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to foot with the fiery breath of anger that would never cool again between them, only because of this; and a husband and his young wife, each straining at the hated leash which in the beginning had been the golden bondage of a Godblessed love, sat mournfully by the side of the grave where all their love and joy lay buried, and only because of this. I have seen faith transformed to mean doubt, hope give place to grim despair, and charity take on itself the features of black malevolence, all because of the spell words of scandal and the magic mutterings of gossip.

Great crimes work great wrong, and the deeper tragedies of human life spring from its larger passions; but woeful and most melancholy are the uncatalogued tragedies that issue from gossip and detraction; most mournful the shipwreck often made of noble natures and lovely lives by the bitter winds and dead salt waters of slander. So easy to say, yet so hard to disprove-throwing on the innocent, and punishing them as guilty, if unable to pluck out the stings they never see, and to silence words they never hear. Gossip and slander are the deadliest and cruelest weapons man has for his brother's hurt.

BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER.

PROBABLY there is not the remotest corner or little inlet of the minutest blood-vessel of the body that does not feel some wavelet from the great convulsion produced by hearty laughter, shaking the central man. The blood moves more lively-probably its chemical, electric or vital condition is instinctively modified-it conveys a different expression to all the organs of the body as it visits them on that particular mystic journey, when the man is laughing, from what it does at other times. And thus it is that a good laugh lengthens a man's life by conveying a distinct and additional stimulus to the vital forces. The time may come

when physicians, attending more closely than they do now to the innumerable subtle influences which the soul exerts upon its tenement of clay, shall prescribe to a torpid patient "so many peals of laughter," to be undergone at such and such a time, just as they do now that far more objectionable prescription-a pill, or an electric or galvanic shock, and shall study the best and most effective method of producing the required effect in each patient.

XV.-A BEAUTIFUL LEGEND.

SOFTLY fell the touch of twilight on Judea's silent hills;
Slowly crept the peace of moonlight o'er Judea's trembling rills.
In the temple's court, conversing, seven elders sat apart;

Seven grand and hoary sages, wise of head and pure of heart. "What is rest?" said Rabbi Judah, he of stern and steadfast

gaze;

"Answer, ye whose tools have burdened thro' the march of many days."

"To have gained," said Rabbi Ezra, “decent wealth and goodly

store

Without sin, by honest labor-nothing less and nothing more." "To have found," said Rabbi Joseph, meekness in his gentle

eyes,

"A foretaste of heaven's sweetness in home's blessed paradise." "To have wealth, and power, and glory, crowned and brightened by the pride

Of uprising children's children," Rabbi Benjamin replied.

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'To have won the praise of nations, to have won the crown of fame,"

Rabbi Solomon responded, faithful to his kingly name.

"To sit throned, the lord of millions, first and noblest in the land,"

Answered haughty Rabbi Asher, youngest of the reverend band. “All in vain,” said Rabbi Jarius, “unless faith and hope have

traced

In the soul Mosaic precepts, by sin's contact uneffaced."

Then uprose wise Rabbi Judah, tallest, gravest of them all: "From the height of fame and honor even valiant souls may

fall;

Love may fail us, virtue's sapling grow a dry and thorny rod, If we bear not in our bosom the unselfish love of God."

In the outer court sat playing a sad-featured, fair-haired child, His young eyes seemed wells of sorrow-they were God-like when he smiled!

One by one he dropped the lilies, softly plucked with childish hand;

One by one he viewed the sages of that grave and hoary band; Step by step he neared them closer, till encircled by the seven, Thus he said, in tones untrembling, with a smile that breathed of heaven:

"Nay, nay, father! Only he, within the measure of whose breast Dwells the human love with God-love, can have found life's truest rest;

For where one is not, the other must grow stagnant at its spring;

Changing good deeds into phantoms-an unmeaning, soulless thing,

Who holds this precept truly owns a jewel brighter far

Than the joys of home and children—than wealth, fame, and glory are;

Fairer than old age, thrice honored far above tradition's law, Pure as any radiant vision ever ancient prophet saw.

Only he within the measure-faith apportioned—of whose breast Throbs this brother-love with God-love, knows the depth of perfect rest."

Wondering gazed they at each other, once in silence, and no

more:

"He has spoken words of wisdom no man ever spake before!" Calmly passing from their presence to the fountain's rippling

song,

Stooped he to uplift the lilies strewn the scattered sprays among. Faintly stole the sounds of evening through the massive outer

doors,

Whitely lay the peace of moonlight on the temple's marble floor, Where the elders lingered, silent, since he spake, and undefiled, Where the wisdom of the Ages sat amid the flowers-a child! K. N. E.-14.

XVI.-ADVICE TO A YOUNG LAWYER.

WHENE'ER you speak, remember every cause
Stands not on eloquence, but stands on laws—
Pregnant in matter, in expression brief,
Let every sentence stand with bold relief;
On trifling points nor time nor talents waste,

A sad offense to learning and to taste;

Nor deal with pompous phrase, nor e'er suppose
Poetic flights belong to reasoning prose.

Loose declamation may deceive the crowd,
And seem more striking as it grows more loud;
But sober sense rejects it with disdain,
As nought but empty noise, and weak as vain.

The froth of words, the schoolboy's vain parade
Of books and cases-all his stock in trade-
The pert conceits, the cunning tricks and play
Of low attorneys, strung in long array,
The unseemly jest, the petulant reply,
That chatters on, and cares not how, or why,
Strictly avoid,—unworthy themes to scan,
They sink the speaker and disgrace the man,
Like the false lights, by flying shadows cast,
Scarce seen when present and forgot when past.

Begin with dignity; expound with grace
Each ground of reasoning in its time and place;
Let order reign throughout-each topic touch,
Nor urge its power too little, nor too much;
Give each strong thought its most attractive view,
In diction clear and yet severely true,

And as the arguments in splendor grow,
Let each reflect its light on all below;
When to the close arrived, make no delays

By petty flourishes, or verbal plays,

But sum the whole in one deep solemn strain,
Like a strong current hastening to the main.

-Judge Story.

XVII.-POETRY OF SCIENCE.

THE mystery of our being, and the mystery of our ceasing to be, acting upon intelligences that are forever striving to comprehend the enigma of themselves, lead by a natural process to a love for the ideal. The discovery of those truths which advance the human mind towards that point of knowledge to which all its secret longings tend, should excite a higher feeling than any mere creation of the fancy, how beautiful soever it may be.

The phenomena of reality are more startling than the phantoms of the ideal. Truth is stranger than fiction. Surely, many of the discoveries of science which relate to the combinations of matter, and exhibit results which we could not by any previous efforts of reasoning dare to reckon on, results which show the admirable balance of the forces of nature, and the might of their uncontrolled power, exhibit to our senses subjects for contemplation truly poetic in their character.

We tremble when the thunder-cloud bursts in fury above our heads. The poet seizes on the terrors of the storm to add to the interest of his verse. Fancy paints a stormking, and the genius of romance clothes his demons in lightnings, and they are heralded by thunders. These wild imaginings have been the delight of mankind; there is subject for wonder in them; but is there any thing less wonderful in the well-authenticated fact that the dew-drop which glistens on the flower, or that the tear which trembles on the eye-lid, holds, locked in its transparent cells, an amount of electric fire equal to that which is discharged during a storm from a thunder-cloud?

In these studies of the effects which are continually presenting themselves to the observing eye, and of the phenomena of causes, as far as they are revealed by science in its search of the physical earth, it will be shown that beneath the beautiful vesture of the external world there

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