Evil communications corrupt good manners.

He that hath mercy on the poor,

participate in his infernal pleasure, when they succeed
in seducing any from the right way, and thus obtain-
ing an accession to their numbers, and an encourage-
ment to their selfish indulgences, from the ranks of
religion and virtue.
DR. WARDLAW.

THE EVIL OF POVERTY.

O not accustom yourself to consider debt
only as an inconvenience; you will find it
a calamity. Poverty takes away so many
means of doing good, and produces so much
inability to resist evil, both natural and moral,
that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided.
Let it be your first care, then, not to be in any man's
debt. Resolve not to be poor; whatever you have,
spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human hap-
piness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes
some virtues impracticable, and others extremely
difficult. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but
of beneficence. No man can help others that wants
help himself; we must have enough before we have
to spare.
DR. JOHNSON.

Happy is he.

Poverty is an enemy to happiness.

A safe conscience makes a sound sleep.

Honour and wealth from no condition rise;

DISHONOUR.

MAN of business should be an honourable man. Although a man cannot be honourable without being honest, yet he may be strictly honest without being honourable. Honesty refers chiefly to pecuniary matters; honour

applies to the principles and feelings. You may pay your debts punctually, you may defraud no man, and yet you may act dishonourably. You act dishonourably when you give your correspondents a worse opinion of your rivals in trade than you know they deserve. You act dishonourably when you sell your commodities at less than their real value, in order to attract your neighbour's customers. You act dishonourably when you purchase goods at higher than the market value, in order that you may raise the market upon another buyer. You act dishonourably when you negotiate accommodation bills with your bankers, as if they arose out of real transactions. You act dishonourably in every case wherein your outward conduct is at variance with your real opinions. You act dishonourably if, when carrying on a prosperous trade, you do not allow your servants and assistants, through whose exertions you obtain your success, to participate in your prosperity. You act

Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

The wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.

Well begun is half done.

A working hand is worth

dishonourably if, after you have become rich, you are
forgetful of the favours you received when poor. In
all these cases there may be no intentional fraud; it
may not be dishonest, but it is nevertheless dis-
honourable.
J. W. GILBART.

PROMPTITUDE IN BUSINESS.

EWARE of stumbling over a propensity which easily besets you from not having your time fully employed-I mean what the women call dawdling. Your motto must be Hoc age. Do instantly whatever is to be done, and take the hours of recreation after business, never before it. When a regiment is under march, the rear is often thrown into confusion because the front do not move steadily and without interruption. It is the same with business; if that which is in hand is not instantly, steadily, and regularly dispatched, other things accumulate behind, till affairs begin to press all at once, and no human brain can stand the confusion.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

A pound of gold.

Even as you win it, wear it.

There is a time for everything.

Far ahint maun follow the faster.

LORD LYTTON'S EXPERIENCE.

S

IR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, before he was raised to the peerage as Lord Lytton, in a lecture which he delivered in a rural district in England, gave the following brief account of his literary habits; and the important lesson which it contains is sufficiently valuable to merit a place in our "Book of Good Devices."

Many persons seeing me so much engaged in active life, and as much about the world as if I had never been a student, have said to me, "When do you get time to write all your books? How do you contrive to do so much work?" I shall surprise you by the answer I made. I said, "I contrive to do so much by never doing too much at a time." A man, to get through work well, must not overwork himself; or, if he do too much to-day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college, and was actually in the world, I may perhaps say that I have gone through as large a course of general reading as most men of my time. I have travelled much, and I have seen much; I have mixed much in politics, and in the various business of life; and, in addition to all this, I

Do one thing at a time.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

A bad workman quarrels with his tools.

An idle man shameth his Maker.

have published somewhere about sixty volumes, some
upon subjects requiring much special research. And
what time do you think, as a general rule, I have
devoted to study to reading and writing? Not
more than three hours a day; and, when Parliament
is sitting, not always that. But then, during those
hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was
about.

AN IDLE MIND.

O mind furnishes so inviting a field for the
tempter as one that is unoccupied. No mind,
no heart, save that of an idiot, can be wholly
vacant or at rest. If not employed in that
which is good, or at the least harmless, a troop
of evil thoughts and passions come rushing in
and take possession. How much of vice and ruinous
dissipation has its origin in the fact that "time hangs
heavy"
on the idler's hand; and how many, in
trying to kill time, in reality kill themselves! God
pronounced more of a blessing than a curse in the
decree, when He said, "In the sweat of thy brow
shalt thou eat thy bread;" and in even compulsory
toil He has furnished us with one of the grandest
safeguards against temptation.

An idle mind is an evil mind.

Laziness covereth a man with rags.