PATIENCE.

Patience is better than wisdom; an ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains.  All men praise patience, but few enough can practice it; it is a medicine which Is good for all diseases, and therefore every old woman recommends it; but it is not every garden that grows the herbs to make it with.  When one’s flesh and bones are full of aches and pains, it is as natural for us to murmur as for a horse to shake his head when the flies tease him, or a wheel to rattle when a spoke is loose; but nature should not be the rule with Christians, or what is their religion worth?  If a soldier fights no better than a plowboy, off with his red coat.  We expect more fruit from an apple-tree than from a thorn, and we have a right to do so.  The disciples of a patient Savior should be patient themselves.  Grin and bear it is the old-fashioned advice, but sing and bear it is a great deal better.  After all, we get very few cuts of the whip, considering what bad cattle we are; and when we do smart a little, it is soon over.  Pain past is pleasure, and experience comes by it.  We ought not to be afraid of going down into Egypt, when we know we shall come out of it with jewels of silver and gold.

ON SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES.

Some men never are awake when the train starts, but crawl into the station just in time to see that every body is off, and then sleepily say, “Dear me, is the train gone?  My watch must have stopped in the night!” They always come into town a day after the fair, and open their wares an hour after the market is over.  They make their hay when the sun has left off shining, and cut their corn as soon as the fine weather is ended.  They cry “Hold hard!” after the shot has left the gun, and lock the stable-door when the steed is stolen.  They are like a cow’s tail, always behind; they take time by the heels and not by the forelock, if indeed they ever take him at all.  They are no more worth than an old almanac; their time has gone for being of use; but, unfortunately, you can not throw them away as you would the almanac, for they are like the cross old lady who had an annuity left to her, and meant to take out the full value of it—­they won’t die, though they are of no use alive.  Take-it-easy and Live-long are first cousins, they say, and the more’s the pity.  If they are immortal till their work is done, they will not die in a hurry, for they have not even begun to work yet.  Shiftless people generally excuse their laziness by saying, “they are only a little behind;” but a little too late is much too late, and a miss is as good as a mile.  My neighbor Sykes covered up his well after his child was drowned in it, and was very busy down at the Old Farm bringing up buckets of water after every stick of the house had been burned; one of these days, he’ll be for making his will when he can’t hold a pen, and he’ll be trying to repent of his sins when his senses are going.