greatest comfort of his old age, and that which gave him the highest satisfaction, was the pleasing remembrance of the many benefits and friendly offices he had done for others. Common blessings come to all, and all from heaven. What shall we give in return? We cannot enrich God, but we can benefit God's children. Be careful that we envy not those who receive more than we, for we have all we ought to have. God knows what we will use wisely. Let every man stand in his own lot and place. A rational soul must pursue its present duty, as the disciples of the Epicurean philosophy pursue their passions. We must do our duty in every circumstance of life, be it sorrowful or joyful. We should go to duty as to a temple, and come from duty as from a temple. Let us bless the heavenly powers, when we have eyes to see duty. We may come to this knowledge in the deep vales where float the tones of longing and grief; but here it is that the soul gains the deepest knowledge of itself as well as of its duty, and breathes in the purest sympathy of man, the universe, and God. We can only come to this renunciation of inclination and this acceptance of duty, by believing in it as Christ our divine Lord did. "He endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy that was set before him." It must be gained, conquered, and earned, struggled to through opposing difficulties. There is room for us all, and work for us all, and every man in his own order. Our blame and our shame is this, that we do not what is given us to do. Let us up and be doing. See the field is white unto the harvest. Let each do something for the common weal. Let us open fountains by all waysides for earth's weary pilgrims. The measure of our duty is the measure of our ability. She hath done what she could" was the greatest of all praise. quired of any. Nothing more is re Let us begin this day, and make our vows this hour, to live for others; and as we receive from Heaven day by day, let us give back to Heaven; and so we shall enrich our own souls, and multiply Heaven's blessings to us. FATHER HECKER'S PROPHECY. WHATEVER may be said of the moral as pect of Christianity in America, certainly the intellectual activity that characterizes it, gives ground of great hope. Nothing is truer than that the notable tendency of minds given at all to thinking, is the tendency to think for themselves. This is only a tendency. It has as yet realized comparatively scanty results in the religious realm. The masses of our people are totally without any rational and logical ground of faith. There are not ten sectarians in a thousand who can give a lucid statement of their faith, and the logical process by which they have come to hold it. It is no matter of logic that a boy born at Mecca is a Mohammedan; this verges upon the boundaries of the inevitable: the result could be otherwise, but there is not one probability in a million that |