erchant to his clerk,
"that circumstances made you what you were. This you cannot say now."

"I can," was the reply. "Circumstances made me poor, and I desired to be
rich. The means of attaining wealth were placed in my hands, and I
used them. Is it strange that I should have done so? It is this social
inequality that makes crime. Your own doctrine, and I subscribe to it
fully."

"Ungrateful wretch!" said the merchant, indignantly, "it is the evil of
your own heart that prompts to crime. You would be a thief and a robber
if you possessed millions."

And he again handed him over to the law, and let the prison walls
protect society from his depredations.

No, it is not true that in external circumstances lie the origins of
evil. God tempts no man by these. In the very extremes of poverty we
see examples of honesty; and among the wealthiest, find those who
covet their neighbour's goods, and gain dishonest possession thereof.
Reformers must seek to elevate the personal character, if they would
regenerate society. To accomplish the desired good by a different
external arrangement, is hopeless; for in the heart of man lies the
evil,--there is the fountain from which flow forth the bitter and
blighting waters of crime.

JOHN AND MARGARET GREYLSTON.

"AND you will really send Reuben to cut down that clump of pines?"

"Yes, Margaret. Well, now, it is necessary, for more reasons than"----

"Don't tell me so, John," impetuously interrupted Margaret Greylston.
"I am sure there is no necessity in the case, and I am sorry to the very
heart that you have no more feeling than to order _those_ trees to be
cut down."

"Feeling! well, maybe I have more than you think; yet I don't choose to
let it make a fool of me, for all that. But I wish you would say no more
about those trees, Margaret; they really must come down; I have reasoned
with you on this matter till I am sick of it."

Miss Greylston got up from her chair, and walked out on the shaded
porch; then she turned and called her brother.

"Will you come here, John?"

"And what have you to say?"

"Nothing, just now; I only want you to stand here and look at the old
pines."

And so John Greylston did; and he saw the distant woods grave and fading
beneath the autumn wind--while the old pines upreared their stately
heads against the blue sky, unchanged in beauty, fresh and green as
ever.

"You see those trees, John, and so do I; and standing here, with them