If this be so, there is also nothing disagreeable in death--only in the fearthought about it--and hence the one only bull's-eye we have been sure of hitting--the cause of fear of death--does not exist, except in our hopes or our fears. Many persons who are in the habit of apprehending cause for fearthought about the future, and who spend much of their time in worry, would not like to be put down in the category of false prophets, and yet their apprehension must be false in the ratio of chances of a million to one. Thought about chance, as related to forethought, and from the point-of-view of the speculator or gambler, suggests the absurdity of wasting any good coin--calm and happiness--by "laying it on"--betting on--fear. The chances against having "coppered" the right fear are not only _not even_, but are ten to one against--an hundred to one against--or more--never less. Even if you should win by correctly guessing a fear, you would get back again none of the happiness that you had sacrificed--would not even get your "stake" back. As a matter of actual experience, the following incident is a good example: A young man employed in a publishing house, where the proprietor was afflicted with the fuss-and-fret-habit, contracted the disease, and unconsciously became a victim to its toils. Robust good health began to give way to languor that induced dyspepsia and other contingent disorders, until suicide stared the young man in the face and haunted his dreams. One day some one whispered a suspicion in the young employee's ear that was directed at worry and anger as the causes of his ill-health and unhappiness and the thought led his systematic habits-of-business to suggest "keeping tab" on at least one of the suspects, to see if it were the liar and thief, as charged. Each day, when worry made its predictions, record of them was carefully kept, and at the end of the month the reports were checked up by results. _Only three per cent. of the predictions were even remotely realized!_ The old proprietor of the business, through whom the contagious poison started, is dead, and the happy young menticulturist owns the business, which has become very successful by influence of the sunny optimism of its new owner, which attracts trade unconsciously to it. LOVE CANNOT BE QUALIFIED. The merit of loving is in the act, and should not--cannot--be qualified by the merit or demerit of the object under consideration. There may be more effort required, perhaps, in loving something that seems to us unlovely, but no more virtue in so doing, as loving, like virtue, is its own reward.