Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! THE DIGNITY OF AUTHORSHIP. Importance. Regulations. Arrived. Society. OUR pious fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the speaking of man to men, founded churches, made endowments, regulations; everywhere in the civilized world there is a Pulpit, environed with all manner of complex dignified appurtenances and furtherances, that therefrom a man with the tongue may, to the best advantage, address his fellow-men. They felt that this was the most important thing; that without this there was no good thing. It is a right pious work, that of theirs; beautiful to behold! But now, with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing, a total change has come over that business. The Writer of a Book, is not he a Preacher preaching, not to this parish or that, on this day or that, but to all men in all times and places? Surely it is of the last importance that he do his work right, whoever do it wrong;-that the eye' report not falsely, for then all the other members are astray! Well; how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do it at all, is a point which no man in the world has taken the pains to think of. To a certain shopkeeper, trying to get some money for his books, if lucky, he is of some importance; to no other man of any. Whence he came, whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived, by what he might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is an accident in society. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in a world of which he is as the spiritual light, either the guidance or the misguidance.-CARLYLE. 1. "The light of the body is the eye; | body shall be full of light.”—Matt. vi. 22. if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole THE VIRTUOUS WIFE. Sabbath. Instructed. Genial. Permission. SUCH a treasure had the celebrated teacher, Rabbi' Meir found. He sat during the whole of one Sabbath-day in the public school, and instructed the people. During his absence from his house his two sons died, both of them of uncommon beauty, and enlightened in the law. His wife bore them to her bed-chamber, laid them upon the marriage-bed, and spread a white covering over their bodies. In the evening, Rabbi Meir came home. "Where are my two sons," he asked, "that I may give them my blessing ?" They are gone to the school," was the answer. "I repeatedly looked round the school," he replied, "and I did not see them there." She reached to him a goblet, he praised the Lord at the going out of the Sabbath, drank, and again asked, "Where are my sons, that they too may drink of the cup of blessing ?" "They will not be far off,” she said, and placed food before him, that he might eat. 66 He was in a gladsome and genial mood, and when he had said grace after the meal, she thus addressed him : 'Rabbi, with thy permission, I would fain propose to thee one question.' "Ask it then, my love!" he replied. "A few days ago, a person entrusted some jewels to my custody, and now he demands them : should I give them back?" "This is a question," said Rabbi Meir, "which my wife should not have thought it necessary to ask. What! wouldst thou hesitate or be reluctant to restore to every one his own ?" "No," she replied; "but I thought it best not to restore them without acquainting thee therewith." She then led him to their chamber, and stepping to the bed, took the white covering from the dead bodies. Ah, my sons, my sons!" thus loudly lamented the father; my sons, the light of mine eyes, and the light of my understanding. I was your father, but ye were my teachers in the law." 66 66 The mother turned away and wept bitterly. At length she took her husband by the hand, and said, "Rabbi, didst thou not teach me that we must not be reluctant to restore that which was entrusted to our keeping? See, the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord!" "Blessed be the name of the Lord!" echoed Rabbi Meir, "and blessed be his name for thy sake too! For well it is written, 'Whoso hath found a virtuous wife hath a greater treasure than costly pearls; she openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness." "-COLERIDGE, 'The Friend.' 1. Rabbi is a Hebrew term for doctor | Jews-the rabbis being the expounders or teacher. This word, which is fre- of the law, and more particularly of the quently found in the New Testament, is Talmud or commentaries of later docin use at the present day among the tors. MINE OWN FIRE-SIDE. LET others seek for empty joys My own fire-side! These simple words A gentle form is near me now; And ask, what joys can equal thine: What care I for the sullen war My refuge ever from the storm Of this world's passion, strife, and care; Thy precincts are a charmed ring, Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet, My own-my own fire-side!-ALARIC A. WATTS. IMPORTANCE OF A DUE REGULATION OF THE DESIRES. Foundation. Irregularities. Immutable. Total. Character. Accomplish. THE mental condition which we call DESIRE appears to lie in a great measure at the foundation of character; and, for a sound moral condition, it is required that the desires be directed to worthy objects, and that the degree or strength of them be accommodated to the true and relative value of each of these objects. If the desires are thus directed, worthy conduct will be likely to follow in a steady and uniform manner. If they are allowed to break from the restraints of reason and the moral principle, the man is left at the mercy of unhallowed passion, and is liable to those irregularities which naturally result from such a derangement of the moral feeling. If, indeed, we would see the evils produced by desire, when not thus controlled, we have only to look at the whole history of human kind. What accumulated miseries arise from the want of due regulation of animal propensities in the various forms in which it degrades the character of rational and moral beings! What evils spring from the love of money, and from the desire of power; from the contests of rivals and the tumults of party! What envy, hatred, malignity, and revenge! What complicated wretchedness follows the train of ambition-contempt of human suffering, countries depopulated, and fields deluged with blood. Such are the results of desire when not directed to objects worthy of a moral being, and not kept under the rigid control of conscience and the immutable laws of moral rectitude. When, in any of these forms, a sensual or selfish propensity is allowed to pass the due boundary which is fixed for it by reason and the moral principle, the mental harmony is destroyed, and even the judgment itself comes to be impaired and distorted in that highest of all inquiries, the search after moral truth. The desires, indeed, may exist in an ill-regulated state, while the conduct is yet restrained by various principles, such as submission to human laws, a regard to character, or even a certain feeling of what is morally right, contending with the vitiated principle within. But this cannot be considered as the healthy condition of a moral being. It is only when the desire itself is sound that we can say the man is in moral health. "He who grieves at his abstinence," says Aristotle, "is a voluptuary;" and this also is the great principle so strikingly enforced in the sacred writings, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Thus, there are desires which are folly, and there are desires which are vice, even though they should not be followed by indulgence; and there are desires which tend to purify and elevate the moral nature, though their objects should be beyond the reach of our full attainment in the present state of being. Perfect moral purity is not the lot of man in this transient state, and is not to be attained by his own unaided efforts. But subservient to it is that warfare within, that earnest and habitual desire after the perfection of a moral being, which is felt to be the great object of life, when it is viewed in relation to the life which is to come. For this attainment, however, man must feel his total inadequacy; and the utmost efforts of human reason have failed in unfolding the requisite aid. The conviction is thus forced upon us, that a higher influence is necessary, and this influence is fully disclosed by the light of revealed truth. We are there taught to look for a power from on high, capable of effecting what human efforts cannot accomplish, the purification of the heart.-ABERCROMBIE' On the Moral Feelings,' |