COMPANY, CONVERSATION, AND DEPORTMENT.

BECAUSE gold is rare, gilding has been invented,

which without its solidity has all its brightness.

Thus, to replace the kindness which we are without, we have invented politeness, which has every appearance of it.

There is considerable counterfeit currency in circulation. Is there, therefore, no genuine currency? And yet because there are instances in the Church of false professions, it is inferred that there are no true Christians! Were all the disciples false because one of them was a devil? Is there no real gold because there is spurious coin? If there is triumphing in the camp when a Christian soldier falls, it is the camp of Satan; and we can judge whether we are the friends

of Christ or not, by the fact whether we are made happy or sad by the defection of His professed people.

Cheerfulness is an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart. It gives harmony to the soul, and is a perpetual song without words. It is tantamount to repose.

ables nature to recruit its strength; whereas worry and discontent debilitate it, involving constant wear and tear.

There is no outward sign of politeness which has not a deep moral reason. True education teaches both the sign and the reason. Behaviour is a mirror in which every one shows his own image. There is a politeness of the heart akin to love, from which springs the easiest politeness of outward behaviour.

Civility may truly be said to cost nothing. If it does not meet with a due return, it at least leaves you in the most creditable position.-Beau Brummell.

Good manners are the blossoms of good sense; and, it may be added, of good feeling too.-Locke.

Maintain dignity, without the appearance of pride. Manner is something with everybody, and everything with some.-Bishop Middleton.

Cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony: it composes music for churches and

hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications of God. -Jeremy Taylor.

The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is to speak and write sincerely.-Emerson. Let the ideals of us, in the hearts that love us, be prophetic of what we shall become.

A gentleman is a Christian in spirit that will take a polish. The rest are but plated goods; and hovever excellent their fashion, rub them more or less, the base metal appears through.

A modest dress is a very good thing, if it be the genuine indication of a humble heart, and is to instruct; but an ill thing if it be the hypocritical disguise of a proud, ambitious heart, and is to deceive. Let men be really as good as they seem to be, but not seem to be better than really they are.-Herry.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing. A weak defence strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.—Colton.

That politeness which we put on in order to keep the assuming and presumptuous at a proper distance, will generally succeed. But it sometimes lappens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves, that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great marits and

high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves. To a bystander, few things are more amusing than the cross-play, under-plot, and final éclaircissements which this mistake invariably occasions.-Colton.

Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable. It smooths distinctions, sweetens conversation, produces goodnature and mutual benevolence, and makes every one in the company pleased with himself.

Wit often proves of pernicious consequence, when it ceases to be tempered with virtue and humanity.

The gifts of nature and the accomplishments of art are valuable only as they are exerted in the interest of virtue, or governed by the rules of honour.

It would be an admirable improvement of what is generally termed good-breeding, if nothing were to pass among us for agreeable which was the least transgression against the rule of life called decorum, or regard to decency.

The love of society is natural; but the choice of our company is matter of virtue and prudence.

Approve yourself to wise men by your virtue, and take the vulgar by your civilities.

Keep company with persons rather above than beneath yourself; for gold in the same pocket with silver loseth both of its colour and weight.

Anacharsis being invited to a feast, could not be prevailed with to smile at the affected railleries of common jesters; but when an ape was brought in he freely laughed, saying, an ape was ridiculous by nature, but men by art and study.

Be not of them that commence wits by blasphemy, and cannot be ingenious but by being impious.

To break idle jests is the suburbs of vanity; and to delight in them, the city of fools.

If you meet with a person subject to infirmities, never deride them in him, but bless God that you have no occasion to grieve for them in yourself.

You may see your own mortality in other men's deaths, and your own frailty in their sins.

It is a fair step towards happiness to delight in the conversation of wise and good men. Where that cannot be had, the next point is to keep no company at all.

Open not your breast, like the gates of a city, to all that come the virtuous only receive as guests.

If the clock of the tongue be not set by the dial of the heart, it will not go right.