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Show ' 4 I Gems of thought 1 The art of making friends lies in knowing how to be a friend. A calm superiority of mind finds little lit-tle difficulty in attaining its highest ends. Silence holds a Dower, a magnitude, that silver-tongued speech is unable to convey. Nature makes her own aristocracy. To the humble born she often bequeaths be-queaths her rarest treasures and highest high-est graces. - The true culture of self lies in sup-j planting self with the beauties of the j soul. . All noble thoughts are prayers. Victor Vic-tor Hugo. We cannot eat fruit whilst the tree is in bloom. ,? The greatest aim? To form ideals and live up to them. The soul has no secret which the i on-duct on-duct cannot reveal. Good fortune sometimes comes to us In a very shabby-looking carriage. He who says theie is no such thing as an honest man is himself a knave. Not education, but character, is man's greatest need and man's greatest great-est safeguard. Spencer. -,- One of the hardest weeds to uproot is selfishness. Nothing can do this but "the expulsive power of a new affliction." afflic-tion." Those who love to shine in conversation conversa-tion have a dread of the commonplace, whereas truth is often very commonplace. common-place. True wisdom lies not in perusing books; nor wooing nature in her shady nooks: but in the study of man as fnan to God looks. To happily say or do the right thing in the right time and the right prace affords evidence of keen instinct and fine manners. ; The Bible is the book of books, holding hold-ing philosophy that can never be improved im-proved on. It is the accumulation of the inspired messages of God, perfecting perfect-ing every element of man's nature and making him divine. There are two times a woman should be proud at the approach of familiar--ity, and in keeping silence under trying try-ing provocations, thereby not suffering her dignity to lose itself in a petulant, hasty answer. . . "Study to be quiet," that is, study todismiss all bustle and worry out of your inward life. Study also to do your own business of other people. A great deal of "creaturely activity" is expended expend-ed in trying to do other people's business. busi-ness. It is often very hard to sit still when we see our friends, according to our ideas, mismanaging matters and making such dreadful blunders. But the divine order, as it is also the best human order as well, is for each one of us to do our own business, and to refrain from meddling with the business busi-ness of anyone else. It is idle to talk of fuffering as if it were the privilege of a few select lives only. Suffering and its culture, like joy and its culture, are within the lot of every man. He lives unworthily whose .nature never clashes against the lower natures and suffers pain. But I mere pain is not education, does not bring growth, It is the suffering of willing submission to God and of self-sacrificing self-sacrificing love for fellowmen that soften and spiritualizes and blesses s. In all such suffering let us rejoice. We shall not need to seek; opportunities enough, for it will meet us everywhere. And may God help us everywhere find the treasures they contain! Happiness is the. rule of healthy existence; ex-istence; pain and misery are its exceptional excep-tional conditions. Nor is pain altogether alto-gether an evil; it is rather a salutary warning. It tells that we have transgressed trans-gressed some rule, violated some law, disobeyed some physical obligation. It is a monitor which warns us to amend our state of living. It virtually says: "Return to nature, observe her laws, and be restored to happiness. Thus, paradoxical though it may seem, nain is one of the conditions of the physical well-being of man; as death, according to Dr. Thomas Brown, is one of . the i conditions of the enjoyment of life. |