tonight, I am content and happy, for I have found a friend. What need have I of other friends when Thou art near! Where'er I go, I am still in Thy house; and what roof can compare with the glorious star decked firmament above me, what food with that which now has refreshed my soul! Father, I am content, and thank Thee for this humble spot, and when Thy sun shall rise glorious on the morrow, it will warm and cheer and gladden me as it ne'er hath done before." Never did child rescued from awful danger nestle so securely in its mother's bosom, as did I that night, with unquestioning confidence, throw myself into the arms of a loving Father.* Now, kind reader, do you get my meaning? I do not abate one jot my urgency that we must study to preach, both as to matter and manner, but with all the training of voice and gesture, of thought and delivery, let us not forget the lesson so often taught to Elders in Israel-the lesson I have just set forth in my own N. L. Nelson. Blessed tears! ineffable joy! Heavens, what a load I had been carrying! humble experience. THE LOVABLE MAN, ACCORDING TO THE GIRLS. THE dear friend who persuaded me to write this article, and that, too, against my own determination, has only himself to thank for this somewhat public declaration of the strength and weakness of a woman's whim. For it is a whim in almost every instance which leads girls to fall in love with this or that man. And yet, if I must be serious for the nonce, is it after all a whim? Well, we shall see perhaps by-and-by. Therefore, what sort of youths or men are lovable in the eyes of young girls? First, it must be remembered that there is here and there, a rara avis in the shape of a girl who brings all her reasoning faculties to bear when she sets out to enter into the serious business of matrimony. But the great majority of girls, the sort of girls which I meet every Sunday in my somewhat extended Sunday School class are given to be thoughtless and to like or dislike boys and men for various and, certainly to them, unknown reasons. I could dismiss this subject with a very few platitudes or merely say the lovable men are the ones most the unthinking recesses of my girls' minds and tell you the things I find there and which things, by the way, will be as much a revelation to them selves as they will to the most ignorant young man. To begin with, good looks of course, are a very great desideratum; but if there is nothing else the girls soon find that out, and the good looking inanity is left to take himself *For those of my readers who may be interested in this story, aside from my use of it as an illustration, I herewith give the sequel: After presenting our case to the Lord, we both felt like going on, though finding lodgings at this time of night was certainly not ordinarily to be expected. We had not proceeded more than half a mile when one of those large plantation houses, looking hospitably light and warm, presented itself to view. What astonished us most was the warm supper apparently awaiting our arrival, explained by the delay of the master in reaching home that night We had no inkling of the real feeling of our host toward us till the next morning, when the door of our bedroom was unlocked and we were invited down to breakfast. We learned subsequently that he was the ring-leader of Mormon-haters in that neighborhood. When chaffed by his friends for having lodged and fed the objects of his worthy of love, but if I did I would hate, he excused himself by saying he feared not be telling the strict truth. So, I shall endeavor to probe down into we were bent on stealing his horses, so he took us in that he might lock us up. out or stay at home. Now, I want to correct the impression that because such and such a young man is good looking and a good dancer he must necessarily therefore be popular and attractive. I know some good looking, fine dancers and yet they are not at all popular with the girls. It is something else besides these, boys. Yes, the girls like a good dancer; that is they like to dance with a good dancer, but he must have other gifts, else he is not lovable, not even to silly girls. So then, what next? The desirable young man may be or may not be many things, it is all quite a matter of indifference to the girls, but one thing he must not be, and that is, he must not be soft. Don't ask me to define this undefinable quality, for I have tried to do it, and I find it next to impossible. But if I could have your most secret ear, I should whisper my suspicion that there is a trace of impurity connected with this undesirable quality. Therefore, the young man who is to be a favorite is one who has nothing low or groveling about him. Even purity, however noble and godlike it is, is not altogether enough to make the girls run after a Still it is one of the things that go to make a youth young man. most lovable to all women. netic? border line where each melts into the other, so it is that these two traits of character may ascend or descend the scale of attractiveness or its opposite. In thinking over the number of men whom I have known as magnetic men, there is also one other trait of character which stands out as prominently as the other I have just mentioned, and that is the qualification of leadership. It may not be a leadership always in good, it may be a superiority in very minor matters; but the woman who marries the man who has really secured her deepest love, will find that as a young man, even, there was a certain leadership in him which drew her to him. What more natural? I heard a woman once say, wittily, that the oak and vine theory was all right in theory, but too many times the oak was no oak at all, and what on earth was a poor, male vine to do if it could not find some strong woman oak to lean upon. This was witty, and unfortunately, it is too often the case in real life; but I submit that sooner or later, all the women who are lucky enough to secure husbands for eternity will find that the man for them is just a little bit smarter, a grain more intelligent, and sufficiently strong to furnish them with a very good leaning place. Did you ever hear the term mag- Many men who are popular with Well, that is the quality, women are those who play fast and paramount and supreme, which makes loose with a woman's heart; and this men, young and old, attractive to often leads young men to think that the opposite sex. You may fancy, if the only way to secure a girl's you have had the misfortune to run affections is to be like such men in across O. S. Fowler's books, that this one particular. There certainly this quality has something approach is something peculiarly fascinating in ing the animal in its nature; but do the man who treats you in such a not be deceived. For, there is as way that you are never quite sure as much difference between these two to his real feelings. And is this not qualities as there is between the the secret of the charms of many girl thinker and the dreamer, the glutton flirts? But I have dived down below and the epicure, the miser and the this surface, and I find that, in the financier, the light and the darkness, case of us women, the very trait between heaven and hell. For what which prompts a man to act in this is hell but heaven dragged down, and way, the trait of secrecy, which in its what is evil but perverted good? Just proper condition is a manly reserve, as any and all these may approach the has a decided attraction for women people. The man who cannot sufficiently control his feelings and their expression until he knows he is safe in betraying them, has not the strength of character which women demand in their lovers. That is it, strength of character. A man, to be most lovable to women, must be strong. Strong in something, indeed, if he is only strong in wickedness, his strength has more fascination than a namby pamby goodness. Physical strength, no matter if it be rugged and uncouth, is always delightfully attractive in the eyes of girls. When they grow older, mental strength and superiority is more fascinating. We sometimes wonder that some of the strongest and brightest women marry weak and even inferior men. That is no argument in favor of weak men. For take my word for it, if the woman could have found a man as intelligent and just a little bit more intelligent and stronger than herself, she would gladly have chosen him. But there are very few wise men, permit me to remark, and quite a crowd of real smart women in this world of ours. You must not infer, however, that men who are quiet in speech and reserved in manner, are necessarily weak men. Some of the strongest characters I have known, have been embodied in men of small statures, and, perhaps, weakly bodies. But oh, if a small man has a small soul, goodness, isn't he little! I am not at all sure that I have made this matter altogether clear, but at least I can say that I have made it as clear as I could make it, for it is a thing which no sort of known laws can reduce to a scientifically simple basis. It is a complicated affair, this matter of attraction between the sexes, and we shall have to know more of real physiology before we know all about it. And now that I have tried, albiet imperfectly, to tell what sort of men the girls like, there still remains a very important question to be answered, and that is; what sort of husbands do WOMEN like? Can you tell? Susa Young Gates. A TERRIBLE PUNISHMENT. TORREGIANO, a renowned sculptor of Florence, prepared a figure of the child Jesus for a nobleman of Spain. The price to be paid for the work was not pre-arranged, but the nobleman was very rich and agreed to pay for the statue according to its merit. Torregiano executed a masterpiece, and his patron beheld it with enthusiasm, being unable to find words with which to express his satisfaction. The next day the aristocrat sent two servants with filled money sacks to exchange for the image. As the artist saw the large, well-filled sacks, he thought he was now to be suitably rewarded. He opened them, but found therein to his chagrin and astonishment only thirty ducats in copper money. Angered and insulted the sculptor seized his chisel and mallet, broke in pieces the figure, thrust the servants with their money sacks from the door, and commanded them to tell their master what had been done. They truthfully did so. The great man felt ashamed, and shame with men of power usually means revenge. He assumed to be filled with righteous indignation at the thought of any person being so blasphemous as to destroy even an image of the Lord Jesus, and in this condition of mind he hastened to the chief inquisitor before whom he preferred a charge against the artist. Torregiano was promptly arrested; but vainly pled that it was his privilege to do as he wished with the work of his own hands, as the thing created is never equal in greatness to the creator. Reason and justice were in his favor, but fanaticism was his judge. He was condemned to be tortured until dead, and he died under most terrible sufferings. G.G. VI. THE Elysian fields, which were the abodes of the virtuous, were crowned with eternal spring and immortal beauty. The poets describe them as the perpetual dwelling places of heroes, and those famous for virtue. Here were to be seen all those luxurious adornments which only nature could bestow, and which were designed to soothe, delight and stimulate the mind. Lovely meadow lands, happy glades; canopies of most beautiful foliage; lawns and turfs of greenest velvet; rustling, rippling, joyous streams of diamond sparkling water; all the joys of creation; the fragrance of flowers; the music of birds; gleams of golden light; wakeful freshness of eternal dawn; the slumbrous warmth of everlasting twilight, all these, and more, conspired to render the Elysian fields the seats of happiness and tranquility. Their possessors are represented as employed in those pursuits, and enjoying those gratifications, which pleased them most during life. The Greeks and Romans borrowed this fiction from the Egyptians' funeral rites. A priest, answering to the Grecian Mercury, took charge of the body immediately after death. Another, who wore a mask resembling three heads, like those ascribed to Cerberus, ferried it over the Nile, to Heliopolis, the city of the sun. The Elysian fields were the beautiful plains surrounding the lake Aeherusa, near Memphis. But before the corpse was thus wafted over the river, a tribunal of forty judges assembled, before whom any who thought themselves injured by the deceased might bring forward their accusations. If the charges were proved, the rites of interment were refused; but if not, the accuser was liable to a very heavy punishment, and the body was conveyed to the Elysian fields, accompanied by the applause of the multitude. Even the Egyptian monarchs were not exempted from this judgment. These rites complete, they reach the flowery plains, The verdant groves where pleasure endless reigns. Here glowing ether shoots a purple ray And o'er the region pours a double day, From sky to sky th' unwearied splendor runs, In measured steps, to form the solemn dance. to him were generally black sheep. It is from his name of Orcus that the English word ogre is derived. Plutus was the son of Ceres and Jason; the God of riches, who was represented as blind, to signify that riches are dispensed indifferently to the good and the wicked. We find in the records of ancient mythology, that the doctrine of transmigration of souls was believed in to a great extent. In view of the modern form of this doctrine known as theosophy, this is interesting. The ancients believed that when the souls left the bodies which they animated, they were conducted by Mercury either to Tartarus or the Elysian fields; the wicked to the former, the virtuous to the latter. It was almost universally believed that after remaining for one thousand years in that abode, the souls returned to earth and animated other bodies, either of men or of animals. Before they quitted the infernal regions, they drank of the waters of Lethe, which made them forget all past events. This idea was derived likewise from the Egyptians, and in imitation of them. Orpheus, Homer, and other poets introduced it into their writings. There were three judges of the infernal regions. Ninos, son of Jupiter, and King of Crete, was supreme judge. Rhadamanthus, son of Jupiter and Europa, was judge of the Asiatios; whilst Eacus, son of Jupiter and Egina, was appointed to stood in a place called the Field of judge the Europeans. The tribunal. could never approach. Truth, which falsehood and calumny The Furies were three in number; Tisiphone, Megara and Alecto. They were accounted to be the daughters of Acheron and Nox. Their names signify rage, slaughter and torches in their hands: their heads envy. They are represented with covered with snakes instead of hair, and holding whips of serpents or scorpions: and funeral robes bound |