science make this equitable arrangement of the transaction, you had better decline the loan when it is first offered; for what's the value to you of a man's good opinion of you if you don't think he is so much better than yourself as to be able to judge of yourself?

POMPOUS PEOPLE.

Pompous people with nothing in them, who go about amid a brave flourish of words, throwing back the head, waving the arm magificently, and walking with the stiff grace of an actor on the stage, are like those little toy balloons which are destroyed by the prick of a needle. They stare you in the face, and look so round and aldermanly and mighty that you are very apt to believe in them. But never be afraid of pomposity. 'Tis the easiest to reduce of any alarming symptoms you may encounter. Lance it.

INSTINCT.

Instinct, which governs the actions of human beings oftener than those who have not thought much on the matter would be willing

to acknowledge, is never so useful nor so evident a power as when it gives one an insight into character. If in the arrangements of social intercourse reason were more frequently engaged in the pursuit of inquiries which instinct suggests, the worth to us of the highest of the faculties we possess in common with the brutes would become more apparent. We are too apt, in our pride of intellect, to give reason a special retainer to upset instinct. Every man can quote instances from his own history of the first decided judgment of instinct, apparently in opposition to reason, being proved by subsequent experience to be right; but he will be able to recollect far fewer cases of instinctive apprehensions of character which have turned out grossly mistaken.

CONSISTENCY.

Consistency, when it is a virtue, is one of the smallest, and to be charged simply with inconsistency is to be accused of a very little sin. Some good persons often make themselves absurd by a minute regard to con

sistency. There is always a wiser argument against what is wrong than the assertion that it is inconsistent. We sometimes allow our

selves to be frightened away from most innocent pleasures by a ridiculous fear of being thought inconsistent. Inconstancy is often confounded with inconsistency; but the variable wind, which blows in turn from every point of the compass, and produces in turn an endless variety of changes in temperature, is as consistent a force as any in Nature. Lying is a most hateful vice, but I have met with a most consistent person who cultivated it as an accomplishment.

THE IDEAL.

Let nobody sneer at the ideal. Our dearest delights belong to the imagination; and our bitterest griefs are fancies. The finest luxury of sentiment is the sense of being loved, and one flitting thought may destroy it.

LOVE AND TRUST.

The measure of trust is the measure of love. Men and women will willingly place their

lives in the hands of those whom they devotedly love. Where there is little trust there is little love. You can't love that in which you do not believe. It is impossible to love a liar. You do not love the man upon whose word or goodwill you cannot rely. You do do not love God with all your heart unless you trust in Him for all you want.

OPINION.

Opinion is partly a reasonable presumption, and partly a resolve we are prompted to by some moral feeling. We call ourselves rational beings, but it is opinion which governs our lives, not reason. We may control our appetites, but we are not the masters of our opinions.

A FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

There is but one reason why men like to have their good deeds mentioned to the world through a trumpet, and that is the tradesman's reason for sending in his account. is pretty honest with such men. charge a fair price it pays them

The world When they promptly in

full, but it never gives them a farthing over except in mistake,-and such mistakes are rare, and are found out and roughly rectified afterwards to the loss of the seller. An act of true benevolence, involving self-denial, done in the dark, forgotten, and discovered a long time afterwards by mere accident, is a different sort of commodity from that which the world pays for in the well-used, chipped, and greasy coin of public praise.

GOING THROUGH THE WORLD.

Some men creep through the world, some men shuffle through it, some hobble through it, some run through it; but the happiest way is to walk through, with an upright head, and an eye to the goal from beginning to end.

GULLIBILITY.

Gullibility is universal. Everybody in the world will believe a certain amount of what is plainly false and absurd. All the remarkably acute people have a remarkably weak point somewhere. The most clever have a definite capacity for nonsense. This is not a