necessarily thwarts man's nature and likings. It is a mistake to think that God's will is always in the line of the disagreeable. Fifth, do the next thing. Sixth, go ahead. Seventh, you need not find out that you have been led at all."

He might have added, quoting himself,"If you give yourselves to many things, give yourselves first to love,-achieve the character of Christ," which is the new law in religion.

ETERNITY.

Eternity, thou mighty, awful vast,
Entombing all the countless ages past!
Upon thy bosom worlds have sunk to rest,
Unnumbered, under God's divine behest.
Creations rise against the wall of Time,
And trace their age across its spacious clime,
But fade away, as bubbles on the sea,
When rolled athwart thy realm, Eternity.
Behold! thou mother of unbounded space,
Is God himself more mighty than thy waste ?
Or does he spring from off thy bosom grand,
And sway for thee thy sceptre's great com-
mand?

Impelling all the elements to raise

Unto thy wondrous throne a voice of praise,
Resounding through the universe entire,
And trembling 'gainst thy boundless home's
attire.

March on, O Time, through myriad ages more,
Inscribing all thy thousand deeds of yore;
And when thou comest to yon distant blue,
Behold! thy travels, numbered, are but few;
And space rolls back more grand than e'er

before,

Reveals immensity, but not its shore!

March on, O Time, fore'er across this field,
And chase the thunder homeward by its peal;
And, when thou'st conquered all the elements
That scatter broad throughout the firmaments,
Remember thou, O noble, conquering Time,
That, though thou'st scaled the highest heights
sublime,

And wieldest there thy swaying sword so free,
Thou, too, must bow unto Eternity!

STEPHEN F. READ.

Cheered by the presence of God, I will do at each moment, without anxiety, according to the strength which he shall give me, the work that his Providence assigns me. I will leave the rest without concern: it is not my affair.--Fénelon.

CULTURE.

Emerson and Arnold.

Culture, unlike most social attainments, is a duplex combination of soul and social effect. It is an operation of inwardness, always insisting upon reaching perfection at the centripetal point within the soul-circle, beginning on the circumference and reaching centreward, from which all conscious thought radiates again to the outer. It is the nimbus surrounding a light which silently calls forth attention and admiration.

Culture is not a feathered hat which may be procured at any moment before starting, but is a continual growth and gradual gathering, not without effort, of the best in all things, great and small, and the appreciation of their adaptation. It uses all opinions, fires them in the crucible of private thought, and retains the gold after the dross has fallen away, nor is dominated by any because it happens to be new or popular. Culture desires the pure solidity of all things, and wastes no time with superfluities, combines religion, intellect, and poetry, and is beyond the meagreness of ordinary intelligence, which is satisfied to think in the same old rut his ancestors have laid out for him, and from the same thumb-marked, yellow-paged book of unvarying narrowness. "Culture is turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow stanchly, but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them stanchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically." The main vine may be the same vital growth at any period, but the branches under different suns and climates are bound to grow irregular and varying according to their reach and radius.

So "culture, which is the study of perfection, leads us to conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious perfection, developing all sides of humanity." True; and yet there is an opinion which endangers this in the fear of an "intellectual mediocrity" where there is universal education without the higher instruction of particular talents. It would seem, when we think of the "perfection of the harmonious whole," that the old, unhonored "Jack of all trades" might be made "a thing of beauty and a joy

forever" if we just kept on cultivating his many talents. Give a man all the accoutrements he may need to stem the tide on all sides, and he is fully equipped for any occasion. (He is bound to swim.)

What about the genius and his marvellous skill? We leave him to plod along with his one crippling pursuit, enlarging it to the exclusion of all other qualities. Yet he has attained a greatness. Emerson said on this: "Nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the performer to get it done. . . . If she wants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs; and any excess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some defect in a contiguous part." Now what are we to say? Surely, a man of great genius is not the most pleasant man to encounter. He is generally allowed a certain license for all the eccentricities he may establish his theme is often beyond us, and he does not forsake his own for ours. Are any of us guilty of having termed such people bores? Which, then, will we have,-the cultured and refined man of all things, who deftly covers all sharp corners, or the untutored gruffness and greatness of an erratic genius? Mediocrity or greatness? And where is individualism going?

Then, again, how many intellects are prepared to receive culture? Emerson again says, "There must be capacity for culture in the blood, else all culture is vain." We cannot think to promote life in a seed which has been sown upon bare rock. It is necessary that the dust of ages should be wafted there, and settle into a brown mould, before it may feel the pulsation of life.

When "culture humanizes knowledge," it humanizes humanity as well, and equalizes man by intellect, and not by clothes, by soul, not by gigantic hoards of wealth. "Culture directs our attention to the natural current there is in human affairs, and to its continual working, and will not let us rivet our faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes us see not only his good side, but also how much in him was of necessity limited and transient, . . . because the being in contact with the main stream of human life is of more moment for a man's total spiritual growth, and for his bringing to perfection the gifts committed to him, which is his business on earth."-Arnold.

Culture was never without charity any

Yet how

more than love without anxiety. often are the superficial accomplishments of exterior charm mistaken for culture, and accepted, when the true ring is better found beneath a dusty coat! Refinement does not dwell in glass houses to convince the public of its existence. Thoreau's wood-chopper, with whom he chatted often, was one of those who wore the rusty clothes.

What is it that prompts the little, old flag-man at the crossing to cultivate the ragged patch of ground to yield a straggling bloom of scarlet geranium? His hours are measured by the very minute, his life is absolutely prosaic; and yet he desires, with all his limitations in life, to feel a nearness to something that is above him, and must bring even a sprig of nature near him, that his famishing soul might not go athirst for one small drink. How much do a few scarlet blossoms compensate for it all?

Refinement is not an outward thing, but an inner power that reflects itself in action. It is innate, and we need no introduction to it. It is not put on from without, like a coat of varnish, to hide the scratches beneath the veneering may fall off in an unguarded moment, and we behold the sad defect.

Then "culture is a desire after the things of the mind simply for their own sakes, and for the pleasure of seeing them as they are,

which is, in an intelligent being, natural and laudable." And this very desire implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained without fruitful effort. Not only does culture receive into herself, but diffuses again in impulses of love and beneficences to her neighbor. In this idea culture dwells among us, and is always lending a helping hand: she does not step aside with shrunken skirt to let us pass untainted. Had we more of this enlightenment in church and city, we should need fewer laws. There is often more sympathy and sweetness in the grasp of a rough brown hand than in all the flattery and slippery hand-shake of the tapered fingers. Emerson has said, "Heaven sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as the burr that protects the fruit"; and culture holds the secret of opening the burr without hurt to any one, and of promoting an expansion of the vital forces.

Culture, then, which believes in making "reason and the will of God prevail," and in the study of perfection, accepting what is right, not what is newest, draws toward a knowledge of universal order, and not only is enabled to see and learn, but to prevail, has then reached a moral, social, and benefiting ideal, "an expansion of all the powers which make the beauty and worth of human nature, and is not consistent with the over-development of any one power at the expense of the rest.”

Thus we will cultivate the higher, and leave the lower to perish as we go, expound the idea of "looking out for number one, no one else will," and each aid his neighbor over the rough places he himself has experienced.

When the internal condition of men and societies have so become, to the exclusion of all ungodly activities, and the spiritual welfare of the people has attained this perfection, we shall not be here. And, if we were, would not the millennial dawn appear too soon to despoil us of the enjoyment we will have striven so long to attain? Alas! it might be so.

JULIA DEWITT STEVENS.

THE DUTY OF LAYING IN MORAL BALLAST.

BY ALFRED GOODING.

"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."- MATT. iv. 4.

"Provide yourselves bags that wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not."— LUKE xii. 33.

Political economists assure us that one of the marks of a high degree of civilization in a people is the strength of the desire to accumulate. Primitive man has no such desire, because he lacks forethought, and is without regard for the needs of the future. He knows what his immediate wants are, but he is incapable of imagining his future wants with sufficient vividness to cause him to take measures now to meet them. When he feels the pangs of hunger, he goes to work to allay them as quickly as possible with whatever food is nearest at hand; but, when that is accomplished, the thought that he is going to be hungry every day thereafter is not strong enough to induce him

to make provision for the inevitable need. The lowest sort of savage is absolutely improvident, - has no thought beyond the present moment: he is satisfied to live literally from hand to mouth. After Roman Catholic missionaries had been working for years among the Indians of Paraguay, their converts were still scarcely able to look forward from one day to another. They would often, after ploughing, leave the oxen standing all night in the furrows, and sometimes, if hungry, would kill one of the animals on the spot, cook and eat him. Their minds could not reach beyond the satisfaction of the immediate craving.

From this state of absolute improvidence an upward step was taken when man found in the thought of future hunger a sufficient motive to planting and sowing, thus providing for a distant demand a distant supply. And, just in proportion as civilization has gone on increasing and the power of forethought and foresight has developed, man has learned to make provision for the future, anticipating the needs not only of to-morrow and of next year, but even of a remote old age, and devoting himself with untiring energy to the accumulation of wealth.

If the desire to accumulate is thus, as we have seen, a mark of civilization, then, so far as that proof goes, our age may certainly claim to be civilized above all others. Never before has the practical forethought which looks to the very end of the individual life, and makes provision for its remotest needs, existed in so marked a degree as to-day. Never before has the passion for accumulating wealth been so universal or so intense or attained such astonishing results. We read with amazement of the huge fortunes which have become so common in our midst that wealth has ceased any longer to confer distinction or even notoriety.

It is not, however, the millionaires who best illustrate the strength of the modern desire to accumulate, but the vast multitude of busy mortals who toil day in and day out, not simply to supply the needs of the day, but to gain a competency. Outside the ranks of unskilled labor I suppose there are very few men who do not work with a distinct purpose of providing for a remote future, when the failing physical powers will crave rest. Forethought has become such

a habit of the mind in most men as to be able to induce them to forego immediate ease and pleasure for the sake of a distant gain. They see so vividly the charm of a comfortable and enjoyable old age, free from all necessity of labor at a time when labor will have grown irksome, that it ceases to be difficult to pursue the routine of business, to undergo all manner of self-denial now. We may behold in them the supreme power of imagination. They submit to the meanest drudgery, refuse all opportunities for present rest and leisure, in order that they may some day realize a good which exists now but in the mind's eye.

One often hears this modern passion for accumulating disparagingly and scornfully spoken of, but I cannot believe that a desire which implies so high a development of forethought and imagination is in itself evil. Up to a certain degree, indeed, all civilization depends upon it; and, if it should cease to animate the human heart, the world would revert to barbarism. But it often happens that a powerful motive, good in itself, works harm when it is too narrowly confined. It needs several channels, perhaps, instead of the single one to which we limit it. If all the water that falls in a mountainous region were poured into a single river-bed, the resulting torrent would produce devastation along its banks; but, being distributed over different water-sheds, the rainfall contributes to keep a number of streams at just that fulness which the mills and the aqueducts need. Similarly, when a man looks into the future, and experiences the natural desire to accumulate that which will insure his comfort and happiness in the future, if he turns that desire wholly in the direction of material gain, he meets with those disasters with which the spectacle of such lives as his has made us sufficiently familiar. When he reaches the future for which he has been saving up so faithfully, he finds that he has made provision for only one portion of it. His physical needs are amply supplied, but intellectually and spiritually he finds himself in the depths of poverty. Then he recognizes that, instead of turning the desire of accumulation into this one channel of material gain, he ought to have diverted it partly into the channels of the mind and the spirit. To drop the figure of speech, he recognizes that his passion to ac

cumulate for the future was too narrow in its object. It was well that he should seek to lay up money, so that his old age might be free from anxiety, want, and the necessity of toil. So far he had made no mistake. Where he made his mistake was in neglecting to lay up something besides money,-intellectual treasures, the riches of the inner life.

Instead, therefore, of seeking to weaken and diminish the desire of accumulation, I would intensify and broaden it, so that it should cover not only material, but spiritual wealth, not only dollars, but ideas, not only means to the comfort of the body, but to the welfare and happiness of the soul. Certainly, the highest possible civilization will demand this broader conception of accumulating. It will insist that the man who lays up only money is not doing his whole duty by the future, is neglecting very essential conditions of success in preparing himself for a happy and beautiful old age. This is evident enough when we contemplate the last years of a life that has been wholly given to the accumulation of wealth. Here is the old age of ease for which all this money has been laid up. It is certainly free from anxiety, want of any kind. It is a time of leisure, freedom, and peace, rich in all that unlimited means can procure; and yet we should all agree that it is not a very happy old age, because it lacks certain treasures which are essential to happiness. It has in abundance that which satisfies the physical being, but it has almost nothing for the mind and soul. Hitherto the affairs of business have kept the mind active. These having been renounced, and there being nothing to take their place, the unhappiness of inaction necessarily follows. What a blessing, then, to such a man would be the possession of literary tastes and habits, a knowledge and love of noble books, a fondness for some branch of science to which these years of leisure might be devoted! If the successful seeker after wealth had only accumulated other treasures as well, then he would have realized his ideal of a noble and happy old age.

Hamerton, in one of his clever essays, suggests a very helpful figure of speech to illustrate and emphasize the need of intellectual accumulation in a busy life. It is taken from the art of sailing. It is a well

known fact, says Hamerton, that, in tacking, the properly ballasted boat shoots ahead, while the light boat often needs the help of an oar. The former has acquired a certain momentum which carries it over just that spot where, in tacking, the wind fails to act upon the canvas. Is not this fact suggestive of the necessity of accumulating intellectual and moral power, weight, ballast, in our own characters, to carry us safely over certain places in life which correspond to those moments when, in tacking, the sails have not yet caught the breeze?

Take, for instance, the career of the man of business. What is it that impels him along his course? Ambition, the desire for material gain, the love of active work. These are most efficient motive powers, and for years they suffice. He feels no need at all of accumulating intellectual treasures of any kind. Life is full of intense interest and fascination, and goes so swiftly that the years seem like days. But at length comes a time when this swift motion ceases,-a time of enforced idleness, when ambition and the love of gain must be renounced, when complete rest must take the place of active work. He has reached one of those places in life which correspond to the moment when, in tacking, the wind fails to act upon the sails, and the boat must depend upon the momentum imparted by its ballast. Then he feels, for the first time, the need of those intellectual accumulations which he has failed to make. The ordinary sources of contentment and happiness are no longer available, and he has neglected to lay in that mental ballast which would serve to carry him across this period of enforced leisure. Who has not known such men, helpless, wretched, trying one makeshift after another to get themselves across the dull days? They present, indeed, a pitiful spectacle and a forcible reminder of the necessity of cultivating other tastes than those which suffice only while we can remain in the busy rush of affairs.

In the experience of such men I find an argument in favor of a college education for the man of business. I know all the old objections that are urged against such an education, that it involves a delay of several years in the entrance into active life, that it unfits a man for the drudgery which is unavoidable in the beginning of a business

career, that a knowledge of the classics and the natural sciences is of no service to him in buying and selling; but there is this to remember, that, although he may not need a liberal education to become a successful merchant, although he may acquire wealth without possessing any intellectual tastes whatever, any love for books, any treasure of noble thought, yet the time comes when he needs these to carry him over those places in his life where the breeze of active business interests no longer avails. At such a time the habit of study, the taste for intellectual acquirement, which he had gained in his college days, comes back to save him from that aimless and unhappy existence which is the fate of so many men who have retired either for a brief period or permanently from a business career. And so I maintain the value of a liberal education, not simply for the followers of a profession, but for men of affairs,—for all to whom so great a privilege is open.

And, if it is true that we need this intellectual accumulation or ballast to carry us safely across certain places in life where the usual motive-power ceases to be operative, it is equally true that we have need of what might be called moral ballast, an accumulation of moral energy or power, to take us over places of peculiar temptation. Ordinarily, we are subjected to certain powerful influences for good which keep us true to the course of upright and honorable living. Such are the influences of public opinion, of good companionship and good reading, of home and church life. While these are acting upon us, there is not much danger lest we suffer wreck. But I suppose there are times in almost every life when these good influences cease for a while to act. It is like that moment in the sailing of a boat when the wind has no effect upon the sails, and the boat must depend upon its own momentum acquired through proper ballasting.

Take, for instance, any one of that almost countless multitude of young men who are leaving their homes to begin active life in some distant community. At once he is beyond those direct influences for good which have hitherto so largely determined his course,-influences of home, of church, of friends. In time, of course, it is possible for him to come under a new set of similar