The final halting of this shadow of life is as uncertain as the mysteriousness of the soul is inexplicable.-J. Hill.

Trust in God, suspect yourself, act right, and pray;

Seek peace, not grandeur; hear much; little say;

Reveal no secrets; learn the weak to spare;
Own a superior, and an equal bear.

A darkness and a light,

A silence and a sound,
A weakness and a might,

A vastness and a bound;

Such, such is human life,

With its contests and its change;
With its troubles and its strife,
Wild, startling, dim, and strange.

Lady E. S. Wortley.

What is Life?

A twisted yarn-a tangled skein—
A twisted web of joy and pain-

A glancing sunbeam, warm and bright—
A hanging cloud, more dark than night—
A beauteous flower of sweetest scent-
A murky cave where poison's pent-
A golden cup, with nectar sweet-

A blacken'd bowl, where bitters meet-
The lightest feather that can rise-
A heavy weight repressing sighs-
A lucid stream with rapid flow-

A stagnant pool, where dark weeds grow-
A summer breeze that cools the air-

A hurricane that makes earth bare

A gift enjoy'd with grateful heart-
A load with which we long to part-
And such is Life!

See DEATH.

- Life is a shadow that departeth, a dream of error; the fruitless labour of imagined existence. — Russian Funeral Service.

- Thy life, wert thou the "pitifullest of all the sons of earth," is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own; it is all thou hast to front eternity with. Work, then, even as He has done and does-“like a star unhasting, yet unresting."-Carlyle.

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and the care is over. Sir W. Temple.

Life may be compared to a summer residence at a watering place. When we first arrive, we form friendships with those who have already spent some time there, and must be gone the next week. The loss is painful; but we connect ourselves with the second generation of visitors, with whom we spend some time, and become dearly intimate; but these also depart, and we are left alone with a third set, who arrive just as we are preparing for our departure, in whom we feel little or no interest.-Goethe.

- When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat;

Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit ;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:
To-morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain ;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.

Dryden.

Let us always consider life, as it really is, a mean state, which is not an object itself, but a medium for obtaining an object, as the multifarious imperfections of it sufficiently prove as a period of trial and preparation, a fragment of existence, through which we are to be fitted for, and transmitted to, other periods.-Madden.

When we begin to write on the blank page of life in youth, it seems as if we should never fill it. Alas! at middle age it is so scribbled over with blots and erasures, that we can scarcely find room for a new record.

Life and its Enjoyments.

An important consideration in reflecting on the duration of life is, that the enjoyments granted to us in this world seem to be adapted to man's duration in it, and to be fit for no longer period; so that if his duration were much extended, it would be far less interesting than it is at present. Observe, as we advance in life, and exactly in proportion as we have been active and inquiring, how our interest ceases in all the objects before us; not because the senses decay, but because we have so often witnessed the same scenes before those exertions of talent, those beauties of nature, those revolutions in human opinion, which, to the young and the inexperienced, are so replete with wonder. This is the world now; it was the world ages past; it will be the world for ages to come; it is all well for the little time we remain in it, hastening, as we know, to something greater and better; but it is a circle, it is not a line; if you were to live on, you must go roundyou could not advance; and the truth and certainty of this may fairly be said to lessen the terror of death, and reconcile us to quitting life-that the term of years conceded to us is exactly proportioned to the real interest and satisfaction the world can afford; that the world is only planned for a shortlived, perishable being; that we are so far from giving up any new system and scheme of pleasure which this world can supply, that we feel conscious it has required all our skill to keep off weariness for the three score and ten years we are permitted to live.- Sydney Smith.

Life and its Ellusions.

Man passes on his way from youth to manhood, from manhood till the shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest-in the temperate and the torrid zone-in sickness and in health-in joy and sorrow—at school and in the camp or senate-still, still he is the same. His passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his friends no longer-other faces around him-other voices echo in his ears. Still he is the same-the same when chilling experience has taught him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first dawned upon his view. The same when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon his heart, as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of friendship, and of renown. The same when cold, cautious, interested, suspicious, guilty—as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent. Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet unknown -the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object around which his heartstrings were entwined—anguish within, and desolation without-stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability of our nature, so varied are our modes of being; and thus, through the benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.

Life is Onward.

Life is onward-use it
With a forward aim;
Toil is heavenly, choose it,
And its warfare claim.
Look not to another

To perform your will;

Let not your own brother

Keep your warm hand still.

Life is onward-never
Look upon the past;
It would hold you ever
In its clutches fast.
Now is your dominion,
Weave it as you please;
Bind not the soul's pinion
To a bed of ease.
Life is onward—try it,
Ere the day is lost;
It hath virtue—buy it,
At whatever cost.
If the world should offer
Every precious gem,
Look not at the scoffer,
Change it not for them!
Life is onward-heed it
In each varied dress;
Your own art can speed it
On to happiness.
His bright pinion o'er you,
Time waves not in vain,
If Hope chants before you
Her prophetic strain.

Life is onward-prize it

In sunshine and in storm;
Oh! do not despise it

In its humblest form.

Hope and Joy together,

Standing at the goal,

Through life's darkest weather,

Beckon on the soul.

Life is Sweet.

"Oh! life is sweet!" said a merry child,

"And I love, I love to roam

In the meadows green, 'neath the sky sereneOh! the world is a fairy home.