A Model Christian

"Dear Brother, I have got one of the handsomest farms in the State, and have it nearly paid for. Crops are good, and prices never were better. We have had a glorious revival of religion in our church, and both our children (the Lord be praised) are converted. Father got to be rather an incumbrance, and last week we took him to the poor-house. Your affectionate brother."

Quarrels

Two things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels. First, to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms, rather than things; and secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ is worth contending about.

Marriage-Ring Symbolized

We see many times even the godly couples to jar when they are married, because there is some unfitness between them which makes odds. What is odds but the contrary to even? Therefore, make them even, saith one, and there will be no odds. Hence came the first use of the ring in weddings: for if it be straighter than the finger it will pinch; and if it be wider than the finger it will fall off; but if it be fit, it neither pincheth nor slippeth.

Assist Children To Obey

"Kiss mamma, dearest," is a command you may be sure will be obeyed with alacrity, but beware how you hazard your authority by saying "Kiss that lady, my dear." Look well at the countenance of the child before you issue the command, to see whether it is willing to be embraced; for it is of no importance whether it salute a stranger or not, but it is of immense importance that it should not disobey its mother in a single instance.

A Receipt For Peace Soup

For every angry word that's uttered against you, put in one mild one. This will be found to be a very useful soup in families troubled with irritable tempers.

Bosom Friend

"Well, dear, now that you are a widow, tell me, are you any the happier for it?"

Interesting Widow

"Oh, no! But I have my freedom, and that's a great comfort. Do you know, my dear, I had an onion yesterday, for the first time these fourteen years?"

Things To Be Remembered In December

Be charitable to the poor, and be just to your connections. Examine the state of your affairs, and prepare to improve your position by fresh energies. Take care of your health, not by reading the puffs of "quackery," and swallowing quack nostrums, but by exercising in fine weather, and by warmth as some in foggy and damp days and nights.

Dean Swift's Receipt For Courtship

Two or three dears and two or three sweets,

Two or three balls or two or three treats,

Two or three serenades given as a lure,

Two or three oaths how much they endure,

Two or three messages sent in one day,

Two or three times led out from the play,

Two or three tickets for two or three times,

Two or three love-letters writ all in rhymes;

Two or three months, keeping strict to these rules,

Can never fail making a couple of fools.

Being At Home

The highest style of being at home grows out of a special state of the affections rather than of the intellect. Who has not met with individuals whose faces would be a passport to any society, and whose manners, the unstudied and spontaneous expressions of their inner selves, make them visibly welcome wherever they go, and attract unbounded confidence toward them in whatever they undertake? They are frank, because they have nothing to conceal; affable, because their natures overflow with benevolence; unflurried, because they dread nothing; always at home, because they carry within themselves that which can trust to itself anywhere and everywhere - purity of soul with fulness of health. Such are our best guarantees for feeling at home in all society to which duty takes us, and in every occupation upon which it obliges us to enter. They who live least for themselves are also the least embarrassed by uncertainties.