something better. There are SO many Christian harpists and Christian composers and Christian organists and Christian choristers and Christian hymnologists that have gone up from earth, there must be for them some place of especial delectation. Shall we have music in this world of discords and no music in the land of complete harmony? I cannot give you the notes of the first bar of the new song that is sung in heaven, I cannot imagine either the solo or the doxology. But heaven means music, and can mean nothing else. Occasionally that music has escaped the gate. Dr. Fuller dying at Beaufort, S. C., said: "Do you not hear?" "Hear what?" exclaimed the bystanders. "The music! Lift me up! Open the window!" In that music room of our Father's house, you will some day meet the old Christian masters, Mozart and Handel and Mendelssohn and Beethoven, and Doddridge, whose sacred poetry was as remarkable as his sacred prose, and James Montgomery, and William Cowper, at last got rid of his spiritual melancholy, and Bishop Heber, who sang of "Greenland's icy mountains and India's coral strand;" and Dr. Raffles, who wrote of "High in yonder realms of light," and Isaac Watts, who went to visit Sir Thomas Abney and wife for a week but proved himself so agreeable a guest that they made him stay thirty-six years; and side by side, Augustus Toplady, who has got over his dis like for Methodists, and Charles Wesley, freed from his dislike for Calvinists; and George W. Bethune, as sweet as a song maker as he was great as a preacher and the author of the "Village Hymns;" and many who wrote in verse or song, in church or by eventide cradle, and many who were passionately fond of music but could make none themselves. The

poorest singer there more than any earthly prima donna, and the poorest players there more than any earthly Gottschalk. Oh that music room, the headquarters of cadence and rhythm, symphony and chant, psalm and antiphon! May we be there some hour when Haydn sits at the keys of one of his oratorios, and David the psalmist fingers the harp, and Miriam of the Red Sea banks claps the cymbals, and Gabriel puts his lips to the trumpet, and the four-and-twenty soldiers chant, and Lind and Parepa render matchless duet in the music room of the old heavenly homestead. Talmage.

GOOD MANNERS.

Fine manners no code can teach. If they are conscious they become artificial and are fine no longer. A man indeed may be taught to avoid grossness and impudence and not to mistake them for ease. The youth

who puffs a cigarette when he is walking with a lady, who is free and easy instead of scrupulously courteous is merely ungentlemanly and vulgar; and if he choose he may correct his behavior; certainly he would correct it if the lady showed him that she required the correction. The impudence of young men generally reflects the weakness of young women. If they required courtesy there would be little insolent freedom of behavior upon the part of their cavaliers.

What may be learned in the cultivation of good manners must be acquired in the school of experience. It is, of course, a superficial and external knowledge which is so acquired, and its extent depends upon the power of accurate observation. Is it not Goethe's Connoisseur who asks to see the best pictures? But what determines the best? Is it the taste of the owner, or their degree and kind of reputation? The man

ners which strike Daisy Miller as fine, and which she will emulate, are not those which would attract another. The manual, indeed, is the result of observation. It is a lesson drawn from experience, and its value depends, therefore, upon the fact that it is drawn by Daisy Miller or by another. The better rule is the more general one--not to think always how you are behaving, but always to cultivate that kindness of feeling, that generous sympathy and friendly understanding, which will unconsciously regulate behavior.

The lovely lady of whom we were speaking, whose sweet smile and good-morning, children crossed the street to hear, had studied no manual, but

was taught by her own kind heart. Had she been cold, selfish, haughty, supercilious, her manner, however dazzling, would have been icy. The manual will do no harm if you use it to correct obvious faults of behavior. But good manners spring from a good heart. They may be imitated, indeed. The manners of Aaron Burr were called fascinating. But they were chromo manners, the ingenious mimicry of deep and tender color. Gilding and plating there will always be. But we must remember that gold and silver are still the only pecious metals.-Harper's Magazine.

SPEAK KINDLY.

A young lady had gone out walking. She forgot to take her purse with her and had no money in her pocket. Presently she met a little girl with a basket on her arm.

"Please miss, will you buy something from my basket?" said the little girl, showing a variety of book marks, watch cases, needle books, etc.

"I'm sorry I can't buy anything to-day," said the young lady. "I haven't any money with me. Your

things look very pretty." She stopped a moment and spoke a few kind words to the little girl; and then as she passed she said again, "I'm sorry I can't buy anything from you to-day.

"O miss! said the little girl, "You've done me just as much good as if you had. Most persons that I meet say, 'Get away with you!' but you have spoken kindly and gently to me, and I feel a heap better."

That was "considering the poor." How little it costs to do that! Let us learn to speak kindly and gently to the poor and suffering. If we have nothing else to give, let us at least give them our sympathy.Philadelphia Presbyterian.

THE NEW KEY.

"Aunt," said a little girl, "I believe I have found a new key to unlock people's hearts, and make them so willing."

"What is the key?" asked her aunt. "It is only one little word; guess what?"

But aunt was no guesser.

"It is please," said the child; "aunt it is please. If I ask one of the great girls in school 'please show me my parsing lesson,' she says, 'Oh yes!' and helps me. If I ask Sarah, please do this for me,' no matter, she'll take her bands out of the suds and do it. If I ask uncle, 'please,' he says, 'yes, puss, if I can,' and if I say 'please aunt'

"What does aunt do?" said aunt herself.

"Oh! you look and smile just like mother; and that is the best of all," cried the little girl, throwing her arms round her aunt's neck, with a tear in her eye.

Perhaps other children would like to know about this key, and I hope they will use it also, for there is great power in the small kind courtesies of life.-S. S. Visitor.

THE ROMANCE OF THE THIMBLE. This useful little adjunct of a lady's work-box is said to have been invented in the year 1684, by a young Dutch goldsmith of Amsterdam, who devised the "thumb-bell"-for this was its original name-in order to protect his sweetheart's thumb tops when she was engaged with a needle and thread. The "thumb-bell" has, as a rule, however, become a fingerbell," but in shape only a little only a little change has taken place in it since the loving Hans placed the first thimble on the thumb of his ladylove. In Germany the name for thimble is "finger hat."

ADMONITIONS. Judge not hastily; condemn not without proof, nor act without a good motive. Think before you speak; and be careful to say nothing which you may vainly, at some future time wish unsaid. Ever considering that time flies swiftly, let not your moments pass unimproved. Study economy, and practice it in every department of your business, thus achieving the greatest possible amount of good which your means will allow. Be punctual, be benevolent, be studious, be kind, be hopeful, be truthful, be just, be careful, be considerate, be cheerful, be attentive, be contented, be diligent, be enlightened, be friendly, be orderly, be neat, be polite, be exemplary, be teachable and ready to teach, be obedient, be good.

HUMAN ASPIRATIONS.-All lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better.

things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man alone stoop? Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge of a pool, that grows down

ward, and seeks a mock heaven in the unstable element beneath it, in neighborhood with the slimy waterweeds and oozy bottom-grass, that are yet better than itself and more noble, in as far as substances that appear as shadows are perferable to shadows mistaken for substances? No! it must be a higher good to make you happy. While you labor for anything below your proper humanity, you seek a happy life in the region of death.-Coleridge.

MOUNTAINS. Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of the anatomy are, the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength. The plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of beauty, yet ruling those lines in their undulation. This, then, is the first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills is action; that of the lowlands, repose; and between them there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the inactive plain, sleeping like a firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks, which with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to heaven, saying, "I live forever."-Ruskin.

TRUTH is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and sits upon our laps, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, sets a man's invention upon the rack, and needs a good many more to make it good.

THE affections, like the conscience, are rather to be led than driven; and it is to be feared that they who marry where they do not love will love where they do not marry.-Fuller.

THE martyrs of vice far exceed the martyrs of virtue, both in endurance and in number; so blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved. -Colton.

As well, almost kill a man, as kill a good book. Many a man lives a burden to the earth, but a good book is the precious life-blood of a masterspirit, embalmed and treasured upon purpose, to a life beyond a life.Milton.

MYSTERY magnifies danger, as the fog the sun. The hand that un

nerved Belshazzer derived its most horrifying influence from the want of a body; and death itself is not formidable in what we know of it, but in what we do not.

THE most vivid personification of bigotry we ever read, was that given by Phillips, the Irish orator.

He

said, "Bigotry has no head, and cannot think; she has no heart and cannot feel; when she moves it is in wrath; when she pauses, it is amid ruin; her prayers are curses.

No mind so bright but drink will befool it; no fortune so ample but brandy will beggar it; the happiest it will fell with misery; the firmest health dissipation will shatter; no

business so thriving that whiskey cannot spoil; no reputation so spotless that wine will not stain it.

IN LIGHTER VEIN.

THE hymn beginning "The consecrated cross I'd bear" had just been sung, and in the momentary quiet that followed the perplexed youth turned to his father: "Say, Pa, where do they keep the consecrated crosseyed bear?"

CITY COUSIN (at ball, to country cousin). "Considerable difference betwixt this and a hop in the country, is there not?"

Country Cousin. "Well-er-yes. Ye see they wear clothes all over 'em in our parts."

A QUICK-WITTED Iowa woman, noting the invention of a ballot box that cannot be stuffed, exclaimed: "Now, if some one will invent a voter that cannot be stuffed with beer, brag, or bribery, we shall have made a long stride toward better government!"

How came you to have such a short nose?" asked a city dandy of a country boy. "So that I would not be poking it into other people's business," was the reply. There are several people who ought to join the "Anti-poke-your-nose-into-other-people's-business society.

"What a truly good woman Rev. Mrs. P. is," remarked a gentleman, referring to the wife of a fashionable minister, "I don't think I ever met a lady of more character and worth. She must be a great help to her husband in his ministerial work." "Ob, yes," responded the gentleman's wife, "She is. She practices what he preaches."