The tongue of the wise is health.

Swear not at all.

PROFANE Swearing.

ROFANE swearing is a most obnoxious
vice, which is fearfully prevalent among the
youth of the community. Even little boys,
as we pass them in the street, startle us by
their oaths. What is to be our condition, if
this sin goes on undiminished and unrebuked?
Our youth will come to such degradation that they
will be unconscious of their profanity, and will, per-
haps, deny that they are guilty of it altogether.
look at it there is, to us, something terrifying in the
thought that one whose breath is in his nostrils can
call upon God to curse a mortal man, or the poor
horse which he has overladen; or, perhaps, even the
inanimate stumbling-block over which he falls.

But

It is

What is there to justify this language?
braving the very Being who created us, and in whose
goodness we live; it is trampling the Bible under
our feet; it is vulgar, ungentlemanly, and wicked.
George Washington once heard an officer, when
dining at his table, utter an oath. "I thought," said
he, laying down his knife and fork, and speaking with
peculiar dignity, "I thought we all supposed our-
selves to be gentlemen." After dinner, the officer
said to one of his companions, that if the general had

An oath is the mark of a coward.

Take not the name of the Lord in vain.

Keep thy lips from speaking guile.

To swear is neither brave,

struck him over the head with his sword he could
have borne it; but that home-thrust which he gave
him was overpowering; it was "too much for a
gentleman."

"What profit is there in this foul language?" said
a young man. "I was profane when I was a boy."
"And why did you leave it off?" he was asked.
"Because," he replied, "it seemed to me to be use-
less." And, pray, what good can it possibly do to
interlard a speech or conversation with profanity?

"It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme
Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
Maintain your rank; vulgarity despise-
To swear is neither brave, polite, or wise.”

Would you escape this low habit, I warn you to
mark well when you are beginning to fall into its
foul embrace. Avoid coarse, slang phrases; do not,
on any occasion, deal in imprecations and protesta-
tions. Keep clear of half-oaths, and that border
phraseology which carries you over, unaware, into
the territory of open profanity. Reverence always
the name of God, and be slow to pronounce it at
any time; let every subject, person, and place that
is sacred receive your respect. No one, with any
true honour for God or for man, will defile his lips by
uttering an oath.

Polite, or wise.

Guard thy tongue from evil words.

Remember the hare and the tortoise.

Those who do nothing

THE VALUE OF SYSTEM.

HE professional man places the highest value upon system. However clever, ingenious, or fruitful in expedients a youth may be, if he is erratic and disorderly in his personal or mental habits, he is thereby unfitted for many kinds of work. The plodding and methodical youth will outstrip him, and leave him behind; and this not merely in the more mechanical professions, but to a great extent also in the more intellectual professions. Life itself, with all its free and happy outgoings, is systematic. Order reigns everywhere; and in no business of life can this great principle be neglected with impunity. Even on those who seem to obey it least, externally, it operates;. the very force that sustains them, and which, in its apparently irregular action, might seem to be defiant of all law, is only preserved at all by some enveloping although undefined order.

The young must keep before them this necessity of all business. They may hear it sometimes spoken of among their fellows with indifference and scorn. "Red tape" has passed into a byword of contempt; and "red tape," in the sense of a mere dead and unintelligent routine, has deserved many hard things to be said of it. A man of routine and nothing else

Think that they do everything.

Slow and sure is better than quick and unstable.

Do all things decently and in order.

Safe bind, safe find.

is a poor creature. System which ceases to be a
means, and becomes in itself-apart from the very
object for which it was originally designed—an end,
proves itself, in this very fact, a nuisance to be swept
away, the sooner the better. But the abuse of a
thing is no argument against its use, and it is childish.
not to see this in any case. Routine in and for itself
has no value; and the mind that settles on the mere
outside of work, forgetful of its inner meaning and
real aim, is necessarily a mind of feeble and narrow
energies; but routine, as an organ of energetic
thought and action-of a living, comprehensive in-
telligence, which sees the end from the means-is
one of the most powerful instruments of human
accomplishment; and there can be no profession
without its appropriate and effective routine.

Let every youthful aspirant carefully learn the
letter without forgetting the spirit of his profession.
Let him subdue his energies to his system, but not
allow his system to swallow up his energies.
him be a man of routine, but let him be something
more. Let him be master of its machinery, but
capable of rising above it.

Let

With the former he

cannot dispense; without the latter he cannot be

great or successful.

PRINCIPAL TULLOCH.

A good watch prevents harm.

Good foresight furthers work.

He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye,

And considereth not

PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENT.

HERE is, perhaps, nothing which so grinds
the human soul, and produces such an in-
supportable burden of wretchedness and
despondency, as pecuniary pressure. Nothing
more frequently drives men to suicide; and
there is, perhaps, no danger to which men in
an active and enterprising community are more
exposed. Almost all are eagerly reaching forward
to a station in life a little above what they can well
afford, or struggling to do a business a little more
extensive than they have capital or steady credit for;
and thus they keep, all through life, just above their
means-and just above, no matter by how small an
excess, is inevitable misery.

Be sure then, if your aim is happiness, to bring
down, at all hazards, your style of living, and your
responsibilities of business, to such a point that you
shall easily be able to reach it. Do this, I say, at all
hazards. If you cannot have money enough for
your purpose in a house with two rooms, take a house
with one.
It is your only chance for happiness. For
there is such a thing as happiness in a single room,
with plain furniture, and simple fare; but there is no
such thing as happiness with responsibilities which
cannot be met, and debts increasing without any

That poverty shall come upon him.