I read our names upon the bark,
And found the pebbles rare
Laid up beneath the hollow side,
As we had piled them there.

Beneath the grass-grown bank, John,
I looked for our old spring,
That bubbled down the alder path
Three paces from the swing;
The rushes grow upon the brink,
The pool is black and bare,
And not a foot, this many a day,
has trodden there.

It seems,

I took the old blind road, John,
That wandered up the hill;
"Tis darker than it used to be,
And seems so lone and still.
The birds sing yet among the boughs
Where once the sweet grapes hung,
But not a voice of human kind

Where all our voices rung.

I sat me on the fence, John,
That lies as in old time,
The same half panel in the path
We used so oft to climb;
I thought how o'er the bars of life

Our playmates had passed on,
And left me counting on this spot
The faces that are gone.

LEARN TO SAY, NO.

A VERY wise and excellent mother gave the following advice with her dying breath: "My son, learn to say, No." Not that she did mean to counsel her son to be a churl in speech, or to be stiffhearted in things that were indifferent or trivial, and much less did she counsel him to put his negative upon the calls of charity and the impulses of humanity; but her meaning was, that, along with gentleness of manners and benevolence of disposition, he should possess an inflexible firmness of purpose a quality beyond all price, whether it regards the sons or the daughters of our fallen race.

Persons so infirm of purpose, so wanting in resolution, as to be incapable, in almost any case, of saying, No, are among the most hapless of human beings; and that notwithstanding their sweetness of temper, their courteousness of demeanor, and whatever else of amiable and estimable qualities they possess. Though, they see the right, they

pursue the wrong; not so much out of inclination, as from a frame of mind disposed to yield to every solicitation.

An historian of a former and distant age says of a Frenchman who ranked as the first prince of the blood, that he had a bright and knowing mind, graceful sprightliness, good intentions, complete disinterestedness, and an incredible easiness of manners, but that, with all these qualities, he acted a most contemptible part for the want of resolution; that he came into all the factions of his time, because he wanted power to resist those who drew him in for their own interests; but that he never came out of any but with shame, because he wanted resolution to support himself whilst he was in them.

It is owing to the want of resolution, more than to the want of sound sense, that a great many persons have run into imprudences, injurious, and sometimes fatal, to their worldly interests. Numerous instances of this might be named, but I shall content myself with naming only one, and that is, rash and hazardous suretyship. The pit stands uncovered, and yet men of good sense, as well as of amiable dispositions, plunge themselves into it with their eyes wide open. Notwithstanding the solemn warnings in the proverbs of the wise man, and notwith

standing the examples of the fate of so many that have gone before them, they make the hazardous leap. And why? Not from inclination, or with a willing mind, but because, being solicited, urged, and entreated, they know not how to say, No. If they had learned not only to pronounce that monosyllable, but to make use of it on all proper occasions, it might have saved from ruin themselves and their wives and children.

But the worst of it is still behind. The ruin of character, of morals, and of the very heart and soul of man, originates often in a passive yieldingness of temper and disposition, or in the want of the resolution to say, No. Thousands and many thousands, through this weakness, have been the victims of craft and deceit. Thousands and many thousands, once of fair promise, but now sunk in depravity and wretchedness, owe their ruin to the act of consenting, against their better judgments, to the enticement of evil companions and familiars. Had they said, No, when duty, when honor, when conscience, when every thing sacred demanded it of them, happy might they now have been the solace of their kindred and the ornaments of society.

Sweetness of temper, charitableness of heart, gentleness of demeanor, together with a strong

disposition to act obligingly, and even to be yielding in things indifferent, or of trifling moment, are amiable and estimable traits of the human character; but there must be withal, and as the groundwork of the whole, such a firmness of resolution as will guaranty it against yielding, either imprudently or immorally, to solicitations and enticements. Else one has very little chance, in passing down the current of life, of escaping the eddies and quicksands that lie in his way.

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success; without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies, and brings to its possessor disgrace rather than honor.