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THE OLD THIEF OF TIME.

An Enemy That Lurks in Every Household.
The Wasted Yesterdays.

There are few adages more well-worn than
that "Procrastination is the thief of time." We
all wrote it in our copy-books at school, and if we
are not familiar with it it is not the fault of our
teachers. Precept is one thing, practice is an-
other, however; it is so easy to put off our
work to-day, promising ourselves to make up by
added diligence to-morrow. Sometimes, per-
haps, we do so; oftener to-morrow comes laden
with its own duties, and the double weight is
too much for it to carry. Somebody is said once
to have complained in the hearing of Red
Jacket that he had not time enough for some-
thing. "Well," said the Indian chief, "I sup-
pose you have all there is." How many people
race through life trying forever to catch up with
the work which, while they waited with folded
hands, got hopelessly ahead of them. Doubtless
there are those who can never do all they long
to; flesh and blood are finite; but it never was,
and never will be, any one's duty to do the im-
possible. To work steadily and faithfully, doing
one thing at a time without hurrying, yet with
dispatch, is the secret of the people who ac-
complish so much, who leave behind them the
monument of a completed work. Such people
have time also for healthful play, which is by
no means idleness. Stay a while, "for rest is
sweet," sings the syren, and meantime our place
in the harvest-field is vacant, and when night
comes the full number of our sheaves shall be
lacking. They only enjoy rest who have earned
it. The sweetest sleep is that of those who
"rest from their labors, and their work do fol-
low them." The hare, relying on her fleetness
of foot, slept at her ease; while the tortoise, slow
but persevering, crept on to the goal. And so it
is not the brilliant geniuses - the pride of their
colleges - and valedictorians of their classes who
have won the great prizes in the world's arena, so
much as the patient plodders who kept to their
work through thick and thin until success
was won by patient, persistent endeavor. It was
not so much Grant's military genius as his dogged
determination to "fight it out on this line if it
takes all summer," which won him his name and
fame. The genius of labor is the genius of life
all the world over. It is not those who start
fairest, but those who can "stay" best, who win
the race, and when, as some times chances, to
persistence of purpose is added talent, the world
rises up to do honor to success. "Putting off"
is the thief which robs us of our treasure, who
steals away with the good we meant to do - who
gathers to himself our wasted opportunities, and
walketh away with all our pretty plans for to-
morrow. To-morrow never comes. It is always
a will-o'-the-wisp; we turn to grasp it and it
changes into to-day, while we weep over wasted
yesterdays.
"Take this lesson to thy heart,
Take, oh, take and bind it fast;
The mill will never grind
With the water that is past."

LIFE'S UNCERTAINTY. - When we walk near pow-
erful machinery we know that one misstep and those
mighty engines will tear us to ribbons with their fly-
wheels, or grind us to powder in their ponderous
jaws. So when we are thundering across the land
in a railroad carriage and there is nothing but an
inch of iron flange to hold us on the line. So when
we are in a ship and there is nothing but the thick-
ness of a plank between us and eternity. We im-
agine, then, that we see how close we are to the
edge of the precipice. But we do not see it. Whether
on the sea or on the land, the partition that divides us
from eternity is something less than the oak plank or a
half-inch iron flange, the machinery of life and death
is within us. The tissues that hold the heating pow-
ers in their places are often not thicker than a sheet
of paper, and if that thin partition is ruptured, it
would be the same as if a cannon ball had struck us.
Death is inseparably bound up with life in the very
structure of our bodies. Struggle as we would to
widen the space, no man can at any time go further
from death than the thickness of a sheet of paper.

If we waited until it was perfectly convenient,
half of the good actions of life would never be ac-
complished.

[middle column]

BLACK YER BOOTS?

Black yer boots, sir? shine 'em up!
Do it for half a dime.
Jest you lean agin' that wall
And I'll fix 'em, less'n no time,
No, I ain't werry old -
Somewhere near about ten.
Where do I live. Why, enywhere-
Sleep jest where I kin.
Father livin? Guess he is,
Mother! No, she's gone;
Never seen her - so I s'pose
She died 'fore I was born.
Friends? Why, what d'ye take me for?
Friends is what yer said?
Only rich folks has such things;
I've no friends 'cept Ted.
Ted? Why, that's him over there,
A leanin on his crutch;
That feller with his leg took off -
He isn't good for much.
Afore the doctors went for him
He used to black boots too-
There wasn't a feller in this yer town
Could beat him, I tell you;
An' him an' me was allers chums,
'Cause I was small, yer see.
But Ted was big, an' used to keep
The boys from lickin' me;
But when he got his leg smashed up
He couldn't work, in course;
And so things sorter changed around
An' I became the boss.
So now he only sup'intends;
An' kinder takes his ease;
I does the work, he takes the stamps -
The other foot, sir, please -
Yes, sometimes biz is putty slack,
An things get sorter blue;
It's awful hard, when stamps is skerse,
To pick up grub for two;
But Te l- he never minds such things,
He says we needn't care
How rough it is down here below -
If we only git up there!
Why, stranger you oughter hear him talk
'Bout things up in the sky;
Where heaven an' the angels is,
An' good folks never die.
I wonder if them mission chaps
Is tellin him what's true;
I hope they ain't a foolin, him;
He'd feel most awful blue
If he found it only was a jibe -
About this dyin' biz
An' goin' up to Kingdom-come.
Where they say his mother is;
I'd like to know fust what is so;
'Cause, mister, don't you see,
If all these things is really true,
Why what 'ud come of me,
If Ted should kick the bucket fust,
An' double up some day;
I couldn't find him when I died,
Cause how'd I know the way?
An' what d'ye think I'd do up there,
A goin' it alone
While Ted is off with the high-toned chaps
A singin' round the Throne?
No, sir! - it wouldn't be no fun -
And I wouldn't give a red
If I couldn't go where heaven is,
Along with dear old Ted.
There y'are, sir, neat an' trim;
Come agin' some day,
How much? Oh, give the stamps to Ted;
He allers take the pay.

Live is made up of little things. He who travels
over a continent must go step by step. He who
writes a book must do it sentence by sentence; he
who learns a science must master it fact by fact
and principle after principle. What is the happiness
of our life made upon? Little courtesies, little kind-
nesses, pleasant words, genial smiles, friendly letters,
good wishes and good deeds. One in a million, once
in a life time, may do a heroic action. But the little
thing that makes up our life come every day and
every hour.

[right column]
A WOMAN'S ANSWER TO A MAN'S QUESTION

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the hand above?
A woman's heart and a woman's life -
And a woman's wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what others have died to win,
With a reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out -
Man-like have you questioned me?
Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul,
Until I shall question thee.

You may require your mutton shall always be hot
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart to be true as God's stars,
And pure as his heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you're wanting for socks and for shirts
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called home,
And a man that the maker, God,
Shall look upon as he did on the first
And say "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade
From my soft young cheek one day -
Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves,
As you did 'mong the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep
I may launch my hall on its tide?
a loving woman finds heaven or hell,
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you will give this all, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this - a laundress and cook
You can hire and have little to pay;
But a woman's heart and a woman's life,
Are not won that way.

A Temperance "Toast" at Sea.
The following graceful tribute to "woman" was de
livered impromptu by Captain R. Kelso Carter, of
Baltimore, on board the steamer Indiana, from Phila-
delphia for Liverpool, on the 26th ult., at the close of a
debate on "Woman's Emancipation:"

Much has been said upon the subject of "Woman's
Emancipation," but, after all, is she not emancipated
already? The hand that rocks the cradle always
sways the sceptre in fact if not in name. When the
Spartan mothers trained their sons to steel, en-
couraged them in every sort of warlike pastime, and
said to them, "Come not back from the battle except
you come upon your shield," the nation became a
nation of warriors, and the rod of empire was held by
a military power that shook the world beneath its
tread. But when the Christian mother of to-day
teaches her boy to be kind, to be gentle and courteous,
to be considerate of the feelings of others, restrains
in him the natural uprising of the lex talionis, and in-
culcates the grand principle of doing unto others as
you would have them do unto you, then, and not till
then, we find men governing with some regard as least
to the tenets of humanity and justice; then, and not
till then, we find liberality, toleration and liberty. I
would like to propose a toast to-night, although a
total abstinence man myself - a toast to woman. To
be drunk, not in liquor of any kind, for we should
never pledge a woman in that which bring her
husband reeling home to abuse where should love
and cherish, sends her sons to a drunkard's grave, and
her daughters to a life of shame. Oh, no! not in
that, but rather in the life-giving water, pure as her
chastity, clear as her intuitions, bright as her smile,
sparkling as the laugher of her eyes, cheering as her
consolation, strong and sustaining as her love - in the
crystal water I would drink to her that she may re-
main queen regnant in the empire she has already
won, grounded deep as the universe in love; built up
and exercised in the homes and hearts of the world;
I would drink to her the full blown flower of creation's
morning, of which man was but the bud and blossom,
to her who in childhood clasps our little hands and
teaches us to lisp the first sweet prayer to the Great
All-Father, who comes to us in youth with good coun-
sel and advice, who in manhood meets our heart
yearnings with the full faithfulness of conjugal love,
and whose hand when our feet go down into the
shadow smooths the rough pillow of death as none
other can; to her who is the flower of flowers, the
pearl of pearls, God's latest, best and brightest gift to
man - woman, peerless, pure, sweet, royal woman.

VIRTUE. - Beauty is admired, talent adored, but [vir...]
is a crown. With it the poor are rich; without it [...]
rich are poor. It walks through life upright, and [n..]
hides its head for high or low.