LESSON XIII. REPOSE. Peace, greatness best becomes; calm power doth guide With a far more imperious stateliness Than all the swords of violence can do, And easier gains those ends she tends unto." MRS Sunday. She always is at church; and she never forgets her fan. I have known her for many years, and have never known her to be in church without a fan in her hand, and some article upon her person that rustled constantly. Her black silk dress is death to devotion over the space of twenty feet on all sides of her. She fixes the wires in the bonnets of her little girls, then takes their hats off entirely, then wipes their noses, then shakes her head at them, then makes them exchange seats with each other, then finds the text and the hymns for them, then fusses with the cricket, and then fans herself unremittingly until she can see something else to do. During all this time, and throughout all these exercises, the one article of dress upon her fidgety person that has rustle in it, rustles. It chafes against the walls of silence as a caged bear chafes, with feverish restlessness, against the walls of his cell; and as if the annoyance of one sense were not sufficient, she seems to have adopted a bob-and-sinker style of trimming, for hat and dress, and hair and cloak, and every thing that goes to make up her externals. Little pendants are everywhere-little tassels, and little balls, and little tufts--at the end of little cords; and these are all the time bobbing up and down, and trembling, and threatening to bob up and down, like "The one red leaf, the last of its clan On the topmost bough that looks up at the sky." Any person who sits near Mrs. Flutter Budget, or undertakes to look at her during divine service, loses all sense of repose, and all power of reflection. The most solemn exercises in which the mind engages cannot be carried on with a fly upon the nose, and any teasing of a single sense, whether of sight, or sound, or touch, is fatal to religious devotion. I presume that if the pastor wishes to find the most sterile portion of his field, he needs only to ascertain the names of those who occupy pews in the vicinity of this lively little lady. Her husband died two years ago, of sleeplessness, and a harassing system of nursing. The Flutter Budgets are a numerous family in America. They are not all as restless as Madame, but the characteristics of the blood are manifest among them all. They never know repose; and, what is worse than this, they dread if they do not despise it. They are immense workers-not that they do more work, and harder than their neighbors, but they make a great fuss about it, and are always at it. They rise early in the morning, and they sit up late at night; and they do this from year's end to year's end, whether they really have any thing to do or not. They cannot sit still. They have an unhealthy impression that it is wrong for them not to be "doing something" all the time. Nothing in the world will make them so uncomfortable and so restless as leisure. Mrs. Flutter Budget could no more sit down without knitting-work, or a sock to darn, in her hands, than she could fly. As she has many times remarked, she would die if she could not work. To her, and to all of her name and charac ter, constant action seems to be a necessity. The craving of the smoker for his pipe or cigar, the incessant hankering of the opium-eater for his drug, the terrible thirst of the drunkard for his cups--all these are legitimate illustrations of the morbid desire of the Budgets for action or motion. The man who has the habit of using narcotics is not more restless and unhappy without his accustomed stimulus, than they are with nothing to do. In truth, I believe the desire for action may become just as morbid a passion of the soul as that which most degrades and demoralizes mankind. If I were called upon to define happiness, I could possibly give no definition that would shut out the word repose. I do not mean by this that no person can be happy except in a state of repose, but I mean, rather, that no man can be happy to whom repose is impossible. The highest definition of happiness would probably designate the consciousness of healthy powers harmoniously employed as among its prime elements; but there can be no happiness that deserves its name without the consciousness of powers that are able to subside from harmonious action into painless repose. I know a little girl who plays out of doors at night as long as she can see, and who, when called into the house, takes up a book with restless greed for mental excitement, and then begs to be read to sleep after she has been required to put down her book and go to bed. She would be called a happy child by those who see her playing among her mates, yet it is easy to perceive that her happiness is limited to a single attitude and condition of body and mind. A happier child than she is one who can enjoy openair play, and then quietly sit down at her mother's side and enjoy rest. That is an inharmonious and unhealthy state of mind which chafes with leisure; and he is an unhappy man who cannot sit down for a moment without reaching for a newspaper, or looking about him for some quid for his morbid mind to chew upon. So I count no man truly happy who cannot contentedly sit still when circumstances release his powers from labor, and who does not reckon among the rewards of labor a peaceful repose. No; Mrs. Flutter Budget is not a happy woman; and, as I have intimated before, she seriously interferes with the happiness and the spiritual prosperity of those about her. When she can find nothing to do, then she worries. Those children of hers are worried nearly to death. If, in their play, they get any dirt upon their faces, they are sent immediately to make themselves clean. If they soil their clothes, they are shut up until reduced to a proper state of penitence. They are kept out of all draughts of air for fear of a cold; and if they should take cold, why, they must take medicine of the most repulsive character as a penalty. If they |