Swiftly glide the years of our lives. They follow each other like the waves of the ocean. Memory calls up the persons we once knew--the scenes in which we were once actors. They appear before the mind like the phantoms of a night vision. Behold the boy rejoicing in the gayety of his soul. The wheels of Time cannot move too rapidly for him. The light of hope dances in his eyes; the smile of expectation plays with his lips. He looks forward to long years of joy to come; his spirit burns within him when he hears of great men and mighty deeds; he longs to mount the hill of ambition, to tread the path of honor, to hear the shouts of applause. Look at him again. He is now in the meridian of life; care has stamped its wrinkles upon his brow; disappointment has dimmed the lustre of his eye; sorrow has thrown its gloom upon his countenance. He looks backward upon the waking dreams of his youth, and sighs for their futility. Each revolving year seems to diminish something from his little stock of happiness, and discovers that the season of youth, when the pulse of anticipation beats high, is the only season of enjoyment. Who is he of aged locks? His form is bent and totters, his footsteps move but rapidly toward the tomb. He looks back upon the past; his days appear to have been few; the magnificence of the great is to him vanity; the hilarity of youth, folly; he considers how soon the gloom of death must overshadow the one and disappoint the other. The world presents little to attract and nothing to delight him. A few more years of infirmity, inanity and pain must consign him to idiocy or the grave. Yet this was the gay, the generous, the high-souled boy who beheld the ascending path of life strewn with flowers without a thorn. Such is human life; but such cannot be the ultimate destinies of man. The best education in the world is that got by struggling for a living.--_Wendell Phillips._ Juvenile Department. CHOOSING OCCUPATIONS. Five little girls sat down to talk one day beside the brook. Miss Lizzie said when she grew up she meant to write a book; And then the others had to laugh, till tears were in their eyes, To think of Lizzie's writing books, and see her look so wise. Miss Lucy said she always thought she'd like to teach a school, And make the horrid, ugly boys obey her strictest rule. Miss Minnie said she'd keep a shop where all the rest must buy, And they agreed to patronize, if "prices weren't too high." Miss Ada said she'd marry rich, and wear a diamond ring, And give a party every night, "and never do a thing!" But Nellie, youngest of them all, shook out each tumbled curl, And said she'd always stay at home, and be her mother's girl. A CHILD AND A WASP.