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MARRIAGE
MEN and women, and especially young people, do not know that it takes years to marry completely two hearts, even of the most loving and well assorted; but nature allows no sudden change. We ascend very grandually from the cradel to the summit of life. Marriage is gradual-a fraction of us at a time. A happy wedlock is a long falling in love. I know young persons think love belongs only to the brown hair, and plump, round, crimson cheeks. So it does for its beginning. But the golden marriage is a part of love which the bridal day knows nothing of. Youth is the tassel and silken flower of love; age is the full corn, ripe and solid in the ear. Beautiful is the morning of love, with its prophetic crimson, violet, purple, and gold, with its hopes of the days that are to come. Beautiful also is the evening of love, with its glad remembrances, and its rainbow side turned towards heavan as well as earth. Young people marry their opposites in temper and general character, and such a marriage is commonly a good match. They do it instinctively. The young man does not say, "My black eyes require to be wed with blue, and my over-vehemence requires to be a little modified with somewhat of dulness and reserve." When these opposites come together to be wed, they do not know it; each thinks the other just like itself.

Old people never marry their opposites; they marry their similars and from calculation. Each of these two arrangements is very proper. In their long journey, these two young opposites will fall out by the way a great many times, and both get out of the road; but each will charm the other back again, and by and by they will be agreed as to the place they will go to and the road they will go by, and become reconcieled. The man will be nobler and larger for being associated with so much humanity unlike himself, and she will be a nobler woman for having manhood besides her that seeks to correct her definciencies and supply her with what she lacks, if the diversity be not too great, and there be real piety and love in their hearts to begin with. The old bridegroom, having a much shorter journey to make, must associate himself with one one like himself. A perfect and complete marriage is perhaps as rare as perfect personal beauty. Men and women ae married fractionally; now a small fraction, then a large fraction. Very few are married totally, and they only, I think, after some forty or fifty years of gradual approach and expiriment. Such a large and sweet fruit is a complete marriage that it needs a very long summer to ripen in, and then a long winter to mellowand season it! But a real, happy marrigae of love and judgment between a noble man and woman is one of the things so very handsome that, if the sun were, as the Greek poets fables, a god, he might stop the world in order to feast his eyes on such a spectacle.

A BEAUTIFUL SENTIMENT. --I confess that increasing years bring increasing respect for those who do not succeed in life, as these words are commonly used. Heaven is said to be a place for those who have not succeeded upon earth, and it is surely true that celestial graces do not best thrive and bloom in the hot blaze of wordly prosperity. Ill success sometimes rises from superabundance of qualities in themsleves good--from conscience too sensitive, a taste too fastidious, a self-forgetfulness too romantic, a modesty too retiring. I will not go so far as to say, with a living poet, that the world knows nothing of its greatest men, but there are forms of greatness, or at least excellence, that die and make no sign; there are heroes without the laurel, and conquerors without the triumph.

Rock Me to Sleep, Mother.
By Mrs. Elizabeth Akers
Backward, turn backward, oh, time in your flight,
Make me a child again, just for to-night!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your arms, as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep,
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

Backward, flow backward, oh, tide of the years,
I am so weary of toil and tears;
Toil without recompense--tears all in vain;
Take them--and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away,
Weary of sowing for others to reap,
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, oh mother, my heart calls for you;
Many a Summer, the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded; our faces between.
Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I to-night for your presence again;
Come from the silence, so long and so deep,
Rock me to sleep, mother rock me to sleep.

Over my heart in the days that are flown,
No love like mother's love ever has shown,
No other worship abides and endures,
Faithful, unselfish and patient like yours.
None like a mother can charm away pain,
From the sick soul and the world weary brain;
Slumber's soft calm o'er my heavy lids creep,
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.
Come, let your brown hair, just lighten with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead to-night
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For, with its sunny-edged shadows once more,
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore--
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep!
Rock to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep,

Mother, dear mother, the years have been long,
Since I first listened to your lullaby song;
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem,
Womanhood's years have been only a dream--
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep,
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.

A SWEET VOICE -- We agree with that old poet who said that a low, soft voice was an excellent thing in woman. Indeed, we feel inclined to go much further than he on the subject, and call it one of her crowning charms. How often the spell of beauty is rudely broken by coarse, loud talking. How often you are irrestibly drawn to a plain, unassuming woman, whose soft, silvery tones render her positively attractive. In the social circle how pleasant it is to hear a woman talk in the low key which characterizes the true lady. In the santuary of home how such a voice soothes the fretful child and cheers the weary husband.

SUBJECTS FOR THOUGHT.
Never give up old friends for new ones. Make new ones if you like, and when you have learned that you can trust them, love them if you will, but remember the old ones still. Do not forget they have been merry with you in time of pleasure, and when sorrow came to you they sorrowed also. No matter if they have gone down in the social scale, and you up; no matter if poverty and misfortune have come to them, while prosperity and plenty have falle to you -- are they any the less true for that? Are not their hearts as warm and tender if they do beat beneath home-spun instead of velvet? Yes, kind friends, they are as true, and tender, and loving, and don't forget old friends.

A woman should never to consent to be married secretly. She should distrust a man who has any reason to shroud in darkness the act which in his own estimation should be the crowning glory of his life.

When a person feels disposed to over-estimate his own importance, let him remember that mankind got along very well before his birth, and that in all probability, they will get along very well after his death.

Gratitude is like the good faith of traders--it maintains commerce; and we often pay, not because it is just to discharge our debts, but that we may more readily find people to trust us.

An elevated purpose is a good and ennobling thing, but we cannot begin at the top of it. We must work up to it by the often difficult path of daily duty--of daily duty always carefully performed.

The law of the pleasure in having done anything for another is, that the one almost immediately forgets having given, and the other remembers eternally having received.

As long as we are living, God will give us living grace, till it's time to die. What's the use of trying to feel like dying when you a'n't dying, nor anywhere near it?

If you wish to live the life of a life and not of a fungus, be social, be brotherly, be charitable, be sympathetic, and labor earnestly for the good of your kind.

The true secret of living at peace with all the world is to have an humble opinion of ourselves.

Don't go to law unless you have nothing to lose; lawyers' houses are built on fools' heads.

Bible Terms.
Readers of the Bible will be interested in the following expresssions frequently met with the holy scriptures.
A day journey was 33 1-5 miles,
A Sabbath-day's journey was about
two-thirds of an English mile.
Ezekiel's reed is said to have been
nearly 11 feet long.
A cubit is 22 inches nearly.
A finger's breath is equal to one inch.
A shekel is about 50 cents.
A shekel of gold was $9 07.
A talent of silver was $1,650 85.
A talent of gold was $26,448.
A piece of silver, or a penny, was 13 cents.
A farthing was 3 cents.
A gerah was 2 cents. A mite was
one-half cent.
A homer contained 75 gallons and 5 pints.
An ephah, or bath, 7 gallons and 4
A hin was 1 gallon and 2 pints.
A firkin was 7 pints. An omer 6 pints.
A cab was 3 pints. A long was one-
half pint.

A Parting Word.
My darling, when this head likes low
in younder quiet woodland dell,
And gentle wild-wood flowers shall blow
Above the eyes that love them well--
How soon thy sorrow would depart
If words of mine could soothe thy heart,

Sometimes, somewhere we'll meet again--
Think this, and be the thought relief:
In life I have not brought thee pain,
In death I must not bring thee grief.
Strew well the flowers of hope my pall,
And gently mourn or not at all.
William Winter.