and felt as man's co-worker and equal in whatsoever exalts mind, embellishes life, or sanctifies humanity.

The true object and importance of taste in dress few understand. Let no woman suppose that any man can be really indifferent to her appearance. The instinct may be deadened in his mind by a slatternly, negligent mother, or by plain maiden sisters; but she may be sure it is there, and, with little adroitness, capable of revival. Of course, the immediate effect of a wellchosen feminine toilet operates differently in different minds. In some, it causes a sense of actual pleasure; in others, a consciousness of passive enjoyment. In some, it is intensely felt while it is present; in others only missed when it is gone.

A man who is badly

Dress affects our manners. dressed feels chilly, sweaty, and prickly. He stammers, and does not always tell the truth. He means to, perhaps, but he can't. He is half distracted about his pantaloons, which are much too short, and are constantly hitching up; or his frayed jacket and crumpled linen harrow his soul, and quite unmans him. He treads on the train of a lady's dress, and says "Thank you," sits down on his hat, and wishes the "desert were his dwelling place."

A friend of ours, who had long been absent, returned and called upon two beautiful young ladies of his acquaintance. One came quickly to greet him in the neat, yet not precise attire, in which she was performing her household duties. The other, after the lapse of half an hour, made her stately entrance, in all the primness of starch and ribbons, with which, on the

announcement of his entrance, she had hastened to bedeck herself. Our friend, who had long been hesitating on his choice between the two, now hesitated no longer. The cordiality with which the first hastened to greet him, and the charming carelessness of her attire, entirely won his heart. She is now his wife. Young ladies, take warning from the above, and never refuse to see a friend because you have on a wash gown. Be assured the true gentleman will not think less of you because he finds you in the performance of your duties, and not ashamed to let it be known. Besides, there may positively be a grace, a witching wildness about an every-day dress, that adds to every charm of face and feature.

Church Dress.

THE best bred people of every Christian country, but our own, avoid all personal display when engaged in worship and prayer. Our churches, on the contrary, are made places for the exhibition of fine apparel and other costly, flaunting compliances with fashion, by those who boast of superior wealth and manners. We shall leave our gewgawed devotees to reconcile humiliation in worship with vanity in dress. That is a problem which we confess we have neither the right nor the capacity to solve. How far fine clothes may affect the personal piety of the devotee we do not pretend even

to conjecture; but we have a very decided opinion in regard to their influence upon the religion of others. The fact is, that our churches are so fluttering with birds of fine feathers, that no sorry fowl will venture in. It is impossible for poverty in rags and patches, or even in decent but humble costume, to take its seat, if it should be so fortunate as to find a place, by the side of wealth in brocade and broadcloth. The poor are so awed by the pretension of superior dress and "the proud man's costume," that they naturally avoid too close a proximity to them. The church being the only place on this side of the grave designed for the rich and the poor to meet together in equal prostration before God, it certainly should always be kept free for this common humiliation and brotherhood. It is so in most of the churches in Europe, where the beggar in rags and wretchedness, and the wealthiest and most eminent, whose appropriate sobriety of dress leaves them without mark of external distinction, kneel down together, equalized by a common humiliation before the only Supreme Being.

No person can attend upon the services of any of our churches in towns and cities, and worship God without distraction. One needs continually to offer the prayer "take off my eyes from beholding vanity." But he must be blind to have his prayer answered, for the sight of the eyes always affects the heart. There is the rustle of rich silks, the flutter of gay fans, the nod ding of plumes and flowers; the tilting of laces, of ibbons, of curls; here is a head frizzed till it looks more like a picture of the Furies than that of a Miss

of "sweet sixteen," and there is another with hair hanging full length, waxed and dressed so as to fourfold its quantity; there are bracelets and ear-rings, and fantasies of every sort and every hue; everything that is absurd and foolish in fashion, and everything that is grotesque and ridiculous in trying to ape fashion; all these are before you, between you and the speaker, the altar whereon is laid the sacrifice of prayer, and from whence the truth is dispensed! How can you worship God? how can you hear with any profit?

With dress and fashion, its propriety, its sin or folly, in the abstract, we are not now dealing; only with its improper display in the house of God. If persons have the taste, and the means to gratify that taste, in expen sive, showy apparel, let them have it to display at home, or abroad, at parties, at the opera-anywhere, but in the sanctuary.

The adoption of more simple apparel for church on the part of the rich, in this country, would have the effect, certainly not of diminishing their own personal piety, but probably of increasing the disposition for religious observance on the part of the poor.

Manners.

MANNERS are different in every country; but true politeness is everywhere the same. Manners, which take up so much of our attention, are only artificial

helps which ignorance assumes in order to imitate politeness, which is the result of good sense and good nature. A person possessed of those qualities, though he had never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if without them, would continue a clown, though he had been all his life a gentleman usher. He who assumes airs of importance exhibits his credentials of insignificance. There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world to get a good name, or to supply the want of it. Good manners are a part of good morals, and it is as much our duty as our interest to practice in both. Good manners is the art of making those around us easy. Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred man in the company. Good manners should begin at home. Politeness is not an article to be worn in all dress only, to be put on when we have a complimentary visit. A person never appears so ridiculous by the qualities he has, as by those he affects to have. He gains more by being contented to be seen as he is, than by attempting to appear what he is not. Good manners is the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial, for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them. "Manners make the man," says the proverb. It may be true that some men's manners have been the making of them; but as manners are rather the expression of the man, it would be more proper to say-the man makes the Social courtesies should emanate from the heart, for remember always that the worth of manners consists in being the sincere expressions of feelings.

manners.