The new-born year is hailed alike by rich and poor, old and young. Friendly greetings, sunny smiles, and generous wishes are plentiful as stars. Even foes relax their enmity, and forget their quarrels ; and vows, involving a higher and better life, are earnestly made on earth and carefully registered in heaven. Happy, thrice happy, would it be, if each year continued and ended as pleasantly and satisfactorily as it began!-E. DAVIES. YEARNINGS.-God-sent To be weighed down with a sense of our own incompleteness; to long for that which we have not and cannot gain; to descry noble attainments, as islands in the sea, eagerly sought, but which change to clouds as we draw near; to spend our life in searching for the hidden land, as Columbus for the new continent, and to find only weeds floating, or a broken branch, or, at best, a bird that comes to us from the unknown shore; this it is to be on earth-to live. And yet, are not these very yearnings the winds which God sends to fill our sails and give us good voyage homeward?-H. W. BEECHER. YEOMAN.-The Meaning of the Term Originally, the term yeoman meant-one bearing the bow in battle: this bow was generally made of yew; and hence the royal mandate that yew-trees were to be planted in every church-yard, so that every yeoman in the neighbourhood thereof may be able to obtain readily the wood needed for this instrument of warfare. At present, the term yeoman, in its common acceptation, means a gentleman farmer.-DR. WEBSTER. YEOMAN.- An Old-Fashioned The good yeoman wears russet clothes, but makes golden payment, having time in his buttons, but silver in his pocket. If he chance to appear in clothes above his rank, it is to grace some great man with his service, and then he blusheth at his own bravery. Otherwise, he is the sweet landmark, whence foreigners may take aim of the ancient English customs; the gentry more floating after foreign fashions.-DR. FULLER. YOUNG. YES.-The Importance of A monosyllable of mighty import! It decides the fate of things, of persons, and of empires.-DR. DAVIES. YES AND NO. Man's first word is-Yes; his secondNo; his third and last-Yes. Most stop short at the first; very few get to the last. -ATTWELL. YOUNG. YOUNG.-The Instruction of the Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix YOUNG. The Joyous Play of the I love to look on a scene like this, And persuade myself that I am not old, For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, And the light of a pleasant eye. Play on play on! I am with you there, And I whoop the smother'd call; I am willing to die when my time shall YOUTH.-A Pious YOUTH. Count Zinzendorf, when a boy, used to write little notes to the Saviour, and throw them out of the window, hoping that He would find them; such were his thoughts of Jesus and his love to Him.-PHELPS. YOUTH.-Pleasant Memories of Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone, That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. The wall on which we tried our graving skill; The very name we carv'd subsisting still; The bench on which we sat while deep employed, Though mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd; The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot, To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, Our innocent sweet simple years again. YOUTH.-The Sleep of Cowper. There's a gladness in the sleep of youth, and its calm unbroken rest, With the dew of blessing on its head from the fountain in its breast; There's nothing in our after years of weari ness like this, Till when the heart is young again in its Sabbath year of bliss.-STEBBING. YOUTH.-The Training of While yet his youth is flexible and green, Nor bad examples of the world hath seen, Early begin the stubborn mind to break. VIRGIL. YOUTH-Wasted. Though the camomile, the more it is trodden upon, the faster it grows; yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.-SHAKSPEARE, YOUTH.-A Wish for In age to wish for youth, is full as vain As for youth to turn a child again. DENHAM The zeal of the Apostles was this-tney preached publicly and privately; they prayed for all men; they wept to God for the hardness of men's hearts; they became all things to all men, that they might gain some; they travelled through deeps and deserts; they endured the heat of the Syrian star and the violence of Euroclydon, winds and tempests, seas and prisons, mockings and scourgings, fastings and poverty, labour and watching; they endured every man and wronged no man; they would do any good, and suffer any evil, if they had but hopes to prevail upon a soul; they persuaded men meekly, they entreated them humbly, they convinced them powerfully; they watched for their good, but meddled not with their interest and this is the Christian zeal, the zeal of meekness, the zeal of charity, the zeal of patience. -BP. TAYLOR. ZEAL.-Blindfold Blindfold zeal can do but harm-harm everywhere, and harm always. -LICHTWER. ZEAL.-The Decay of Zeal will soon wax cold, as water when fire is taken from the vessel in which it is, or iron taken out of the fire.-DR. GOUGE. ZEAL-Defined. Zeal may be defined as the heat or fervour of the mind, prompting its vehemence of indignation against anything which it conceives to be evil-prompting its vehemence of desire towards anything which it imagines to be good. In itself it has no meral character at all. It is the simple instinct of energetic nature, never wholly divested of a sort of rude nobility, and never desti. tute of influence upon the lives and characters of others.- PUNSHON. ZEAL.-A Detestable Nothing can be more detestable than the disguised outside of a simulated zeal.MOLIÈRE. ZEAL.-Different Forms of There is a zeal of pleasure, a zeal of literature, a zeal of agriculture, a zeal of commerce, a zeal of manufactures, a zeal ZEAL. of education, a zeal of reform. These are all natural to man, and they are countenanced and encouraged by public opinion. -DEAN M'NEILE. ZEAL.-Excessive Excessive zeal for that which is good, though it may not be offensive to me, at all events raises my wonder, and leaves me in a difficulty how I should call it.-MON TAIGNE. An Indian, having heard from a white man some strictures on zeal, replied "I don't know about having too much zeal ; but I think it is better the pot should boil over than not boil at all."-MACLEOD. ZEAL.-A Guarantee for His interest was a guarantee for his zeal. -MACAULAY. ZEAL.-Injudicious We do that in our zeal Our calmer moments are afraid to answer. SIR W. SCOTT ZEAL.-Longing for Oh that I had so much zeal as to steep it in its own liquor ;-to set it forth in its own colours;-that the seraphim would touch my tongue with a live coal from the divine altar, that I might regain the decayed credit of it with the sons of men! It is good to be zealous in good things; and is it not best in the best? Or is there any better than God? or the kingdom of heaven?— S. WARD. ZEAL for One's Country. Zeal for the good of one's country has frequently been represented as chimerical and romantic.-ADDISON. ZEAL.-Overmuch Hence 'tis that holy wars have ever been ZEAL.-The Regulation of It is like fire, which may be applied to many useful purposes when subject to wise direction, but which, if not kept in its proper place and under proper restraint, may cause a conflagration. Or, to change the illustration, it may be only as the healthful vital heat which keeps the body in comfort and action; or it may become a fever of the soul, to consume its strength and destroy its life. Or, to venture, for the ZEAL. sake of emphasis, even upon a third illustration, many a zealous mind is set on fire by the speed of its own action, and for want of some regulator to check its speed, and some lubricator to lessen its friction, ignites into a flame that consumes the whole machine, and does mischief to others as well as to itself.-J. A. JAMES. ZEAL.-Religious Religious zeal should, in every instance, be the offspring of personal piety.-J. A. JAMES. ZEAL.-True Nothing can be fairer, or more noble, than the holy fervour of true zeal.-MOLIÈRE, ZEAL.-Uniformity in We do not value an intermitting spring so much as the clear brooklet which our childhood knew, and which has laughed on its course unheeding, and which could never be persuaded to dry up, though it has had to battle against the scorchings of a jubilee of summers' suns. We do not guide ourselves by the glow-worm's bead of light, or with the marsh-lamp's fitful flame. No: we look to the ancient sun, which in our infancy struggled through the window and danced upon the wall of the nursery, as if he knew how much we delighted to see him light up the flowercup and peep through the shivering leaf. And, for ourselves, we do not value the affection of a stranger awakened by some casual congeniality, and displayed in kindly greeting or in occasional courtesy. wealth is in the patient bearing, and the unnoticed deed, and the anticipated wish, and the ready sympathies, which make a summer and a paradise wherever there is a home. And not only in the natural and the social relations, but in the enterprise of the world, in the busy activities of men, the necessity for uniformity in earnestness is readily acknowledged. Our Society very soon brands a man if he has not got a perseverance as well as an earnestness about him. Society very soon puts its mark upon the man who lodges in a succession of Utopias,-the unwearied but the objectless builder who never roofs his house, either because he was unable to finish, or because some more brilliant speculation dazzled the builder's brain. The world has got so matter-of-fact now-a-days, that it jostles the genius of the foot-post, while the plodder, whose eye sparkles less brilliantly but more evenly and longer, steadily proceeds on his way to success.- -PUNSHON. ZEPHYR.-The Exquisitely soft and gentle is the zephyr. ZION. It scarcely kisses into tremulousness the leaf of the aspen, or ripples the sea of air through which it floats so joyously and free. Surely this mild breeze of the west was the only wind known in Eden; for it comes when Nature decks herself with her Easter robes, and earth resembles heaven in its beauty and gladness!-DR. DAVIES. ZEST-Described. It is the contrary of phlegmatic apathy; it is the contrary of littleness and of indifference, and of dulness of apprehension, and of sluggishness and slowness of the faculties. Zest is a plant which flourishes in the country: it does not grow well in a garden-pot in cities. The town substitute for zest is excitement; but you are not likely to mistake one for the other, and you may know them by this mark-zest is awake toward all things, even the dullest; excitement wakes up only at the shrill call of things new and strange. Zest imparts a relish to things that are not the most sapid; excitement asks for larger and larger doses of cayenne, whatever it may be that is on the table.-I. TAYLOR. ZION.-Mount Mount Zion was one of the heights on which Jerusalem was built. It stood near Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered up Isaac to the Lord, and witnessed that greatest triumph of human faith; and centuries afterwards, when the Temple covered the summit of the former, it formed the heart and strength of the city. Situated at the southern extremity, it rose above every other part of Jerusalem, and came in time to stand for the city itself. At first it seems strange that Zion should have become a word filled with such endearing associations to the Jews. They could never let it go from them when speaking of their city. If her strength as a fortress was spoken of, the language was-"Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towers thereof : mark ye well her bulwarks, and consider her palaces:" if her elevation, it was"The holy hill of Zion " God's affection for it was thus expressed-" He loveth the gates of Zion;" "The Lord hath chosen Zion." Occupied by the son of Jesse, it became "The city of David," the representative of all that was dear and cherished in Israel. Thus everything conspired to render "Zion" the spell-word of the nation, and on its summit the heart of Israel seemed to lie and throb. But at length it was visited by misfortune and ruin, and the eagles of Cæsar took the place of the banner of David. Now the plough-share is driven over the top of Zion. Where its towers and palaces stood, grain waves in ZOOLOGY. the passing wind, or ruins, overlaying each other, attest the truth of the Word of God. The Arab spurs his steed along the forsaken streets, or scornfully stands on Mount Zion, and surveys the forsaken city of God.HEADLEY. ZOOLOGY.-Love for the Science of The sportsman may love to hear the whirr of the startled pheasant as it springs from the meadow, and seeks safety in the adjoining thicket; I am as much pleased with the rustling of a simple crab that runs for shelter, at my approach, into a rocky crevice, or beneath a boulder, shaggy with corallines and sea-weed. He, too, while walking down some rural lane, may love to see a blackbird hastily woo the privacy of a hawthorn bush, or a frightened hare limp across his path, and strive to hide among the poppies in the corn-fields; I am equally gratified with the sight of a simple razorfish sinking into sand, or with the flash of a silver-bodied fish darting across a rockpool. Nay, even the trembling lark that mounts upward as my shadow falls upon its nest among the clover, is not a more pleasing object to my eye than the crustaceous hermit, who rushes within his borrowed dwelling at the sound of footsteps.HARPER. ZOOLOGY.-Pleasure Derived from the I have seen a man, a worthy man, Beheld its wondrous eye and plumage fine, ZOOLOGY.-Wonders Revealed by Take, as an example, one of the monsters of the deep, the whale, and we find, ac ZOOPHYTES. cording to several learned writers, that this animal carries on its back and in its tissues a mass of creatures, so minute that their number equals that of the entire population of the globe! A single frond of marine algæ, in size "No bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman," may contain a combination of living zoo- Of animals, or atoms organized, Shall bid His spirit flow!"-HARPER. ZOOPHYTES-the Lowest Class of Animals. Zoophytes are the lowest order of crea tures in the animated world. In appearance, they closely resemble plants and flowers; nevertheless, their animal organization is wondrously perfect, demonstrating, as undeniably as the creation of intelligent beings, the infinite wisdom and exhaustless beneficence of that great Spirit who pervades every region of the universe, and works as minutely, and delicately, and perfectly, in lonely deserts, as He does grandly and strikingly in the chief places of the earth, and yet who is Himself described by a monosyllable-God !-DR. DAVIES FINIS: Our revels now are ended.-SHAKSPEARE. |