like a canal horse, he drags his heavy boat along the rest of his life. He learns by sad experience the truth of the proverb: "Wilful waste makes woful want."

The history of nations shows abundantly that whenever a love of luxuries becomes common the earnest life of the nation is already gone. There are no stern virtues left to give it strength and stability. It is the same with families and individuals. Luxury and effeminacy go together. Nothing great and good is aimed at where these have sway. We have heard of students running up confectionery bills of $30 to $50 in a year; but we never heard that those who had this taste took first honors. The young man, be he student or not, who spends more money on luxuries for the palate than he does for books, may as well make up his mind to lick the dust in ignorance through life. If the irregular habits that are sure to be thus cultivated will not cut short his days, and he lives to be old, he will be likely to be short both in money and in good sense.

We have already hinted that these habits of spending money in luxuries and indulging in them, does not only keep the funds low, but what is worse, seriously interfere with health. All physicians tell us that irregular eating and drinking is ruinous to health. The stomach is always oppressed and abused when its appointed work is disturbed, between regular meals, by the lodgment in it of new material to be digested-especially such as comes in the range of what are called luxuries. They tell us that soon after a meal, when digestion properly commences, the food received is enveloped, in a way similar to the yolk of an egg by the white portion which surround it. Any thing now thrown in upon the stomach cannot become part of the process which has already commenced, but only interferes with it, and injuriously disturbs it. When such a course is steadily pursued, health must be gradually undermined. Hence the restlessness and imperfect slumbers which follow luxurious indulgences late in the evening. A strong constitution may bear up under such a course for a length of time; but pay-day comes sooner or later. Often bitter experience teaches the sons of folly the source of their misery when their repentance comes too late. It is easier to keep health and a good constitution by regular habits, than to regain these blessings when they once are lost.

Behold, then, the double folly of spending. It empties the pocket to buy a curse. It sells present prosperity to gain the inheritance of future misery. It teaches the industrious to spend their hard earnings for that which is not meat. What the labor of their hands have gathered during many hours of weary work, is in a few moments given to the winds to procure a momentary gratification for the palate, a life-long wound to the body, and an eternal injury to the soul.

How much wiser it would be to spend the money thus worse than wasted in securing means for the improvement of the mind. There are many young men who spend more money on luxuries than would be required to procure the best review, the best magazine, the best religious and literary paper, together with many books of permanent value. Thus they might have constantly at hand sources of higher and purer plea Bure, which would help them at the same time to lay the foundations for usefulness in life.

Consider and lay to heart this advice, young reader of The Guardian. Study economy. Avoid the ways of the spendthrift. Make your money, whether you have much or little, contribute to the highest good of yourself and others. Devote it not chiefly to the low gratification of the body. Save it as a proper means; spend it for a proper end. Remember, that a dollar spent on luxuries is gone with the gratification of a moment; a good book bought for a dollar is a blessed possession through life.

THE BEAUTIFUL.

FROM THE GERMAN, BY N. 8.

ON a beautiful morning in May, a father led his son Theodore into the garden of a rich man, whom Theodore had never seen. The garden lay from the city, and was beautifully adorned with all kinds of shrubs, vegetables, flower-beds, shady walks, and fruit trees. A little rivulet flowed in many windings through the middle of the garden, falling at length over high rocks into a large basin. Near by stood the busy, humming mill. In the most pleasant parts of the garden were grassy seats and leafy arbors. Theodore could not satisfy or tire his eyes amid these scenes; he walked by the side of his father, mostly in silence, saying sometimes, "O dear father, how beautiful and lovely is this garden."

His father told him how all this had, twelve years ago, been a desolate and marshy place, and how the owner of it had planted it and arranged every thing so beautiful. Now the boy was still more astonished, and praised the skillful man who wrought this pleasant change. After they had seen many things, and were wearied with walking, the father led the boy through the shrubbery to the water-fall, near the basin, and there they reclined on the slope of a hill. Here they heard the rushing of the water, which fell foaming from the edge of the rock; nightingales were sitting all around in the shrubs, singing to the murmuring stream. Theodore thought that he had never heard the nightingales sing so sweetly. Whilst they were thus sitting and listening, they heard voices of children and of a man. These were the children of the miller, a boy and a girl, and they led their grandfather, a blind old man, between them, and told him many things concerning the blooming flowers, and the shade trees which were standing along their path, and thus entertained the old man with many pleasant words.

Afterwards they also led him into the arbor where they seated him among the singing nightingales, they kissed him, and ran about in the garden to gather for him flowers and fruits.

The old man smiled, and when he was alone he uncovered his head and prayed with a joyful countenance. Then Theodore and his father were so touched in their hearts that they also began to praise and thank God. Theodore's heart was full of emotion, and he silently wept.

Soon the children returned leaping with joy, bringing flowers and fruits to their blind grandfather. Then Theodore said to his father, as they went home: "O what a beautiful and happy morning this has been."

REACHING UPWARDS.

FROM THE GERMAN, BY THE EDITOR.

But

NEARLY everything I behold around me reaches upward into the air, into freedom, into serene regions, into the light-it lifts its head toward heaven. Its roots are in the earth; by them it is fastened in its bosom, by them it penetrates the ground, that it may draw forth nourishment from it, without which it could not live, could not reach upward. only with its roots does it hold fast to the earth; and it does this only that it may reach upward. There are but a few plants in which the heavy nature of earth is so powerful that they creep upon the earth, and where they have room, grow downwards. Those of a nobler nature do not suffer themselves, by that which they receive from the earth, to be drawn down upon it; rather they transform the earth into their own substance and raise it up into the light.

My life also is on its earthly side, rooted in the earth, from which I cannot separate it. I must be in connection with the earth, and accept with gratitude that which it furnishes me. It does not furnish merely common food and the delicaces of life; it does not satisfy merely bodily wants; it awakens also in my breast spiritual sensibilities, and inspires higher joys. Thus it is the less proper that I should suffer myself to be chained to it by the senses; what it furnishes of a common kind I must transform into my better nature, and raise it with myself into the light; most of all must this be the effect of its nobler gifts, the spiritual affections which are awakened by it. I may, yea I ought to satisfy the wants of my senses; but never must this absorb my heart; nor must I prefer the pleasures of the senses to those of the spirit. I must always make bodily wants, and enjoyment of the senses, subservient to the elevation of my spiritual life.

Yes, in me also there is a reaching upward-upward to the true, the beautiful, and the good. My spirit ever strives after every human excellence. It would rise to God-into the everlasting light. This upward tendency foretells of my destiny, and my heart must follow in that way.

Not the plant which creeps upon the ground-which bends toward the earth; no, the plant that looks upward, and grows toward the source of light, this is my symbol.

Even the plant that creeps on the earth nevertheless reaches upward as well as it can-something of it looks up, mostly the flower. Only too feeble is its life-too strong is the downward power. Yet in its partial endeavors it puts man to shame, who hangs to the earth with mind and heart.

This plant reminds me how frequently in common natures, whose untoward circumstances make them slaves of earth, the heavenly manifests itself in a beautful manner, like the upturned flowers upon a plant

prone to earth. This is a moving picture of an excellent, though little cultivated soul, that is in daily warfare with sore poverty and earthly want. O, never call any spirit common when its cultivation has been neglected! In every human bosom I will trace the strivings of something divine; I will honor it, rejoice in it; and, whenever I can, assist it to reach the true, the beautiful, and the good.

The earth gives to the plant earthly nourishment; but without that which comes from above, light, heat, dew and rain, it will never grow upward. Heaven nourishes in it the inward life, and at the same time draws it toward itself. In like manner, it is the mild grace of heaven that draws my heart upward. Like as light and warmth fill the air, and as rain and dew refresh the earth, so does heavenly grace enlighten, warm, and refresh my heart, and under its power it becomes young and joyful. Every feeling that kind heaven sends into my heart, of sorrow and joy, nourish and strengthen in me the heavenly life. I must open my heart to all that comes from above-all that is sent down upon me I must carefully cherish and improve, that the heavenly nature in me may grow joyfully upwards, and be ever more gloriously crowned with celestial light.

The plant grows upward as long as it can. So will I also inwardly aspire to that which is above, as long as there is something still higher for me to reach after.

At length the plant returns again to earth. But only so much of it as is earthly, and has received its nourishment from the earth, returns to its bosom. The creative power which animates it, the life of the plant, lives on, and is reproduced in new forms like its own. What in me is earthly and is nurtured from the earth must return to dust. Then, O yes, this I feel with joyful certainty that which now in me reaches upward will gain a full triumph over the earth. No new earthly form will clothe it again. Upward it will rise into the everlasting light; it apprehends me, it raises me, it bears me on high, and I rejoice in the morning light of life!

Thither points the aspiration in my bosom. It knows no limits and no end. This feeling is the dawning joy of glorification, which often wonderfully, as in a delightful terror, transfuses my being, and saves me by hope.

Why then does many a precious flower bend toward the earth. This is not by the power of a necessity that rests in the earth itself. Does not the beauty of the flower show you the child of heaven. It shines in heavenly colors. Heavenly purity, heavenly truth, and heavenly joy smile from it upon you. But what the earth can give for its preservation is too weak to surmount the downward weight of the rough mass with which its life is bound up. The earth can provide for it nothing more-but a GRAVE. Into this grave it looks-the symbol of a lovely soul, as it sorrows amid the weariness and pains of earth, while the earth can afford nothing wherewith it may be strengthened and comforted. Such an one longs to be received into the motherly bosom of the earth that the spirit may arise into freedom. THROUGH NIGHT INTO THE LIGHT. The light of earth must vanish, that the light of heaven may break in. So speak the plant and the flower to thee.

FAITH AND SIGHT.

BY A.

"And Jesus said, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou has believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet believed." John 20: 29.

THE whole history of Thomas forbids us to add to his incredulity the sin of obstinacy. The resurrection of his Master had nothing in it but what was perfectly consonant with his most earnest desires and wishes. Could he have persuaded himself of the truth of it, he would have cheerfully yielded his assent, and have been only so much the happier in his faith. The mode in which he expressed his unbelief did not necessarily exclude conviction; on the contrary, by implication at least, it committed him conditionally in favor of the truth-that is, in case that kind of evidence could be furnished, which he regarded as indispensable. As if to avoid delusion, he refuses to be convinced until every shadow of doubt or uncertainty is dissipated, and he has an evidence which he regards as irresistible-the evidence of sight and touch. His so regarded prudence, apparently so candid, meets, however, with the disapprobation of his Master, and receives his reproof. Had he believed the account of the resurrection without the evidence referred to, Christ would have pronounced him blessed. As it was, the blessing was reserved for others, who should never see him with their natural eyes, but still truly believe in him; while the incredulous disciple is held up as an example of warning to all who in future time should seek a clearer light than that which shines already in the gospel.

At first view the reproof of Christ might seem to censure that prudence and care which every one should exercise in forming his creed. Many strange doctrines are abroad in the land, many new lights, many new-fangled views, that are not only gaudy in their attire, but also possessed of some plausibility. Should we not, then, exercise a sound discretion in receiving the articles of our religious belief? Doubtless we should. Christianity requires of us no such an unreasonable service as belief without examination. It exhorts us to search the scriptures; and the original here implies a diligent, anxious search or scrutiny. It commends the calm spirit of investigation, which the Bereans manifested, and calls them noble on this account. It also tells us to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. The reply of Christ, therefore, when properly understood, will not be found to be inimical to the spirit that seeks earnestly for the evidence of the truth, but on the contrary in harmony with it."

Christ does not reprove his disciple because he wished to be wellrooted and grounded in the faith; it is the manner in which he seeks to silence his scruples that falls under his condemnation. He wishes to see the print of the nails in his hands and his feet, and then to thrust his hand into the wounds before he is willing to believe; he makes this the condition of his faith, and when it is granted he yields a ready assent, and says, "My Lord and my God." In insisting upon this kind of