The Golden Censer | Page 5

their Wealth will excite the Irresistible Cupidity of their Governments--Burdens of Immense Riches in an Active Land Like This--The Shocking Imbecility of False Poverty--"Appearances"--Popular Errors as to Servants--Big Houses--Story of the Happy Man. Page 300.
Facts About Progress.
Progress the Stride of God--The Field-Hand in 1350--One hundred and Twelve Hours' Labor for a Bushel of Wheat--The same Laborer in 1550, in 1675, and in 1795--Seventy Hours for a Bushel of Wheat--The Same Laborer To-day--Twenty Hours for the Bushel of Wheat--The Children of the Laborer who Came to America--Seven or Eight Hours for a Bushel of Wheat. Page 311.
Failure in Life.
Lightning Is More Apt To hit a Scrag than a Tree Which has Never Been Riven--The Scrags in Society--The Loadstone of Failure at the Foot of the Scrag--The Lesson to be Derived from Hopeless Failure in Others--Sorrows March in Battalions, not as Single Spies. Page 321.
Gains and Brains.
The Man of Success--Eggs Trying to Dance with Stones--Trying to Draw the Prize in a Lottery Without any Ticket--Dray Horses' Honest Belief that the Earth Moves Backward under the Racer's Feet, He Being So Lucky--The Heavy End of the Lifting--How Fortune Tellers Make Their Money--Great Opportunities for All Who Were not Born Tired. Page 325.
Discipline.
One Reason of the Prosperity of the Present Era--Obey Orders--How the Wonders have been Piled Up--Metaphor of the Organ and Its Pipes and Reeds--Sound Your Pipe only in Your Proper Turn, and You will hear Beautiful Music. Page 332.
Books.
We Multiply Our Sensations by Books--Everyone Can have a Library--Books are the Best of Friends--Charm of a Well-Read Comrade--Bindings--A Book as Great a Thing as a Battle--Importance of Some Battles--Our Eyes--How to Judge a Book Rightly--Large Type--Need of Handy Volumes--Aid Others, as a Duty. Page 337.
Friendship.
Reason of the Melancholy Tone which Pervades the Great Writings of the Ages on this Subject--Man Expects to Get More than He Gives--How a man Prepares the Nostrum called Friendship--Unsuccessful Substitution of Selfishness for a Mother's Love--What is Possible in the way of Ordinary Friendship--Spot Friendship--Let us not Rail against Friendship. Page 345.
Envy.
The Basest of all Traits--A Wolf's Den--The Tailless Fox--Envy is Largely Ignorance--Greatness attained only after Arduous Labors--The Tenor and The Stone-Front--Thiers' Long Life--A Critical View of Gladstone's Public Sorrows--Truly Distracting Dilemmas in which Circumstances of Empire Involve Great Men--An appeal to Envy. Page 354.
Contentment.
Mrs. Lofty--First Surprise of the Newly-Rich--The Scotch Mist--The Angel Sent to Conduct an Empire and the One Sent to Sweep a Street--Our Principal Causes of Happiness Free to All--How Rich Men Secure Happiness--The Prisoner and His Three Pins--Happiness Inalienable in Health--A Pleasant View of Egotism as a necessary Ingredient in Our Make-up. Page 362.
Ambition.
The Need of a "Balance of Power" in the Mind--As a General Thing Ambition a Quality to be Curbed--Assassination of Merit by Envy--The Man Qualified to Deal with Ambition--A Picture of His Unhappy Lot, as Illustrated in Napoleon's Life--Poem. Page 368.
The Republic's Anchor.
A Favorite Chapter--The Telegraph Outriding the Storms--The Farmers the Grand Conservative Forces of the Republic--Difference between Business and Farming--How the Farmers Will Settle the Communists and the Magnates--The Farmer's Sons--A Plea for Them--A Picture of the Opportunities which We are Daily Missing. Page 375.
Temperance.
The Drunkard's Wife--A Drama of Horror--Why Society Looks So Calmly on Such Scenes--The Wisdom and Experience of Society--Effort of the Brother to Improve His Sister's Condition--The Result--What Society Is Doing--The Drift of Things--Views of the Future--A Better Time nearly at Hand. Page 386.
A Good Name.
The Highest Type of Reputation, a Silent but Powerful Influence--Two Instances of Good Reputation--Tall Masts Needed for Great Ships--The Difference between Greatness on the Inside of a Man, and Great Appearances on the Outside. Page 395
Worship.
Paramount Importance of Family Services--The Iron Duke's Remark--Sayings of the Wisest and Best--Scenes in Burned Chicago--Newton and La Place--Their Testimony--Victor Hugo: "I believe in the Sublimity of Prayer"--Wordsworth's Apostrophe--Young's Prayer--A Sweet Supplication. Page 400.
The Atheist.
The Owlet Atheism--Hammer and Tongs used to work in Fire--False Headings on News--On The Plains of Chald?a--The Voice of Duty ever in the way of the Atheist--A Creator Demanded by Reason--The Atheist Like Falstaff, Leading a very Scrubby File of Soldiers. Page 410.
The Bible.
The Bible is Authentic, Old, Beautiful--It is the Only Hope We have--It Out-dates the Chinese Empire--Everything Good and Progressive is Founded on It--Practical Value of Studying It--Its Eloquence--Its Triumphs in an Infinitude of Tests. Page 421.
The Evening of Life.
Age the Outer Shore against which Dashes an Eternity--We are on a small Planet, but We Belong to a Larger Celestial Empire--The Undevout Astronomer Insane--Does the Beast Peer into the Stars?--Eternity is not a conceit of Man--Apostrophe to a Patriarch. Page 433.
The Future Life.
Cato's Soliloquy--Promises of God's Word clothed in Syllables of Unsurpassable Sweetness--He that holdeth the Pleiades in His Right Hand--Blissful Forecasts--Shall God weigh out Arcturus to Stop the Unreasoning Clamor of the Fool who Hath Said in His Heart there Is No God? Conclusion. Page 441.

THE GOLDEN CENSER.
Then methought the