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THE

Friendship.

"HE first law of friendship is sincerity; and he who violates this law, will soon find himself destitute of what he so erringly seeks to gain; for the deceitful heart of such an one will soon betray itself, and feel the contempt due to insincerity. The world is so full of selfishness, that true friendship is seldom found; yet it is often sought for paltry gain by the base and designing. Behold that toiling miser, with his ill-got and worthless treasure; his soul is never moved by the hallowed influence of the sacred boon of friendship, which renews again on earth lost Eden's faded bloom, and flings hope's halcyon halo over the wastes of life. The envious man-he, too, seeks to gain the applause of others for an unholy usage, by which he may unsurp a seat of pre-eminence for himself. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts upon his soul. All are fond of praise, and many are dishonest in the use of means to obtain it; hence it is often difficult to distinguish between true and false friendship.

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MYSTICAL, more than magical, is that communing of soul with soul, both looking heav

enward. Here properly soul first speaks with soul; for only in looking heavenward, take

it in what sense you may, not in looking earthward, does what we can call union, mutual love, begin to be possible. How true is that of Novalis: "It is certain my belief gains quite infinitely the moment I can convince another mind thereof!" Gaze thou in the face of thy brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire of kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of anger; feel how thy own quiet soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one limitless confluent flame of embracing love, or of deadly grappling hate; and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But if so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our earthly life, how much more when it is of the divine life we speak, and inmost me is, as it were, brought into contact with inmost me!-Thomas Carlyle.

Importance of Friendship.

WHEN a man, blind from his birth, was asked what he thought the sun to be like, he

replied, "Like friendship." He could not conceive of anything more fitting as a similitude of anything for what he had been taught to regard as the most material objects, and whose quickening and exhilarating influences he had rejoiced to feel. And truly friendship is a sun, if not the sun, of life. All feel it ought to be so. It would be commonplace to dwell on its delights and advantages. The theme of poets and moralists in all ages and countries, what can be said upon it has been said so often as to make repetition stale, so well as to make improvement impossible. How friendship is a pearl of greatest price; how it is often more deep and steadfast than natural affection, "a friend," sometimes "sticketh closer than a brother:" how it is as useful as lovely, "strength and beauty;" how it lessens grief and increases pleasure; all this is as familiar as the lessons of childhood, and true as the elementary principle of our nature.—Morris.

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Wishing, as we turned them o'er,
Like poor Oliver, for "more,"
And the creatures of thy brain
In our memory remain,
Till through them we seem to be
Old acquaintances of thee.
Much we hold it thee to greet,
Gladly sit we at thy feet;
On thy features we would look,
As upon a living book,

And thy voice would grateful hear,
Glad to feel that Boz were near,
That his veritable soul
Held us by direct control:
Therefore, author loved the best,
Welcome, welcome to the West.

In immortal Weller's name,
By the rare Micawber's fame,

By the flogging wreaked on Squeers,
By Job Trotter's fluent tears,
By the beadle Bumble's fate
At the hands of shrewish mate,
By the famous Pickwick Club,
By the dream of Gabriel Grubb,
In the name of Snodgrass' muse,
Tupnian's amorous interviews,
Winkle's ludicrous mishaps,
And the fat boy's countless naps;
By Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer.
By Miss Sally Brass, the lawyer,
In the name of Newman Noggs,
River Thames, and London fogs,
Richard Swiveller's excess,
Feasting with the Marchioness,
By Jack Bunsby's oracles

By the chime of Christmas bells,
By the cricket on the hearth,
By the sound of childish mirth,
By spread tables of good cheer,
Wayside inns and pots of beer,
Hostess plump and jolly host,
Coaches for the turnpike post,

Chambermaid in love with Boots,
Toodles, Traddles, Tapley, Toots,
Betsey Trotwood, Mister Dick,
Susan Nipper, Mistress Chick,
Snevellicci, Lilyvick,
Mantalini's predilections

To transfer his warm affections
By poor Barnaby and Grip,
Flora, Nora, Nic and Gip,
Perrybingle, Pinch and Pip-
Welcome, long expected guest,
Welcome to the grateful West.

In the name of gentle Nell,
Child of Light, beloved well-
Weeping, did we not behold
Roses on her bosom cold?
Better we for every tear

Shed beside her snowy bier

By the mournful group that played

Round the grave where Smike was laid,

By the life of Tiny Tim,

And the lesson taught by him,

Asking in his plaintive tone

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God to bless us every one,"

By the sounding waves that bore
Little Paul to heaven's shore,
By thy yearning for the human
Good in every man and woman,
By each noble deed and word
That thy story-books record,
And each noble sentiment
Dickens to the world hath lent,
By the effort thou hast made
Truth and true reform to aid,
By thy hope of man's relief
Finally from want and grief,
By thy never-failing trust
That the God of love is just-
We would meet and welcome thee,
Preacher of humanity :

Welcome fills the throbbing breast
Of the sympathetic West.

-W. H. Venable.

ENNY kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief! who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in,

Say I'm weary and I'm sad;

Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I'm growing old, but add

Jenny kissed me!

-Leigh Hunt.

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COM
OME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by;
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew,—
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail
Proud as a cockerel's rainbow tail;

And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O'Shanter's luckless mare:
To-day, O friend, remember still
That I am Joe, and you are Bill.

You've won the great world's envied prize
And grand you look in people's eyes,

With H. O. N. and LL. D.,

In big brave letters, fair to see,—

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