sonal affairs generally possess very little interest for others. They have enough to do in taking care of themselves, and have weaknesses, and failures, and peculiarities enough of their own; and if the world should spurn our well-meant efforts in its behalf, why, let it go. It mends nothing to get sore and sensitive over it. When a man truly learns how little important he is in the world, he is generally beyond the danger of becoming galled by his harness, whatever it may be.

LESSON XIX.

THE INFLUENCE OF PRAISE.

"Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them unto you."-ST. PAUL.

"O popular applause! What heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms?"

"Arbaces. Why now, you flatter.

CowPER.

"Mardonius. I never understood the word."

A KING AND NO KING.

"Praising what is lost

Makes the remembrance dear."

SHAKSPERE.

T is pleasant to be praised. The man does not live

I

who is insensible to honest praise. The love of approbation is as natural to every human soul as the love of offspring, or the love of liberty. It was planted there by God's hand, and it is as useful and important in its fruit, as it is fragrant and beautiful in its flower. I repeat that the man does not live who is insensible to honest praise. That great orator who seems to be a

king in the world, independent of his race, holding dominion over human hearts, lifted far above the necessity of the plaudits of those around him, will pause with gratified and grateful ear, to listen to expressions of approval and admiration from the humblest lips. The greatest mind drinks praise as a pleasant draught, if it be honest and deserved. Perhaps you think that Doctor of Divinity who weighs two hundred pounds more or less, and is clad in glossy broad-cloth, and lifts his shining forehead above a white cravat, as Mont Blanc pierces a belt of cloud, and talks articulated thunder, and veils his wisdom behind gold-mounted spectacles, and moves among men with ineffable dignity, is above the need of, and the appetite for, praise. Ah! you don't know the soft old heart under that satin waistcoat! It can be made as warm and gentle and grateful, with just and generous praise, as that of a boy. Nay, the barber who takes his reverent nose between his thumb and finger, and sweeps the beard from his benevolent chin, understands exactly what to say in order to draw from his pocket an extra sixpence. There is no head so high, there is no neck so stiff, there is no back so straight, that it will not bend to take the flowers which praise tosses upon its path.

"It's a sign of weakness, after all," sighs my friend, who is not praised quite as much as he would like to be. Begging your pardon, sir, it is no such thing.

The strongest Being in the universe-the God of the universe-is the one who demands, receives, and accepts the most praise. Listen for a moment to those marvellous ascriptions which rise to Him from the bosom of Christendom as ceaselessly and beautifully as clouds from the Heaven-reflecting ocean: "Thou art the King, immortal, invisible. Thou art the Source of all life, the Author of all being, the Fountain of all light and love and joy. Thou art Love itself; Thou art the Sum of all perfections. For what Thou art, we worship Thee; for what Thou hast done for us, in Thy infinite loving-kindness, we praise Thee. We bless Thy Holy Name. We call upon our souls and all within us to magnify Thy name forever and ever." The Bible itself has given us almost numberless forms of expression into which we may cast our divinest adoration, and the broadest outpourings of our hearts. The poets of all ages have been touched to their finest utterances in the rapture of worship and of praise.

Now why should God want praise of us? It certainly is not because He is weak. Can it be because He wishes by means of it to produce some desired effect in us? Is there no hearing of this praise in Heaven? Are we who sing and shout mere brawlers, who get a little strength of lungs by the exercise? There are some poor souls, doubtless, who believe this, as they believe that prayer has significance only as a

moral exercise, and effect only as it reacts upon the soul. I believe that praise is pleasant to Him who sits upon the throne-that the honest and sincere expressions of love and adoration, and gratitude and praise, that rise to Him from the earth are at least shining ripples upon the soundless ocean of His bliss. Out from Him proceed, through myriad channels of effluence, the expressions of His love for those whom He has made and endowed with intelligence; and I believe that it is requisite for His happiness that back along these lines of manifestation there should flow a tide of grateful recognition and adoring praise. Even a God would pine in loneliness and despair if there should come back no echoes to His loving voice-no refluent wave to the mighty bosom which makes all shores vocal with its breath and beating. God demands of all men that which all men owe to Him—that which His perfections and His acts deserve.

This love of approbation in men, then, is Heavenborn and Godlike. The desire for approbation is as legitimate as the desire for food. I do not suppose that it should be greatly a motive of action-perhaps it should never be; but when a man from a good motive does a good thing, he desires the approval of the hearts that love him, and he receives their expressions of praise with grateful pleasure. Nay, if these expressions of praise are denied to him, he feels in a certain