Too Good To Be Lost.

TOO GOOD TO BE LOST .

A gentleman in Illinois who is personally acquainted with the facts below stated sends us a report of the followim- good joke as too good to bo lost : ° "Professor Blanchard , President of a college and tho great anti-masonic apostl

e , called upon the parents of a lad y friend of mine . The husband of the young ] a < ty was absent in the city , and tho fact that ho was a Mason came to tho knowled ge of the professor . Being requested to load in the family devotion , ho prayed after this

manner : Wc pray that the husband may become a better man who now hides secrets from the wife of his bosom and tho mother of his children ! " ' ff—m—m , ' instead of 'amen , ejaculated that same mother .

And hero comes in the joke , as she told an acquaintance : "I ' ve been married twelve years and never had a child or the ghost of a child . " Rev . Mr ' . Blanchard used the sacred shield of hospitalit and the sanctity of

y , a family prayer , from behind which ' to assassinate the character of his absent host , and to insult the feelings of the wife in her presence ; but begot no " " Amen " to it , and has probabl y since learned that he made an ass of himself b not knowing

y the dilference between a " wife" and a "mother . " Of all the cowards in the world none are so contemptible as those who assassinate the character of absentees through the formalit y of a prayer . —The Freema .-to / i .

Advice .

ADVICE .

He has told yon the same old story , Told ever anew by wooers The story of pure devotion , ^ Unchanging while life endures—This passionate , palpitating , Persistent lover of yours . He has called you by every title

Which lovers delight to repeat—A queen , a goddess , an angel , With cliuiges tender and sweet—And laid the troublesome treasure Men call a heart at your feet .

[ You ask me what you shall answer ? All , child , can my counsel throw The weight of a thought against him ? Love never hesitates so ! Answer him No , fair daughter , forever and ever , No ! There lives a marvellous insect

In the Southern meadows fur , ' Where the wild white ipomeas And the passion Mowers arc , That even in broad bright sunshine Gleams like a living star . It circles , a Hying jewel , lleautifiil to behold ;

It settles to rest a moment , A globule of molten gold ; Hut once in the hand iiuprisonel , Its colour grows dull and cold .

Voir grasp at a Hashing jewel , Worthy a monarch ' s crown , Glistening , darting , glancing , And glittering up and down . And capture—a sharded beetle , Sluggish and dull and brown ! And thus to a youth ' s mad fancy ,

Is the object of love ' s wild quest — Kechimed above all blessing , Dearest and first and best So long as remote and elusive—Tint worthless when once possessed . So weariness comes of having , Since happiness means pursuit ;

And love grows dwarfish and stinted , And bears but a bitter fruit , For the serpent of self forever Coiling abaut its root .

So lips which have met in kisses Grow chary of tender speech , So hearts which are bound together Grow burdensome cacli to each , Since the only things men value Are those which they cannot reach . So the gainer counts as noihing ,

The blessing that should h ive been ; The conqueror turns indifferent From the conquest he gloried in , Longing , like Alexander , for lovelier worlds to win .

Who cares for Ihe roadside roses Which bloom within grasp of all , While tbeir inaccessible sisters—Less lovely and sweet and tall , But dearer because of their distance - Lean over the garden wall ? Then answer him Xoyoung maiden :

, lie pitiless and serene ; There are heart-sick wives in plenty , Hut an angel is seldom seen . Keep to your cloud , bright goddess ! Stay on your throne , fair queen ! Keystone