one thought of speaking
to her about Nest. She stood arrested at the name; and since then, it is
astonishing to see what efforts she makes to curb her insanity; and when
the dread time is past, she creeps up to the matron, and says, "Mary has
tried to be good. Will God let her go to Nest now?"

THE YOUNG MAN'S COUNSELOR.

GENERAL CONDUCT.

Move with the multitude in the common walks of life, and you will be
unnoticed in the throng; but break from them, pursue a different path,
and every eye, perhaps with reproach, will be turned toward you. What is
the rule to be observed in general conduct? Conform to every innocent
custom as our social nature requires, but refuse compliance with
whatever is inconsistent with propriety, decency, and the moral duties;
and dare to be singular in honor and virtue.

In conversation, truth does not require you to utter all your thoughts,
yet it forbids you to speak in opposition to them. To open the mind to
unreserved communication, is imbecility; to cover it with a vail, to
dissever its internal workings from its external manifestations, is
dissimulation and falsehood. The concordance of the thoughts, words, and
deeds, is the essence of truth, and the ornament of character.

A man who has an opportunity to ruin a rival, with whom he is at enmity,
without public dishonor, and yet generously forbears, nay, converts the
opportunity into a disinterested benefit, evinces a noble instance of
virtuous magnanimity. He conquers his own enmity, the most glorious of
all conquests, and overcomes the enmity of a rival by the most heroic
and praiseworthy mode of retaliation.

As to an evil report of a neighbor, the opinion of the frivolous is
lightly regarded, the calumny of the known slanderer is discredited by
all who venerate truth, and the character of the known liar is a
sufficient antidote to falsehood. A respectable man, in his good name,
offers a guarantee for his veracity; and, impressed with the benevolent
affections and the love of justice, he is scrupulous to believe an evil
report, and still more so to repeat it.

As a rill from a fountain increases as it flows, rises into a stream,
swells into a river, so symbolically are the origin and course of a good
name. At first, its beginning is small: it takes its rise from home, its
natural source, extends to the neighborhood, stretches through the
community, and finally takes a range proportioned to the qualities by
which it is s