through many books, retaining only a confused knowledge of their contents, is but a poor exercise of the brain; it is far better to read with care a few well selected volumes.

Some of the great advantages of thinking are the following: First, it transfers and conveys the sentiments of others to ourselves, so as to make them properly our own. Secondly, it enables us to distinguish truth from error, and to reject what is wrong after we have seen, read, or heard anything. Thirdly, by this we fix in our memory only what we best approve of, without loading it with all that we read. Lastly, by properly meditating on what comes within the view of our minds, we may improve upon the sentiments or inventions of others, and thereby acquire great reputation, and perhaps emolument, from their labors.

All mental superiority originates in habits of thinking. A child, indeed, like a machine, may be made to perform certain functions by external means; but it is only when he begins to think that he rises to the dignity of a rational being. It is not reading, but thinking, that gives you the possession of knowledge. A person may see, hear, read and learn whatever he pleases and as much as he pleases; but he will know very little, if anything, of it, beyond that which he has thought over and made the property of his mind. Take away thought from the life of man and what remains? You may glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.

At every action and enterprise, ask yourself this question: What will the consequence of this be to me?

Am I not likely to repent of it? I shall be dead in a little time, and then all is over with me. Whatever

thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss. Think before you speak, and consider before you promise. Take time to deliberate and advise; but lose no time in executing your resolutions. Do nothing to-day that you will repent of to-morrow. In the morning think of what you have to do, and at night ask yourself what you have done. Seek not out the thoughts that are too hard for thee. matter that concerneth thee not. dangerous enemies, and should be repulsed at the threshold of our minds. Fill the head and heart with good thoughts, that there be no room for bad ones.

Strive not in a Evil thoughts are

Some persons complain that they cannot find words for their thoughts, when the real trouble is they cannot find thoughts for their words. The man who thinks laboriously will express himself concisely. It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labor can be made happy. It is not depth of thought which makes obscure to others the work of a thinker; real and offensive obscurity comes merely of inadequate thought embodied in inadequate language. What is clearly comprehended or conceived, what is duly wrought and thought out, must find for itself and seize upon the clearest and fullest expression. Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried. The best thoughts are ever swiftest winged, the duller lag behind. A thought must have its own way of expression, or it will have no way at all. The thought that lives is only the deeds struggling into

birth. It is with our thoughts as with our flowersthose that are simple in expression carry their seed with them; those that are double charm the mind, but produce nothing.

There is much need of independent thought in our day. Too many yield to the opinions of others without asking or meditating upon their bearing. Oftentimes the masses are enslaved to opinion, especially in political matters. This may be necessary in some countries, where a few rule, but not in our country, where, through a liberal education, all may be taught to think. Books are so cheap now that the poorest can have access to the channels of thought. Books, however, should only be used as an impetus to set the mind in motion and set it to prying deeper and farther into nature's hidden recesses and boundless realms of truth, or, as a stone that is cast into the calm bosom of the lake causes waves to roll and roll on against the remotest outlines of the shore. It behooves us to cast off the shackles of opinion and walk resolutely before the world, guided by a well-grounded opinion of our own. Every man and woman ought to favor his age with new thoughts, new ideas, as an addition to the great store-house of ideas, with thoughts that will live though empires fall and language dies. Such men and women raise the world from one degree to another higher in the scale of civilization and intelligence. Such are the lives that receive the plaudit, "Well done;" such are lives virtuous, noble and godlike.

No man need fear that he will exhaust his substance of thought, if he will only draw his inspiration from

actual human life. There the inexhaustible God pours depths and endless variety of truth, and the true thinker is but a shorthand writer endeavoring to report the discourse of God. Shall a child on the banks of the Amazon fear lest he should drink up the stream?

Benefactors or Malefactors.

WE are all well doers or evil doers.

"None of us

liveth to himself." We die, but leave an influence behind us that survives.

The echoes of our words are evermore repeated, and reflected along the ages. It is what man was that lives and acts after him. What he said sounds

along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges; and what he did is repeated after him in ever-multi plying and never-ceasing reverberations. Every man has left behind him influences for good or for evil that will never exhaust themselves. The sphere in which he acts may be small, or it may be great. It may be his fireside, or it may be a kingdom; a village, or a great nation; it may be a parish, or broad Europe; but act he does, ceaselessly and forever. His friends, his family, his .successors in office, his relatives, are all receptive of an influence, a moral influence which he has transmitted and bequeathed to mankind; either a

blessing which will repeat itself in showers of benedic tions, or a curse which will multiply itself in everaccumulating evil.

Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends and designs it, or not. He may be a blot, radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing, spreading benedictions over the length and breadth of the world; but a blank he cannot be. The seed sown in life springs up in harvests of blessings, or harvests of sorrow. Whether our influence be great or small, whether it be for good or evil, it lasts, it lives somewhere, within some limit, and is operative wherever it is. The grave buries the dead dust, but the character walks the world, and distributes itself, as a benediction or a curse, among the families of mankind.

The sun sets beyond the western hills, but the trail of light he leaves behind him guides the pilgrim to his distant home. The tree falls in the forest; but in the lapse of ages it is turned into coal, and our fires burn now the brighter because it grew and fell. The coral insect dies, but the reef it raised breaks the surge on the shores of great continents, or has formed an isle in the bosom of the ocean, to wave with harvests for the good of man. We live and we die; but the good or evil that we do lives after us, and is not "buried with our bones."

The babe that perished on the bosom of its mother, like a flower that bowed its head and drooped amid