use.

weak burn out.

AGE.

toil, or accident. The passions kill men
sometimes, even suddenly. The common ex-
pression, choked with passion, has little
exaggeration in it; for even though not
suddenly fatal, strong passions shorten life.
Strong-bodied men often die young-weak
men live longer than the strong, for the strong
use their strength, and the weak have none to
The latter take care of themselves; the
former do not. As it is with the body, so it
is with the mind and temper. The strong are
apt to break, or, like the candle, to run; the
The inferior animals, which
live, in general, regular and temperate lives,
have generally their prescribed term of years.
The horse lives 25 years; the ox 15 or 20;
the lion about 20; the dog 10 or 12; the
rabbit 8 the guinea-pig 6 or 7 years. These
numbers all bear a similar proportion to the
time the animal takes to grow its full size.
But man, of all the animals, is the one that
seldom comes up to his average. He ought
to live 100 years, according to this physio-
logical law, for five times twenty are one
hundred; but instead of that he scarcely
reaches, on the average, four times his grow-
ing period; the cat six times; and the rabbit
even eight times the standard of measurement.
The reason is obvious-man is not only the
most irregular and the most intemperate, but
the most laborious and hard-worked of all
animals. He is also the most irritable of all
animals; and there is reason to believe, though
we cannot tell what an animal secretly feels,
that, more than any other animal, man che-
rishes wrath to keep it warm, and consumes
himself with the fire of its own secret reflec-
tions.
St. John.

AGE-Rejoicing with Youth.
Stamped with its signet, that ingenuous brow,
And 'mid his old hereditary trees,

Trees he has climb'd so oft, he sits and sees
His children's children playing round his knees.
Then happiest, youngest, when the quoit is
flung,

When side by side the archers' bows are strung:
His to prescribe the place, adjudge the prize,
Envying no more the young their energies
Than they an old man, when his words are wise;
His a delight how pure, without alloy :
Strong in their strength, rejoicing in their joy!
Now in their turn assisting, they repay
The anxious cares of many and many a day;
And now by those he loves relieved, restored,
His very wants and weaknesses afford
A feeling of enjoyment. In his walks,
Leaning on them, how oft he stops and talks,
While they look up! Their questions, their
replies,

Fresh as the welling waters, round him rise,

AGE.

AGE (OLD)-Miseries of.

These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent:
Weak shoulders, overborne with burd'ning
grief;

And pithless arms, like to a wither'd vine That droops his sapless branches to the ground :

Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,

Unable to support this lump of clay,-
Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
As witting I no other comfort have. Shakspeare.

When once men reach their autumn, sickly joys
Fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees,
At every little breath misfortune blows;
Till left quite naked of their happiness,
In the chill blasts of winter they expire.
This is the common lot.

Young.

So many cares, so many maladies,
So many fears attending on old age;
Yet death, so often call'd on, has no wish
Can be more frequent with them; their limbs
faint,

Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing going;
All dead before them; yea, their very teeth,
Their instruments of eating, failing them;
Yet this is reckoned life.
Ben Jonson.

AGE (OLD)-Objections to.
Every man desires to live long; but no man
would be old.
Swift.

AGE (OLD)-Premature.

There is an order

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease, because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened; and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; also, when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Solomon.

There is a solitude which old age feels to be as natural and satisfying as that rest which seems such an irksomeness to youth, but which gradually grows into the best blessing of our lives; and there is another solitude, so full of peace and hope, that it is like Jacob's sleep in the wilderness, at the foot of the ladder of angels. "All things are less dreadful than they seem." And it may be that the extreme loneliness which, viewed afar off, appears to an unmarried woman as one of the saddest of the inevitable results of her lot, shall by that time have lost all its pain, and be regarded but as the quiet, dreamy hour "between the lights;" when the day's work is done, and we lean back, closing our eyes, to think it all over before we finally go to rest, or to look forward in faith and hope, unto the coming morning. Hughes.

AGE (OLD)-Talkativeness of.
Old age is talkative, and I may learn
Somewhat of moment from him.
AGE (OLD)-Tranquillity of.

Whitehead.

To the intelligent and virtuous, old age presents a scene of tranquil enjoyments, of obedient appetite, of well-regulated affections, of maturity in knowledge, and of calm preparation for immortality. In this serene and dignified state, placed as it were on the confines of two worlds, the mind of a good man reviews what is past with the complacency of an approving conscience in the mercy of God, and with devout aspirations towards His eternal and ever-increasing favour. Percival. AGE (OLD)-Tranquillity for.

One's age should be tranquil, as one's childhood should be playful; hard work, at either extremity of human existence, seems to me out of place: the morning and the evening should be alike cool and peaceful; at mid-day the sun may burn, and men may labour under it. Dr. Arnold.

In age to wish for youth is full as vain
As for a youth to turn a child again. Denham.
AGES-(the Middle) and Our Own
Times.

There is another fact I would dare to match with all the upholstery confession of the middle ages. Show me the equivalent to a money-loving people putting its hand into its own pocket, not to build proud towers, but to | emancipate degraded savages; giving twenty millions, not at the bidding of an imperious monarch or a tyrannical priesthood, but at the spoutaneous call of the national conscience, and by the immediate instrumentality of the There is a moral grandeur in this "money grant" that sinks the Pyramids into littleness. As for Christian heroism, what can history chronicle or poetry invent, of Godfrey, Richard, or St. Louis, that does not pale before the simple details of that poor despised Patagonian mission of the other day? I will not content myself with even the names of "Nightingale" and her noble sisters.

national will.

Rev. E. Young. AGREEABLENESS-Characteristics of. We may say of agreeableness, as distinct from beauty, that it consists in a symmetry of which we know not the rules, and a secret conformity of the features to each other, and to the air and complexion of the person.

La Rochefoucauld. AGREEABLENESS of Manners.

The true art of being agreeable, is to appear well pleased with all the company, and rather to seem well entertained with them, than to bring entertainment to them. A man thus disposed, perhaps, may have not much learning, nor any wit; but if he has common sense and something friendly in his behaviour, it conciliates men's minds more than the brightest parts without this disposition. It is true, indeed, that we should not dissemble and flatter in company; but a man may be very agreeable, strictly consistent with truth and sincerity, by a prudent silence where he cannot concur, and a pleasing assent where he can. Now and then you meet with a person so exactly formed to please, that he will gain upon every one that hears or beholds him: this disposition is not merely the gift of nature, but frequently the effect of much knowledge of the world, and a command over the passions.

Addison.

AGRICULTURIST.-Life of the.

In a moral point of view, the life of the agriculturist is the most pure and holy of any class of men; pure, because it is the most healthful, and vice can hardly find time to contaminate it; and holy, because it brings the Deity perpetually before his view, giving him thereby the most exalted notions of supreme power, and the most fascinating and endearing view of moral benignity. The agriculturist views the Deity in His works; he contemplates the divine economy in the arrangement of the seasons; and he hails Nature immediately presiding over every object that strikes his eyes; he witnesses many of her great and beauteous operations, and her reproductive faculties; his heart insensibly expands, from his minute acquaintance with multifarious objects, all in themselves original; whilst that degree of retirement in which he

is placed from the bustling haunts of mankind,

keeps alive in his breast his natural affections, unblunted by an extensive and perpetual intercourse with man in a more enlarged, and therefore in a more corrupt state of society. His habits become his principles, and he is ready to risk his life to maintain them.

Lord John Russell.

AIR (Vitiated)-Fatal to Life.

One cannot try experiments on human beings as on animals, but accident and disease frequently furnish us with experiments made to our hand. What has been related of the birds is confirmed by an accident which befel two young Frenchwomen. They were in a room heated by a coke stove. One of them was suffocated, and fell senseless on the ground. The other, who was in bed, suffering from typhoid fever, resisted the poisonous influence of the atmosphere, so as to be able to scream till assistance came. They were both rescued, but the healthy girl, who had succumbed to the noxious air, was found to have a paralysis of the left arm, which lasted for more than six months. Here, as in the case of the sparrows, we find the paradoxical result to be, that the poisonous action of a vitiated air is better resisted by the feeble, sickly organism, than by the vigorous, healthy organism. This pa radox admits of a physiological explanation. In the vitiated air of a German Kneipe, as in that of the houses of the poor, we find those who have had time to adjust themselves to it, breathing without apparent inconvenience, although each new-comer feels the air to be vitiated; and because they "get accustomed to it," people very naturally suppose that no injurious effect can follow. Here lies the dangerous fallacy. They get accustomed

AIR.

to it, indeed, and only because they do so are they contented to remain in it; but at what, price? by what means? By a gradual depression of all the functions of nutrition and secretion. In this depressed condition less oxygen is absorbed, and there is less needed in the atmosphere. A vitiated air will suffice for the respiration of a depressed organism, as it would amply suffice for the respiration of a coldblooded animal. When we enter a vitiated atmosphere, our breathing becomes laborious; the consequence of this is a depression of all the organic functions, and then the breathing is easy again, because we no longer require so much oxygen, and we no longer produce so much carbonic acid. Were it not for this adjustment of the organism to the medium, by a gradual depression of the functions, continued existence in a vitiated atmosphere would be impossible; we see the vigorous bird perish instantaneously in air which would sustain the enfeebled bird for upwards of an hour. Thus does physiology explain the paradox; but at the same time it points out the fallacy of supposing that bad air can be harmless because we "get accustomed" to it. However for

tunate a circumstance for those who have to breathe bad air, that the organism is quickly depressed to such a point as to render such air respirable, no one will deny that depressions of this kind are necessarily injurious, especially when frequently experienced.

ALPS.

same fond mother, only to be for ever divided by their tastes and manner of thinking. We also often observe sisters maintain, in their relations with each other, so much ill-will, animosity, and resentment, and living in such secret but continual irritation of mind towards each other, that even the very stranger, when forced to be a witness of this melancholy state of feeling in the family, cannot but be shocked and pained. Indeed it is but too common to behold individuals, united by ties of blood, live together upon a much less intimate footing than with strangers, and show themselves much less serviceable, and much less obliging the one to the other, than they are, when occasion requires, to persons whom they know not. Zschokke.

ALLEGIANCE-Tempted too far.
Allegiance, tempted too far, is like
A sword well temper'd on an anvil tried,
That press'd too hardly may in pieces fly :
An overburthen'd trust may treach'ry prove,
And be too late repented.
Massinger.

ALLEGORIES-Use of.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful. Addison.

ALPS-The.

Dark in colour, robed with everlasting mourning, for ever tottering like a great fortress shaken by war, fearful as much in their weakness as in their strength, and yet gathered after every fall into darker frowns and unbumiliated threatening; for ever incapable of comfort or healing from herb or flower, nourishing no root in their crevices, touched by no hue of life on buttress or ledge, but to the utmost desolate; knowing no shaking of leaves in the wind nor of grass beside the stream-no other motion but their own mortal shivering, the dreadful crumbling of atom from atom in their corrupting stones; knowing no sound of living voice or living tread, cheered neither by the kid's bleat nor the marmot's cry; haunted only by uninterrupted echoes from afar off, wandering hither and thither among their walls, unable to escape, and by the hiss of angry torrents, and sometimes the shriek of a bird that flits near the face of them, and sweeps frightened back from under their shadow into the gulf of air. And sometimes, when the echo has fainted, and the wind has carried the sound of the torrent away, and the bird has vanished, and the mouldering stones are still for a little timea brown moth, opening and shutting its wings upon a grain of dust, may be the only thing