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Each of the Four Numbers of

"100 Choice Selections" contained in this volume is paged separately, and the Index is made to correspond therewith. See EXPLANATION on first page of Contents.

The entire book contains nearly

1000 pages.

100

CHOICE SELECTIONS.

No. 11

THE MOUNTAINS OF LIFE.-J. G. CLARK.

There's a land far away, 'mid the stars we are told,
Where they know not the sorrows of time,—
Where the pure waters wander through valleys of gold,
And life is a treasure sublime;—

'Tis the land of our God, 'tis the home of the soul,
Where the ages of splendor eternally roll;
Where the way-weary traveler reaches his goal,
On the evergreen Mountains of Life.

Our gaze cannot soar to that beautiful land,
But our visions have told of its bliss,

And our souls by the gale of its gardens are fanned,
When we faint in the desert of this;

And we sometimes have longed for its holy repose,
When our spirits were torn with temptations and woes,
And we've drank from the tide of the river that flows
From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

Oh, the stars never tread the blue heavens at night,
But we think where the ransomed have trod;
And the day never smiles from his palace of light,
But we feel the bright smile of our God!

We are traveling homeward through changes and gloom,
To a kingdom where pleasures unceasingly bloom,

And our guide is the glory that shines through the tomb From the evergreen Mountains of Life.

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"IF THINGS WAS ONLY SICH!"-B. P. SHILLABER.

A seedy old beggar asked alms of me

As he sat 'neath the shade of a wayside tree.

He was beggared in purse and beggared in soul,
And his voice betrayed a pitiful dole,

As he sang a song, to a dismal pitch,

With the burden, “ IF THINGS WAS ONLY SICH!"

"If things was only sich," said he,

"You should see what a wonderful man I'd be:
No beggar I, by the wayside thrown,
But I'd live in a palace and millions own
And men would court me if I were rich-
As I'd be if things was only sich."

"If things was only sich," said he,

"I'd be lord of the land and lord of the sea;
I would have a throne and be a king,
And rule the roast with a mighty swing-
I'd make a place in fame's bright niche;-
I'd do it if things was only sich."

"If things was only sich," said he,

"Rare wines I'd quaff from the far countree, I'd clothe myself in dazzling garb,

I'd mount the back of the costly barb,

And none should ask me wherefore or which-
Did it chance that things was only sich."

“If things was only sich,” said he,

"I'd love the fairest and they'd love me;

Yon dame, with a smile that warms my heart,
Might have borne with me life's better part,
But lost to me, here in poverty's ditch,
What were mine if things was only sich."

Thus the old beggar moodily sung,

And his eyes dropped tears as his hands he wrung. I could but pity to hear him berate,

In dolorous tones, the decrees of fate,

That laid on his back its iron switch,

While he cried, “If things was only sich."

"If things was only sich!"-e'en all
Might the past in sad review recall;
But little the use and little the gain,
Exhuming the bones of buried pain,-

And whether we're poor or whether we're rich,
We'll say not, "If things was only sich."

CULTURE THE RESULT OF LABOR.-WM. WIRT.

The education, moral and intellectual, of every individual must be chiefly his own work. How else could it happen that young men, who have had precisely the same opportunities, should be continually presenting us with such different results, and rushing to such opposite destinies? Difference of talent will not solve it, because that difference is very often in favor of the disappointed candidate.

You will see issuing from the walls of the same college-nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same family,-two young men, of whom the one shall be admitted to be a genius of high order, the other scarcely above the point of mediocrity; yet you shall see the genius sinking and perishing in poverty, obscurity, and wretchedness; while, on the other hand, you shall observe the mediocre plodding his slow but sure way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step, and mounting, at length, to eminence and distinction, -an ornament to his family, a blessing to his country.

Now whose work is this? Manifestly their own. Men are the architects of their respective fortunes. It is the fiat of fate from which no power of genius can absolve you. Genius, unexerted, is like the poor moth that flutters around a candle till it scorches itself to death. If genius be desirable at all, it is only of that great and magnanimous kind which, like the condor of South America, pitches from the summit of Chimborazo, above the clouds, and sustains itself at pleasure in that empyreal region, with an energy rather invigorated than weakened by the effort.

It is this capacity for high and long-continued exertion, this vigorous power of profound and searching investigation, this careering and wide-spreading comprehension of mind, and those long reaches of thought, that

"Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And drag up drowned honor by the locks."

This is the prowess, and these the hardy achievements, which are to enroll your names among the great inen of the earth.

A CHINESE STORY.-C. P. CRANCH.

None are so wise as they who make pretense
To know what fate conceals from mortal sense.
This moral from a tale of Ho-hang-ho

Might have been drawn a thousand years ago,
When men were left to their unaided senses,
Long ere the days of spectacles and lenses.

Two young, short-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching,
Over their chopsticks idly chattering,

Fell to disputing which could see the best;
At last they agreed to put it to the test.
Said Chang, "A marble tablet, so I hear,
Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near,
With an inscription on it. Let us go
And read it (since you boast your optics so),
Standing together at a certain place

In front, where we the letters just may trace;
Then he who quickest reads the inscription there,
The palm for keenest eyes henceforth shall bear."
Agreed," said Ching, "but let us try it soon:

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Suppose we say to-morrow afternoon."

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Nay, not so soon," said Chang: "I'm bound to go
To-morrow a day's ride from Ho-hang-ho,
And shan't be ready till the following day:
At ten a. m. on Thursday, let us say."

So 'twas arranged; but Ching was wide awake:
Time by the forelock he resolved to take;
And to the temple went at once and read
Upon the tablet: "To the illustrious dead,
The chief of mandarins, the great Goh-Bang."
Scarce had he gone when stealthily came Chang,
Who read the same; but peering closer, he
Spied in a corner what Ching failed to see-
The words, "This tablet is erected here
By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear.”
So on the appointed day--both innocent
As babes, of course-these honest fellows went,
And took their distant station; and Ching said,
“I can read plainly, ‘To the illustrious dead,
The chief of mandarins, the great Goh-Bang.'
"And is that all that you can spell?" said Chang,
"I see what you have read, but furthermore,
In smaller letters, toward the temple door,
Quite plain,' This tablet is erected here

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By those to whom the great Goh-Bang was dear.""

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