CHOICE OF FRIENDS.

We should ever have it fixed in our memories, that by the character of those whom we choose for our friends, our own is likely to be formed, and will certainly be judged of by the world. We ought, therefore, to be slow and cautious in contracting intimacy; but, when a virtuous friendship is once established, we must ever consider it as a sacred engagement.

EASY WAY OF GAINING OR LOSING FIVE
YEARS OF LIFE.

EARLY rising has been often extolled, and extolled in vain ; for people think that an hour's additional sleep is very comfortable, and can make very little difference after all. But an hour gained or wasted every day, makes a great difference in the length of our lives, which we may see by a very simple calculation::

First, we will say that the average of mankind spend sixteen hours of every twenty-four awake and employed, and eight in bed. Now, each year having three hundred and sixty-five days, if a diligent person abstract from sleep one hour daily, he lengthens his years three hundred and sixtyfive hours, or twenty-three days of sixteen hours each, the length of a waking day, which is what we call a day in these calculations.

We will take a period of forty years, and see how it may be decreased or added to by sloth or energy. A person sleeping eight hours a day has his full average of three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, and may therefore be said to enjoy complete his forty years. Let him take nine hours sleep, and his year has but three hundred and forty-two days, so that he lives only thirty-seven and a half years; with ten hours in bed, he has three hundred and nineteen days, and his life is thirty-five years; in like manner, if the sleep is limited to seven hours, our year has three hundred and eighty-eight days, and instead of forty, we live forty-two and a half years; and if six hours is our allowance of slumber, we have four hundred and eleven days in the year, and live forty-five years.

By this we see that, in forty years, two hours daily occasion either a loss or gain of FIVE YEARS. How much might be

done in this space? What would we not give at the close of life for another lease of five years? And how bitter the reflection would be at such a time, if we reflect at all, that we have wilfully given up this portion of our existence merely that we might lie a little longer in bed in the morning!

MAKE A BEGINNING.

REMEMBER in all things that, if you do not begin, you will never come to an end. The first weed pulled up in the garden, the first seed put in the ground, the first shilling put in the savings bank, and the first mile travelled on a journey, are all very important things. They make a beginning, and thereby a hope, a promise, a pledge, an assurance, that you are in earnest with what you have undertaken. How many a poor, idle, erring, hesitating outcast, is now creeping and crawling his way through the world, who might have held up his head and prospered, if, instead of putting off his resolutions of amendment and industry, he had only made a beginning!

HINTS.

Do not be discouraged if, in the outset of life, things do not go on smoothly. It seldom happens that the hopes we cherish for the future are realized. The path of life appears smooth and level; but when we come to travel it, we find it all uphill, and generally rough enough. The journey is a laborious one; and whether poor or wealthy, high or low, we shall find it, to our disappointment, if we have built on any other calculation. To endure it with as much cheerfulness as possible, and to elbow our way through the great crowd, hoping for little, yet striving for much, is perhaps the best plan. Do not be discouraged if occasionally you slip down by the way, and your neighbour treads over you a little; or, in other words, do not let a failure or two dishearten you. Accidents will happen, miscalculations will sometimes be made, things will turn out differently from our expectations, and we may be sufferers. It is worth while to remember, that fortune is like the skies in April, sometimes clear and favourable; and as it would be folly to despair of again seeing the sun because to-day is stormy, so it is unwise to sink into despondency when fortune frowns, since, in the common course of things, she may surely be expected to smile and smile again. Do not be discouraged if you are deceived in the people of the world; they are rotten at the core. From such sources as these you may be most unexpectedly deceived, and you will naturally feel sore under such deceptions; but to these you may become used. If you fare as other people do, they will lose their novelty before you grow grey, and you will learn to trust more cautiously, and examine their character closely, before you allow great opportunities to injure you. Do not be discouraged under any circumstances. Go steadily forward. Rather consult your own conscience than the opinion of men, though the