WOE to the nation that leaves the education of its young to the professional teacher.

Miss Mary F. Eastman.

A MASTERPIECE excites no sudden enthusiasm ; it must be studied much and long before it is fully comprehended; we must grow up to it, for it will not descend to us. Its influence is less sudden, more lasting. Its emphasis grows with familiarity. We never become disenchanted; we are more and more awe-struck at its infinite wealth. We discover no trick, for there is none to discover. Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, Mozart, never storm the judgment; but once fairly in possession, they retain it with increasing influence.

Lewes ("Life of Goethe").

THE best thoughts of the day ought to be in the daily papers. They are the educators of the age. They reach everybody. We do not want to make them religious, for then only religious people would read them. We want them to be, as they now are, mirrors of the times. But we want to try and get before them, and get them to reflect, that which is noblest, and not that which is basest, that which is purest and not that which is vilest.

E. C. Babb, D.D.

SUNDAY papers are now like huge carts, going about through the streets of our cities during the week, gathering up all the moral garbage and filth they can find, whether from the city or country, to pour it out, garnished with all the pungency of low wit, and prurient fancy, and perverted genius, to the gaze of the young and the old.

Pittsburgh Catholic.

CHEAP books are a necessity, and a necessity which need bring, moreover, no loss to either authors or publishers.

Michel Levy.

A MAN cannot choose his own life. He cannot say :,“ I will take existence lightly, and keep out of the way. the wr *ched, mistaken, energetic creatures who fight so heartily in the great battle.” He cannot say: "I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle." He cannot do this. He can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the Maker who created him has appointed for him to do. If he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully. But woe betide him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty muster-roll! woe betide him if he hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war!

Miss M. E. Braddon.

THE power to converse well is a very great charm. You think anybody can talk? How mistaken you are. Anybody can chatter. Anybody can exchange idle gossip. Anybody can recapitulate the troubles of the kitchen, the cost of the last new dress, and the probable doings of the neighbors. But to talk wisely, instructively, freshly and delightfully, is an immense acomplishment. It implies exertion, observation, study of books and people, and receptivity of impression.

Ruskin.

THE book-canvasser is a missionary of culture; his prospectus is more honorable than the sword.

J. D. O'Connor.

THE fierce confederate storm

Of sorrow barricadoed evermore

Within the walls of cities.

Wordsworth.

CHRIST should be the diamond in the bosom of every

sermon.

Thomas H. Skinner, D.D.

EVERY calling is constantly making a silent, invisible draft en the talent and energy of the country, which is strong or weak in proportion to the attractiveness of the prizes which it offers, and men make up their minds whether to enter it or not at an age while choice is still free, and when ambition and hope are still free. They do not, however, publish their reasons for going into any particular calling or put them on record anywhere; but everybody who knows young men knows what they are. Men beginning life do not ask for certainties, but they do ask for a fair chance of pecuniary ease and social consideration if the prospect of wealth be wanting; and year by year and generation to generation the ability of the community turns away from professions in which this chance is small.

The Nation.

REMORSE may disturb the slumbers of a man who is dabbling with his first experiences of wrong; and when the pleasure has been tasted and is gone, and nothing is left of the crime but the ruin which it has wrought, then too the furies take their seats upon the midnight pillow. But the meridian of evil is, for the most part, left unvexed; and when a man has chosen his road, he is left alone to follow it to the end.

Froude.

HEARTS more or less, I suppose we have, but we keep them so close-cased and padlocked-we wear an outside so hard or dry-that little or none of the love that may be within escapes to gladden those around us. And so life passes without any of the sweetening to society that comes when affection is not only felt but expressed. And we are poorer, for love unexpressed brings no reward. The principle of the parable of the buried talent underlies this

matter.

Beecher.

LOOKING Over the world on a broad scale, do we not find that public entertainments have very generally been the sops thrown out by the engrossing upper classes to keep the lower classes from inquiring too particularly into their rights, and to make them satisfied with a stone, when it was not quite convenient to give them bread? Wherever there is a class that is to be made content to be plundered of its rights, there is an abundance of fiddling and dancing; and amusements, public and private, are in great requisition. It may also be set down, I think, as a general axiom, that people feel the need of amusements less and less, precisely in proportion as they have solid reasons for being happy. Harriet Beecher Stowe.

XIV.

PULPIT TORCHES.

THAT a man stand and speak of spiritual things to men! It is beautiful; even in its great obscuration and decadence, it is among the beautifullest, most touching objects one sees on the earth. This speaking man has indeed, in these times, wandered terribly from the point; has, alas, as it were, totally lost sight of the point! yet, at bottom, whom have we to compare with him? I wish he could find the point again, this speaking one, and stick to it with tenacity, with deadly energy, for there is need of him yet!

Carlyle.

MODERN preaching has become, alas ! too often, a mere professional solemnity on the one hand, and a respectful non-attention on the other.

Rev. Dr. Hamilton.

It is the province of the preachers of Christianity to develope the connection between this world and the next; to watch over the beginnings of a course which will endure forever, and to trace the broad shadows cast from imperishable realities on the shifting scenery of earth.

N. Y. Herald.

WITHOUT treasures of thought, without solid convictions, without a feeling of strength, with nothing but feverish haste and that poorest of gifts, the gift of words flattering and belittling borrowed thoughts, some leap into the pulpit, as if it were heroic rather than foolhardy to take responsibilities to which they were not equal, as if a call consisted of bold desire.

Ex-President Woolsey.

THE sermon is now the true poppy of literature.

David Swing.

AFFECTATION is bad enough anywhere; in the pulpit it is intolerable.

Edinburgh Review.

Ir it has pleased God to save men by "the foolishness of preaching, "it has not been by choosing fools to be preachers. Gail Hamilton.

OH, it were a nobler triumph of the modern pulpit to see men of strong principles and self-controlling wisdom gathering round them the most boisterous elements of our social atmosphere, conducting the lightnings with which its darkest thunder-clouds are charged, and showing to the nation they have saved that the preaching of the cross is still the power of God.

Beecher.

In

READING sermons is official, pedantic, heartless. speaking without notes there is earnestness, reality, power. Parker's "Ad Clerum."