the education of their children, should look out for and
understand the signs of this temperament. It appears in early childhood;
and a child inclined to fits of depression should be marked as a subject
of the most thoughtful, painstaking physical and moral training. All
over-excitement and stimulus should be carefully avoided, whether in the
way of study, amusement, or diet. Judicious education may do much to
mitigate the unavoidable pains and penalties of this most undesirable
inheritance.

The second class of persons who need wisdom in the control of their
moods is that large class whose unfortunate circumstances make it
impossible for them to avoid constantly overdoing and overdrawing upon
their nervous energies, and who therefore are always exhausted and worn
out. Poor souls, who labor daily under a burden too heavy for them, and
whose fretfulness and impatience are looked upon with sorrow, not anger,
by pitying angels. Poor mothers, with families of little children
clinging round them, and a baby that never lets them sleep; hard-working
men, whose utmost toil, day and night, scarcely keeps the wolf from the
door; and all the hard-laboring, heavy-laden, on whom the burdens of
life press far beyond their strength.

There are but two things we know of for these,--two only remedies for
the irritation that comes of these exhaustions: the habit of silence
towards men, and of speech towards God. The heart must utter itself or
burst; but let it learn to commune constantly and intimately with One
always present and always sympathizing. This is the great, the only
safeguard against fretfulness and complaint. Thus and thus only can
peace spring out of confusion, and the breaking chords of an overtaxed
nature be strung anew to a celestial harmony.

THE POPULAR LECTURE.

The popular lecture, in the Northern States of America, has become, in
Yankee parlance, "an institution"; and it has attained such prevalence
and power that it deserves more attention and more respect from those
who assume the control of the motive influences of society than it has
hitherto received. It has been the habit of certain literary men, (more
particularly of such as do not possess a gift for public speech,) and of
certain literary magazines, (managed by persons of delicate habit and
weak lungs,) to regard and to treat the popular lecture with a measure
of contempt. For the last fifteen years the downfall of what has been
popularly denomin