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النشر الإلكتروني

A WORD TO MERCHANTS.

IN your converse with the world avoid any thing like a juggling dexterity. The proper use of dexterity is to prevent your being circumvented by the cunning of others. It should not be aggressive. Concessions and compromises form a large and a very important part of our dealings with others. Concessions must generally be looked upon as distinct defeats; and you must expect no gratitude for them. I am far from saying that it may not be wise to make concessions; but this will be done more wisely when you understand the nature of them. In making compromises, do not think to gain by concealing your views and wishes. You are as likely to suffer from its not being known how to please or satisfy you, as from any attempt to overreach you, grounded on a knowledge of your wishes. Delay is, in some instances, to be adopted advisedly. It sometimes brings a person to reason when nothing else could; when his mind is so occupied with one idea, that he completely over-estimates its relative importance, he can hardly be brought to look at the subject calmly, by any force of reasoning. For this disease time is the only doctor. A good man of business is very watchful, both over himself and others, to prevent things from being carried against his sense of right in moments of lassitude. After a matter has been much discussed, whether to the purpose or not, there comes a time when all parties are anxious that it should be settled; and there is then some danger of the handiest way of getting rid of the matter being taken for the best. A man of business should take care to consult occasionally with persons of a nature quite different from his own. To very few are given all the qualities requisite to form a good man of business. Thus, a man may have the sternness and the fixedness of purpose so necessary in the conduct of affairs, yet these qualities prevent him, perhaps, from entering into the character of those about him. He is likely to want tact. He will be unprepared for the extent

of versatility and vacillation in other men. But these defects and oversights might be remedied by consulting with persons whom he knows to be possessed of the qualities supplementary to his own. Men of much depth of mind can bear a great deal of counsel; for it does not easily deface their own character, nor render their purposes indistinct.

CHEER UP.

NEVER go gloomily, man with a mind,
Hope is a better companion than fear,
Providence, ever benignant and kind,

Gives with a smile what it takes with a tear.
All will be right!

Look to the light!

Morning is ever the daughter of night,
All that is black will be all that is bright.

Cheerily, cheerily, then, cheer up!

Many a foe is a friend in disguise,

Many a sorrow a blessing most true

Helping the neart to be happy and wise,
With love ever precious and joys ever new.
Stand in the van,

Strive like a man!

you can,

Trusting in God while you do what
This is the bravest and cleverest plan.

Cheerily, cheerily, then, cheer up!

SAVE, SAVE, SAVE!

WHAT is there a man cannot save and improve? By curbing appetite and restraining passion, by observing prudence and maintaining regularity, he may save his health, husband his strength, and thus preserve the springs of life as constant fountains of energy and happiness, to sustain and cherish him under every labour and every hardship. He may save a fortune by industry and denying himself needless indulgence, and he may find a pure enjoyment in devoting it to noble uses. Time-the indolent might make wealth of it—the most industrious improve upon their use of it. It comes to us in brief minutes, to show us that present application is the sole duty required of us; yet these so weave in and make up our days and years, that misimprovement of the present is always at the expense of the future. One of the hours each day, wasted on trifles or indolence, saved, and daily devoted to improvement, is enough to make an ignorant man wise in ten years-to provide the luxury of intelligence to a mind torpid from want of thought-to brighten up and strengthen faculties perishing with rust-to make life a fruitful field, and death a harvester of glorious deeds.

CARLYLE'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.

THE following letter, by the giant philosopher Carlyle, was cut from a small Scotch provincial newspaper, some sixteen years ago. "It was addressed," says our authority, "to a young man who had written to Mr. Carlyle, desiring his advice as to a proper choice of reading," and, it would appear, as to his conduct in general. We most earnestly recommend it to the attention of young men, as containing advice of the most valuable and practicable description, and pregnant with truth with which they cannot be too well acquainted. The young are too much inclined to be dissatisfied with their actual condition, and to neglect their immediate duties in vain aspirations after others beyond their lot; and they need the monitions of such a kind, but vigorous and emphatic, adviser as Mr. Carlyle, and to have it impressed on their minds, that

"To do,

That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom."

DEAR SIR,-Some time ago your letter was delivered me; I take literally the first free half-hour I have had since to write you a word of answer.

It would give me true satisfaction could any advice of mine contribute to forward you in your honourable course of self-improvement; but a long experience has taught me that advice can profit but little-that there is a good reason why advice is so seldom followed; this reason, namely, that it is so seldom, and can almost never be rightly given. No man knows the state of another; it is always to some more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most honest adviser is speaking.

As to the books which you-whom I know so little ofshould read, there is hardly any thing definite that can be said. For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book that is wiser than yourself, will teach you something-a great many things indirectly

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