affairs; honour refers to the principles and feelings. You may pay your debts punctually, you may defraud no man, and yet you may act dishonourably. You act dishonourably when you give your correspondents a worse opinion of your rivals in trade than you know they deserve. You act dishonourably when you sell your commodities at less than their real value, in order to get away your neighbour's customers. You act dishonourably when you purchase at higher than the market price, in order that you may raise the market upon another buyer. You act dishonourably when you draw accommodation bills, and pass them to your banker for discount, as if they arose out of real transactions. You act dishonourably in every case wherein your external conduct is at variance with your real opinions. You act dishonourably if, when carrying on a prosperous trade, you do not allow your servants and assistants, through whose exertions you obtain your success, to participate in your prosperity. You act dishonourably if, after you have become rich, you are unmindful of the favours you received when poor. In all these cases there may be no intentional fraud; it may not be dishonest, but it is dishonourable conduct.

ACTIVITY IS NOT ALWAYS ENERGY.

THERE are some men, whose failure to succeed in life is a problem to others, as well as themselves. They are industrious, prudent, and economical; yet, after a long

life of striving, old age finds them still, poor. They complain of ill-luck. They say fate is always against them. But the fact is, they miscarry because they have mistaken mere activity for energy: Confounding two things essentially different, they have supposed that, if they were always busy, they would be certain to be advancing their fortunes.

They have forgotten that misdirected labour is but a waste of activity. The person who would succeed in life, is like a marksman firing at a target; if his shots miss the mark, they are a waste of powder; to be of any service at all, they must tell in the bull's-eye, or near. So, in the great game of life, what a man does must be made to count, or it had almost as well been left undone.

The idle warrior, cut from a shingle, who fights the air on the top of a weathercock, instead of being made to turn some machine commensurate with his strength, is not more worthless than the merely active man, who, though busy from sunrise to sunset, dissipates his labour on trifles, when he ought skilfully to concentrate it on some great end.

Everybody knows some one in his circle of acquaintance, who, though always active, has this want of energy. The distemper, if we may call it such, exhibits itself in various ways. In some cases, the man has merely an executive faculty when he should have a directive one; in other language, he makes a capital clerk for himself, when he ought to do the thinking of the business. In other cases, what is done is either not done at the right time, or in the right way. Sometimes there is no distinction made between objects of different magnitudes,

but as much labour is bestowed in a trivial affair as on a matter of vast moment.

Energy, correctly understood, is actively proportioned to the end. Napoleon would often, when in a campaign, remain for days without taking off his clothes, now galloping from point to point, now dictating despatches, now studying maps. But his periods of repose, when the crisis was over, were generally as protracted as his exertions had been. He has been known to sleep for eighteen hours on a stretch. Second-rate men, your slaves of tape and routine, while they would fall short of the superhuman exertions of the great Emperor, would have thought themselves lost, beyond hope, if they imitated what they call his indolence. They are capital illustrations of activity, keeping up their monotonous jog-trot for ever; while Napoleon, with his gigantic industry, alternating with such apparent idleness, is as striking an example of energy.

We do not mean to imply that chronic indolence, if relieved occasionally by spasmodic fits of industry, is to be recommended. Men who have this character run into the opposite extreme of that which we have been stigmatizing, and fail as invariably of winning success in life. To call their occasional periods of application energy, would be a sad misnomer. Such persons, indeed, are but civilized savages, so to speak; vagabonds at heart in their secret hatred of work, and only resorting to labour occasionally, like the wild Indian, who, after lying for weeks about his hut, is roused by sheer hunger, and starts off on a hunting excursion. Real energy is persevering, steady, disciplined. It never

either loses sight of the object to be accomplished, or intermits its exertions while there is a possibility of success. Napoleon, in the plains of Champagne, sometimes 'fighting two battles in one day, first defeating the Russians, and then turning on the Austrians, is an illustration of this energy. The Duke of Brunswick, dawdling away precious time when he invaded France at the outbreak of the first revolution, is an example to the contrary. Activity beats about a cover like an untrained dog, never lighting on the covey. Energy goes straight to the bird.

FIRMNESS IMPORTANT TO THE MERCHANT.

THERE is no truth of human character so potential for weal or woe as firmness. To the merchant it is allimportant. Before its irresistible energy the most formidable obstacles become as cobweb barriers in its path. Difficulties, the terror of which causes the pampered sons of luxury to shrink back with dismay, provoke from the man of lofty determination only a smile. The whole history of our race-all nature indeed-teems with examples to show what wonders may be accomplished by resolute perseverance and patient toil.

It is related of Tamerlane, the celebrated warrior, the terror of whose arms spread through all the eastern nations, and whom victory attended at almost every step, that he once learned from an insect a lesson of persever

ance, which had a striking effect on his future character and success.

When closely pursued by his enemies, as a contemporary tells the anecdote, he took refuge in some old ruins, where, left to his solitary musings, he espied an ant tugging and striving to carry a single grain of corn. His unavailing efforts were repeated sixty-nine times, and at each several time, as soon as he reached a certain point of projection, he fell back with his burden, unable to surmount it; but the seventieth time he bore away his spoil in triumph, and left the wondering hero reanimated and exulting in the hope of future victory.

How pregnant the lesson this incident conveys! How many thousand instances there are in which inglorious defeat ends the career of the timid and desponding, when the same tenacity of purpose would crown it with triumphant success!

Resolution is almost omnipotent. Sheridan was at first timid, and obliged to sit down in the middle of a speech. Convinced of, and mortified at, the cause of his failure, he said one day to a friend-"It is in me, and it shall come out." From that moment he rose, and shone, and triumphed in a consummate eloquence. Here was true and moral courage. And it was well observed by a heathen moralist, that it is not because things are difficult that we dare not undertake them. Be, then, bold in spirit. Indulge no doubts; they are traitors. In the practical pursuit of our high aim, let us never lose sight of it in the slightest instance; for it is more by a disregard of small things, than by open and flagrant offences, that men come short of excellence. There is