Poor, doless Charlie Demper! I sincerely pity him. He succeeds as poorly with his religion as with his trade. He attended a course of instruction in the Catechism, but never studied or committed any of the lessons to memory. He seemed sincere and devout at his confirmation. For a few months he attended church regularly, and labored in the Sunday School. Ere long, however, his zeal abated. Since then he has wandered from one church to another. Now a strange whim leads him to attend the Methodist Church a while; then a freak just as strange leads him to the Universalist meeting. Thus he dodges about after "short-cuts," every month or two bobbing up in another place, shirking Christian work, always ready to follow those who flatter him most. He has never taken root any where. In his estimation, piety consists in getting to heaven over the easiest and shortest way. He is partial to new prophets. "A lo! here and lo! there," sends him shouting after the curious, fun-loving crowd. Now, Charlie is not wicked. I have never heard that he swore or got drunk, or indulged in any of the vices of the day. He seems to be a Christian; goes to church somewhere, and possibly, in his own way, tries to be a pious young man. He is kind-hearted, and I have no doubt he would rise at midnight to do me a favor. A good-natured soul, who shuns a street-fight as much as he does work. But then he will not stick any where. He does not intentionally lie, yet is so fickle, that you cannot rely on his word for twenty-four hours. He forms and breaks resolutions with equal readiness. I am prepared to hear almost any thing from him, unless he will try to acquire better, and more stable habits. He has lost the confidence of all his associates and employers. And, what is worse, his faith is becoming unsettled. My only fear is that some day he may become a castaway.

"There is no royal road to learning," nor to success in any sphere of life. Whoever wishes to succeed honestly in his business, or profession, will have to work for it. Make up your mind to that. We all need a certain amount of schooling for our life-work. But all do not desire it. A mass of people adopt trades without acquiring them. Persons assume the title of Dr., and begin the practice of medicine without ever having studied Materia Medica. Young men read Law, with but little preparatory training; and many a misguided youth, in eager, presumptuous haste, hurries into the office of the holy ministry after one or two years' study. In this way the most solemn of all professions is encumbered with bungling, inefficient, impracticable men.

"From such apostles, O ye mitred heads,

Preserve the Church! and lay not careless hands

On skulls, that cannot teach and will not learn."

All honest work is ennobling. But it needs fitness. Men are not born shoemakers, carpenters, doctors, lawyers, and ministers, with faculties and aptitudes fully developed, like the fabled Minerva, leaping from the head of Jupiter. They have a native talent and inclination for certain pursuits. But the talent must be drawn out-cultivated by toil and study.

Few men of this age have so much steam and electricity in their composition as Horace Greeley. Many of his writings remind one of the opening of a safety-valve in an engine, to allow the escape of an excess of

،.

steam. He seems like a walking battery, which emits sparks, and "shocks" at every touch. Yet this man of fame and fire, worked himself up to the position of one of the first journalists and writers of the day. through a long and plodding apprenticeship in a printer's office, in Poultney, Vermont. We give the following from a sketch of his apprentice trials, which he furnished for one of our cotemporaries :

"I walked over to Poultney, saw the publishers, came to an understanding with them, and returned; and, a few days afterward-April 18th, 1826-my father took me down and verbally agreed with them for my services. I was to remain till twenty years of age, be allowed my board only for six months, and thereafter forty dollars per annum for my clothing. So I stopped and went to work, while he returned to Westhaven, and soon left in quest of a more inviting region. He made his way to the township of Wayne, Erie county, Pennsylvania, on the State line, opposite Clymer, Chautauqua county, New York, a spot where his brothers Benja min and Leonard had, three or four years earlier, made holes in the tall, dense forest, which then covered nearly all that region, from twenty to fifty miles, in every direction. He bought out first one, then another pioneer, until he had at length two or three hundred acres of good land, but covered with a heavy growth of beech, maple, elm, hemlock, etc. Having made his first purchase-which included a log hut, and four acres of clearing he returned for his family, and I walked over from Poultney to spend a Sabbath with them and bid them farewell.

"It was a sad parting. We had seen hard times together, and were very fondly attached to each other. I was urged by some of my kindred to give up Poultney-where there were some things in the office not exactly to my mind and accompany them to their new home, whence, they urged, I could easily find, in its vicinity, another and better chance to learn my chosen trade. I was strongly tempted to comply; but it would have been bad faith to do so, and I turned my face toward Poultney with dry eyes but a heavy heart. A word from my mother, at the critical moment, might have overcome my resolution; but she did not speak it, and I went my way; leaving them soon to travel much farther, and in an opposite direction. After the parting was over, and I well on my way, I was strongly tempted to return; and my walk back to Poultney (twelve miles) was one of the slowest and saddest of my life.

"I have ever since been thankful that I did not yield to the temptation of the hour. Poultney was a capital place to serve an apprenticeship. Essentially a rural community, her people are at once intelligent and moral; and there are few villages wherein the incitements to dissipation and vice are fewer or less obtrusive. The organization and management of our establishment were vicious; for an apprentice should have one master, and I had a succession of them, and often two or three at once. First, our editor left us; next, the company broke up or broke down, as any one might have known it would; and a mercantile firm in the village became owners and managers of the concern; and so we had a succession of editors and of printers. These changes enabled me to demand and receive a more liberal allowance for the later years of my apprenticeship; but the office was too laxly ruled for the most part, and, as to instruction, every one had perfect liberty to learn what he could. In fact, as but two or at most three persons were employed in the printing department, it

would have puzzled an apprentice to avoid a practical knowledge of whatever was done there. I had not been there a year before my hands were blistered and my back lamed by working off the very considerable edition of the paper on an old-fashioned, two pull Ramage (wooden) press-a task beyond my boyish strength-and I can scarcely recall a day wherein we were not hurried by our work. I would not imply that I worked too hard-yet I think few apprentices work more steadily and faithfully than I did throughout the four years and over of my stay in Poultney. While I lived at home, I had always been allowed a day's fishing, at least once a month in spring and summer, and I once went hunting; but I never fished, nor hunted, nor attended a dance, nor any sort of party or fandango, in Poultney. I doubt that I ever played a game of ball.

"Yet I was ever considerately and even kindly treated by those in authority over me, and I believe I generally merited and enjoyed their confidence and good-will. Very seldom was a word of reproach or dissatisfaction addressed to me by one of them. Though I worked diligently, I found much time for reading, and might have had more, had every leisure hour been carefully improved. I had been generously loaned books from the Minot house while in Westhaven; I found good ones abundant and accessible in Poultney, where I first made the acquaintance of a public library. I have never since found at once books and opportunity to enjoy them so ample as while there; I do not think I ever before or since read to so much profit. They say that apprenticeship is distasteful to and out of fashion with the boys of our day; if so, I regret it for their sakes. To the youth who asks, 'How shall I obtain an education?' I would answer, 'Learn a trade of a good master.'

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THE RAPID MARCH OF LIFE.

[Translated from the French of Bishop Bossuet.]

BY MARY ELLEN.

Human life resembles a road leading to a frightful precipice. We are cautioned at the first step, but the law has been pronounced-we must always advance. We might wish to retrace our steps:

MARCH! MARCH!

An invisible weight-an invincible force drags us;-without ceasing we must move on towards the precipice.

A thousand obstacles-a thousand trials weary and distress us on the way; still we would avoid this terrible abyss were it possible. No, no, it is necessary to walk-yea, run-such is the rapidity of the years. We console ourselves, however, because from time to time we meet objects which divert us-flowers and flowing brooks. We would stop

MARCH! MARCH!

Meanwhile, we see fall behind us, all we have passed, frightful tumult, inevitable ruin! We take comfort, because we carry flowers, gathered in passing-flowers which fade ere evening,-fruits which we lose in tasting:

ENCHANTMENT!

Ever drawn, we approach the gulf. Already all commences to be obscured; the gardens less flourishing, the flowers less brilliant; the meadows less smiling, the waters less clear. Everything is tarnished— obscured. The shades of death appear; we feel that we are nearing the fatal goal. But we are compelled to go on the brink—

STILL ONE STEP!

Now horror seizes the senses, the head turns, the eye wanders

ON WARD! ONWARD!

Here we would turn back for help: every thing is falling-all vanishes-is gone!

We need not say this road is Life—this gulf Death.

MORAL.

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*

"Life, Light, Love." Christ our Life; Christ our Light; Christ is Love. In Jesus, the Saviour, the "frightful precipice" leads to the "Beautiful gate;" the "fatal goal" to Heavenly Rest; the terrible abyss" to the Land of Life, Light and Love.

"Fear not: thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee."

PAPER MAKING.

A German statistician, Dr. Rudel, has collected some curious facts relative to the production of paper. He says that the use of papyrus and tablets, covered with wax for letters, public documents, &c.. ceased 550 years ago, when parchment was generally adopted Paper did not come into general use until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The first machine for the production of paper was constructed in 1290 at Ravensburg, and paper was first manufactured in Italy in 1330, in France in 1360, in Switzerland in 1470, in England in 1588, in Holland in 1685, in Russia in 1712, and in Pennsylvania in 1725. The number of papermills now existing in the principal States of Europe is as follows:-Great Britain, 408; France, 276; Germany, 243; Austria, 68; Russia, 40; Italy, 30; Belgium, 26; Spain, 17; Switzerland, 13; Sweden, 8; Turkey, 1. In the United States of America there are 520 paper mills. The annual production of paper in Europe is 8,056,000 cwt., valued at 15,000,000Z. The improved paper mills now in use are capable of producing 125 lb. of paper in an hour, and a paper mill working continuously for a whole year would manufacture 52,560,000 sheets, which, if laid side by side, would extend to a length equal to that of the diameter of the earth.-Pall Mall Gazette.

EDITOR'S DRAWER.

WINTER EVENINGS.

Winter is approaching-and with it, long evenings, giving young people much leisure. What shall they do with them?-or, rather, what shall they not do with them? Do not spend your evenings by loafing about in taverns and beer saloons. These are made attractive for young men-especially the latter. Some of these give "free concerts" every evening. Excellent bands discourse charming music all evening. First-class performers give piano music, accompanied with singing by low women, with screeching voices. We admire young people who have a taste for music. To such, these "free concerts" possess a certain charm. A young man may not know how to spend the long evening. Passing along, he hears music in a brilliantly lighted saloon. Can we blame him, if he enters? Music is refining; it may be refining to him. Thus he reasons, and enters. The room is full of small tables. At each table a group of men are seated. All have their mugs of beer before them. Some are smoking. Not a few are playing cards. Our young friend takes a seat at one of the tables. He has a keen sense of honor; and this sense asks the question: "Is it honorable for me to enjoy the sweet music, for which the landlord must pay, without spending any thing? What harm can there be in a glass of 'lager?" He takes his first glass-perhaps his first game of cards; forms a fondness for the place-and God only knows to what this first glass will lead.

Young men, this is no place for you. These clouds of tobacco smoke, this card-playing, swearing, scenes of drinking and drunkenness, are not the place to spend your evenings.

In some places, balls are all the rage during the winter season,—“ Firemen's balls," "Benevolent balls," "Select balls," and by whatever other names they may be designated. Young church members are often entrapped by them; and we have heard of few cases of this kind where such members were not led astray forever. A few balls sunder the tie that binds them to their Church. Their dancing and midnight revelry usually is certain death to piety. We have heard of not a few who not only ceased to pray and abandoned the Church, but who actually became outcasts. It is not for us to explain why or how this should be the case-any more than to say that balls unquestionably represent the spirit and power of evil. Ball-room enjoyments and religious worship can never go hand in hand. Young ladies are sometimes misled by the affected kindness of their suitors. They dislike to decline an invitation. In this way they are brought to mingle with the baser sort of people. They lose cast among the better thinking; lose immensely in the estimation of Christians; lose, perhaps, their faith, virtue and salvation. Balls are bad-a social nuisance-a devil's den in disguise. Therefore, as you value your soul, shun balls, whether in high or in low life.

But how spend your evenings? 1. Devoutly attend all the religious meetings of your congregation. Teachers' Bible class, weekly lecture, prayer meeting, are delightful social entertainments, which please without inflicting damage.