GOOD WORDS.

Clutha Leader, Volume V, Issue 218, 13 September 1878, Page 7

GOOD WORDS.

Haste in making* one's plans is less valuable than slowness and sureness in. the consideration, and all clue speed and promptitude in carrying them out. No' trait of character is more valuable than the possession of a good temper. Home can never ba made happy with* out it. It is like flowers springing 1 up in our pathway reviving and cheering us. He that keeps himself to the measure of a just judgment, he that holds himself at that place which his capacities fit him for, he that forms a mode* rate estimate of his importance, he that takes a place lower than that for which he is qualified, will be continually invited to go higher. Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one . another. As the snow gathers together so are our habits formed. No single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change — no single action creates, however it may exhibit, a man's character. The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the most actions, good or bad, may ba resolved into the love of ourselves ; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction betweejn virtue qnd vice. The reasons of unhappiness, big and little, lie in the ignorance, and there-? fore the violation, of the inevitable conditions of happiness. Men seek happiness, not as an education, but as a final end. They do not seek it harmoniously. They do not seek it in moderation. They clo not seek it as that which has accomplishment and fulfilment in another life. Therefore their condition is not such that they can be as happy on earth as they ought to be. Their happiness is partial, it is selfish, and it is secular. When you expect nature to convert a bad boy into a good man, you expect a miracle of her ; and nature never performs miracles. You might as well leave a young sapling to (he "Wind which beats it awry, and hope that it will be a straight well-formed tree wueu it is an old one. You are aware that it is the tender young tree which yields to training- and culture, and that every 3'ear makes it more difficult to straighten it. Make the boy a good boy, it you desire him to be a good man — honest, if you hope to have him stand upright before his fellow-men. When two young people start out in . life together, with nothing but a determination to sncceed, avoiding the in-' vasion of each other's idiosyncrasies, not carrying the candle near the gunpowder, sympathetic with -each other's em ploy men t, willing to live on small means until they get large facilities, paying 1 as they go, taking life here as a discipline, with four eyes watching its perils and four hands fighting its battles — whatever others may say or do, that is a royal marriage. It is so set down in the heavenly archives, and the orange blossoms shall wither on neither side of the grave. The earlier, consistent with health, that youth begins to think, the more massive and powerful will be the brain, in maturity — the better prepared will be the- mind to shed a glow of interest and happiness on all around, and fill itself with an intense sense of enjoyment unknown to the undisciplined mind. This process of thinking should be systematised, so that the mind can bend its energies in full force on one point at a time, and, after having examined in this manner the whole ground the facts elicited can be classified, managed, and put in a position to be easily understood and appreciated, because they are forcibly and logically brought to bear. The true wife is often unfashionable in loving her husband, and him only—in not caring to attract idle admiration or the homage of the more serious adorer. When she married it was for love pure and simple; and she did not look to her wifehood as to her papers of release from control and her charter for unlimited freedom. She has no very decided opinions on politics, women's rights, or the doctrine of fate and free-will. She slips insenibly, and by the natural training of love/injo the groove of thought where har husband finds himself, and holds his position to be the best of all because it is his. She is more content with his fame than she would be with her own; indeed she finds hers in his, and would not care to be a personage on her own account. She desires for herself, for her honour and supreme personal happiness, only bis love, only his health and prosperity; and so long as he is safe her star, is without a cloud to veil its brightness.