Professor Blaikie commences a paper on "How to Get Rid of Trouble," by saying that once he had occasion to call on the chief of the constabulary force in one of our largest cities. "The conversation having turned on the arrangements for extinguishing fire, the chief constable entered with great alacrity into the subject, and after some verbal explanations, added, 'If you can spare half an hour, I will call out my men, and you shall see how we proceed.' I was taken aback at the idea of the firemen and engines being called out on a fine summer day to let a stranger see them at work; so I thanked him for his offer, but added that I could not think of giving him so much trouble. 'Trouble!' said he; 'what's that? That's a word I don't know.' 'You are a happy man,' was the reply, 'if you don't know the meaning of trouble.' 'No, indeed,' he said. 'I assure you I do not. The word is not in my dictionary.' As I was still incredulous, and wondering whether or not he had lost his senses, he rang the bell, and bade his clerk fetch him an English dictionary. Handing it to me, he said, 'Now, sir, please look and see whether you can find the word "trouble."' I turned to the proper place, and there, to be sure, where the word had been, I found it carefully erased by three lines of red ink. Of course I caught the idea at once. In a great work like that of the police in such a place, trouble was never to be thought of. No inroad that might be required on the ease, or the sleep, or the strength of any member of the force was ever to be grudged on the score that it was too much trouble. In the work of that office the thought of trouble was to be unknown. I felt that I had got a sermon from the chief of police, and a notable sermon, too. The three lines of red ink were as clear and telling as any three heads into which I had ever divided my discourse. It was a thrilling sermon, too--it set something vibrating within me." This incident refers to trouble in the active sense; but even trouble in the sense of sorrow and disappointment may be to a large extent effaced from the family circle by certain red lines. Here is one of them. _Do not make the trouble worse than it really is._ Rather let us resolve to look at the bright side of things. If we had nothing more to think of, the proverbs that have been coined in the mint of hope ought to encourage us. "Nothing so bad but it might have been worse;" "'Tis always morning somewhere in the world;" "When things are at the worst they mend;" "The darkest hour of night is that which precedes the dawn." Let us try to form the habit of thinking how much there is to cheer us even when there may be much to depress; how often, on former occasions of trouble, we have been wonderfully helped; how foolish it is to anticipate evil before it comes.