warm during the inclement season of the year." To the young wife and the young women he gave green Taffeta for dresses, silk neck-kerchiefs from Milan and other feminine adornments. The young forester received an excellent, double-barrelled gun, whose walnut stock was beautifully inlaid with silver. "You, dear father," Anthony said to the old forester, "must no longer go hunting; you must henceforward rest from your many labors. You need something strengthening in your old days. The basket there is filled with flasks of the best Rhenish wine. And here is a goblet also." Anthony handed him a silver goblet, elegantly gilded on the inside. There was engraved on the outside a wreath of oak-leaves encircling these words: "Presented to my dear father, Frederick Gruenewalt in remembrance of Christmas-Eve, 1740, by his grateful son, Anthony Kroner, on Christmas-Eve, 1768." The old forester embraced Anthony with tears in his eyes. But Anthony in addition gave him a rouleau of gold. "Dear father," he said, "you have expended a large sum upon me. It would not be right, if your other children and your grandchildren should suffer stint on that account." The honest old man was astonished and did not wish to take the present. But Anthony said: "It is nothing less than a present from me. The gracious Prince has remembered me so richly, and his present gave me twofold pleasure, since it placed me in a position to contribute something towards the payment of an old debt, which I never can fully pay." Every one was very much surprised. The old wife said: "Oh Anthony, how could we have imagined on the ChristmasEve on which you came to our house for the first time, that you would ever prepare us such a happy Christmas-Eve; save us, through the Prince, from such dire suffering; and repay us so richly for what we were doing for you!" "God has done it," said Anthony. "He led me to your house, so that He might bless both you and me abundantly. To His name be all the praise !" "But," added Anthony, "you must now permit me to leave immediately." What, how, why?" they all exclaimed astonished. Anthony replied: "I must now go to Herr Riedinger's. I hope to be able to attend Christmas service there, to give my excellent Instructor an unexpected pleasure by my visit, and to bring him here to-morrow evening. Then we will all enjoy right pleasantly the remaining Christmas Holidays and the rest of the year together." All accompanied Anthony to the coach. On the evening of the next day, he returned with Herr Riedinger, and the old forester's house in the dismal forest lodged, during the following days, those who were as happy as any who have ever lived upon earth, What remains of Anthony's history can be summed up in a few words. Anthony asked the old forester and his wife to give him their daughter Louisa in marriage. Both joyfully consented. "Oh, Louisa," said the old grandmother, "when you gave Anthony that little apple for a Christmas present, I never thought he would take you as a bride to the altar." The marriage festival was as joyous a day as had ever been celebrated in the forester's house. Anthony purchased a house for himself in the city, where, as a popular painter, he had a great deal to do, and lived in the most blessed harmony with Louisa. The following spring the Prince arrived quite unexpectedly at Felseck, his Hunting-seat, bringing with him Counsellor Mueller and an excellent man well versed in the management of forests. The Head-forester was quite surprised, and expected but little advantage to himself from this visit. "You have exceeded my orders," said the Prince to him. "I was indeed induced by your representations to deprive the old forester of his situation, and disposed to transfer the young forester to a very menial position in the forest; but to thrust the whole family so jnhumanly out of the forester's house, as you designed, never entered my mind. Let us, however, first make an examination of the forester." The special district of the Head-forester was in a lamentable condition. "In the reports that he has made me," said the Prince, "everything looked admirably. All was so prettily written and ruled as if by the card. But I find it different in the forests. In many places there is manifestly much more wood cut than appears in his accounts. The fellow has deceived me shamefully." The Head-forester, as it further appeared, had sold to a neighboring iron-furnace, by degrees, some thousand loads of wood more than he mentioned in his report. In order to meet his great and almost princely expenses, he had not only squandered his own property and plunged himself in debt, but, in addition, had been unfaithful to his Prince. The latter dismissed him and required him to make good his defalcation. The poor Herr von Schilf thenceforth lived in very needy circumstances upon his small estate, overburdened as it was with debt. The Prince found the old forester's district in excellent condition He visited him personally at his house, in the presence of his family expressed his satisfaction, and conversed kindly with them all. Before he mounted his horse, which a servant held by the bridle in front of the forester's house, he said to the son: "Henceforth you are the forester. Only continue to do as well as you have heretofore." "You," said the Prince to the old forester, ແ you are somewhat old, but by no means the superannuated old man that Herr von Schilf represented you. In spite of your age, you are still in possession of your faculties. I cannot lose you from my service. You will understand me, when I say, in parting with you: Farewell! Herr Head-forester." HOW TO MAKE AND UNMAKE ENEMIES. BY THE EDITOR. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."-Rom. xii. 20, 21. Three things are hard to do with one's enemies, which ought to be done. 1. To understand the cause of their enmity. 2. To appreciate their difficulty to overcome it. 3. To be able to treat them in a Christian spirit. Enmities usually do not spring from one cause but many. Often they originate in causes, over which the persons cherishing them have no control. Sothetimes family feuds are entailed from parents to children, through successive generations. Many a man has inherited a quarrel from his father, which embittered his life and embarrassed every honest and generous effort. Some men are born enemies. Constitutionally suspicious, mistrustful, envious, full of prickly points, always hating and hurting somebody. Such have few friends, and these few are more attached to them from pity than affection. These deserve and need our sympathy. They can not help it, that they are natural enemies; that they are Ishmaelites, whose "hand is against every man," even though every man's hand is not against them. It is much harder for them to cherish a friendly spirit towards their fellows than for many others. Few appreciate their difficulty, and those few will bear with their thorny nature, and seek to heal their sores by gentle forbearance and charity. Some are born with "the black eye," as the Arabs call envy. They cannot bear the idea, that any one should have better clothing, a better house, or better manners than they have. Plutarch says, as often as such "see the cattle of those they have no kindness for, their dogs or their horses in a thriving condition; they sigh, fret, and set their teeth; and show all the tokens of a malicious temper, when they behold their fields well tilled, or their gardens adorned and beset with flowers." Men are often themselves to blame for having enemies. When Plato was told, that he had many enemies who spoke ill of him, he replied: "It is no matter, I shall live so that none will believe them." Trustful people usually have few such. The mistrustful can not be trusted. The suspecting are the first to be suspected. Garrulous people, rattle-brains, whose tongues are evermore wagging, have few friends. Tale-bearers as the Bible calls them, scandal mongers, who like vultures are ever scenting after some disgusting object-these are the disagreeable people, whom none can love, whom none can thank. They are the first to find out the defects of their neighbors, the faults and fall of the feeble. Excitable, irritable people are troubled with enemies. Be they never so sincere and earnest, they evermore get into trouble with their fellows. The least provocation will set them in a rage, ignite their passion. The fire burns within them; they must let it out. Thus the person in a rage must uncork his heart; his wrath boils over in hot rageful words. Soon the passion will calm down, the heart becomes cool, but the hot words have escaped, and hurt somebody; perhaps made life-long enemies. If anger must needs come, then we should "be angry and sin not." One of the late Dr. Spencer's parishioners in Brooklyn, New York, met him hurriedly urging his way down the street one day; his lip was set, and there was something strange in that grey eye. "How are you today, doctor?" he said, pleasantly. He waked as from a dream, and replied soberly, "I am mad!" It was a new word for a mild, true-hearted Christian; but he waited, and with a deep, earnest voice went on "I found a widow standing by her goods thrown in the street; she could not pay the month's rent; the landlord turned her out; and one of her children is going to die; and that man is a member of the church! I told her to take her things back again. I am on my way to see him." Control and subdue violent passion, and above all, seal the lips against its hot and damaging utterance. Like water spilt upon the ground, once it has flown forth it can not be gathered back. "A word which is the highest of all things, both gods and men inflict the heaviest penalties." So says Plato. And a greater than Plato says: "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." Matthew xii. 36. Some wise men thus tempted count one hundred before they open their lips. Some pray the Lord's prayer before they speak. Words rashly spoken have separated hearts forever; hearts that should have been cemented together by ties of undying love. Few passages in our English tongue excel in beauty of expression, in touching tenderness, that found in Coleridge's Christabel, wherein he describes the life-long alienation of Sir Leoline and Lord Roland de Vaux, of Tryermaine. They had been ardent friends in boyhood and youth. In a fit of passion they separate. With proud disdain they harbor bitter hatred, and stay apart. Still the sad ruin of their early friendship sleeps in sad silence in their hearts. "Alas! they had been friends in youth; But never either found another The marks of that which once hath been." A charming poem is this Christabel. Christabel is old Sir Leoline's lovely daughter. At night she goes out in the wood, near her father's castle "She has had dreams all yester-night Of her own betrothed Knight: And she in midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away." Beneath a huge oak tree, in the solemn hush of midnight, she kneels in prayer. She hears some one moaning near by. She breathes another prayer, then with timid fear approaches the sorrowful one. It is a lost lady, who "scarce can speak for weariness." She is Lord Roland's lovely daughter, Geraldine. Yestermorn five warriors carried her away from her father's castle, and left her under this tree "scarce alive." Christabel brings the poor lady to her father, Lord Roland's ancient foe. Leoline listens to her sad story. His knightly heart swells high with rage. Forgetful of her age, he swears that he will punish her cruel abductors. "He spake: his eye in lightning rolls! For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned Bracy, the bard of Leoline, with music sweet and loud, must bear the good news of her deliverance to her father's castle. "Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are fleet, |