Idle hearts only the dark future frightens.

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune!

Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us;
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us;
Rest from sin promptings that ever entreat us;
Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill.
Work, and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;
Work, thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow!
Work with a stout heart and resolute will!

FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

All Labor Sacred.

It has been too much the fashion to divide the service of God from the work of the world, to call on men to leave all to follow Christ-as if Christ meant, when He called Peter and Matthew away for a special missionary work, that no one should remain to do the needful works of life, and that no one who did not leave those works could follow Him. By this mistaking of a particular call of special men to a particular work for a universal call for all men the fatal division was made of sacred and profane work. The true lesson of His teaching was that all work was given to man by God, and was to be done divinely with love and faith and joy.—STOpford A. BROOKE.

A Spiritual Conception of Labor.

There are two ways of looking at David as he plays his harp before Saul. To a mere outsider it was harpplaying. To David it was an attempt to help a man by driving away an evil spirit. In playing the harp he was doing a great spiritual work. It would help us

in our work if we looked at its spiritual rather than at its merely outward aspect. The influence of a spiritual worker never ceases. David's harp is being played still, and its strains are expelling many an evil spirit. Had his work been merely so much manipulation upon a musical instrument, his work would have perished with his physical existence; but David played with his soul as well as with his fingers. Hence his strains linger in the air and find their way into the hearts of men.-JOSEPH PARKER.

My Work.

I stood up straight and worked

My veritable work. And as the soul

Which grows within a child makes the child grow;
Or, as the fiery sap, the touch from God,
Careering through a tree, dilates the bark

And roughs with scale and knob, before it strikes
The summer foliage out in a green flame-
So life, in deepening with me, deepened all

The course I took, the work I did.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Labor Necessary.

It is not labor that makes things valuable, but their being valuable that makes them worth laboring for. And God, having judged, in His wisdom, that it is not good for man to be idle, has so appointed things, by His providence, that few of the things which are most desirable can be obtained without labor. It is ordained that man should eat bread in the sweat of his face, and about all the necessary comforts and luxuries of life are obtained only by labor.-R. WHATELY.

Labor in Genius.

When a lady once asked Turner, the celebrated English painter, what his secret was, he replied: "I have no secret, madam, but hard work. This is a secret that many never learn, and they do not succeed because they do not learn it. Labor is the genius which changes the world from ugliness to beauty and the great curse to a blessing."

Condensed Comments.

In putting on your armor, do not forget that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. Not content with merely reading your Bible, study it. Instead of skimming over whole acres of truth, put your spade into the most practical passages, and dig deep. Study the Twenty-fifth Psalm and the twelfth chapter of Romans, as well as the sublime eighth chapter. Study the whole Epistle of James. It will teach you how a Christian ought to behave before the world. As you get on farther

you may strike your hoe and your mattock down into the rich ore-beds of the Book of John.

heart with God's Word.-T. L. CUYLER.

Saturate your

Let us do all the work we can. If we can not be a light-house, let us be a tallow candle. There used to be a period when people came to meeting bringing their candles with them. The first one, perhaps, would not make a great illumination, but when two or three got there, there would be more light. If the people of Boston should do that now, if each one should come here in this Tabernacle with a candle, don't you think there would be a little light ?-MOODY.

If we are going to be successful, we have got to take our stand for God, and let the world and every one know we are on the Lord's side. I have great respect for the woman who started out during the war with a poker. She heard the enemy were coming, and she went out to resist them. When some one asked her what she could do with the poker, she said she would at least let them know what side she was on. And that is what we want. -MOODY.

I have one great principle which I never lose sight of -to insist strongly on the difference between Christian and non-Christian, and to sink into nothing the differences between Christian and Christian.--Dr. Arnold.

It is the greatest pleasure of living to win souls to Christ.-MOODY.

Work is God's ordinance as truly as prayer.-GEORGE D. BOARDMAN.

LAW.

Law Everywhere.

Laws appear everywhere. We find them in the domain of beauty. They forbid the architect to put a small column under a mighty dome, and will not permit him to sacrifice power to beauty. They command the painter to care for Nature, and not to make wheat ripen in the snow and not to make the robins sing in the leafless trees of Christmas. They issue orders to literature, and tell it to exclude debasing ideas and to admit the truths of most value and of greatest application. They issue orders to religion, and tell it to create in humanity the most possible of virtue and hope. Appearing at all other points of thought and action, laws spring up in the State to help the public hold what justice and progress it may have found. These laws our marching citizens must respect. All damage done property, all disregard of American rights, the rights of individuals or of corporations, must be instantly checked, because the law of the land is the progress we have made in the ages up to this date. With that taken away, we fall back into the abyss of barbarism. Our Nation may or may not have climbed very high from its barbaric starting point, but it must hold what it has gained. Our laws of property have been passed by the millions acting in their best hours; they must not be set at naught by bands of itinerants acting in their bad hours.-SWING.