We force our roses before their season To bloom and blossom that we may wear, Why perfect buds are so few and rare. To covet the prize, yet shrink from the winning— Better the old slow way of striving, And counting small gains when the year is done, Than to waste our forces all in contriving, And to grasp for pleasures we have not won. My young friends, read biography. Changing somewhat the poet's language Lives of great men best will teach us How to make our lives sublime. It is said that Alexander worshiped the memory of Achilles, making his life and deeds a constant study. He carried Homer's poems continually with him, that he might read, over and over, the description of his achievements. This made him the great warrior he was. Saul of Tarsus worshiped the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and carried his spotless moral character, his matchless words of wisdom, his towering philosophy, and his condescending kindness and sympathy, ever before his mind, his heart bursting with the experimental consciousness of the fact that he possessed a truth the knowledge of which would give every man who attained it not only joy and peace for time, but make him happy, the son of a King throughout all eternity. With such an example and with such a consciousness, is it any wonder that the proud Pharisee Saul became the humble Apostle Paul, the mighty soldier of the cross? Alexander's model was imperfect, and the crown which he wore so gloriously was laid aside and placed by selfish hands upon ambitious and unworthy heads when, at the early age of thirty-three, he died in Babylon. Not so with Paul, who, when he came to die, recognized that he was just ready to enter upon his glory, and standing, as it were, upon the very apex of time, looked back over the track and viewed himself in the neck of experience. He saw the bloody lash with which he had been scourged, the cruel stocks in which he had been fastened, the angry sea upon which he had been wrecked, the stones with which he had been beaten, the chains with which he had been bound, the dungeons into which he had been cast, his perils before persecuting Gentile courts, and his dangers in the midst of hostile Jewish brethren; yet amid it all he had come out victorious. Is it any wonder he said: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith?" Then turning his face in the other direction, God let him see his reward-an eternal "crown of righteousness," that he should wear for ten thousand times ten thousand years. Alexander wore his crown about fifteen or seventeen years. What was all that compared to Paul's deathless and eternal honors? My friends, life's horn, after all, is but the beginning of the great and infinite existence which lives forever; and I believe that man in heaven itself will continue to broaden and grow and develop and expand, reaching nearer and nearer continually to the perfection, wisdom, and likeness of his God. If this is so of heaven, the reverse must be true of hell. May God direct and guide us to enter aright "life's horn," and bring us out like Paul in the end! BEAUTY A DUTY. consulting many authors we shall find that the definitions of beauty vary somewhat, according to taste, temperament, and vocation. Michael Angelo, the great artist, says: "Beauty is the purgation of superfluities." The too philosophic Socrates declared: "Beauty is a short-lived tyranny." The emotional Keats wrote: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." The pious Bailey called it "the fringe on the garment of the Lord." The musical Mendelssohn observed: "The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety." Halleck sadly said: "Beauty is the fading rainbow's pride." The corrupt Ovid called it "a frail good." "Beauty is truth, and truth is beauty," said another; and so we might multiply definitions. Again, different minds have conceived differently of beauty's power. Pope says: "Beauty draws us with a single hair." "To make happy," wrote Steele, "is the empire of beauty." Shakespeare declares that "all orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth; and again he says that "beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold." Pascal observes: "If the nose of Cleopatra had been a little shorter, it would have changed the history of the world." Keats says: "It is the eternal law that first in beauty should be first in might." Bartol declares that beauty is an "omnipresent deity." Schiller exquisitely writes: "It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful that you can penetrate into the realm of knowledge." With such conceptions of the nature and efficacy of the beautiful, I feel free to lay down the proposition, "Beauty is a duty;" and I desire especially to apply the subject as the duty of woman-with such limitations, of course, as embrace the beautiful in the true and the good. Woman's charm is her beauty, whether physical, mental, or moral. The quality does not so appropriately apply to man. Personally he would despise to be called beautiful, pretty, or nice. He does not object to the handsome, the splendid, or the grand; but he never enjoys the caricature of feminine qualities or accomplishments. The rugged, the picturesque, the sublime and lofty, suit him better. The massive frame, the Websterian brow, the roughly-chiseled, yet classic, feature become him more; and what is physically true of him is indexical of his mental and moral mold. We prefer that sublimity and greatness in man which challenge our reverence, homage, and awe; but in woman that beauty and pathos which evoke our sympathy, admiration, and love. The peculiar characteristics in both have their peculiar enchantment; but, as in the objects of nature, we are moved by them differently. The towering peak, the storm-girt cloud, the hurtling thunder, the boundless prairie, the heaving ocean-all these inspire us with a wondrous awe, at a reverential distance. The sweetness of the opening rose, the melodies of woodland warblers, the gambols of innocent children-these excite within us the warmth and glow of the beautiful; and our hearts are affection ately drawn about such scenes with the rapture of a tender entrancement. So, respectively, are we moved by the grand or the beautiful in the person, life, and character of individuals. In man the sublime characteristically affects us with homage and awe; in woman the beautiful entwines about our hearts a hundred chords of sympathy and love. In the very nature of things, then, my subject is applicable alone to woman. It is her singular province to be beautiful, and she has no right to be any thing else but the very impersonation of the beautiful. Corresponding with this first conception of my subject, I present here an ideal picture of a personally beautiful woman. She manifests the conscious mark of intellectual and moral strength clothing her wellproportioned and exquisitely chiseled features, which are also warmed and animated by a sweet and queenly expression. She has the air of independence and selfconfidence, without immodesty or boldness; and she is not to be stigmatized with that doll-baby "pretty" which is so often confounded with the beautiful, and which is generally the sign of effeminacy and weakness, having no force of mind or character. Of course we all have our ideals of physical beauty, and, having my own, I have here given my conception from the stand-point of harmony between the physical, mental, and moral. First of all, let me say that it is her duty to be personally beautiful. Every personal attraction excites the attention and interest of mankind, and such attraction should inspire its admiration and affection. This power of attraction is a force essential to woman's weakness, and it should be cultivated and utilized as an element for good. All beauty is power, especially personal beauty, and nothing but insensi |