BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS.



WHAT we think is more or less revealed by our faces. Those versed in human nature can discern the workings of the mind by the expression of the countenance. Envious thoughts give a dissatisfied expression to the face, and all evil thoughts cut the features into ugly shapes. Pure, noble, and beautiful thoughts leave their impress upon the countenance, and fashion the features into almost angelic loveliness.

Dear children, beauty of soul may be cultivated by cherishing beautiful thoughts. 

Poetry is the most beautiful part of literature. It excites the sympathies and appeals to the heart. I advise you to store your minds in youth with gems of poetry. 

In after-years, memory will delight to dwell upon those pearls of thought, and perhaps in some dark hour, a verse will come to the mind and prove a ray of light.

Character is affected by thought. The most beautiful thoughts are those of God and Heaven. Think upon these subjects, and your dispositions will grow gentle and lovely. This inner life will shine on your countenances, and attract others to Him who is the great Source of all beauty and love.




 ELIZA H. MORTON. 




FLOWERS IN THE WINDOWS.


IT is the fashion to have flowers in the windows. I am glad of that. It is a pretty fashion, a sweet fashion, and one that never can grow old or become ludicrous because of being so, as modes in robes and bonnets must. Even a "confection" of the most fashionable of modistes may be pronounced "horrid" and "funny" some day; but the geranium on some window sill, the roses on your flower stand, the hanging basket over which the delicate vine leaves droop, and where the dainty dew-plant blooms, set a fashion that no other generation can do more than copy. I like to see the great stands and pots of painted china the best work of the florist in the windows of the rich; but I will tell you what I like more: the flowers that bloom behind the panes of the poorest dwellings.

When, far up in a tenement window, or in some laborer's little hut in the suburbs, I see green things growing, I know that there, poor as it is, is a home, and comparatively a happy one. The wretched have no time for flowers. The suffering woman whose husband comes home to beat her has no heart for them. You never saw flowers in any window where the house-mother was not honest and sober, and with a sense of tidiness and beauty. Where flowers bloom, the children have clean faces, and the growing girls something else to do besides leaning out of the window or gossiping in the street. You may find the coarsest garments, the homeliest fare and unremitting toil under that roof, but never squalor, never disgrace, never any of those things that lead to the prison and the poor-house.