NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS. 17 beverages which a thirsty public imbibes; another is driving a roaring trade at the expense of his neighbours and the public, and at no very great advantage to himself, perpetually selling off at an alarming sacrifice, when the article really "sold" is the customer, lady or gentleman, as the case may be. Men "on business" of this sort have no proper right of admittance into society. They pick the pockets of a verdant public, and fatten on their folly as much as a Birmingham sharper or a London swell-mobsman. Of the rogue and vagabond by profession-of the thief and highwayman-of him who makes his fortune by grinding the bones of the poor-of those who live upon the vices and lusts of mankind I need say nothing. Their business is the Devil's business, and they have no right to carry it on here. This is not the Devil's world-but God's world—and men who set up in the Devil's line of things have no legal admittance here. Well would it be for us if we could turn him out and all his agents, and send him and them to their own place." But dishonourable and disgraceful as this kind of "business" is, never let us think there is the least taint of dishonour in "business" itself. Those who are "on business" that is legitimate and honest, have no reason to be ashamed of it whatever it is. There is no honest labour that a man may engage in for his daily bread that is mean and unworthy in itself. The great Worker, our common Master, dignified the smallest offices of duty and kindness by washing his disciples' feet, and he also exalted the lowliest occupation by his connection with the working-men of Judeawith carpenters, fishermen, and peasants. There can be no disgrace in honest toil. The blacksmith need not be ashamed of his horny hand and swarthy face. The shoe maker need not blush for his black thumbs, nor the chimney sweep for his sable cloth, nor the miller for his dusty hat. Even the humblest workman, hewer of wood or drawer of water-stonebreaker or matchman, has no reason to be ashamed of his calling. If he toils honestly and well he is as worthy of respect as the worker of silver and gold, or the weaver of silks and satins. We are endowed with various gifts and talents, and the man who has skill and ability for the more artistic and remunerative toil has no reason to despise the humbler workman. Let him thank God for his superior craft, but not look down upon men, stronger in nerve and sinew perhaps than he, but of less dexterity and sleight of hand. "Honour and shame from no condition rise, act well your part"-in the business on which you are admitted into life-" there all the honour lies." You will see, then, that that sign-board whereon is written "No admittance except on business," reads a lecture to us on life. It is more eloquent than many of the escutcheons of the great-more significant than hundreds of the mottoes of which heraldry can boast. It suggests to us the fact that the manifest destiny of man is honest work. Not for idleness-not for self-indulgence-not for chicanery-not for langour and sloth is man born, but for work. All things preach to him his destiny. That arm of his full of sinew and muscle-that frame of his capable of Herculean labours-proclaim him made for toil. The earth on which he lives, with its jungles and deserts and wildernesses that only labour can cultivate and till -life with its thousand wants and necessities which only toil can supplythe world with its suffering, and desolation, and woe, which only persevering exertion can remove-all alike proclaim what is the manifest destiny of man, To every son of Adam God says-"Go work in the field of the world." From every true child of God comes forth the utterance" My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Therefore ye toilers in the world's broad field, at forge or loom, in the forest or the factory-in the school or the synagogue-in the hospital or the home, complain not of the sweating brow and the aching arm-the throbbing brain and the weary limb; desire not with effeminate longing a life of sloth and ease; work is your destiny, fulfil it; toil is your duty, go forth and do it like men.-From Lectures to the People, by Thomas Goadby, B.A Selections. THE GREAT BUSINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN.-In the least as well as in the greatest concerns of our life, our predominant thoughts should always be God and eternity. Whatever the Christian may say or do, he should always be great before God, who weighs true grandeur. Painters represent the saints with a glory around them; there is nothing of this kind in scripture, except for one saint in the Old Testament— this is the only exception. The saints carry their glory within them, and diffuse it wherever they pass. The Christian wherever he is seen, in the street, in the drawing-room, at table, in prison, or at the height of greatness-should always inspire others with the opinion that he is a man seeking God, intent upon advancing the great interests of humanity, and who thinks it is not worth living for anything but to glorify God, and make all his successes, and all his reverses contribnte to that end; who is ready to leave this world as soon as his work iu this respect is accomplished, and, like his Master, goes about doing good."-Adolphe Monod. A DYING MAN'S VIEW OF LIFE AND ITS PURPOSE.-If you knew, my friends, how all these views disappear when death approaches -how very little all that is little appears-how that alone which is great before God appears great-how much we wish, if we had to begin life again, to live a more serious life, more full of Jesus Christ, of his word, of his example; if you knew all this you would, at this moment, put your hand to the work— you would supplicate God to make your conduct consistent with your sentiments and your faith.-Ibid. THE FOLLY OF MENTAL PRIDE.-To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance in the world; for our learning is so long in getting, and so imperfect, that the most learned of men knows not the thousandth part of what he is ignorant.-Jeremy Taylor. THE WORKS OE GOD INIMITABLE.-The life of a gnat, a Aly, how admirable a production is it? It becomes no man to despise what no man can imitate. We praise the pencil that well-describes the external figure of such an animalculum, such a little creature; but the internal, vital, selfmoving power, and the motion itself, what art can express.-John Howe. THE MOST NOBLE OFDEATHS.-He who would die for his conscience, is even greater than he who would die for his conntry; he who would suffer for truth in prison and on the scaffold, than he who dies amid the shouts of comrades in the battle-field.-Fred. Myers. EVIL SPEAKING.-The following anecdote is related of the late excellent J. J. Gurney, by one who, as a child, was often one of his family circle :One night I remember it well-I received a severe lesson on the sin of evil speaking. Severe I thought it then, and my heart rose in childish anger against him who gave it; but I had not lived long enough in this world to know how much mischief a child's thoughtless talk may do, and how often it happens that talkers run off the straight line of truth. S. did not stand very high in my esteem, and I was about to speak further of her failings of temper. In a few moments my eye caught a look of such calm and steady displeasure, that I stopped short, There was no mistaking the meaning of the dark speaking eye. It brought the colour to my face, and confusion and shame to my heart. I was silent for a few moments, when Joseph John Gurney asked, very gravely, "Dost thou know any good thing to tell us of her?" I did not answer; and the question was more seriously asked: "Think; is there nothing good thou canst tell us of her?" "O, yes; I know some good things, but"-" Would it not have been better, then, to relate those good things, than to have told us that which would lower her in our esteem? Since there is good to relate, would it not be kinder to be silent on the evil? Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity,' thou knowest." WHAT IS LIFE? To some life seems a shadow- To some it seems all beauty- All pleasure, mirth, and happiness, Others find life a burden- A time of toil, of pain and woe- But life may be a conflict- Let not life be a shadow- Nor bend thee down too feebly, But go thou forth to battle With every form of sin ; Go in His strength who never fails, CLAUDE CLIFTON'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. CHAPTER IV. I DREAM OF THE FUTURE, AND AM AWAKENED TO THE PRESENT. My passion for a sea-faring life met with the approbation of neither father nor mother; but they were not decided as to what calling they should like me to follow. What I was not to be they were quite agreed about; what I was to be it was not so easy for them to determine. My father did not have his whim for registering me "Adam" gratified, and he was willing enough to give up the thought of my continuing a gardener, highly as he estimated that profession; but he never went so far as to make up his mind one way or the other. He knew very well that his ideas of the ancient and honourable character of his calling and mine did not exactly square, for I ventured to hint one day that to my thinking digging a kitchen garden, and growing pot-herbs, were not employments that reminded one much of Eden; to which he replied, somewhat irritated at my profanity, "What God hath cleansed and glorified that call not thou common or unclean." There never seemed enough glory about gardening to attract my ambition, though I confess to having always had a taste for horticultural pursuits as a recreation. The pleasure a garden yields is indeed one of the purest and most innocent of human pleasures; but making a business of gardening, getting a livelihood by toiling and tugging at it from one week's end to another, seemed anything but a pleasant thing to me. My mother had hopes and desires of her own about me, of which only now and then she spoke. I remember one long evening in the middle of January, when my father had gone to rest earlier than was his wont, being overcome by some exertion in the morning, that my mother opened the subject to me more fully than she had hitherto done, and told me the secret hopes and thoughts of her heart concerning my future career. It was a cold, stormy night, the snow had fallen incessantly all the day, and a gusty north-east wind had drifted it in fantastic heaps along the hedge-rows and by the cottage door; the logs that lay on the hearth cracked and hissed and blazed, giving forth a genial heat, while they lit up the room with a cheerful light. We had no candle or lamp, and as the fire burnt bright or dull, the shadows went and came on the wall opposite, bringing out in full relief, or covering in darkness and obscurity, an old odd print of the prodigal son, ragged and forlorn, feeding swine and himself with husks, and looking the very personification of starvation and beggary. All was dreary and comfortless without, and the wind howled and bellowed down the wide, old-fashioned chimney, entering its furious protest against the ascending smoke, and the warmth and heat that dared to temper the rude rigour of his reign; and anon blew its shrill hollow whistle through the keyhole which seemed-when, a moment after, the door shook and jarred, the window shutters chattered and groaned, the chimney roared louder and louder, and the swinging sign over the way creaked and screamed more passionately than ever-which seemed to be the summons that called the vagrant and wayward forces of the air together to lay siege to our humble dwelling. While all this bluster and noise were going on outside, and the snow became. sleet, and the sleet turned into rain, and the rain into sleet and snow again, we sat, mother and I, basking in the firelight, pensive and thoughtful, thinking of those far away o'er the wide ocean, and those who sleep in silence in the cold and silent tomb. First we talked of Frank and George, and wondered whether they had arrived safely in the New World, what they were doing, where they were, and how they fared; and then of poor dear Jessie in her lone lone grave, and how she would have cheered our home by her sunny smiles and gentle spirit, and light-hearted laughter, and have been a comfort and joy to my mother in her advancing years; and then of my grandfather Claude, how he had lived all his CLAUDE CLIFTON'S STORY OF HIS LIFE. life at the old farm of Marston Heath, which had belonged to the Claude family for many generations; how he was the last male representative but one of the family, his two brothers having died young, one being wrecked in an East Indiaman off the Cape of Good Hope, and the other swept off with hundreds more in the metropolis by that fearful scourge, the cholera, and his youngest son having fallen in the rebellion of 1745, at the battle of Culloden; how the good man at length died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour, bequeathing the family name untarnished, and the family estate undiminished, to his eldest son, who took to bad ways and bad company, defrauded my mother (his only sister) of her share in the inheritance, became a spendthrift, a drunkard, a rake, a gambler, gradually wasted his substance with riotous living, and one night, in a mad fit of intoxication, staked his all on one throw, and lost it; and, ruined in health, purse, and character, was turned adrift houseless and penniless on the world, finding no sympathy, no help, from the boon companions who had tempted him and fleeced him, but stung by their ingratitude, and made wretched by remorse, meditating suicide, and at length dying in a hovel of fever brought on by cold, exposure, and starvation. Here a log of wood shot up a bright jet of flame, and the ragged prodigal on the wall came forth out of the shadow, stared down upon me, and then when the flame died out, retired again into darkness and obscurity. "I have wept over and over again," said my mother, "to think what a mercy it was your uncle did not take to evil ways while your grandfather lived. It would have broken his heart, and brought down his grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, to have seen what I have seen. O my dear lad, take warning by that awful career. Avoid all gambling. 'Game is a civil gunpowder, in peace Blowing up houses with their whole increase,' as George Herbert says: and let those lines which I have often repeated to you, never be forgotten: Drink not the third glass, which thou cans't not When once it is within thee; but before [tame May'st rule it, as thou list; and pour the shame Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.' Stay at the third cup, or forego the place, Wine above all things doth God's stamp deface., And if ever you should be inclined to sigh because of your poverty, think what 21 a fearful temptation riches throw in the way of young men. Wealth is the conjurer's devil, Whom when he thinks he hath the devil hath [him.'" "Don't you want me to get wealth mother?" I asked. "Not if you destroy your character and lose your soul by it. You remember the text last Sunday night, don't you." "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." "Yes. That is what I mean, my dear boy. I would rather you remained poor all your life, than that you should be like your uncle. What I wish for you is, that you may be as much like your dear grandfather in character and disposition as you are in features. I often think I see him and hear him again, when you are looking at me and speaking to me." "But was'nt grandfather rich ?" "He was, and God will give you wealth if you are dilligent in business, I doubt not, for the hand of the diligent maketh rich. But I would rather you asked Him for wisdom and worth, than for wealth. To serve God and honour His name, let this be your ambition, and you will, I have no fear, wipe away the disgrace that now attaches to our name, and restore the fallen fortunes of the house of the Claudes in the person of Claude Clifton. The Claudes of Marston Heath are extinct for ever, the old farm house is pulled down, the plough has passed over its foundations, the farm is added to the Laurelton Estate, the name and fame of the Claudes will never be revived and restored except in you. I pray God daily that he may bless you, and keep you, and enable you to live and die in his service." I felt that my mother was preaching to me, as I sat listening to her rather long exhortation to piety, wisdom, and industry; but it was a fireside sermon, with a sweet charm about it that touched my heart, and I could have listened to her soft and gentle voice for an hour longer without weariness. I wish I could remember her exact words, but I cannot, only the impression they made upon me, and the meaning they conveyed remain. We closed our conversation without coming to any definite conclusion as to what calling I should follow, my mother thinking at present I was wanted at home, and when anything offered itself elsewhere, I might consult my own tastes and feelings as to whether I availed myself of the opening. She did not think it mattered so much what trade or calling I entered upon, as how I conducted myself therein. |