infidel book, and when he had partly read it, he cast it away, in terror of its insidious influence, for he noticed that although he detected its sophistries, his mind was entangled and hurt.

But if we confine our choice to good books, a love of reading will yield us the most unalloyed pleasure. Said Milton: "A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up to a life beyond life," and Martain Farquhar Tupper has somewhere said: "A good book is the best of friends the same to-day and forever." Friends may fail us, prosperity may vanish, care and trouble may come like an overwhelming flood,-age may advance and we be left in solitude, but the pleasure derived from books will survive all, and prove a most welcome and ready consolation. Washington Irving has writ ten: "When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, books only retain their steady value. When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of better days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow." Reading can thus shape a career, adorn a life, and assuage care and grief. It can take the place of friends and society, and lead us to the companionship of the good and great of all ages. Cultivate, then, this great gift, carefully, wisely and systematically, and it will yield you a rich harvest of invaluable instruction and abiding pleasure.

WHAT TO READ.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

-Carlyle.

COME one has said, "The art of reading is to skip judiciously." The number of books is

legion, and even a whole life-time would be too short to master more than a small proportion of them. When we consider that most persons can devote only the moments of leisure, or the scraps of time snatched from sleep or from their daily toil, how important it is that the few books which can be read, should be of sterling worth, and should contain food for thought which will stimulate the mind and enrich the character." The words of that eminent man, Sir William Hamilton, cannot be too well considered: "Read much, but not many works. For what pur pose, with what intent do we read? We read not for the sake of reading, but we read to the end that we may think. Reading is valuable only as it may supply the materials which the mind itself elaborates. As it is not the largest quantity of any kind of food taken into the stomach that conduces to health, but such a quantity of such a kind as can be best digested; so it

is not the greatest complement of any kind of information that improves the mind, but such a quantity of such a kind as determines the intellect to most vigorous energy. The only profitable kind of reading is that in which we are compelled to think, and think intensely; whereas, that reading which serves only to dissipate and divert our thoughts is either positively hurtful, or useful only as an occasional relaxation from severe exertion. But the amount of vigorous thinking is usually in the inverse ratio to multifarious reading." Prof. Blackie, of Edinburgh University, gives most excellent advice on this subject: "Keep in mind," he says, "that though the library shelves groan with books, whose name is legion, there are in each department only a few great books, in relation to which others are but auxiliary, or it may be sometimes parasitical, and, like the ivy, doing harm rather than good to the pole round which they cling. Stick, therefore, to the great books, the original books, the fountain heads of great ideas and noble passions, and you will learn joyfully to dispense with the volumes of accessory talk by which their virtue has been as frequently obscured as illuminated."

A wise man adds: "It would have been better, in my opinion, for the world and for science, if, instead of the multitude of books which now overlay us, we possessed but a few works, good and sterling, and which, as few, would be therefore more diligently and profoundly studied."

Bulwer, who had a great knowledge of books, gives this suggestion: "In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern. New books revive and re-decorate old ideas; old books suggest and invigor ate new ideas."

And yet it must be borne in mind that while the advice of these great men is eminently sound, and cannot be too closely followed by mature readers, yet it is necessary with many young people to first awaken a taste and love for reading in order to cultivate the habit. With such it is necessary often to begin with popular tales and works of fiction, but these can be selected so as to awaken an appetite for more substantial works. Much of the best literary talent of the age has been engaged in popularizing and presenting, in a fascinating style, history, science, incidents of travel, and the lives of great men, bringing all within the grasp of the child's mind, and making these subjects as interesting as the fairy tales of the old story books. With such books a love of reading can be created, and they will prove a pleasing introduction to the study of the great master-pieces in literature.

But, perhaps, the greatest danger to be avoided in the selection of books, is the undue importance given to works of fiction. Novels, like an army of locusts, penetrate everywhere, and with thousands they displace entirely the study of all higher forms of literaAs they are often written to sell, without any

ture.

moral object in view, they pander to unworthy tastes and base passions, and have a corrupting influence wherever they go.

"The

A gifted divine, in speaking of novels, said: ten plagues have visited our literature; water is turned into blood; frogs and lice creep and hop over our most familiar things, the couch, the cradle and the bread-trough; locusts, murrain and fire are smiting every green thing. I am ashamed and outraged when I think that wretches could be found to open these foreign seals, and let out their plagues upon us; that any satanic pilgrim should voyage to France to dip from the Dead Sea of her abominations a baptism for our sons."

"Above

Goldsmith, himself a novel-writer, said: all, never let your son touch a novel or romance. How delusive, how destructive, are these pictures of consummate bliss! They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness that never existed, to despise the little good that Fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave."

George Augustus Sala has thus depicted the evils of novel reading on girls, and the effect on boys is equally pernicious: "Girls learn from such books to think boldly and coarsely about lovers and marrying; their early modesty is effaced by the craving for admiration; their warm affections are silenced by the desire for selfish triumphs; they lose the fresh and honest feelings of youth while they are yet scarcely developed;