"Always think of the good of the whole, rather than of your own individual convenience," says Mrs. Farrar, in her _Young Ladies' Friend_. A most excellent rule; and one to which we solicit your earnest attention. She who is thoroughly imbued with the Gospel spirit, will not fail to do so. It was what our Savior did continually; and I have no doubt that his was the purest specimen of good manners, or genuine politeness, the world has ever witnessed; the politeness of Abraham himself not excepted. TRUE AND FALSE POLITENESS. Every thing really valuable is sure to be counterfeited. This applies not only to money, medicine, religion, and virtue, but even to politeness. We see in society the truly polite and the falsely polite; and, although all cannot explain, all can feel the difference. While we respect the one, we despise the other. Men hate to be cheated. An attempt to deceive us, is an insult to our understandings and an affront to our morals. The pretender to politeness is a cheat. He tries to palm off the base for the genuine; and, although he may deceive the vulgar, he cannot overreach the cultivated. True politeness springs from right feelings; it is a good heart, manifesting itself in an agreeable life; it is a just regard for the rights and happiness of others in small things; it is the expression of true and generous sentiments in a graceful form of words; it regards neatness and propriety in dress, as something due to society, and avoids tawdriness in apparel, as offensive to good taste; it avoids selfishness in conduct and roughness in manners: hence, a polite person is called a _gentle_ man. True politeness is the smoothness of a refined mind and the tact of a kind heart. Politeness is a word derived from the Greek word _polis_, which means a city--the inhabitants of which are supposed, by constant intercourse with each other, to be more refined in manners than the inhabitants of the country. From _polis_, comes our English word _polish_, which signifies an effect produced by rubbing down roughnesses until the surface is smoothed and brightened: hence, we speak of polished minds and polished manners. Persons in good society rub against each other until their sharp points are worn down, and their intercourse becomes easy. The word _urbanity_ comes from the Latin word _urbs_; that, also, means a city, and it signifies politeness, gentleness, polish, for a similar reason.