no floors, as is usual; but at the doors and at each window, large, flat, irregular slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious turf, affording comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of the same material—not nicely adapted, but with the velvety sod filling frequent intervals between the stones, led hither and thither from the house, to a crystal spring about five paces off, to the road, or to one or two outhouses that lay to the north, beyond the brook, and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts and catalpas.

PAUSE AND THE UNUSUAL.

[As a rule, an unusual statement, to be adequately comprehended, demands increased pause to give the listener sufficient time to refer the idea to his experience. Ex. (Alexander McLaren): “The dead are the living;" (Milton): "stupidly good.'']

Aphorisms.

JOHN MORLEY.

Lichtenberg, a professor of physics, who was also a considerable hand at satire a hundred years ago, composed a collection of sayings, with a little wheat amid much chaff, among which were, "People who never have any time are the people who do least," and "He who has less than he desires should know that he has more than he deserves," and "Enthusiasts without capacity are the really dangerous people." This last, by the way, recalls a saying of the great French reactionary, De Bonald, and which is never quite out of date: "Follies committed by the sensible, extravagances uttered by the clever, crimes committed by the good-that is what makes revolutions."

Some have found light in the sayings of Balthasar Gracian, a Spaniard, who flourished at the end of the Seventeenth century. I do not myself find Gracian much of a companion, though some of his aphorisms give a neat turn to common

place. Thus: "To equal a predecessor one must have twice his worth." And "What is easy ought to be entered upon as though it were difficult, and what is difficult as though it were easy"

One of the most commonly known of all books of maxims, after the Proverbs of Solomon, is the Moral Reflections of La Rochefoucauld. "Interest," he says, "speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of parts, even the part of the disinterested." And again, “Gratitude is with most people only a strong desire for greater benefits to come." And this"Love of justice is with most of us nothing but the fear of suffering injustice."

No more important name is associated with the literature of aphorisms than that of Pascal. On man, as he exists in society, he said little; and what he said does not make us hopeful. He saw the darker side. "If everybody knew what one says of them, there would not be four friends left in the world." "Would you have men think well of you, then do not speak well of yourself." "What a chimera is Man!” said Pascal. "What a confused chaos! What a subject of contradiction! A professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth; the great depository and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty; the glory and the scandal of the universe!"

There is a smart spurious wisdom of the world which has the bitterness not of the salutary tonic, but of the mortal poison; and of this kind the master is Chamfort "If you live among men," he said, "the heart must either break or turn to brass." "The public! the public!" he cried, "how many fools does it take to make a public !" "What is celebrity? The advantage of being known to people who don't know you We cannot be surprised to hear of the lady who said that a conversation with Chamfort in the morning made her melancholy until bedtime. Yet Chamfort is the author of

the not unwholesome saying that "the most wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed." One of his maxims lets us into the secret of his misanthropy. "Whoever," he said, "is not a misanthropist at forty can never have loved mankind."

Chamfort I will leave, with his sensible distinction between pride and vanity. "A man," he says, "has advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity. The first is lofty, calm, immovable; the second is uncertain, capricious, unquiet. The one adds to a man's stature; the other puffs him out. The one is the source of a thousand virtues; the other is that of nearly all vices and all perversities. There is a kind of pride in which are included all the commandments of God; and a kind of vanity which contains the seven mortal sins."

PAUSE AND LEADING STATEMENT.

[Where a statement is followed by one or more clauses or sentences that directly bear on it, the pause after the statement should be increased sufficiently to enable the listener to so fix the thought in his mind that the support can be seen in its proper relation to it. If the parent statement is lost to the listener or is not sufficiently grasped, the supporting matter may lose its full significance. Ex. (G. F. Pierce): "The spirit of Christianity is essentially a public spirit. It ignores all selfishness. It is benevolence embodied and alive, full of plans for the benefit of the world."']

Freedom-What Is It?

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

I call that mind free, which masters the senses, which protects itself against animal appetites, which contemns pleasure and pain in comparison with its own energy, which penetrates beneath the body and recognizes its own reality and greatness, which passes life, not in asking what it shall eat

or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteousness.

I call that mind free, which escapes the bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at the material universe and making it a prison-wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds, in the radiant signatures which it everywhere bears of the Infinite Spirit, helps to its own spiritual enlargement.

I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, while consulting others, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instruction from abroad, not to supersede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies.

I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering, wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind.

I call that mind free, which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrents of events, which is not the creature of accidental impulse, but which bends events to its own improvement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable principles which it has deliberately espoused.

I call that mind free, which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal than man's, which respects a higher law than fashion, which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few.

I call that mind free, which, through confidence in God, and, in the power of virtue, has cast off all fear but that of wrong doing, which no menace or peril can enthrall, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost.

I call that mind free, which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does not live on its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in fresh and higher exertions.

I call that mind free, which is jealous of its own freedom, which guards itself from being merged in others, which guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

PAUSE AND LARGE CONTENT.

[Some ideas, while easy to understand in themselves, have so large a content that time must be given for the vivid recalling of the associated ideas. Ex.: "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!'']

Speech at Gettysburg.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final restingplace for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot