best thing
he could find in the market. The philosopher and his guests sat down
the next day at the table. They had nothing but tongue--four or five
courses of tongue--tongue cooked in this way, and tongue cooked in that
way, and the philosopher lost his patience, and said to his servant,
"Didn't I tell you to get the best thing in the market?" He said, "I did
get the best thing in the market. Isn't the tongue the organ of
sociality, the organ of eloquence, the organ of kindness, the organ of
worship?" Then Xanthus said, "To-morrow I want you to get the worst
thing in the market." And on the morrow the philosopher sat at the
table, and there was nothing there but tongue--four or five courses of
tongue--tongue in this shape, and tongue in that shape--and the
philosopher again lost his patience, and said, "Didn't I tell you to get
the worst thing in the market?" The servant replied, "I did; for isn't
the tongue the organ of blasphemy, the organ of defamation, the organ of
lying?"

"I can reform my people," said Peter the Great, "but I cannot reform
myself." He forbade all Russians to wear beards, and to quell the
insurrection which resulted, he had 8000 revolters beheaded. With a
hatchet he began the ghastly work. He had his own son beheaded.

He who cannot resist temptation is not a man. He is wanting in the
highest attributes of humanity. The honor and nobleness of the old
"knight-errantry" consisted in defending the innocence of men and
protecting the chastity of women against the assaults of others. But the
truer and nobler knighthood protects the property and the character, the
innocence and the chastity of others against one's self. We should all
be posted upon our weak points, for after all there are many emergencies
in life when these weak points, not our strong ones, will measure our
manhood and our strength. Many a woman whom a mouse would frighten out
of her wits would not shrink from assisting in terrible surgical
operations in our city or war hospitals, and many an officer and
soldier who would walk up to the cannon's mouth without a tremor in
battle, would not dare to say his soul was his own in a society parlor.
Many a great statesman has quailed before the ringer of scorn of a
fellow-Congressman, and has been completely cowed by a hiss from the
gallery or a ridiculing paragraph in a newspaper. We all have tender
spots, weak spots, and a man can never know his strength who does not
study his weaknesses.