that Harry would take these friends with him into whatever store that might employ him. It was for his interest to retain their patronage. To do that he gave Harry a salary of $2,000, and made money by the arrangement.

4. Be courteous to everybody. Courtesy and kindness cost us nothing; they are more easily practiced than rude, insulting conduct. Govern your temper. Never write nor publish the ebullitions of your wrath. If anything must be said, give yourself time to cool off before you note it down with pen or pencil. If you are tempted into a fit of passion turn to one side and pray the Lord's prayer before you utter a word. If you cannot possibly lock up your rage long enough to do this, count twenty about as fast as the swing of a pendulum. Avoid the use of harsh language. Prune your speech from all words that have a thorn in them.

"Who is yonder young man?" once said a venerable member of my church.

"That is John Bruce," I replied. "Is his father living?"

"Yes, and a fine father he is."

man.

"The father of such a boy may well be proud," continued the old "He always touches his cap when he meets me, and has a kind remark to make. A few weeks ago he overtook me coming from the depot, and insisted on carrying my satchel-went four squares out of his way to carry it home for me. God bless the dear fellow. If he lives he will surely make his mark some day." To everybody be courteous. To your servants, your poor neighbors, to the beggar people that ask you for alms. Washington touched his hat to a darkey who saluted him with hat in hand. "Shall I allow a poor negro to excel me in politeness," he said to a friend who found fault with him? " Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous" (1 Peter iii. 8).

IN the Know-Nothing times occurred the election of Judge Comstock, ex-Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals, and son-inlaw of that sterling and eminent lawyer, the late Hon. B. Davis Noxon, of Syracuse. Soon after Judge C.'s election, Judge Gray, of the Sixth Judicial District, met Mr. N., and congratulated him on the elevation of his son-in-law to the Bench, who, after having been so long a judge in theory, had now become one in fact, and who, no doubt, would make an excellent judge. "Yes," Mr. Noxon replied, "he will-if he isn't most awfully deceived in himself!"

THE LAST GAME AND THE LAST BOTTLE.

BY THE EDITOR.

"Will you please visit cell No. in the prison?" said a Christian friend to me recently. "A poor prisoner wishes to see you." I rang the door-bell. A heavy key was turned within, and the great iron door swung on its hinges, and closed again right behind me. Along the corridor of the second floor the warden led me to No. -. Again the heavy key unbars the iron door, and I enter the cell. No.- drops the half-made shoe in his hand, and eyes me shyly.

"You wish to see a minister?" "Yes, sir."

My name is

I have a I have been here over two

I have been
I have had
My parents
Sir, I was

"What brought you here?" "I was put here for wife and three children in years; and have more than two years to remain yet. a bad man, but had a poor chance to become good. little schooling. Never went to any Sunday-school. never took me to any church-never went themselves. started wrong, and now it is hard to get right. I am in great trouble. I have disgraced myself, my children, and sinned against my God. I would like to be better, but, O, it is so hard to become so, after a life of sin, when one knows so little."

On the small table, whereon stood a tin plate with the remains of a meagre dinner, lay a well-worn Bible and prayer-book. "You read in those books."

"Yes, sir, I read much but cannot understand all I read. I work awhile at the shoes, then I lay by the work and take the Bible. Then kneel down and pray."

Opening the Bible, I found that he had put a paper mark on the leaf containing the 51st Psalm. "That I read and pray often," he remarked as he saw me turning to it.

Many a question the poor man had to ask. Would I write a letter for him to his wife and children? I sat me down at the little table, with pen in hand. What did I write for him? All I will not tell thee, dear reader-only this much: "Tell my wife to go to church, and to commence a Christian life. Tell her to teach

the children to pray and to love Christ. Tell her to take them to Sunday-school and to church. Tell my wife and children that I am seeking the forgiveness of my sins and a new heart, at the cross of Christ. To Him I often pray; pray Him too, to bless my children and their mother. Tell them I wish them to pray for me, that God may give me grace to become a pious man.”

Thus the poor penitent dictated-and thus I wrote with the aid of a dim light coming through a small opening in the wall towards the ceiling. How hard for those to become Christians, who are started wrong in childhood and youth. The poor man does not wish his children to enter the path his wicked feet have trod.

Here is another case. An exchange, in describing the temptations that beset the foreign residents of Hong Kong, China, gives the following report by a young man visiting that city. The young man had been entrusted with packages for a young man from his friends in the United States, and, after inquiry, learned that he might probably be found in a certain gambling-house. He went thither; but, not seeing him, determined to wait in the expectation that he might come in. The place was a bedlam of noises-men getting angry over their cards, and frequently coming to blows. Near him sat two men-one young, the other forty years of age. They were betting and drinking in a terrible way, the elder one giving utterance continually to the foulest profanity. Two games had been finished, the young man losing each time. The third game, with fresh bottles of brandy, had just begun; and the young man sat lazily back in his chair while the elder shuffled the cards. The man was a long time dealing the cards; and the young man, looking carelessly around the room, began to hum a tune. He went on, till at length he began the beautiful lines of Phoebe Cary:

"One sweetly solemn thought

Comes to me o'er and o'er,
I'm nearer to my Father's house
Than I've ever been before.

"Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down,
Nearer leaving my cross,

Nearer wearing my crown."

At first, says the writer, these words in such a vile place made me shudder. A Sabbath-school hymn in a gambling den! But while the young man sang, the elder stopped dealing the cards, stared at the singer a moment and throwing the cards on the floor, exclaimed,

"Harry, where did you learn that tune?" "What tune?

"Why, the one you've been singing."

The young man said "he did not know what he had been singing;" when the elder repeated the words with tears in his eyes, and the young man said, "he had learned it in a Sunday-school in America."

"Come," said the elder, getting up-" Come, Harry, here's what I've won from you; go and use it for some good purpose. As for me, as God sees me, I have played my last game and drank my last bottle. I have misled you, Harry, and I am sorry. Give me your hand, my boy, and say that, for old America's sake, if for no other, you will quit this infernal business."

The writer saw these two men leave the gambling-house together and walk away arm-in-arm, and, as he went away himself, he thought, "Verily God moves in a mysterious way. It must be a source of great joy to Miss Cary to know that her lines, which have comforted so many Christian hearts, have been the means of awakening in the breasts of two tempted and erring men, on the other side of the globe, a resolution to lead a better life!

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

THE latest instance of a bold attempt to lacerate the feelings of lovely woman has been put upon record by a literary man of Brooklyn, and runs thus: A gentleman of that city, well known for his mild and gentle disposition, took the cars recently to attend to some business at Elizabeth, New Jersey. The cars being nearly full, he was obliged to take a seat with a lady, as the young men say, "one of uncertain age." Not daring to engage in conversation with her, he remained quietly thinking, until nearing, as he thought, his destination, he ventured to remark, "Is this Elizabeth?" Instantly drawing herself up, she quickly replied, "What do you mean, Sir?" Without perceiving that she had made a . mistake, he again asked, "Is this Elizabeth ?" Furiously turning to him, and with half-frightened air, she screamed out, "You may think you are a gentleman, Sir, to address a lady so, but I do not wish to continue any farther talk with you."

The conversation at this point terminated by the stopping of the cars, and the conductor sang in at the door, "All out at Elizabeth!" The gentleman rose and left the cars, but not until he had heard sufficient laughter to convince him of the many perils besetting railroad traveling.

THE curious and "troublesome" style of Carlyle is said to be quite in contrast with his simple, straightforward way of talking. Hatred of sham is one of his notable characteristics. One evening, at a small literary gathering, a lady, famous for her "muslin theology," was bewailing the wickedness of the Jews in not receiving our Saviour, and ended her diatribe by expressing her regret, that He had not appeared in our own time. "How delighted," said she, "we should all be to throw our doors open to Him, and listen to His divine precepts! Don't you think so, Mr. Carlyle?"

The sturdy philosopher, thus appealed .to, said, in his broad Scotch, "No, madam, I don't. I think that, had He come very fashionably dressed, with plenty of money, and preaching doctrines palatable to the higher orders, I might have had the honor of receiving from you a card of invitation, on the back of which would be written, 'To MEET OUR SAVIOUR;" but if He had come uttering His sublime precepts, and denouncing the Pharisees, and associating with the Publicans and lower orders, as He did, you would have treated Him much as the Jews did, and have cried out, "Take Him to Newgate and hang Him!'"

On another occasion, when Ernest Jones, a well-known Chartist leader, was haranguing, in his violent manner, against the established authorities, Carlyle shook his head, and told him that, "had the Chartist leaders been living in the days of Christ, He would have sent the unclean spirits into them, instead of into the swine of the Gergesenes, and so we should have happily got rid of them." This delicate allusion to the suicide of the pigs so astonished the respectable representative of the numerous family of the Joneses, that he said nothing more about Chartism that night.

THIS is Frenchy, and fresh from Paris: Just before his death, Dr. Cabarrus, the great homeopathic physician of Paris, was sent for by Mlle. Julia Barron, who was out of sorts. "What is the matter?" asked the Doctor. "Oh, I hardly know myself," she replied; "my spirits are terribly unequal. Sometimes I am greatly elated, and then I suddenly sink into the deepest melancholy." After a moment's reflection, Čabarrus said, gravely: "I am afraid there is but one way to cure you." "What is it?" she inquired, eagerly. "You must get married," he replied, with a mirthful twinkle of the eye, but still keeping a grave face. "Well," said Mlle. Barron, after a little hesitation, followed by a long-drawn sigh of relief, "perhaps you are right. Would you marry me?" "Ma chere," replied Cabarrus, blandly, "The doctor prescribes, but he doesn't take his own medicines."