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MORAL AGRICULTURE

Take the Spade of Perseverance,
Dig the Field of Progress wide;
Every bar to true Instruction,
Carry out and cast aside.

Feed the Plant whose Fruit is Wisdom;
Cleanse from crime the common Sod;

So that from the Throne of Heaven

It may bear the glance of God.

COURAGE.

HAVE the courage to tell a man why you will not lend him your money.

Have the courage to wear your old garments till you can pay for new ones.

Have the courage to pass the bottle without filling your glass.

Have the courage to speak your mind when it is necessary that you should do so; and to hold your tongue when it is better that you should be silent.

Have the courage to discharge a debt while you have the money in your pocket.

Have the courage to provide an entertainment for your friends within your means, not beyond.

Have the courage to own that you are poor, if you are so. Have the courage to obey your Maker, at the risk of being ridiculed by man.

FOUR GOOD WORDS.

Punctuality, Accuracy, Steadiness, and Despatch.

PUNCTUALITY.

IF you desire to enjoy life, avoid unpunctual people. They impede business and poison pleasure. Make it your own rule to be not only punctual, but a little beforehand. Such a habit secures a composure which is essential to happiness. For want of it many people live in a constant fever, and put all about them in a fever too.

A merchant ought to acquire and maintain an easiness of manner-a suavity of address-and a gentlemanly deportment; without which, the finest talents and the most valuable mental acquirements are often incapable of realizing the brilliant expectations which they induce their possessors to form.

THE BEST ACCOUNTANT.

HE is the best accountant who can cast up correctly the sum of his own errors.

BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY.

A SMOOTH Sea never made a skilful mariner; neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.

AIM HIGH.

AIM at perfection in every thing, though in most things it is unattainable; however, those who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

ANGER.

To be angry is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.

AUTHORITY.

NOTHING more impairs authority than a too frequent or indiscreet use of it. If thunder itself was to be continual, it would excite no more terror than the noise of a mill.

CREDIT A SOURCE OF STRENGTH.

NOTHING SO cements and holds together in union all the parts of a society as faith or credit, which can never be kept up unless men are under some force or necessity of honestly paying what they owe to one another.

ELEMENTS OF A GOOD CHARACTER.

In a truly good character we look, first of all, for integrity, or an unbending regard to rectitude; then for independence, or the habitual determination to be governed by an enlightened conviction of truth and duty; then for benevolence, or the spirit of kindness and good-will to men; and last, but not least, for piety towards God, or an affectionate, reverent regard for the will and glory of the great Jehovah.

COVETOUSNESS.

The

Ir money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.

LOOK TO YOUR CREDIT.

THE most trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day-demands it before he can receive it in a lump. Creditors have better memories than debtors, and are great observers of set days and times.

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