tle, had attracted the
savings of the people, fell into the hands of a clique of scoundrels and
was compelled to suddenly suspend, the President flying to a distant
land to escape the penalties of his crimes. When thirteen thousand
depositors were thus confronted with total or partial ruin, there was
but one man in a great city whom they would trust to enter the
desecrated temple of their hopes and set to rights the treasure yet
unstolen. This man came

LIKE CINCINNATUS FROM HIS FARM--

like a father to his children--and from the hearts of plundered widows
and orphans there breathed relief in every sigh. In peaceful times this
great man was seldom heard of; rogues could be elected over him to
places of usual trust; but, in a crisis, his whole biography seemed
embossed upon the people's hearts, rising forth like muscles in an
agony.

Again a city--itself an exhalation, rising like Milton's hall of
Pandemonium--perished in a night. Where, in one week, there had been
one hundred "leading candidates" for Mayor, in the next week there was
none so rash as to offer himself. A stricken city--the pity of a
Christlike world--cast its eyes upon one citizen; and he, as an act of
supreme duty, took the perilous post of helmsman through a storm that
unsettled the deeps of credit and prosperity all over the earth.

In each of these illustrations party politics played no part. Tall masts
were needed for the great ships, and these two men, like red wood
patriarchs, touched hard against the zenith of the people's vision.
Admirable tributes! Magnificent rewards of life-times of virtue and high
character!

THE SILENT GROWTH OF REPUTATION.

How does a man become so great that malice and envy and utter hatred
cannot by their constant stings infect his blood? How can a man silently
amass a capital of virtuous renown which, when the clear vision of
adversity is given to the people, will show with unerring certainty his
assets and liabilities of character? It is hard to say. Accidents and
circumstances so surround us all that we are the clay, baked either in
fair moulds or foul. When the mould is made we have the least judgment;
yet when the clay is baked we must abide.

Josh Billings has said that, "after the age of forty, a man cannot form
new habits; the best he can do is to learn to steer the old ones." Yoke,
therefore, the ox you call Firmness with the one you call Contentment.
When you come to drive them down the road the nei