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FILIAL AFFECTION.

Gustavus III., king of Sweden, passing one morning on horseback through a village in the neighborhood of his capital, observed a peasant girl of interesting appearance, drawing water at a fountain by the way side. He went up to her and asked her for a draught. Without delay she lifted her pitcher, and with artless simplicity, put it to the lips of the monarch. Having satisfied his thirst, and courteously thanked his benefactress, he said,

"My girl, if you will accompany me to Stockholm, I will endeavor to fix you in a more agreeable situation."

"Ah sir,” replied she, “I cannot accept your proposal. I am not anxious to rise above the state of life in which the providence of God has placed me; but even if I were, I could not for an instant hesitate."

"And why?" rejoined the king, somewhat surprised.

"Because," answered the girl, coloring, "my mother is poor and sickly, and has no one but me to assist or comfort her under her many afflictions; and no earthly consideration could induce me to leave her, or to neglect to discharge the duties affection requires of me."

“Where is your mother?" inquired the monarch.

"In that little cabin,” replied the girl, pointing to a wretched hovel near her.

The king, whose feelings were interested in favor of the girl, went in, and beheld stretched on a bedstead, whose only covering was a little straw, an aged female, weighed down with years, sickness and infirmities. Moved at the sight, the monarch addressed her: "I am sorry, my poor woman, to find you in so destitute a condition."

"Alas, sir,” answered the venerable sufferer, “I should need to be pitied, had I not that kind and attentive girl, who labors to support me, and omits nothing she thinks can afford me relief. May a gracious God remember it to her for good," she added, wiping away her tears.

Never, perhaps, was Gustavus more sensible than at that moment of the pleasure of possessing an exalted station. The consciousness of having it in his power to assist a suffering fellow creature almost overpowered him; and putting a purse into the hand of the young villager, he could only say, "Continue to take care of your mother; I shall soon enable you to do so more effectually. Good by, my amiable girl; you may depend on the ise of your king."

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On his return to Stockholm, Gustavus settled a pension for life on the mother, with the reversion to the daughter after death.-London Weekly Visitor.

BEAUTY OF MIND. Women should remember that beauty has few charins but the inward one of the mind, and that a gracefulness in the manner is much more engaging than that of their persons; that meekness and modesty are the true and lasting ornaments; for she that hath these, is qualified, as she ought to be, for the management of a family, for educating her children, for an affection for her husband, and for submitting to a prudent way of living. These are the only charms which render wives amiable, and give them the best title to our respect.

HOW TO CHOOSE A GOOD HUSBAND.

When you see a young man of modest, respectful, retiring manners, not given to pride, or vanity, or to flattery, he will make a good husband, for he will be the same to his wife after marriage that he was before it.

When you see a man of frugal, industrious habits, no "fortune hunter," but who would take a wife for the value of herself, and not for the sake of her wealth, that man will make a good husband; for his affection will not decrease, neither will he bring himself or his partner to poverty and want. When you see a young man who is using his best endeavors to raise himself from obscurity to credit, character and influence, by his own merits, marry him; he is worth having, and will make a good husband.

When you see a young man whose manners are of the most boisterous and disgusting kind, with brass enough to carry him any where, and vanity enough to make him think every one inferior to himself, don't marry him, he will not make a good husband.

When you see a young man depending solely for his reputation and standing in society upon the wealth of his father and other relations, don't marry him, he will not make a good husband.

When you see a young man one half of his time adorning his person, or riding through the streets in gigs, who leaves his debts unpaid, never marry him, for he will in every respect make a bad husband.

When you see a young man who is never engaged in any affrays or quarrels by day, or follies by night, and whose general conduct is not of so mean a character as to make him wish to conceal his name; who does not keep low company, gamble, or break the Sabbath, or use profane language, but whose face is regularly seen at church, where he ought to be, he certainly will make a good husband.

Never make money an object of marriage; if you do, depend upon it, as a balance for the good, you will get a bad husband.

When you see a young man who is attentive and kind to his sisters or aged mother, who is not ashamed to be seen in the streets with the woman who gave him birth and nursed him, and who will attend to all her wants with filial love, affection, and tenderness, he will certainly make a very good husband.

Lastly, always examine into the character, conduct, and motives; and when you find these good in a young man, then you may be sure he will make a good husband.

A GOOD DAughter. There are other ministries of love more conspicuous than hers, but none in which a gentler, lovelier spirit dwells, and none to which the heart's warm requitals more joyfully respond. There is no such thing as a comparative estimate of a parent's love for one or another child. There is little which he needs to covet, to whom the treasure of a good child has been given. But a son's occupations and pleasures carry him more abroad, and he lives more among temptations, which hardly permit the affection, which is following him perhaps over half the globe, to be wholly unmingled with anxiety, until the time when he comes to relinquish the shelter of his father's roof for one of his own; while a good daughter is the steady light of her parent's house. Her idea is indis

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solubly connected with that of his happy fireside. She is his morning sunlight, and his evening star. The grace and tenderness of her sex have their place in the mighty sway which she holds over his spirit. The lessons of recorded wisdom which he reads with her eyes, come to his mind with a new charm as they blend with the beloved melody of her voice. He scarcely knows weariness which her song does not make him forget, or gloom which is proof against the young brightness of her smile. She is the pride and ornament of his hospitality, the gentle nurse in sickness, and a constant agent in those nameless, numberless acts of kindness, which one chiefly cares to have rendered, because they are unpretending but all expressive proofs of love.

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And then a cheerful sharer is she, and an able lightener of a mother's What an ever present delight and triumph to a mother's affection! O how little daughters know of the power which God hath committed to them, and the happiness God would have them enjoy, who do not, every time that a parent's eye rests on them, bring rapture to a parent's heart. A true love will almost certainly always greet their approaching step. That they will hardly alienate; but their ambition should be, not to have it a love merely, which feelings implanted by nature excite, but one made intense, and overflowing, by approbation of worthy conduct; and she is strangely blind to her own happiness, as well as undutiful to those to whom she owes the most, if the perpetual appeals of parental disinterestedness do not call forth the prompt and full echo of filial devotion. -- Dr. Palfrey.

WOMEN IN INDIA. —(From an Essay on Female Education, by a Hindoo Student in the Oriental Seminary, Calcutta.) — In order to understand clearly the existing institutions of the Hindoos, it is necessary to know in what light the softer sex is held in this country. That portion of the human race which is revered in civilized Europe, is trampled under foot in this barbarous East. Although not exposed to every indignity which the cruel Turks are said to practise on their consorts, yet compared with the ladies of the West, her condition is truly lamentable. The shastras inculcate that a woman is created solely for the comfort of her earthly lord; and that she should therefore consider this as the paramount duty of her life. The Sanskrit books, moreover, impute to her all the grossest vices of which human nature is capable. These severe authorities, in which the inhabitants of this country are known to be tenacious believers, have worked up that detestable idea of a woman which is alike disgraceful to reason and humanity.

MODESTY. If you would add lustre to your accomplishments, study a modest behavior. To excel in any thing valuable, is great; but to be above conceit on account of one's accomplishments, is greater. Consider, if you have natural gifts, you owe them to the divine bounty. If you have improved your understanding and studied virtue, you have only done your duty, and thus there seems little reason for vanity.

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THE MORALITY OF BEAUTY.

Written for the Young Lady's Friend.

THE MORALITY OF BEAUTY.

BY DR. WM. A. ALCOTT.

Dr. Bell, in his late work on "Health and Beauty," has the following remarkable language:

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"That beauty of person is synonymous with health and perfect organization, is an opinion, to which, with some qualifications, we must give our asShall we not go farther, and admit that ideas of goodness, of suitableness, of sympathy, of progressive perfection, and of mutual happiness, are by an intimate and inevitable association, connected with the first impression made by the sight of beauty? Man was created after the image of his Maker; and surely it is the duty of his descendants, in all after time, to strive to preserve the type free from disfiguration. We need not wonder, then, that the Greeks should have made beauty an object of worship, and placed it immediately after virtue, in the order of their affections."

This testimony in favor of what I call "the morality of beauty," is sometimes confirmed incidentally, by those writers, painters, sculptors, &c., who not only represent Adam and Eve as beautiful, and the holy angels as still more so, but the evil angels as deformed. Indeed, it is sustained by common observation. It is because a beautiful vicious person is an exception to the general rule, and stands out distinct from the general mass of facts as they lie around us, that the case strikes us; and it is because it strikes us, and attracts a great deal of attention, that we magnify the exception to the general rule. There can be no doubt that beauty, or at least, a set of features that interests us, as somewhat agreeable, is generally connected with virtue and piety; at least, whenever these have been early implanted, and become a part of our character.

Not that beauty of itself, independent of its usual connection with goodness and happiness, is of any real, practical value. No one can despise, more heartily than I do, the homage which is usually paid to this quality. And yet nothing can be more certain than that a good person if not more happy in herself for being beautiful, is at least able to confer more happiness on those around her.

It will still be said, I doubt not, that few are naturally beautiful; and that those who are not so, cannot become so by artificial means; for as these are apt to be seen through, they only render the individual the more deformed for using them.

I am not about to recommend artificial means for becoming beautiful, but natural ones. Of these, one of the most important is habitual cheerfulness.

Who has not observed the effect of continual gloom or despon

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dency, or above all, of an ill temper, to change the countenance? Who has not observed the wrinkled or knit brow; the downcast, somewhat dull eye; and the depressed angles of the mouth, in persons who have long indulged feelings of melancholy, or improper or depressing passions?

Beyond even this, a want of cheerfulness affects the secretions, especially that of the liver, and causes a corresponding discoloration of the skin. Whereas, habitual cheerfulness promotes the free performance of all the functions of the body, and renders the skin clear and beautiful—that of the face among the rest.

It is exceedingly to be regretted that piety has been so often associated with persons of gloomy, or melancholy, or sickly habits. This has given to infidelity a temporary advantage. Still, as I have already insisted, the general rule is in its favor, even on the score of cheerfulness. The cheerfulness of the truly pious- the cheerfulness which prevails within, I mean — even when grafted upon advanced years, with all their bad habits, gleams through the sombre covering which has so long shrouded the soul, and is seldom, if ever, wholly undiscovered.

Yet how much better would it be-ay, how infinitely better, when we take into the account the world future-were children early trained in the ways of that piety which is so happily adapted to the promotion of habitual cheerfulness! How much better still will it be when, from our earliest infancy, all the laws of God, within us and without us, are daily complied with! One of the strongest internal evidences, by the way, to my own mind, of the truth of Christianity, is its harmony with the known laws of health, in rendering man as agreeable externally-in beautifying the "form and face divine" - as it renders him happy within.

But another natural means, next to cheerfulness, of rendering us more beautiful, is appropriate exercise in the open air, and in the full blaze of the sun.

In this respect, there is among us a good deal of bad taste. The slightest approximation to being sunburnt is supposed to war with beauty, while that habitual paleness which no one would commend in the case of the vegetable, excluded from light and air, is deemed an object of attraction. These things ought not so to be. Nor are they so, in some countries scarcely less intelligent than our own. The ladies of England are not so much afraid of being sunburnt as our American ladies. What they lose of delicacy is more than made up in a deep, strong, flesh color, with a rounder eye, better lip, and with more of muscular expression.