"Now, sir, upon your solemn oath, you saw the testator sign that will; he signed it in his bed; at his request you signed it as a subscribing witness; you saw him seal it; it was with red wax that he sealed it, a piece of two, three, or four inches long; he lit that wax with a piece of candle, which you procured for him from a cupboard; you lit that candle by a match which you found on the mantel-shelf?" "I did."

"My lord-it is a wafer." The prisoner was convicted.

XIII.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

HAPPINESS.

KNOW then this truth (enough for man to know):
"Virtue alone is happiness below."

The only point where human bliss stands still,
And tastes the good without the fall to ill;
Where only merit constant pay receives,

Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives;
The joy unequal'd, if its end it gain;
And if it lose, attended with no pain;
Without satiety, tho' e'er so blest,

And but more relish'd as the more distress'd;
The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears,

Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears;

Good from each object, from each place acquir'd,

Forever exercis'd, yet never tired;

Never elated, while one man's oppress'd

Never dejected, while another's blest;

And where no wants, no wishes can remain,

Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.

IDLENESS.

THE keenest pangs the wretched find

-Pope.

Are rapture to the dreary void,

The leafless desert of the mind,

The waste of feelings unemployed.

-Byron.

REBELLION.

REBELLION! foul, dishonoring word,
Whose wrongful blight so oft has stain'd
The holiest cause that tongue or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gain'd!

How many a spirit born to bless

Hath sunk beneath that withering name,
Whom but a day's, an hour's success,
Had wafted to eternal fame!

As exhalations, when they burst
From the warm earth, if chill'd at first,
If check'd in soaring from the plain,
Darken to fogs and sink again;
But if they once triumphant spread
Their wings above the mountain-head,
Become enthroned in upper air,

And turn to sun-bright glories there.

-Moore.

TRUE REPENTANCE.

'Tis not to cry God mercy, or to sit

And droop, or to confess that thou hast fail'd;
'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit,
And not commit those sins thou hast bewail'd.
He that bewails and not forsakes them, too,
Confesses rather what he means to do.

-Quarles.

XIV.-EVILS OF GOSSIP.

I HAVE known a country society which withered away all to nothing under the dry rot of gossip only. Friendships once as firm as granite, dissolved to jelly, and then ran away to water, only because of this; love that promised a future as enduring as heaven, and as stable as truth, evaporated into a morning mist that turned to a day's long tears, only because of this; a father and a son were set foot

to foot with the fiery breath of anger that would never cool again between them, only because of this; and a husband and his young wife, each straining at the hated leash which in the beginning had been the golden bondage of a Godblessed love, sat mournfully by the side of the grave where all their love and joy lay buried, and only because of this. I have seen faith transformed to mean doubt, hope give place to grim despair, and charity take on itself the features of black malevolence, all because of the spell words of scandal and the magic mutterings of gossip.

Great crimes work great wrong, and the deeper tragedies of human life spring from its larger passions; but woeful and most melancholy are the uncatalogued tragedies that issue from gossip and detraction; most mournful the shipwreck often made of noble natures and lovely lives by the bitter winds and dead salt waters of slander. So easy to say, yet so hard to disprove-throwing on the innocent, and punishing them as guilty, if unable to pluck out the stings they never see, and to silence words they never hear. Gossip and slander are the deadliest and cruelest weapons man has for his brother's hurt.

BENEFITS OF LAUGHTER.

PROBABLY there is not the remotest corner or little inlet of the minutest blood-vessel of the body that does not feel some wavelet from the great convulsion produced by hearty laughter, shaking the central man. The blood moves more lively-probably its chemical, electric or vital condition is instinctively modified-it conveys a different expression to all the organs of the body as it visits them on that particular mystic journey, when the man is laughing, from what it does at other times. And thus it is that a good laugh lengthens a man's life by conveying a distinct and additional stimulus to the vital forces. The time may come

when physicians, attending more closely than they do now to the innumerable subtle influences which the soul exerts upon its tenement of clay, shall prescribe to a torpid patient "so many peals of laughter," to be undergone at such and such a time, just as they do now that far more objectionable prescription-a pill, or an electric or galvanic shock, and shall study the best and most effective method of producing the required effect in each patient.

XV.-A BEAUTIFUL LEGEND.

SOFTLY fell the touch of twilight on Judea's silent hills;
Slowly crept the peace of moonlight o'er Judea's trembling rills.
In the temple's court, conversing, seven elders sat apart;
Seven grand and hoary sages, wise of head and pure of heart.
"What is rest?" said Rabbi Judah, he of stern and steadfast

gaze;

"Answer, ye whose tools have burdened thro' the march of many days."

"To have gained," said Rabbi Ezra, "decent wealth and goodly

store

Without sin, by honest labor-nothing less and nothing more." "To have found," said Rabbi Joseph, meekness in his gentle

eyes,

"A foretaste of heaven's sweetness in home's blessed paradise." "To have wealth, and power, and glory, crowned and brightened by the pride

Of uprising children's children," Rabbi Benjamin replied. "To have won the praise of nations, to have won the crown of fame,"

Rabbi Solomon responded, faithful to his kingly name.

"To sit throned, the lord of millions, first and noblest in the land,"

Answered haughty Rabbi Asher, youngest of the reverend band. "All in vain," said Rabbi Jarius, "unless faith and hope have

traced

In the soul Mosaic precepts, by sin's contact uneffaced."

Then uprose wise Rabbi Judah, tallest, gravest of them all: 'From the height of fame and honor even valiant souls may

fall;

Love may fail us, virtue's sapling grow a dry and thorny rod,
If we bear not in our bosom the unselfish love of God."
In the outer court sat playing a sad-featured, fair-haired child,
His young eyes seemed wells of sorrow-they were God-like
when he smiled!

One by one he dropped the lilies, softly plucked with childish hand;

One by one he viewed the sages of that grave and hoary band; Step by step he neared them closer, till encircled by the seven, Thus he said, in tones untrembling, with a smile that breathed

of heaven:

"Nay, nay, father! Only he, within the measure of whose breast Dwells the human love with God-love, can have found life's truest rest;

For where one is not, the other must grow stagnant at its spring;

Changing good deeds into phantoms-an unmeaning, soulless

thing,

Who holds this precept truly owns a jewel brighter far

Than the joys of home and children-than wealth, fame, and glory are;

แ

Fairer than old age, thrice honored far above tradition's law, Pure as any radiant vision ever ancient prophet saw.

Only he within the measure-faith apportioned—of whose breast Throbs this brother-love with God-love, knows the depth of perfect rest."

Wondering gazed they at each other, once in silence, and no

more:

He has spoken words of wisdom no man ever spake before!" Calmly passing from their presence to the fountain's rippling

song,

Stooped he to uplift the lilies strewn the scattered sprays among. Faintly stole the sounds of evening through the massive outer

doors,

Whitely lay the peace of moonlight on the temple's marble floor, Where the elders lingered, silent, since he spake, and undefiled, Where the wisdom of the Ages sat amid the flowers-a child!

K. N. E.-14.