We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not that the world treats it so much as a crime.—­Boree.

Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.—­Pericles.

  Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
  Because its virtues are not understood;
  Yet many things, impossible to thought,
  Have been by need to full perfection brought.

  —­Dryden.

Ned Shuter thus explained his reasons for preferring to wear stockings with holes to having them darned:  “A hole,” said he, “may be the accident of a day, and will pass upon the best gentleman, but a darn is premeditated poverty.”

PRAISE

The highest praise for a man is to give him responsibility.

A playwright and an actor were in conversation when the former, who has been none too successful of late, exclaimed gloomily: 

“People will praise my work after I am dead.”

“Well,” said the actor, in a consoling tone, “perhaps you are right, but don’t you think it’s a great deal of a sacrifice to make for a little praise?”

“Well, there’s one thing about the man who sings his own praises.”

“And what’s that?”

“He never has to give the excuse that he has left his music home and can’t play without his notes.”

  The love of praise, howe’er conceal’d by art,
  Reigns, more or less, and glows, in ev’ry heart: 
  The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure;
  The modest shun it, but to make it sure.

  —­Young.

  Praising what is lost,
  Makes the remembrance dear.

  —­Shakespeare.

PRAYERS

A very nice and gentle minister accepted a call to a new church in a town where many of the members bred horses and sometimes raced them.  A few weeks later he was asked to invite the prayers of the congregation for Lucy Grey.  Willingly and gladly he did so for three Sundays.  On the fourth one of the deacons told the minister he need not do it any more.

“Why,” asked the good man, with an anxious look, “is she dead?”

“Oh, no,” said the deacon; “she’s won the steeplechase.”

The two men were adrift in an open boat and it looked bad for them.  Finally one of them, frightened, began to pray.

“O Lord,” he prayed, “I’ve broken most of Thy commandments.  I’ve been a hard drinker, but if my life is spared now I’ll promise Thee never again—­”

“Wait a minute, Jack,” said, his friend.  “Don’t go too far.  I think I see a sail.”

Lindsley had the little hen fast and was trying to bring her head close to the ground.

“What might you be trying to do?” exclaimed her father coming upon the small girl in the yard.