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all true lovers, to endure, to wait, to say 'I am not yet worthy, but she-Art, my mistress, is worthy, and I will live to merit her. An honorable life? Yes. But the honor comes from the inward

vocation and the hard won achievement." The following should be laid to heart by all youthful aspirants to artistic success: "You have exercised your talents—you recite, you sing, from the drawing-room standpunkt. My dear Fraulein, you must unlearn all that. You have not yet conceived what excellence is; you must unlearn your mistaken admiration?. You must know what you have to strive for, and then you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your mind, I say, for you must not be thinking of celebrity; put that candle f your eyes, and look only at excel

out of lence.'

Noted musicians were among the number of the favored circle of guests who were habitually entertained by George Eliot. Joachim was frequently there, who in Europe is almost universally regarded as the first of living violinists. A certain unmusical visitor complained that the playing and singing interfered with the conversation, as the hostess never uttered a word whilst any one was rendering a piece of music. It has been remarked that devotion to this art was the cause of her death, because while attending a concert she contracted the cold from which she never recovered. The following is a pen-portrait furrished by Mr. Smalley:

narrow.

George Eliot, when you saw her in repose, had beyond dispute a forbidding countenance. People who did not like her used to say she looked like a horse; a remark I have also known made about a celebrated living actor. It is true so far as this: that the portion below the eyes was disproportionately long and She had that square fulness of brow over the eyes which Blake had, and which led Blake to affirm that the shape of his head made him a Republican. George Eliot's radicalism went much further than mere republicanism. She never can have been a beautiful woman, either in face or figure. She was tall, gaunt, angular, without any flowing case of motion, though with a selfpossession and firmness of muscle and fibre which saved her from the shambling awk wardness often the characteristic of long and loose-jointed people. There was no want of power in her movements, nor in the expression of her elongated visage, to the lower part of which went plenty of jaw and decision of

contour. She was altogether a personage whom at first sight the beholdermust regard with respect, and whom, upon further acquaintance, it was perfectly possible to find attractive, not from her talk only, which was marvellously full, but from her mere external appearance, and still more from her expression and the animation of her face. Her eyes were, when she talked, luminous and beautiful, dark in color and of that unfathomable seldom to be seen in the same orbs, except depth and swift changefulness which are in persons whose force of character and force of intellect are both remarkable. They could be very soft, and she smiled with her eyes as well as with that large mouth of hers; and the smile was full of loveliness when it did not turn to mocking or mark that contemptuous mood which was not, I gather, very infrequent with her. In conversation which did not wake this demon of scornfulness, born of conscious intellectual superiority, the face was full of vivacity and light, whether illuminated by a smile or not. I have seen it, when she was talking on a subject that moved her, irradiated and suffused with deep feeling.

It was our intention originally to add a few passages from George Eliot's writings, that the reader might form some conception of the character of her mind. But no room is left for this. Besides a number of her books are now published at the price of ten cents each, and thus placed within the reach of all who have a curiosity to know anything more about this great authoress. Perhaps no harm would be received from reading, for example, Amos Barton.

There is, however, almost always danger in holding communion with a skeptical mind. We are apt to become like those with whom we associate. There are scores of female writers from whom greater benefit, and perhaps as much pleasure, can be derived. Madame De Stael was as profound a thinker and thorough a scholar. Hannah More possessed far more true womanly wisdom. Mrs Browning and Mrs. Hemans surpassed her as poets. There will always be plenty of intelligent people who, like Mr. Smalley, will confess that they have not had time for a close study of the writings of this celebrated woman.

About the time of her death when the name of George Eliot was mentioned in almost every paper, a female friend, who is in her seventy-eighth year, expressed a desire to look at one of the books she had written. The Mill on the Floss was at hand. It was read. The bril

liant intellect, the vast erudition, the graphic and truthful delineation of nature and human characters were admired. The old lady was asked whether she would not like to try another. Adam Bede was by many considered the greatest of all her works. To this the answer was given: "I want to see no more of George Eliot's books. I cannot follow the Lord fully and read such stuff."

The threshold of the eternal world is a good standpoint from which to measure the value of the words and works of men. Here we take our stand and unhesitatingly say that we cannot recommend the works of George Eliot. There are those who may be benefited by them, but we believe the number to be small; whilst multitudes would be far better off had they never come in contact with her writings.

Dismal, indeed, was the scene presented by Highgate Cemetery on the occasion of her funeral. The rain poured down incessantly, whilst several hundred

friends stood in mud and slush around her bier. They wanted to bury her in Westminster Abbey. She deserved the honor as much as many who lie there. But it was denied her. She was interred not in a graveyard of the Church, but in "unconsecrated" ground. In being let down into the tomb, she was permitted to continue her protest against Christ's Gospel and Kingdom, whilst Huxley, Tyndale, Herbert Spencer and other kindred spirits looked on and said Amen. Their word passes current with many, and will perhaps be reiterated for generations to come. But as we look into the open grave of George Eliot we hear a voice more potent than theirs, which reminds us that "all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever."

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housefatherly, hospitable Sir Walter, acting as spokesman and usher. At least so a poet prettily tells us in the New York Evening Post:—

We greet thee, Robie, here to-night,
Beneath these stars so pure and bright;
We greet thee, Poet, come at last
With Will and me thy lot to cast.
We've talked about thee mony a day
And wondered when you'd be this way-
Reach out your hand and gie's a shake,
Just ance, for auld acquaintance sake.

We welcome you from Scotia's land
And reach to you a brither's hand;
A kindred soul to greet you turns-
Will Shakspeare, this is Robie Burns.

Oh, Robie, if we had a plaid we'd quite convert yon Stratford lad. He said, in truth, but yester-morn, "I'm Scotch in wit, though English born."

In stormy nights 'twas lonesome here
When Will recited half o' Lear:
In thunder, lightning, and in hail.
But now he quotes O'Shanter's Tale

Where spirits keep their nightly round;
For, Robie, this is haunted ground
And when the witching hour is near
You'll see strange beings gather here-

I saw Queen Bess the other night
Beside him, clad in vesture bright,
In dim procession passed along;
While kings and queens, a noble throng,
In dim procession passed along;

And walls seemed rising from the earth
Like Leicester's tower at Kenilworth;
And all the pageant that was there
Seemed floating in the moonlit air;

Aye! Beauty, Jealousy and Pride,
In Dudley's Halls walked side by side,
While Amy Robsart seemed to stand

With fair Ophelia, hand in hand.

So let me whisper in your ear
Never to tell what passes here:
There'll be a grand reception soon
To greet the lad from Bonnie Doon.

We gather up the jolliest crew,
Falstaff, Prince Hal and Rhoderick Dhu,
And a' the rantin' brither Scots
Frae Maiden Kirk to John o'Groat's.

So, Robie, make yourself at home—
'Mang friends and brithers you have come--
And here's a land that's quite as fair
As that between the Doon and Ayr.

-Wallace Bruce.

Flippant Profanity.

No person with eyes and ears can fail to observe the fearful increase of profanity throughout the country. We see it in almost every secular paper; we see it in some papers that would be thought religious; we see it even in books; we hear it almost everywhere-sometimes from the pulpit. There are innumerable varieties of the vice. Proteus could not assume more shapes, nor did the Lernean Hydra so resist decapitation. Inventive genius exhausts itself in contriving new forms of irreverent expression. Newspaper paragraphists vie with each other in the shameful contest. He succeeds who can make his dishes piquant with the spices of profane and irreverent suggestion. The words of the wise are passed by with indifference, while the profane slang of would-be wits is collated with diligence and paraded with pride.

We are not now writing of the horrid and vulgar oaths that shock the ears of well-bred, not to say religious, people on the cars, on steamboats, in hotels, and on the streets. We are writing, rather, of that indefinable spirit of irreverence that in a thousand ways insinuates itself into the written and spoken language of our people.

The irreverent, because undevout, use of the awful name of God is as common as it is sinful. We hear it in all sorts of connections-in altercations and jests, in idle exclamations and indolent sighs. It drops from the lips of age and youth. Fair women and little children are not exempt from the infection. We write it with unspeakable shame. Many professors of religion, and even some ministers of religion, sin against God and their own souls by the idle and irreverent use of the Ineffable Name. We do not mean that any man, calling himself a Christian minister, will deliberately profanely," as drunkards and common rowdies will do; but some of them tell anecdotes whose point is in their irreverence. It may be in a group of friendly listeners. Children may be there. The quick ear catches the interlarded oaths in the story, and that is remembered when the story itself perhaps is forgotten. Little boys sometimes hear their first oaths from consecrated lips, and

learn to swear in imitation of their pastors. Suppose they did occur in anecdotes? Suppose they were told to amuse? God's name is in no connection, and under no excuse that can be invented, a fit subject for jesting.

We said above that we sometimes hear profanity in the pulpit. We mean simply this: that some preachers, without meaning to do wrong, and without knowing that they do harm. have contracted the unfortunate habit of using the holy name quite unnecessarily and quite out of place. This point it is difficult to illustrate. Most intelligent hearers have noticed the evil to which we allude. We have a friend, a very worthy preacher, much given to exaggerated forms of speech. We have heard him, dozens of times in one sermon, use the phrase: "God Almighty's green earth!" Another constantly cries 66 out: Great God!" and " God knows," and many such like phrases we are unwilling to introduce. We have mentioned these three forms of this irreverent use of the Divine name in the pulpit to make our meaning plain. If we are mistaken as to the irreverence of this pulpit habit, how wretched the taste that such expressions manifest! It does not make argument more forcible; it does not substitute the lack of fervor or eloquence; it convinces nobody; it awakens nobody; but it does often shock the hearts of the most devout.

Another most prevalent form of the abounding profanity is seen and heard in the travesty of scriptural language. Positively, it is a plague upon our langnage. Of late this misuse of Bible words and phrases has been conspicuous in "head-lining" telegrams and local items in the secular papers. The late Lord-Hicks marriage furnished opportunity for the dailies to multiply puns on the name of Jehovah, and to twist into 66 swear the uses of irreverent humor the most precious words in the sacred Scriptures. As illustrating the spirit of the time, we give an instance: A young Georgian moved to Texas, failed and returned. Upon his arrival at home a local paper head-lines" the item thus: "Fatted Calf for One."

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The recent discussion of the subject of hell has been a rare opportunity to the secular press. The words which

represent the most awful truths, that all my might, as though I had been the express the woes of the lost, have been best carriage-horse in the town. I had bandied about with childish frivolity. reached a point not far from the Some years ago we knew a cultivated church, when the mud seemed to get audience applaud to the echo the speech deeper and deeper, and the carriage of a flippant young lawyer during the draw so heavily that I gasped for commencement exercises of a female breath and almost sank down excollege, whose jests were all pointed hausted. This seemed the more inexwith holy words and Bible phrases. plicable, when, looking back, I saw the Representing a lover as urging his suit, entire congregation behind the carriage, he put in his lips (with such verbal apparently pushing it along. But the changes as suited his purpose), the first more I tried the harder it became, till verses of the fourteenth chapter of the finally I was forced to stop and examGospel of John! And the people ine the difficulty. I went to the rear, laughed and applauded till the hall where I supposed was the congregation, rang again. But enough. These few but nobody could be found. I called, illustrations will bring multitudes like but no answer. I repeated the call them-perhaps worse-to the remem- several times, but still no reply. Bybrance of our readers. and-by a voice called out 'Hallo!' and

The Elm and the Vine.

BY W. C. BRYANT.

There is no estimating the tremendous looking up, whom should I see but one power against religion that this prevail- of the deacons looking complacently ing flippant irreverance excites. It is out of the window, and upon going to more chilling, perhaps, than the out- the door of the carriage, what was my and-out opposition of more solid infi- astonishment to behold the whole condels. There is little hope of the salva-gregation quietly sitting inside.' tion of a man who has formed a deeply fixed habit of laughing and jesting over holy things. We are persuaded that Satan has few methods that are more potent to resist the influences of the Holy Spirit. When once the spirit of frivolous irreverence has fairly possessed a soul, there is little to hope for. The thunders of Sinai are heard without fear, and the spectacle of Calvary witnessed without emotion. It may be doubted whether crime more certainly hardens the heart and indurates the conscience, than does the fell spirit of flippant profanity and irreverence that is abroad in our land. Decency as well piety demands a reformation.-Texas Christian Advocate,

Allegory-The Parson's Dream.

"The pastor of one of the up-town churches in New York," says the Working Church, relates the following singular dream: Some time ago I dreamed that I was hitched to a carriage, attempting to draw it through the mud which covered the street in front of my house. How or why I had been assigned that position I could not explain, but there I was, pulling with

"Uphold my feeble branches

With thy strong arms, I pray."
Thus to the Elm, her neighbor-
The Vine-was heard to say,
"Else, lying low and helpless,
A weary lot is mine,
Crawled o'er by every reptile,
And browsed by hungry kine."
The Elm was moved to pity:
Then spoke the generous tree,
My hapless friend, come hither,
And find support in me."

66

The kindly Elm receiving

The graceful Vine's embrace,
Became, with that adornment,
The garden's pride and grace,
Became the chosen covert

In which the wild birds sing;
Became the love of shepherds,
And glory of the spring.

Oh, beautiful example

For youthful minds to heed!
The good we do to others

Shall never miss its meed;
The love of those whose sorrows
We lighten shall be ours,
And o'er the path we walk in
That love shall scatter flowers.

-From the Spanish.

a

Initials on Fruit.

DID you ever see a name printed on growing apple, pear, or peach? No? Well, if you wish to have that pleasure this is the way to obtain it: While the fruit yet hangs green upon the tree, make up your mind which is the very biggest and most promising specimen of all. Next, cut out from thin, tough

Ancient Punishments of Drunkenness, imitated this by a law that judges on the bench and pleaders should do their The offence of drunkenness was a business fasting. The Carthaginians source of great perplexity to the an- prohibited magistrates, governors, solcients, who tried every possible way of diers and servants from any drinking. dealing with it. If none succeeded, The Scots, in the second century, made probably it was because they did not it a capital offence for magistrates to be begin early enough, by intercepting drunk; and Constantine II. of Scotland, some of the ways and means by which 861, extended a like punishment to the insidious vice is incited and propa- young people. Again, some laws have gated. Severe treatment was often tried absolutely prohibited wine from being to little effect. The Locrians, under drunk by women; the Massilians so deZaleucus, made it a capital offence to creed. The Romans did the same, and drink wine if it was not mixed with extended the prohibition to young men water; even an invalid was not ex- under thirty or forty-five. And the empted from punishment unless by or- husband and the wife's relations could der of a physician. Pittacus, of Mity- scourge the wife for offending, and the lene, made a law that he who, when husband himself might scourge her to drunk, committed any offence, would death.-James Patterson. suffer double the punishment that he would do if sober; and Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch applauded this as the height of wisdom. The Roman censors could expel a senator for being drunk and take away his horse; Mahomet ordered drunkards to be bastinadoed with eighty blows. Other nations thought of limiting the quantity to be drunk at one time at one sitting. The Egyptians put some limit, though what it was is not stated. The Spartans, also, had the intiials of the name of your some limit. The Arabians fixed the little brother or sister or chief crony, paper, quantity at twelve glasses a man, but with round specks for the dots after the the size of the glass was, unfortunately, letters, and the lefters themselves plain not clearly defined by the historians, and thick. Then paste these letters and The Anglo-Saxons went no further than dots on that side of the apple which is to o der silver nails to be fixed on the not turned to the sun, taking care not side of drinking cups, so that each to loosen the fruit's hold upon its stem. might know the proper measure. And As soon as the apple is ripe, take off it is said that this was done by King Edgar after noticing the drunken habits of the Danes. Lycurgus, of Thrace, went to the root of the matter by ordering the vines to be cut down. And his conduct was imitated in 704 by Terbulus of Bulgaria. The Suevi prohibited wine to be imported. And the Spartans tried to turn the vice into contempt by You will find this quite a pleasant systematically making their slaves way to surprise the very little ones; drunk once a year, to show their chil- and, of course, you can print a short dren how foolish and contemptible men pet name as easily as initials.-St looked in that state. Drunkenness was Nicholas. deemed much more vicious in some classes of persons than in others. The ancient Indians held it lawful to kill a king when he was drunk. The Athen

the paper cuttings, which, having shut out the reddening rays of the sun, have kept the fruit green just beneath them,

so that the name or initials now show

plainly. After that, bring the owner of the initials to play near the tree, and say presently," Why, what are those queer marks on that apple up there?"

About a Wife.

JEWISH wisdom is embodied in the

ians made it a capital offence for a ma- following from The Talmud: "If thy gistrate to be drunk, and Charlemagne wife be small, bend down to her and

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