Notes

NOTES.

Don't wait for great opportunities; seize common occasions and make them great. Orison S. Mar den.

Literature, medicine, law and other occupations are cramped and hindered for want of men to do the work, not for the work to do. If you wish to test the truth of this statement, hunt up a first-class editor,

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reporter, business manager, foreman of a machine shop, mechanic, or an artist in any branch of industry, and try to hire him. You will find him already hired. If you need idlers, shirkers, half-instructed, comfortseeking editors, lawyers, doctors and mechanics, apply elsewhere. They are plentiful. Mark Twain.

There is a thought that came to my mind while reading Milton's "Paradise Lost" which impresses me as being good. The proceedings of God towards Satan and Adam show to us that he punishes the disobedient by banishing them from his presence. We may still enjoy the constant presence of our Father, through his Spirit, by obeying his commands. But if we disobey his commands, disregard the requirements that invite the presence of the Holy Spirit, we too are banished from his presence, i. e. the Comforter leaves us. — W. Easier. While at work in the field one day, and speaking to my sons on tithing, an old gentleman came up to us. "Brother John Zimmerman," I said to him, "I have often told my boys that you paid tithing before you were a member of The Church?" "Yes," he answered, "I paid tithing ten years before I was baptized." A person once asked him how it was he paid tithing when he did not belong to The Church. His answer was that he paid tithing and when and saved doctors' bills. his children were sick, he sent for the elders, All of Brother Zimmerman's family are faithful members of The Church. — W. W. Taylor. "I may here impart the secret of what is called good and bad luck," said Addison. "There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of old age the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever runs against them, and for others. One with a good profession lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing. Another with a good trade perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employees to leave him. Another with a lucrative business lost his luck by amazing diligence at everything but his own business. Another who steadily followed his trade, as steadily followed the bottle. Another who was honest and constant in his work, erred by his perpetual misjudgment,— he lacked discretion. Hundreds lose their luck by indorsing, by sanguine expectations, by trusting fraudulent men, and by dishonest gains. A man never has good luck who has a bad wife. I never knew an early-

rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly

3 92 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

honest, who complained of his bad luck. A good character, good habits,, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of ill luck that fools are dreaming of. But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a grocery late in the forenoon, with his hands stuck into his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the crown knocked in, I know he has had — bad luck, for the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, or a tippler." .

The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light; mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into only two classes, openly bad and secretly bad; he holds that no man does a good thing except for profit; his insinuations and inuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A is pronounced a religious man he will reply, "Yes, on Sundays." Mr. B has just joined the church. "Certainly, the elections are coming on." The minister of the gospel is an example of diligence. "'Tis his trade." Thus his eye strains out every good quality and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty only a preparation for fraud, virtue only a want of opportunity. The live long day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, transfixing every character that is presented. It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity of opinion against our fellow-men without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man will be what his most cherished feelings are. If he encourage a noble generosity, every feeing will be enriched by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the poison, and he will crawl among men like a burnished adder whose life is mischief and whose errand is death.

He who hunts for flowers will find flowers, but he who hunts for weeds may find weeds. Let it be remembered that he who is not himself morally diseased will have no relish for disease in others. Reject then the morbid ambition of the cynic, or cease to call yourself a man. Henry Ward Beecher.