grateful heart--into a soul that never sighed over a lost joy,
though all his earthly enterprises miscarried. The tracery of care
and of sickness is upon his haggard features, but I see in them,
and in the soul which they represent to me, the majesty of
manliness. While I look, the kittens still play at the door, and
the noise of shouting children is in the street; but ah! how
shallow is the life they represent, compared with that of which
this dumb canvas tells me! It is better to be a man or a woman,
than to be a child. It is better to be an angel than to be either.
Let us look forward--never backward.




LESSON IV.

REPRODUCTION IN KIND.


"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
ST. PAUL TO THE GALATIANS.

"Ye shall know them by their fruits: Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles?" ST. MATTHEW'S GOSPEL.

It was fitting that one of the most characteristic and beautiful
laws of life should be announced in the opening chapter of the
Holy Bible. It was clothed in the form of an ordinance, as became
it: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, after his kind."