ness. They have only to be known to be despised, they have only to be talked with to be known; and when known and despised, are shunned, and often change their course, and become the vilest slanderers; the jackalls and hyenas of society. Let those who are easily intoxicated and inflated by flattery, sign the pledge of wisdom, and live up to it; and those who have been the manufacturers and retailers, take the same pledge, religiously observe it, and pursue some nobler employment. They will then better fulfil the design of their creation, induce self respect, and secure the esteem of those around them.

FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.

those who depend

On many, seldom find a friend.-Gay.

PURE, disinterested friendship, is a bright flame, emitting none of the smoke of selfishness, and seldom deigns to tabernacle among men. Its origin is divine, its operations heavenly, and its results enrapturing to the soul. It is because it is the perfection of earthly bliss, that the world has ever been flooded with base counterfeits, many so thickly coated with the pure metal, that nothing but time can detect the base interior and ulterior designs of bogus friends. Deception is a propensity deeply rooted in human nature, and the hobby horse on which some ride through life. The heart is deceitful above all things, who can know it? Judas betrayed the Lord of glory with a kiss, and his vile example has been most scrupulously followed ever

since. Thousands have had their property, reputation, and lives sacrificed, under the hissing sound of a Judas kiss.

Caution has been termed the parent of safety, but has often been baffled by a Judas kiss. The most cautious have been the dupes and victims of the basest deceivers. We should be extremely careful who we confide in, and then we will often find ourselves mistaken. Let adversity come, then we may know more of our friends. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, will probably show that they were sunshine friends, and will escape as for their lives, like rats from a barn in flames! Ten to one, those who have enjoyed the most sunshine, will be the first to forsake, censure, and reproach. Friendship, based entirely on self, ends in desertion, the moment the selfish ends are accomplished, or frustrated.

In forming friendships, let the following cautions be observed, as general land-marks. Beware of the flatterer, who takes special care to refer to your beauty, talents, wealth, influence, power, or piety. Beware of those whose tongues are smooth as oil, they are often as drawn swords. Beware of those whose bewitching smiles are enchantment; like the wily serpent, charming the bird, they may contemplate your ruin. Beware of those who are fond of communicating secrets; they expect to obtain yours by reciprocity, and will employ some others to help keep them. Beware of fretful disputatious persons; of the envious, the jealous, the proud, and the vicious.

Beware of the fickle and unstable who are ever perched on the pivot of uncertainty. Beware of the man who invites you to participate in what are styled

"innocent amusements," which often lead to the broad road of ruin. Beware of the man who despises the old fashioned customs of frugality and economy-they are the basis of earthly prosperity. Beware of the man who suddenly commences shaking hands with those he had before considered below him. He has an office in his eye and wants your vote, but is unworthy of it. In the choice and in the preservation of friends, ever remember that caution is requisite at all times, and under all circumstances.

Finally, beware of all those who do not respect the Bible and the Christian religion, the firmest basis on which the superstructure of friendship can be erected.

GAMBLING.

The gathering number, as it moves along,
Involves a vast, accumulating throng,

Who, gently drawn, soon struggle less and less-
Roll in this vortex and its power confess.-Pope.

EVERY device that suddenly changes money or property from one person to another without a quid pro quo, or leaving an equivalent, produces individual embarrassment-often extreme misery. More pernicious is that plan, if it changes property and money from the hands of the many to the few.

Gambling does this, and often inflicts a still greater injury, by poisoning its victims with vice, that eventually lead to crimes of the darkest hue. Usually, the money basely filched from its victims, is the smallest part of the injury inflicted. It almost inevitably leads to intemperance. Every species of offence, on the black

catalogue of crime, may be traced to the gambling table, as the entering wedge to its perpetration.

This alarming evil, is as wide spread as our country. It is practised from the humblest water craft that floats on our canals-up to the majestic steamboat on our mighty rivers; from the lowest groggeries that curse the community, up to the most fashionable hotels that claim respectability—from the hod carrier in his bespattered rags, up to the honorable members of congress in their ruffles. Like a mighty maelstrom, its motion, at the outside, is scarcely perceptible, but soon increases to a fearful velocity; suddenly the awful centre is reached-the victim is lost in the vortex. terested friends may warn, the wife may entreat, with all the eloquence of tears; children may cling and cry for bread-once in the fatal snare, the victim of gamblers is seldom saved. He combines the deafness of the adder with the desperation of a maniac, and rushes on, regardless of danger-reckless of consequences.

In

To the fashionable of our country, who play cards and other games as an innocent amusement, we may trace the most aggravated injuries resulting from gambling. It is there that young men of talents, education, and wealth, take the degree of entered apprentice. The example of men in high life, men in public stations and responsible offices, has a powerful and corrupting influence on society, and does much to increase the evil, and forward, as well as sanction the highhanded robbery of fine dressed black legs. The gambling hells in our cities, tolerated and patronized, are a disgrace to any nation bearing a Christian name, and would be banished from a Pagan community.

Gambling assumes a great variety of forms, from the

flipping of a cent in the bar room for a glass of whiskey, up to the splendidly furnished faro bank room, where men are occasionally swindled to the tune of "ten thousand a year," and sometimes a much larger amount. In addition to these varieties, we have legalized lotteries and fancy stock brokers, and among those who manage them, professors of religion are not unfrequently found.

Thousands, who carefully shun the monster under any other form, pay a willing tribute to the tyrant, at the shrine of lotteries. Persons from all classes, throw their money into this vault of uncertainty, this whirlpool of speculation, with a less chance to regain it, than when at the detested faro bank. It is here that the poor man spends his last dollar-it is here that the rich often become poor, for a man has ten chances to be killed by lightning, where he has one to draw a capital prize. The ostensible objects of lotteries are always praiseworthy. Meeting houses, hospitals, seminaries of learning, internal improvement, some laudable enterprize, may always be found, first and foremost, in a lottery scheme-the most ingenious and most fatal gull trap, ever invented by man or devil.

Some, who are so fortunate as to escape all the gambling gins that have been referred to, get caught in the most refined, and not the least dangerous-the capstone of the climax-that makes awful sweeps among the upper ten thousand-STOCK GAMBLING. This system is as pernicious in principle as the others -as dangerous to those few who have the means to sport in stocks, but, fortunately, the meshes of the net are so large, that the vast multitude of small fish are in no danger from this quarter. All the other seines will hold, even minnows.