“Aliens from nature! apostates from humanity! is there a crime more fell, more foul, is there any thing worse than a wilful persecutor of his mother? Guilty, by the general verdict of human kind!” Lacretelle, the late member of the Academie Française, beautifully says-- “Je désire pour ami, le fils qui n’a jamais résisté aux larmes de sa mère.” ❦ [Sidenote: Politeness.] Politeness, that cementer of friendship and soother of enmities, is no where so much required and so frequently outraged as in family circles: in near and dear connections it is continually abandoned, and the result is, that all the illusions of life are destroyed, and with them, much of its happiness. ❦ [Sidenote: Submission to Providence.] Pain and pleasure, good and evil, come to us from unexpected sources. It is not there, where we have gathered up our brightest hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not there, where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. _What should this teach us?_ To bow to the great and only Source of light and life humbly, and with confiding resignation. ❦ [Sidenote: A Gentleman.] To constitute a perfect gentleman, the best attributes of the heart and head must be combined. He who would indeed deserve that proud epithet, must be devout, courteous, and accomplished, gentle, generous, and brave; pure in word and deed, disinterested, philanthropic, and, above all, incessant and intrepid in charitably succouring the weak, the lowly, and the poor. It was once affirmed with a pious fervour almost bordering on profanation, that our _Saviour_ was the first true gentleman that ever lived. ❦ [Sidenote: Love silent.] Silence in love, bewrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty, A beggar that is dumb, you know, Deserveth double pity. ❦ [Sidenote: Note concerning the Wandering Jew.] The story of the Wandering Jew is of considerable antiquity. It is told by Matthew Paris, who heard it from an Archbishop of Armenia, who _knew the man_. His original name was Calaphilus, Pontius Pilate’s Porter, who when they were dragging Jesus out of the door of the Judgment Hall, struck him on the back, saying, “Go faster, Jesus, go faster--why dost thou linger?” upon which Jesus looked upon him with a frown, and said, “I am indeed going, but thou shalt tarry till I come.” Soon after he was converted, and took the name of Joseph. He lives for ever, but at the end of every _hundred_ years falls into a fit or trance, from which, when he recovers, he returns to the same age as he was when our Saviour suffered, being then about thirty years. He always preserves the utmost gravity of deportment. He was never seen to smile. He perfectly remembers the death and resurrection of Christ. ❦ [Sidenote: Statues.]