Items of Interest.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 455, 19 January 1905, Page 7

Items of Interest.

HABIT is'the magistrate of our lives; -and, therefore, we. should soe that we have good habits.—Lord Bacon. Great men are not bom for themselves; great powers on which all stand and gazo are meant for the good of all mankind.— Bossuet. . - I hold it true whate'er befall, I feel it when I sorrow most: 'Tis better to have loved,and lost Than never to have loved at all, ,'—Tennyson. You can no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness ; you must keep it pure if you would have it pure, and threw no stones into it if you would have it quiet.—-Ruskin. Sincere, unselfish, human affection is always beautiful: -it is is unearthly ; it is a message from a better land; as the river takes its swooping eddies from the mountain-springs, so the warmth and brightness, of the human heart is from the love of God.—Knox-Little.

It is true faith that renders us citizens of heaven. Faith according to the Gospel is the principle of life ; it is-.the spark that, spreading daily more and more, becomes a living flame, and shines on us more and more like a star in heaven. Without faith there is no good work,, nor upright life, that can avail us. However great be the sin, the arms of Divine grace are wider still and embrace all who turn to God.—Dante.

The. work for God and ho longer against Him is more than a rule of life; it is an emancipation. Any life—the humblest—is dignified by it, and stamped with something Divine. That I have power left me to act—that I>know I am acting on the side of good—these are thoughts to, dry up all hysterical tears from the cheek ; nay, they give strength to bear the real, as distinct "from the ideal sorrows of life.—Dr. Thomson.

My impression is, that the young men of to-day do not study their business as a man studies a profound problem. They do not make themselves, masters, intellectually, of all its ramifications and possibilities. They -work .because they must, and not because 'to work is'a part of life's best discipline, I have been greatly surprised in talking with our merchants to find how much they know practically of the world they live in, how-carefully they have followed the channel of their own business Ts~all : ~its Various directions, so that they can tell its" exact influence upon any given class in society ; how they have reckoned the exact influence of the gold market, the grain or cotton crop, or a startling editorial hr a daily newspaper upon their trade. Their business'demands of them that they shall know all about the grave problems of political economy, and even the movements of philanthropy. One cannot be successful as a merchant without becoming a careful student Hence it is that the business men become our most efficient public officers!—G. H. Hepworth. There is a rapture in gazing on this tamplJH the AM —theß visiMM In efl wheaH or thdß