ack
upon the past; his days appear to have been few; the magnificence of the
great is to him vanity; the hilarity of youth, folly; he considers how
soon the gloom of death must overshadow the one and disappoint the
other. The world presents little to attract and nothing to delight him.
A few more years of infirmity, inanity and pain must consign him to
idiocy or the grave. Yet this was the gay, the generous, the high-souled
boy who beheld the ascending path of life strewn with flowers without a
thorn. Such is human life; but such cannot be the ultimate destinies of
man.

The best education in the world is that got by struggling for a
living.--_Wendell Phillips._

Juvenile Department.

CHOOSING OCCUPATIONS.

Five little girls sat down to talk one day beside the brook.
Miss Lizzie said when she grew up she meant to write a book;
And then the others had to laugh, till tears were in their eyes,
To think of Lizzie's writing books, and see her look so wise.
Miss Lucy said she always thought she'd like to teach a school,
And make the horrid, ugly boys obey her strictest rule.
Miss Minnie said she'd keep a shop where all the rest must buy,
And they agreed to patronize, if "prices weren't too high."
Miss Ada said she'd marry rich, and wear a diamond ring,
And give a party every night, "and never do a thing!"
But Nellie, youngest of them all, shook out each tumbled curl,
And said she'd always stay at home, and be her mother's girl.

A CHILD AND A WASP.

Among the passengers on a train going West, was a very much over-dressed
woman, accompanied by a bright-looking Irish nurse girl, who had charge
of a self-willed, tyrannical two-year-old boy, of whom the over-dressed
woman was plainly the mother. The mother occupied a seat by herself. The
nurse and child were in a seat immediately in front of her. The child
gave frequent exhibitions of temper, and kept the car filled with such
vicious yells and shrieks, that there was a general feeling of savage
indignation among the passengers. Although he time and again spat in his
nurse's face, scratched her hands until the blood came, and tore at her
hair and bonnet, she bore with him patiently. The indignation of the
passengers was made the greater because the child's mother made no
effort to correct or quiet him, but, on the contrary, sharply chided the
nurse whenever she manifested any firmness. Whatever the boy yelped for,
the mother