lESSBW
378
"Once hit, twiok but."
Vol. vii,
. . . taAr&t f -,.j:j i-r.
. .". ij4M:&Limi
we do ii thing constitutes mantlets, the
root of milliners is our inmost thoughts
mill foldings. Those may bo disguised at
timus, but sooner or laior they will ap
pear in some common, unpremeditated
act.
Metastasis says: "All is hnhil in man.
kind, even virtue itself," and the force of
habit is strikingly shown in one's man
ners. A person may become .so accost,
oined to performing cet tain acts and cour
tesies that he repeats them instinctively;
but if they are not prompted by genuine
goodness mid unselfishness, the manner of
their execution will soon lead one to un
do stand their true motive. Sku.M'.
" ONGE HIT, TWICE 67'."
It is a happy provision for weak hu
man nature that with experience for a
teacher there is no necessity of being
caught twice in the same trap.
When even" the unintelligent brutes
can scarcely be entrapped a second time
in the same place by the same means, why
should not ire, using coiiuik.ii sense, cool
heads, and steady hands, prevent a sec
ond disastious mistake? Of what nc is
experience if not to teach us how to
avoid the breakers on which so many have
been wrecked Its lessons should all
point to the dangerous shallows and sharp
edged rocks lying all around our pathway.
And these lessons Ave should becnrciul to
remember, taking 'he past for our toucher,
that we may the better prepare ourselves
to meet the exigencies of the future.
Or, as Alice Caiy lias said :
Whut thy experience teuchee true.
Be rinlleut to heed:
The wjhdom that we differ too,
Is It-er thun u creed.
Why is it that we are constantly mak
ing so many mistakes? Why are so man
y lives almost useless, wholly frittered
away, producing no fruit, with no gar
nered sheaves to show at the close of tho
harvest as the result of labor well per.
formed. Surely not because men may not
loam, if they only will, that success do
pends to a great extent, if not entirely
upon the personal exertions, foresight,
and crnunon sense reasoning of each in.
dividual, Hint they may win in the battle
of life and come oil' conquerors, for life is
what we make it. Some one has said:
Trying, trying, ulways Hying, falling
down to save a fall; but why may we not
have it: Winning, winning, always win
niug, triumphs through our failures rise?
And these failures of others, if rightly
used, might become the stepping stones
to many more. One man's fault is an
other man's lesson, and the defeat of the
one becomes the victory of the other. No
ship at sea, following in another's path
way, need be wrecke I on the same shoals
or strike on the same rock and sink to
the bottom. If your neighbor's house be
struck with lightning and destroyed, for
want of proper protection, it is your own
fault if, during the next storm, yours too
falls to the ground.
Upon the reasons of your brother's fail
tire ,ou may build your own success.
Experience would teach the world, if
her inllueiicc were not overbalanced by
ambition and foolish pride, those lessons
which, if faithfully learned, might save
many ot the grave mistakes constantly
committed.
The porvenity of human nature de
stroys, in a great measure, the beneficial
results which would follow if her pre
cepts were fulfilled.
Vanity, also, too often leads one to dis
regard the wise teachings of experience,
and to blindly persist in trying everything
for himself. Perhaps it is because one
hates to be smothered, even by truth, that
if ull the world should say the shield is
silver, one would wish all the more to
creep round to that back corner over there
and look out of the eyes of that one poor
ghost who dares to say that it is gold:
unwilling to accept anything as truth
leveu from older and wiser heads than
lis own.
Modesty is fust becoming an antique
) 'Vf 'dMl
