere of blessedness in the home that they shall carry it with them as their most precious treasure throughout all their lives and all round the world. No boy, no girl, can ever come to be utterly bad who remembers only love' and tenderness and unselfishness and sweetness as associated with father and mother in the old-time home. Give them manly and womanly example, give them training, give them the inspiration of devoted lives, give them these higher, deeper things. Do not care so much as to whether you are accumulating money, so that you can leave them a fortune. I really believe that the chances are against that's being a blessing for a boy. But leave them an accumulated fortune of memories and inspirations and examples and hopes, so that they are rich in brain and heart and soul and service. Then, if you happen to leave them the fortune besides, if they have all these, the fortune will be shorn of its possibilities of evil, and will become an instrument of higher and nobler good. MINOT J. SAVAGE.

XI.

The Heart's Contentment.

Better is a handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.— Ecclesiastes iv. 6.

HE virtue of content does indeed produce, in some measure, all the effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire of them. If it cannot remove the disquietudes arising out of a man's mind, body or fortune, it makes him easy under them. It has indeed a kindly influence on the soul of man in respect to every being to whom he stands related. It extinguishes all murmur, repining and ingratitude towards that Being who has allotted to him his part to act in the world. It gives sweetness to his conversations, and a perpetual serenity to all his thoughts. . . . Among the many methods which might be made use of for the acquiring of that virtue, I shall mention the two following: First of all, a man should always consider how much he has more than he wants; and secondly, how much more unhappy he might be than he is.

t

'HERE'S many a gem in the path of life,

Which we pass in our idle pleasure, That is richer far than the jewelled crown

Or the miser's hoarded treasure;

ADDISON.

It may be the love of a little child,

Or the mother's prayer to Heaven,

Or only a beggar's grateful thanks,

For a cup of water given.

RAVE on thy heart each past "red-letter day"!
Forget not all the sunshine of the way

By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers,
And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares,
Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be
One record of His love and faithfulness to thee.

XII.

Considerate Speech.

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth; and a word in season-O, how good it is !-Proverbs xv. 23. Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop; but a good word maketh it glad.-Proverbs xii. 25.

NOTHER rule is not to let familiarity swallow up all courtesy. Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly, to your associates, but not less courteously than you do to strangers. SIR ARTHUR HELPS.

Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have utter
Echoes in God's skies.

WISDOM! if thy soft control

Can soothe the sickness of the soul,
Can bid the warring passions cease,
And breathe the calm of tender peace:
Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway,
And ever, ever will obey.

XIII. The Twofold Tendency in Man.

Love and hatred, both tend to make us pass the line of justice. Talmud.

MAN has an unlucky tendency in his evil hour, after

having received an injury, to rake together all the moon-spots on his antagonist, and thus change a single deed into a whole life, so as to relish more fully the pleasure of wrath. Fortunately with regard to love he has the opposite tendency-that of pressing together all the lights, all the rays emitted from the beloved object, by the burning-glass of his imagination, into one focus, and making of them one radiant sun without any spots. But, alas! man too often does so when his beloved one-yes, often blamed one-has passed beyond the cloudy sky of his life. Now, in order that we act thus sooner and oftener, we ought weekly or daily dedicate and sanctify a solitary time to the reckoning