WANT OF DECISION. GREAT deal of labor is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort, and who, if they had only been induced to begin, would have in all probability gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that in doing anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank, thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating risks and adjusting nice chances; it did all very well before the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterward; but at present a man waits and doubts, and consults his brother, and uncles, and his particular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, and that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time to follow their advice. There is so little time for over-squeamishness at present, that the opportunity slips away. The very period of life at which a man chooses to venture, if ever, is so confined that it is no bad rule to preach up the necessity, in such instances, of a little violence done to the feelings, and efforts made in defiance of strict and sober calculations. ODE TO DUTY. Full oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task imposed, from day to day; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunctions in me wrought, But in the quietness of thought; I feel the weight of chance desires: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose which ever is the same. Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear As is the smile upon thy face; Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong: And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful power! I call thee; I myself commend And, in the light of truth, thy bondman let me live! A A GREAT LAWYER. TRULY Great Lawyer is one of the highest products of civilization. He is a master of the science of human experience. He sells his clients the results of that experience, and is thus the merchant of wisdom. The labors of many generations of legislators and judges enrich his stores. His learning is sufficient to enable him to realize the comparative littleness of all human achievements. He has outlived the ambition of display before courts and juries. He loves justice, law, and peace. He has learned to bear criticism without irritation; censure without anger; and calumny without retaliation. He has learned how surely all schemes of evil bring disaster to those who support them; and that the granite shaft of a noble reputation cannot be destroyed by the poisoned breath of slander. A Great Lawyer will not do a mean thing for money. He hates vice, and delights to stand forth a conquering champion of virtue. The good opinions of the just are precious in his esteem; but neither love of friends, nor fear of foes, can swerve him from the path of duty. He esteems his office of counselor as higher than political place or scholastic distinction. He detests unnecessary litigation, and delights in averting danger, and restoring peace by wise counsel and skilful plans. The good works of the counselroom are sweeter to him than the glories of the forum. He proves that honesty is the best policy, and that peace pays both lawyer and client, better than controversy. In a legal contest, he will give his client the benefit of the best presentation of whatever points of fact or of law may be in his power; but he will neither pervert the law, nor falsify the facts to defeat an adversary. The motto of his battle-flag is: Fidelity to the law and the facts,-semper fidelis. C. C. BONNEY. LABOR. AUSE not to dream of the future before us; Hark! how Creation's deep, musical chorus, Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart. Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. Labor is life! 'Tis the still water faileth; Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, Labor is health! Lo! the husbandman reaping, Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee! Rest not content in thy darkness-a clod! Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God! ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN. OUNG men, you are the architects of your own fortunes. Rely upon your own strength of body and soul. Take for your star self-reliance, faith, honesty, and industry. Inscribe on your banner, "Luck is a fool, pluck is a hero." Don't take too much advice-keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Don't practice too much humility. Think well of yourself. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in your cart, over a rough road, and small ones go to the bottom. Rise above the envious and the jealous. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energy, invincible determination, with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. Don't drink. Don't chew. Don't smoke. Don't swear. Don't deceive. Don't read trashy novels. Don't marry until you can support a wife. Be in earnest. Be self-reliant. Be generous. Be civil. Read the papers. Advertise your business. Make money and do good with it. Love your God and fellow-men. Love truth and virtue. Love your country, and obey its laws. If this advice be implicitly followed by the young men of the country, the millennium is near at hand. NOAH PORTER. T A PSALM OF LIFE. WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. ELL me not, in mournful numbers, Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, In the world's broad field of battle, TRIALS A TEST OF CHARACTER. WAIN AIN are all the efforts of slander, permanently to injure the fame of a good man ! There is a cascade in a lovely Swiss valley which the fierce winds catch and scatter so soon as it pours over the summit of the rock, and for a season the continuity of the fall is broken, and you see nothing but a feathery wreath of apparently helpless spray; but if you look further down the consistency is recovered, and the Staubbach pours its rejoicing waters as if no breeze had blown at all. Nay, the blast which interrupts it only fans it into more marvelous loveliness, and makes it a shrine of beauty where all pilgrim footsteps travel. And so the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame. What are circumstances,—I wonder, that they should hinder a true man when his heart is set within him to do a right thing! Let a man be firmly principled in his religion, he may travel from the tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the journey. Set him down in the desert, and just as the palm-tree thrusts its roots beneath the envious sand in search of sustenance, he will manage somehow to find living water there. Banish him to the dreariest Patmos you can find, he will get a grand Apocalypse among its barren crags. Thrust him into an inner prison, and make his feet fast in the stocks, the doxology will reverberate through the dungeon, making such melody within its walls of stone that the jailer shall relapse into a man, and the prisoners hearing it shall dream of freedom and of home. WILLIAM MORLEY PUNSHON. H GRADATIM. EAVEN is not reached at a single bound; But we build the ladder by which we risc From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round. I count this thing to be grandly true, That a noble deed is a step toward God, We rise by the things that are under our feet; We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust, When the morning calls us to life and light; But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night Our lives are trailing in sordid dust. We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray, Wings for the angels, but feet for men! We borrow the wings to find the way— Only in dreams is a ladder thrown From the weary earth to the sapphire walls; But we build the ladder by which we rise E liveth long who liveth well! Of true things truly done each day. Waste not thy being; back to Him "Tis but to be, and not to live. Be what thou seemest! live thy creed! HOW TO LIVE. Be what thou prayest to be made; Sow truth, if thou the truth wouldst reap: Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure; HORATIUS BONAR. |