Patience is a good nag, says the proverb. Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast. Always have a good stock of patience laid by, and be sure you put it where you can easily find it. Cherish patience as your favorite virtue. Always keep it about you. You will find use for it oftener than for all the rest. Moderation

is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all virtue. He who is impatient to become his own master is most likely to become merely his own slave. You can do anything if you will only have patience; water may be carried in a sieve, if you can only wait till it freezes. Those who at the commencement of their career meet with less applause than they deserve, not unfrequently gain more than they deserve at the end of it; though having grounds at first to fear that they were born to be starved, they often live long enough to die of a surfeit.

He hath made a good progress in business that hath thought well of it beforehand. Some do first and think afterwards. Precipitation ruins the best laid designs; whereas patience ripens the most difficult, and renders the execution of them easy. That is done soon enough which is done well. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He that would enjoy the fruit, must not gather the flower. He calls to patience, who is patience itself, and he that gives the precept enforces it by his own example. Patience affords us a shield to defend ourselves, and innocence denies us a sword to defend others. Knowledge is power, but it is one of the slowest because one of the most durable of agencies. Continued exertion,

and not hasty efforts, that lead to success. What can not be cured must be endured. How poor are they that have not patience!

Contentment.

"Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;
But riches endless is as poor as winter

To him that always fears he shall be poor."

EVERY man either is rich, or may be so; though not all in one and the same wealth. Some have abundance, and rejoice n it; some a competency, and are content; some having nothing, have a mind desiring nothing. He that hath most, wants something; he that hath least, is in something supplied; wherein the mind which maketh rich, may well possess him with the thought of store. Who whistles out more content than the low-fortuned plowman, or sings more merrily than the abject cobbler that sits under the stall? Content dwells with those that are out of the eye of the world, whom she hath never trained with her gauds, her toils, her lures. Wealth is like learning, wherein our greater knowledge is only a larger sight of our Desires fulfilled, teach us to desire more; so we that at first were pleased, by removing from that, are now grown insatiable.

wants.

We knew a man that had health and riches, and

several houses, all beautiful and ready furnished, and would often trouble himself and family to be removing from one house to another; and being asked by a friend why he removed so often from one house to another, replied: "It was to find content in some of them." But his friend, knowing his temper, told him, "If he would find content in any of his houses, he must leave himself behind him; for content will never dwell but in a meek and quiet soul." The inscription upon the tombstone of the man who had endeavored to mend a tolerable constitution by taking physic, "I was well; I wished to be better; here I am," may generally be applied with great justness to the distress of disappointed avarice and ambition.

We sometimes go musing along the street to see how few people there are whose faces look as though any joy had come down and sung in their souls. We can see lines of thought, and of care, and of fear-money lines, shrewd, grasping lines-but how few happy lines! The rarest feeling that ever lights the human face is the contentment of a loving soul. Sit for an hour on the steps of the Exchange in Wall behold a drama which is better atres, for all the actors are real. successful men where there is one contented man. We can find a score of handsome faces where we can find

Street, and you will than a thousand theThere are a hundred

one happy face. An eccentric wealthy gentleman stuck up a board in a field upon his estate, upon which was painted the following: "I will give this field to any man contented." He soon had an applicant. "Well, sir; are you a contented man?" "Yes, sir;

very." "Then what do you want of applicant did not stop to reply.

my field?"
field?" The

It is one property which, they say, is required of those that seek the philosopher's stone, that they must not do it with any covetous desire to be rich, for otherwise they shall never find it. But most true it is, that whosoever would have this jewel of contentment, (which turns all into gold, yea, want into wealth,) must come with minds divested of all ambitious and covetous thoughts, else are they never likely to obtain it. The foundation of content must spring up in a man's own mind; and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove. No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.

It conduces much to our content if we pass by those things which happen to trouble, and consider what is pleasing and prosperous, that by the representations of the better the worse may be blotted out. If I be overthrown in my suit at law, yet my house is left me still, and my land, or I have a virtuous wife, or hopeful children, or kind friends, or hopes. If I have lost one child, it may be I have two or three still left me. Enjoy the present, whatever it may be, and be not solicitous for the future; for if you take your foot from the present standing, and thrust it forward to tomorrow's event, you are in a restless condition; it is

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like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing you will want to drink the next day. If to-morrow you should want, your sorrow would come time enough, though you do not hasten it; let your trouble tarry till its own day comes. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly, for this day is ours. We are dead to yesterday, and not yet born to to-morrow. A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.

Contentment is felicity. Few are the real wants of man. Like a majority of his troubles, they are more imaginary than real. Some well persons want to be better, take medicine, and become sick in good earnest; perhaps die under some patented nostrum. Some persons have wealth-they want more-enter into some new business they do not understand, or some wild speculation, and become poor indeed. Many who are surrounded by all the substantial comforts of life, become discontented because some wealthier neighbor sports a carriage, and his lady a Brussels carpet and mahogany chairs, entertains parties, and makes more show in the world than they. Like the monkey, they attempt to imitate all they see that is deemed fashionable; make a dash at greater contentment; dash out their comfortable store of wealth; and sometimes, determined on quiet at least, close the farce with a tragedy, and dash their brains out with a blue pi. Discontented persons live in open rebellion against