The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Golden Censer

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Golden CenserThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Golden CenserAuthor: John McGovernRelease date: February 17, 2006 [eBook #17781]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN CENSER ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Golden CenserAuthor: John McGovernRelease date: February 17, 2006 [eBook #17781]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Title: The Golden Censer

Author: John McGovern

Release date: February 17, 2006 [eBook #17781]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN CENSER ***

Time

TIME."The mill will never grind with the water that has past."

title

CHICAGO, ILL. COLUMBUS, OHIO. KANSAS CITY, MO.MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.LEXINGTON, KY. BUFFALO, N.Y.1884.

illus

preface

I take pleasure in laying before my readers a volume the aim of which is to lighten the cares of to-day and heighten the hopes of to-morrow. Every human aspiration which is not anignis fatuusor fool's beacon is built on the realities of to-day. Every young person evincing talents in any direction hears predictions which are alone built on what he is doing at present. He takes this hope and redoubles his efforts. He usually succeeds—therefore, the inherited universality of hope.

Looking thus upon hope as a beautiful edifice rising above the foundations of our lives, I have striven to give my special attention to the duties of to-day, those stones whereon the structure is reared, that the first cruel tempest of adversity may not transport an unsubstantial fabric, like the palace of Aladdin, into the deserts of despair.

I have also tried to show that the lesson, so true in a proper view of this life, is also applicable to the far grander vista of eternity which, in the mind of philosopher as well as divine, lies so clearly before us.

In a Hard-Pan Series of ten chapters I have endeavored to point out, to the young men just starting in practical life, some things less general in their scope than the other thoughts spread forth in the book. The necessity of arming our youth with those qualities which lead to business success has made me confident that this attempt would be approved by the general reader.

Wherever a writer versed in the deep mysteries of the heart has left his thoughts on record, and they have fallen under my eye, I have eagerly chained them to my humble chariot, always, when possible, giving the authorship of the idea. The value of a thoroughly good admonition is frequently enhanced by the knowledge that it comes from the mouth of a thoroughly good man.

Contents

The Hopes of To-Morrow Must Have a Foundation in what We Are Doing To-Day—The same Thing True of Our Hopes of the Next Life—The Hard-Pan Series. Page 3.

The Golden Censer which Hangs in the Temple of Life—The Palace of the Soul—The Alarm-Bell Called Conscience—George Washington—The Soldier in Battle—Goldsmith's Pastor—Duty the Reason for Living—Duty the Stern Daughter of the Voice of God—Victor Hugo's Maxim—A Celebrated Piece of Verse.

We Are Old Before We Know It—We are Then Shocked and Regretful—Need of Impressing the Young with This Truth—A Golden Thought—How We Learned to Read—Lorena—Coal-Oil Johnny—Get Interest on Your Own Money Instead of Paying Interest on Other People's—You Thus Save Double Interest—You Wish to Succeed—Put out Your Ideas at Interest—"Lost!" an Advertisement—Haste and Waste—Get to Bed Early and Cheat Rheumatism and Neuralgia—Time the Corrector of Fools—The Mill Never Grinds with the Water that Has Gone Past.

Byron, Thomson, and Payne's Sweet Thoughts—A Grand Thought in a Grand Syllable—The Murderer in His Cell—The Letter from Home—The Thatch of Avarice—The Man Who Wrote "Home, Sweet Home," Had no Home—Dr. Johnson—The Halo that Surrounds the Word—The Long-Ago is Hidden in It—Rembrandt and His Sister—Dickens—The Cottage of a Godly Man—Kings Have no Homes—Democritus—The Old Home Was Happy Because We Were Shielded—We Must, in Our Turn, Shield the Little Ones—Suffer Little Children—Get a Home—See that Your Children Get Settled.

Thoughts Intended Especially for Their Ears—Children a Blessing—Through Our Children We Become Immortal on the Earth—Shakspeare—How Character is Built Up—Good Example—Father and Son—Starting the Boys and the Girls—The Daughter—Do not Blight Her Life—Happy Wives and Mothers—"Thanking Death"—Education of the Young—The Power and Beauty of the Bible—Bible, Shakspeare, and Geography More Necessary than Grammar, Botany, and Latin—Worship—A Suspicious Parent—The School-Master Experience—Try and Cut Down the Extent of His Services in the Education of Your Child.

The Noble Brother Will Have a Noble Sister—The Young Man of High Tone Will See to It that His Sister is Treated with Respect—He Sets the Example to All Others—Utter Selfishness of a Young Man Who Drags Down His Sister by Falling into Bad Society Himself—The Summer Vacation—Why a "Crooked Stick" Has Been Picked up By the Sister—Your Sister Your Other Half—Watch Her and Mend Your Weak Places—A Quick Temper—Scene in a Field Near Stone River Battle-field—The Sister's Influence on Your Fortunes—Brother and Sister as the Two Heads of One Home.

"Heaven Lies About Us in Our Infancy"—The Great History Written by Thiers, and Its Central Thought—The Impressibility of Youth—Much Can Be Accomplished in Youth—Alexander, Cæsar, Pompey, Hannibal, Scipio, Napoleon, Charles XII, Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, Keats, Bryant—Youth Our Italy and Greece, full of Gods and Temples—Edmund Burke—Rochefoucauld —Chesterfield—Lord Lytton's Love of Youth—Shortness of Youthful Griefs —Hannah More—Sir Walter Raleigh's Wise Remark—The Extraordinary Expectations of Youth—Dr. Watts—Story of the Alpena—Lord Bacon's Summing up of the Differences Between Youth and Age—Introduction to the Hard-Pan Series.

Need of Money—Difficulty of Getting It—Testimony of the Closest Mouthed Man Who Perhaps Ever Lived—"No Man Can Be Happy or Even Honest Without a Moderate Independence"—You Find Yourself Behind a Counter—The Little Boy's Shoes Wear Out at the Toe—They are Therefore Copper-plated—The Young Man's Common Sense Gives Way at the Tip of His Tongue—Difficulties in the Way of a Boy Who "Blabs"—A Man Who Is "Pumped" Like the Secretary of the Treasury Must Have Practiced Silence All His Life—Story of the Barber of King Midas—Beware of the First Error—How Things Leak out—Put a Copper-Toe on Your Tongue.

Courtesy Rests on a Deep Foundation—He Who is Naturally Polite is Naturally Moral—You Wish to Have Your Customers Brighten up—Brighten up Yourself—What is Good-Breeding?—Read Chesterfield—Study Your Customer—You are Young and Positive—Be Careful on That Account—Your Hands—Jewelry—Act Respectfully and You Will Be Full of Good Manners—An Example—How to Treat the Busybody—Zachariah Fox—Ralph Waldo Emerson—Milton's Allusion to the origin of the Word "Courtesy"—The Celebrated "Beaux" of History—Momentary Views of Our Souls—Your Clothes—They Should Occupy Little of Your Mind—Civility Costs Nothing and Buys Everything.

A Small Leak Will Sink a Great Ship—The Little Cloud Arising out of the Sea Waxes into the Storm that Lashes the Trembling Ocean—The People with Small Wages Can Often Save the Most Money—You Cannot Spend Your Money Without the Righteous Criticism of Others—How Young Men Spend Much of Their Extra Cash—Rural Saloons—A Gallon of Whiskey—What It is Actually Worth—What It is Sold For—Ordinary Profits of Legitimate Business—Tobacco—What Three Years' Savings Will Do for a Man in America—A Good Wagoner Can Turn in a Little Room—When You Buy a Horse Reckon on What He Will Eat Instead of What His Price Is—Save all You Can—Harness It up and Make It Pull in Interest.

Adversity's Lamp—Youth Has Great need of Courage—It should be Long-Suffering Rather than Intrepid—You Must Gain the Battle by Taking Sudden Advantages—You Must Hurl 10,000 Men Against 2,000 Before Your Enemy Can Be Reinforced—Story of a Young Man Who Broke Through the Enemy's Lines at Chicago—His Low Wages—His Bad Prospects—Reading the Bible and Plutarch—Studying French—The Attempt to Become an Actor—Dismal Failure—Difficulty of Conquering Wounded Pride—The Return to "Hard Work"—Progress—Triumph—Reason of the Victory—Hope a Quality Closely Akin to Courage—Courage, However, the Grand Motor that Moves the World—Courage Builds the Great Bridges and Hope Rides on a Free Pass over Them.

Hope is a Gold-Leaf Which Can Be Beaten with the Hammer of Adversity to Exceeding Thinness—The Medicine of the Miserable—Hope Should Deposit Probabilities with Experience, His Banker—Story of a Young Man Whose Hope Carried him Across a Bad Place in Life—Making Garden—Sandpapering Window-Frames in a Cellar—Selling "Milton Gold Jewelry"—Working in a "gang," on a Farm, after the English Fashion—A Situation Found on the Very Day of the Great Fire, Just Without the Bounds of the Conflagration—Map-Making—Success—Hope Is the Cork to the Net—We Will Part With Our Money, but we will Never Sell Our Hope at any Price—The Celebrated Shield—Hope Unjustly Defamed.

God's Exactitude—One at a Time is the Way Rats Get into a Granary—The First Rat Eats Out the Hole—Story of Sag Bridge—The Collision—The Horror—The Cause—Imitate the Detectives—Story of a Cashier Who Left Off a "Simple Cipher," which Stood for a Hundred Thousand Dollars in Cash to His Employers—How to Mail a Letter—"We Never Make Mistakes —The Way People Are Convinced That Care Is Necessary—How a Careless Clerk Can Drive Away Custom—The Lightning Calculator—He Is Simply a Hard Worker—Our Multiplication-Table Does Not Run High Enough—The Freaks of Figures—Correct Your Spelling—Learn to Avoid Foolish Exaggeration—Force of Habit—"A Man of Good Habits" Is a Man Who Would Be Positively Uncomfortable and Unhappy if He Attempted to Become Dissolute.

Hard-Pan Reason Why Nothing Succeeds So Well as Success—Your Good Fortune in Living on American Soil—Missing Battles and Allowing Others to Be Promoted Instead of Yourself—No City Ever Withstood a Good Siege—Get into the Strong Sunshine of active Life—The Safe Time to Become Discontented—What Praise Means—What Gloomy Predictions Mean When Your Employer Makes Them—Practice—Example in Proof-Reading—Captains are Made out of First Lieutenants—The Retail Business—Fools Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread—The Successful Grocery—No Wonder Success Sits on That Corner—The Painter Who Mixed His Colors With Brains—Story of The Man Who Could Imitate Birds—Do not Attempt Impossible Journeys—Stop at Each Inn.

Truth of the adage that a Man Is Known by the Company He Keeps—Tam O'Shanter's Habits—Building a House With a Party-Wall—Playing Billiards at Noon-Time—Smelling of the Smoke of the Kitchen—Bar-Room Manners—Judging a Man by His Clothes—A Piece of Impertinence which Cost the Keeping of Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars—"The Companion of Fools Shall Be Destroyed"—Learn to Admire Rightly—Charm which the Look of Certain Loafers Has for Many Young Men—Getting a Sitting in Church—Keep in Company Where You Will Be Under a Pleasant Restraint—Either Wise Bearing or Ignorant Carriage Is Caught, as Men Take Diseases One from Another.

Natural Depression—Certainty of Its Discontinuance—The Best Salesmen Have Been Very Soft-Hearted on Their Early Trips—Entering the Town—Riding One Block for Half a Dollar—A Poor Meal—Getting Your Wind—Planning the Charge—Canvassing Yourself—What Is the Almost Limitless Power of Persuasion?—Abraham Lincoln—The Whisky Which Made Generals Win Battles was the Kind of Whisky He Was in Search of—Your Dress—Your Entrance at Your Customer's Place—Your Speed in Getting Started—Your Ease after the Start Is Made—Never Stop the Customer—Your Perfect Accuracy as to Men and Places—Story of a Meteoric Salesman—Trouble of Putting a Stop to his Flight—Your Supper Tastes Good—The Men of Cold Exterior—Stay Out but Do not Stay Up—How to Get Vim and Sparkle—Extraordinary Value of a Man Who Can "Place Goods."

The Tracks of Giants—Napoleonic Miracles—Webster and Astor—George Peabody—Giving Away Eight Millions of Dollars—Stewart—Andrew Johnson—Barnum and Stanford—Ulysses S. Grant—Commodore Vanderbilt—Elihu Burritt—Edgar Poe—Greeley, Chase, Garfield and William Tecumseh Sherman—Tennyson—Robert E. Lee—Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg—James Gordon Bennett—Carlyle and Victor Hugo—Garibaldi —Agassiz, Humboldt, Proctor, Seward, Farragut, Nelson, Abercrombie, Joseph E. Johnston, Longstreet, and Fifty Others—The Habit of Riding Over Obstacles—Herodotus, Seneca and Franklin on the Power of Example—Christ Never Wrote a Tract—The System of Redoubling the Effort and Coming out, after one Victory, Ahead after Reckoning all Losses.

Shakspeare's Eulogy, just as He Penned It—Emerson—A Columbus of the Skies—Carlyle's Panegyric—Whately—Man's Faults—Horace Man and Pascal—The Poet Cowley and Boileau—Fallacy of their Scoldings as Applied to all Humankind—What Is Man?—Plato's Answer—Addison's Answer—Burke's Answer—Adam Smith's Answer—Buffon's Failure to Make a Satisfactory Answer—Plutarch's Answer—"The Proper Study of Mankind is Man"—Henry Giles and John Ruskin—The Wonderful Instrument Called the Hand—The Violin Slave—Man's Opportunities—What God has Said of His Children—The Beautiful Language in Which It is Written—Nobility of Our Destiny—A Stinging Epigram.

The Hand That Made Woman Fair Made Her Good—Wordsworth's Beautiful lines to His Wife—"She Was a Phantom of Delight"—Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope"—A Pleasant Subject—The Difference Between Love in Man and Love in Woman—Jean Paul Richter's Encomium—Schiller's Tribute—Shelley—Shakspeare—Rousseau, Barrett and Balzac—The Duke of Halifax—Addison—Boyle—Sex in The Soul—Woman's Love of Ornament—Her Dress the Perfection of What Man Demands of Her—Dr. Johnson's Explanation—Testimony of John Ledyard to the Goodness of Woman—His History—Woman's Enormous Influence over Man—How Men Live Where There Are No Women—The History of Human Sickness a Monument of the Goodness of Woman.

Overshadowing Antiquity of the Word "Papa"—The Pope Is Simply Papa, in Italian—Duties of the Son Toward the Father—Honesty of His Love for You—Patriarchal Government the Beginning and Still the Prop of Society—Old Age the Childhood of Immortality—Honor Attaching to Greatness of years in the past—Age Still a Necessity in Many of the Learned Professions—Age Is Indulgent Because It sees no Fault it Has not Itself Committed—Time the Harper, Laying His Hand Gently on the Harp of Life—Love of Little Children—The Village Blacksmith, the Mighty Man—Respect for Venerable Years a Fitting Thing in the Most Dignified of Young Men—Two Pictures, One Dark and the Other Bright.

A Great Subject—Chords Struck by Coleridge and Tennyson—She Has Risked Her Life that Her Child Might Live—She Has Grown Spectre-Like that Her Child Might Wax Strong—She Has Forgotten the Debt Due to Her in Her Anxiety to Obtain an Acknowledgment of the Debt Due to God—Her Memory—Christmas—Her Sick Child—Man the Mighty at His Mother's Knee—The Best Friend—"An Ounce of Mother Worth a Pound of Clergy"—A Mother's Praise—The Dead—Unalterable Fidelity—Forgetting a Mother's Claims—The Mother Still in Middle Life—The Mother of Greater Years—The Mother of Mothers—She Gathered the Orphans Together and Poured Out Her Tenderness Upon Them.

A Great Passion, Therefore not one to Trifle and Be Familiar With—Its Tyranny—Feelings and Actions of a Young Man in Love—Utter Uselessness for Business of a Young Man During the Uncertain Period Between Desire and Possession—Love Rules The Universe—How The Sages Look upon Love—It Is But the Flash in the Broad Pan of True Happiness—Shakspeare, Tennyson, Overbury, Mrs. Sigourney, South, Dryden, Plautus, Goethe, Burton, Valerius Maximus, Rochefoucauld, Addison. Hazlitt and Emerson—"The Wooden God's Remorse"—"Love Me Little Love Me Long"—The Poet Petrarch's Strange Behavior—"If She Do not Care for Me, What Care I How Fair She Be!" —LaFontaine, Lyttleton, Schiller, Ruffini, Ducoeur, DeStael, Colton, Dudevant, Balzac, Moore, Beecher, Victor Hugo, Longfellow, Limayrac, Howe, Deluzy and Jane Porter—"Solomon was So Seduced, and He Had a Very Good Wit"—Alexander Smith—Great Space Given to Love in all the Books of the World—Some Things to Remember While Viewing the Passion in Others.

The Young Man Finds Himself in Love and "Begins to Think"—He Wonders That He Never Before Thought of Money—Difference Between a Wharf-Rat and a Man—Difference Between a Married Man and an Old Bachelor Who Has Always Been Afraid of the Expense—Everything Natural in Marriage—Be "Square" with Your Sweetheart—The Circus-Poster—The Quarry of Truth—Do not "Talk Big" and Love Little—Courtship and Marriage not a Matter of "Want to or Don't Want to," but a Strenuous Case of "Got to"—Marriage Like Life Insurance—Closing Hints.

Sample of a "Swell Wedding"—Undignified Aspects of a Swell Wedding Where It Takes Every Cent a Man Can Earn, Beg and Borrow—A Farce, and an Example to Shun—Let us Have Some Manhood and Womanhood at a Critical Point, the Start in Real Life—To Be a Man Is to Be Married—Nature's Artful Treatment of Human Beings—Folly of Men Who Throw Away Their Happiness—Be Inquisitive Before Marriage—Be Blind Thereafter—The Law Approves and Encourages the Married State—The Married Man Is of the Greater Importance in the Nation—A Thing to Be Kept in Mind—Married Men Healthier than Bachelors—Married Women Healthier than Maids—A Married Man Has a Greater Excess of Comforts than of Troubles as Compared with the Comforts and Troubles of the Bachelor.

A Practical Chapter on Life as It Is Actually Lived by a Man and Woman Who Have a Fair Chance in the World—A Home With a Young Wife in It no Place for Other Men, no Matter How Dear they May Be to the Husband—Give the Wife a Chance—Kindness—Do not Be Afraid of Honoring Your Wife any Too Much—The Wife's Proper Cares—A Reply to the Common Form of Attack on the Principle that Marriage Is Both Natural and Expedient—McFarland—A Man's Happy Experience as a Husband—Judgment, Vanity, Selfishness and Trepidation—Good for Evil—Astonishing Changes in a Man's Needs—The Fireside of a Man Who Is Trying to Do Right—His Profound Gratitude at the Accuracy of His Taste in Earlier Years—Death, or Worse than Death—Three Studies—Apology for a Somewhat Uncharitable Reply to a Selfish Argument.

A Chapter on Bachelors Apt to Diverge into a Dissertation on Solitude—Arguments which the Bachelor Applies to the Question of Marriage—Being the Soul of Selfishness He Is Unwilling to Believe Happiness In Marriage Possible until He Shall Himself Have Embarked in Matrimony—Manner in Which He Usually Proclaims That all Men Who Marry Are Fools—Single Life Unavoidable with Some Men—A Mere Spectator of Other Men's Fortunes—The One Grand Result of Single Life—Wearing Out One Set of Faculties by Forty—Losing Control of the Other Set by Disuse—The Way a Bachelor Judges a Young Girl—His Somewhat Sordid Ideas—Events Have Distorted His Nature—A Bachelor's Great opportunities for Getting Book-Knowledge—Good out of Evil—Mistaken Ideas about Bachelors, which the Ladies are Apt to Entertain—Foolish Diatribes against Women—The Lack of Knowledge which Those Diatribes Betray—The Front-Porch View of Girlhood Esteemed to be the whole of Woman's Nature!

Health, Even with Memory, cannot conceive the Feelings of Disease—The Invalid's Sad Weakness—The King cannot Hire a man to Have the Typhoid Fever for Him—The Strong man Felled to His Couch—Chances for Philosophy—The Chances Usually Thrown Away with the Medicine Bottles—The Bachelor Sick—His Body now as Full of the need of Woman's attention as It was of Brags that He would Have none of Her—Let Us do something, by not attempting Everything in the way of Reformation.

The Tallest mountains, although They Gather the Heaviest Clouds about Their Solemn Sides, Yet Look Through Cloudless Skies up Toward the Sun—Effect of Deep Sorrow on the Appearance of Beauties of Nature—We Deprecate Grief, and yet We Rail at Its Short Duration—The Stricken Wife—The Young man who Loves and Is Rejected—His Dilemma—His Erroneous and Immature Decision that He would Love But One, and Love Forever—A Peak which Hardly Rises to the Bottom of the Valleys in the Mountains Piled Down by Events in After-life—True Greatness is True Humility—Affliction Beautifies Human Nature—Blessedness of Employment—Efficacy of Religion—The Beautiful Poem of "The Lamb in the Shepherd's Arms."

A Topic That Hits Close to Every Man—In the Old World the Countries Are to Blame; In the New the Individual Is Generally at Fault—Case of Vanderbilt—Fears of Enormously Rich men that their Wealth will excite the Irresistible Cupidity of their Governments—Burdens of Immense Riches in an Active Land Like This—The Shocking Imbecility of False Poverty—"Appearances"—Popular Errors as to Servants—Big Houses—Story of the Happy Man.

Progress the Stride of God—The Field-Hand in 1350—One hundred and Twelve Hours' Labor for a Bushel of Wheat—The same Laborer in 1550, in 1675, and in 1795—Seventy Hours for a Bushel of Wheat—The Same Laborer To-day—Twenty Hours for the Bushel of Wheat—The Children of the Laborer who Came to America—Seven or Eight Hours for a Bushel of Wheat.

Lightning Is More Apt To hit a Scrag than a Tree Which has Never Been Riven—The Scrags in Society—The Loadstone of Failure at the Foot of the Scrag—The Lesson to be Derived from Hopeless Failure in Others—Sorrows March in Battalions, not as Single Spies.

The Man of Success—Eggs Trying to Dance with Stones—Trying to Draw the Prize in a Lottery Without any Ticket—Dray Horses' Honest Belief that the Earth Moves Backward under the Racer's Feet, He Being So Lucky—The Heavy End of the Lifting—How Fortune Tellers Make Their Money—Great Opportunities for All Who Were not Born Tired.

One Reason of the Prosperity of the Present Era—Obey Orders—How the Wonders have been Piled Up—Metaphor of the Organ and Its Pipes and Reeds—Sound Your Pipe only in Your Proper Turn, and You will hear Beautiful Music.

We Multiply Our Sensations by Books—Everyone Can have a Library—Books are the Best of Friends—Charm of a Well-Read Comrade—Bindings—A Book as Great a Thing as a Battle—Importance of Some Battles—Our Eyes—How to Judge a Book Rightly—Large Type—Need of Handy Volumes—Aid Others, as a Duty.

Reason of the Melancholy Tone which Pervades the Great Writings of the Ages on this Subject—Man Expects to Get More than He Gives—How a man Prepares the Nostrum called Friendship—Unsuccessful Substitution of Selfishness for a Mother's Love—What is Possible in the way of Ordinary Friendship—Spot Friendship—Let us not Rail against Friendship.

The Basest of all Traits—A Wolf's Den—The Tailless Fox—Envy is Largely Ignorance—Greatness attained only after Arduous Labors—The Tenor and The Stone-Front—Thiers' Long Life—A Critical View of Gladstone's Public Sorrows—Truly Distracting Dilemmas in which Circumstances of Empire Involve Great Men—An appeal to Envy.

Mrs. Lofty—First Surprise of the Newly-Rich—The Scotch Mist—The Angel Sent to Conduct an Empire and the One Sent to Sweep a Street—Our Principal Causes of Happiness Free to All—How Rich Men Secure Happiness—The Prisoner and His Three Pins—Happiness Inalienable in Health—A Pleasant View of Egotism as a necessary Ingredient in Our Make-up.

The Need of a "Balance of Power" in the Mind—As a General Thing Ambition a Quality to be Curbed—Assassination of Merit by Envy—The Man Qualified to Deal with Ambition—A Picture of His Unhappy Lot, as Illustrated in Napoleon's Life—Poem.

A Favorite Chapter—The Telegraph Outriding the Storms—The Farmers the Grand Conservative Forces of the Republic—Difference between Business and Farming—How the Farmers Will Settle the Communists and the Magnates—The Farmer's Sons—A Plea for Them—A Picture of the Opportunities which We are Daily Missing.

The Drunkard's Wife—A Drama of Horror—Why Society Looks So Calmly on Such Scenes—The Wisdom and Experience of Society—Effort of the Brother to Improve His Sister's Condition—The Result—What Society Is Doing—The Drift of Things—Views of the Future—A Better Time nearly at Hand.

The Highest Type of Reputation, a Silent but Powerful Influence—Two Instances of Good Reputation—Tall Masts Needed for Great Ships—The Difference between Greatness on the Inside of a Man, and Great Appearances on the Outside.

Paramount Importance of Family Services—The Iron Duke's Remark—Sayings of the Wisest and Best—Scenes in Burned Chicago—Newton and La Place—Their Testimony—Victor Hugo: "I believe in the Sublimity of Prayer"—Wordsworth's Apostrophe—Young's Prayer—A Sweet Supplication.

The Owlet Atheism—Hammer and Tongs used to work in Fire—False Headings on News—On The Plains of Chaldæa—The Voice of Duty ever in the way of the Atheist—A Creator Demanded by Reason—The Atheist Like Falstaff, Leading a very Scrubby File of Soldiers.

The Bible is Authentic, Old, Beautiful—It is the Only Hope We have—It Out-dates the Chinese Empire—Everything Good and Progressive is Founded on It—Practical Value of Studying It—Its Eloquence—Its Triumphs in an Infinitude of Tests.

Age the Outer Shore against which Dashes an Eternity—We are on a small Planet, but We Belong to a Larger Celestial Empire—The Undevout Astronomer Insane—Does the Beast Peer into the Stars?—Eternity is not a conceit of Man—Apostrophe to a Patriarch.

Cato's Soliloquy—Promises of God's Word clothed in Syllables of Unsurpassable Sweetness—He that holdeth the Pleiades in His Right Hand—Blissful Forecasts—Shall God weigh out Arcturus to Stop the Unreasoning Clamor of the Fool who Hath Said in His Heart there Is No God?Conclusion.

the golden censer

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer,Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. —Edgar Poe.

golden censer swings in the Temple of Life, making holy its halls and grateful its corridors. This fountain of our well-being is Duty. There is little true pleasure in the world which does not flow, either directly or remotely, from its depths.

It shall be the object of this volume to point out and name a few of the balms which burn in this Unseen Censer—a few of the lines of action which render our memories sweet and forever pleasant if they be wrapt in such perfume.

THE PALACE OF THE SOUL.

When the incense of a man's good actions spreads through the palace of the soul, "the powers that wait on noble deeds" light up the edifice with radiance brought from other worlds. In the eye of a good man—in the window of the palace of his soul—we behold an occupant who fears no duty. We are fascinated, and gather about, anxious to peer in upon the fortunate possessor. Therein lies the happiness and the force of good example.

But let the Censer burn low, and flicker in final sickliness; the great bell called Conscience, hanging in the dome, strikes an alarm that rocks the building. How oft the solemn tocsin sounds! It drives us to our duty! Let us be thankful its clangor is so harsh!

THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY,

the man whose heart was torn each time his soldiers' feet did bleed—the man who stood like a rock between the despot and the down-trodden—that man, at the end of the career which glorified him, and which, with reflected glory will light the annals of all coming centuries—that kind, good man, George Washington, could not discern the separating line between Duty and human happiness. "The consideration that human happiness and moral duty," he said, "are inseparately connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the one by inculcating the practice of the other."

LET US KEEP THE GOLDEN CENSER BURNING

with the frankincense of our highest endeavors. "Let us," as Theodore Parker once said, "do our duty in our shop, or our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and we knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world."

THE SOLDIER GOES FORTH

with his loins girded, hoping to conquer in the hard battles of life. Let the incense of Duty cling to his garments and keep him clean from selfish contagion. How lovely the picture of that old man of Goldsmith's time, swinging the Golden Censer before the hearts that throbbed in unison with him:

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;And as a bird each fond endearment tries,

To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies,He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Our duty was created with us. It is a pleasure to live. What then should be the pleasure to think there is a place for us—a duty beneficently made that gives us rights with our fellow-creatures? What though the duty may try your soul and stagger your capabilities? "Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests." Bear up with patient courage—"the bird that flutters least is longest on the wing." "Duty is the stern daughter of the voice of God."

Let us then, upon entering this stately Temple of Life, cast into the Golden Censer our courage, our hope, our energy, our love, our industry, and all those qualities which go to make the air around us redolent with the fragrance of the achievements of life. It cannot then well be that we shall lack in allegiance to our Maker, our country, or ourselves. "Duties are ours; events are God's."

"On parent knee, a naked, newborn child,Weeping thou satst while all around thee smiled;So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep,Calm thou mayst smile while all around thee weep."

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Age stealsUpon us like a snowstorm in the night:How drear life's landscape now!—Henry Guy Carleton.

Whose hand,Like the base Judean, threw a pearl awayRicher than all his tribe.—Shakspeare.

e are intrusted with a few short years, and yet with more than we deserve. It is our misfortune to value those fleeting moments only when our stock of them is in danger of utter exhaustion. When the bright, beautiful days have vanished, and we find that, like the base Judean's pearl, those days were richer than all our tribe—our Vanderbilts, our Stanfords, and our Goulds—then we turn, in human kindness, to our younger associates, and sound our warning in their ears. According as our earnestness impresses them, they listen or they hearken not. A golden thought which the young should learn by heart, would run thus:However highly I have valued this day, I have "sold it on a rising market," and too cheaply. It would grow in value as I looked back upon it, even if I were to live to my eightieth year. This may not seem true to you, who wish for Saturday night, that you may receive your salary,—or to you, who long for Sunday, that you may gaze into a pair of eyes that have deep beauties for you—but when your mother in your babyhood, said a certain letter was "A,"

YOU HAD TO ACCEPT THE STATEMENT

without reservation, or you would not now be able to exercise the grandest of human faculties—to read, to glean the thoughts of the ages, and to receive, without toiling through the rugged regions of experience, the impressions and the inspirations which have come to man through all his labors and his pains. Sir William Hamilton has well said that implicit belief is at the foundation of all human happiness—the knowledge of the mind, as well as the certainty of the future life.

The mind is rarely broad enough in youth to survey the field of life with an impartial view. "The years creep slowly by, Lorena," was written in the true youthful, spendthrift spirit.

"COAL-OIL JOHNNY"

was left, as he supposed, inexhaustible riches. He threw away his money as many of us throw away our lives, and his money lasted him two years. Had his life been equally at his disposal, he would have been in the hands of the pale Receiver, Death, when his oil-wells passed to other owners. Having so precious a pearl, therefore, as this life, let us make its setting a thing of beauty. Let us invest our moments as

THE WISE MAN,

who, instead of buying on time and paying eight per cent. interest, saves his earnings and puts them out at eight per cent. interest, thus reaping a difference of sixteen per cent., or nearly one-sixth of his yearly surplus. Every idea put into your head is invested at interest. Every expenditure of time which is a waste is a payment of interest, a corroding, double-acting agency of evil to your welfare.

YOU WANT TO SUCCEED IN THE WORLD,—

of course, you do! Look out, and do not let the thrifty men of brains lend you their ideas at that fatal eight per cent., which, in reality, means fully sixteen! Put into the deposit-vaults of your memory the diligent results of your study. Those you put in earliest will pay the most profit. When you are thirty years old there will be few with heavier coffers. You will have little need to complain of

FAVORITISM AND DISCRIMINATION

then. On the contrary, you will, strangely enough, hear many lay that very charge against those wise old men who have been observing you and peeping into your treasure-chests when you were not on the watch. To the man, fortunate in his youth in having been

ADVISED RIGHTLY,

who has not misspent a moment of his time, "the thought of the last bitter hour" will not "come like a blight," and there will be no "sad images of the stern agony." The wise and good man, who has the unmixed reverence of the great and the humble, whose "hoary head is a crown of glory," approaches his grave "like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me!" is the cry of a misspent life. If you have cast away a portion of your existence, I beg of you to transfix this public notice before your companions that they may profit by your experience:

"LOST!

"Yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes, the gift of a kind Father!"

HASTE AND WASTE.

The value of Time should never be so foolishly conceived as to urge a man or a woman to that hurry which shows a thing to be too big for him who undertakes it. God makes Time. Can you, then, add to it? "Stay a while to make an end the sooner." You do not gain an hour by robbing yourself of your sleep. You do not gain in force by enlarging the wheel that carries your belting. If your constitution require eight hours' sleep, then go to your bed at ten o'clock and rise like "the sun rejoicing in the east," fresh-nerved and forceful, apt to carry all before you. Do not encourage those tempters who come to you asking you to break into the storehouse of your vitality and rob yourself of two, three, and often four hours of your rest, leaving you, in the bankruptcy of after-life a trembling alarmist, subject to the replevins of rheumatic muscles and the reprisals of revengeful nerves. Remember that age comes upon us like a snowstorm in the night, and that the mill will never grind with the water that has passed. Time is the stern corrector of fools; "Wisdom walks before it, Opportunity with it, and Temperance behind it. He that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends."

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'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's barkBay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;'Tis sweet to know that there is an eye will markOur coming, and look brighter when we come.—Byron.

An elegant sufficiency, content,Retirement, rural, quiet, friendship, books,Ease and alternate labor, useful life,Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.—Thomson.

'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.—J.H. Payne, in the Opera of "Clari."

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