ay,
To be sung 'neath a summer sky;
But give to me the lips that say
The honest words, "Good-by!"

"Adieu! adieu!" may greet the ear,
In the guise of courtly speech:
But when we leave the kind and dear,
'Tis not what the soul would teach.
Whene'er we grasp the hands of those
We would have forever nigh,
The flame of friendship bursts and glows
In the warm, frank words, "Good-by."

The mother, sending forth her child
To meet with cares and strife,
Breathes through her tears, her doubts, and fears
For the loved one's future life.
No cold "adieu," no "farewell," lives
Within her choking sigh,
But the deepest sob of anguish gives,
"God bless, thee, boy! 'Good-by!'"

--_Anonymous._

777

The sign of goodness in the young is to love the old; and in the old to
love the young.

778

To all, to each, a fair good night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

--_Sir Walter Scott._

779

The Cross is the guarantee of the Gospel; therefore it has been its
standard.

--_Amiel._

780

There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it hardly behooves any of us,
To talk about the rest of us.

--_Robert Louis Stevenson._

781

_Leviticus xix. 16._--"Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer
among thy people."

At a small town in ----shire lives a decent honest woman, who has for
more than forty years gained her livelihood by washing in gentlemen's
families. She gives the highest satisfaction to all her employers, and
has, in several instances, been the whole of that time in the employ of
the same families. Indeed, those whom she has once served never wish to
part with her. She has one distinguishing excellency, it is this:
through all this course of years,--forty--she has never been known, by
either mistress or servant, to repeat in one house what was said or done
in another.

--_John Whitecross_, _Edinburgh, 1835_.

782

Tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as the tale-makers.

--_Sheridan._

783

The inquisitive are the funnels of conversation; they do not