We ought to reverence books—to look at them as useful and mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the maker of all things, the teacher of all truth.

Charles Kingsley.

Thou mayst as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. It is thought and digestion which make books serviceable, and give health and vigor to the mind. Fuller.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good;
Round those, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

Wordsworth.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Shakespeare.

Brevity.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the

plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them.

Ruskin.

When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.

Steele.

Brevity is the best recommendation of a speech, not only in the case of a senator, but in that, too, of an

orator.

Cicero.

Talk to the point and stop when you have reached it. The faculty some possess of making one idea cover a quire of paper is not good for much. Be comprehensive in all you say or write.

John Neal.

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams-the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

Southey.

Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes. Shakespeare.

Genuine good taste consists in saying much in a few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having some order and arrangement in what we relate, in speaking with composure.

Fénelon.

It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must be as far above the other as judgment is a greater and nobler faculty than fancy or imagination.

South.

Brotherhood.

THE era of Christianity-peace, brotherhood, the golden rule as applied to governmental matters-is yet to come, and when it comes, then, and then only, will the future of nations be sure.

Kossuth.

We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.

Seneca.

The universe is but one great city, full of beloved ones, divine and human, by nature endeared to each other. Epictetus.

The race of mankind would perish, did they cease to aid each other. From the time that the mother binds the child's head till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we can not exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow mortals; no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt. Sir Walter Scott.

So is it with true Christian hearts;
Their mutual share in Jesus' blood

An everlasting bond imparts

Of holiest brotherhood;

Oh, might we all our lineage prove,
Give and forgive, do good and love,
By soft endearments in kind strife
Lightening the load of daily life!

Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,

Bids each on other for assistance call,

Keble.

Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.

Pope.

'Tis the sublime of man,

Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves

Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
This fraternizes man, this constitutes

Our charities and bearings.

Coleridge.

For God who made this teeming earth so full,
And made the proud dependent on the dull,
The strong upon the weak, thereby would show
One common bond should link us all below.

Mrs. Norton.

Business.

FORMERLY, when great fortunes were made only in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war. Bovee.

Call on a business man at business times only, and on business; transact your business and go about your

business, in order to give him time to attend to his business. Duke of Wellington.

Success in business is seldom owing to uncommon talents or original power, which is untractable and selfwilled, but to the greatest degree of commonplace capacity.

Hazlitt.

The Christian must not only mind Heaven, but attend to his daily calling. Like the pilot who, while his eye is fixed upon the star, keeps his hand upon the helm.

T. Watson.

Character.

EVERY man has in himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. Sir J. Stephen.

It is not what a man gets, but what a man is, that he should think of. He should first think of his character He that has character need

and then of his condition.

have no fears about his condition.

after it condition.

Character will draw

H. W. Beecher.

There are beauties of character which, like the night-blooming cereus, are closed against the glare and turbulence of every-day life, and bloom only in the shade and solitude, and beneath the quiet stars.

H. T. Tuckerman.