he speaks
becomes instantly his friend. Civility is to a man what beauty is to a
woman. It creates an instantaneous impression in his behalf, while
gruffness or coarseness excites as quick a prejudice against him. It is
an ornament, worth more as a means of winning favor than the finest
clothes and jewels ever worn. Lord Chesterfield said the art of pleasing
is, in truth, the art of rising, of distinguishing one's self, of making
a figure and a fortune in the world. Some years ago a drygoods salesman
in a London shop had acquired such a reputation for courtesy and
exhaustless patience, that it was said to be impossible to provoke from
him any expression of irritability, or the smallest symptom of vexation.
A lady of rank learning of his wonderful equanimity, determined to put
it to the test by all the annoyances with which a veteran shop-visitor
knows how to tease a shopman. She failed in her attempt to vex or
irritate him, and thereupon set him up in business. He rose to eminence
in trade, and the main spring of his later, as of his earlier career,
was politeness. Hundreds of men, like this salesman, have owed their
start in life wholly to their pleasing address and manners.

CULTIVATION OF GOOD MANNERS.

The cultivation of pleasing, affable manners should be an important part
of the education of every person of whatever calling or station in life.
Many people think that if they have only the substance, the form is of
little consequence. But manners are a compound of spirit and
form--spirit acted into form. The first law of good manners, which
epitomizes all the rest is, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
True courtesy is simply the application of this golden rule to all our
social conduct, or, as it has been happily defined, "real kindness,
kindly expressed." It may be met in the hut of the Arab, in the
courtyard of the Turk, in the hovel of the freedman, and the cottage of
the Irishman. Even Christian men sometimes fail in courtesy, deeming it
a mark of weakness, or neglecting it from mere thoughtlessness. Yet when
we find this added to the other virtues of the Christian, it will be
noted that his influence for good upon others has been powerfully
increased, for it was by this that he obtained access to the hearts of
others. An old English writer said reverently of our Saviour: "He was
the first true gentleman that ever lived." The influence of many good
men would be more than doubled if they could manage