PUBLIC LIBRAR

CHAPTER VI.

SELF-RELIANCE

SWISS hunter, who supported his family, for many years, by hunting the wild chamois in the mountains around his humble chalet, was induced to give up his

abode, and remove to a cottage, which stood beside a pass in the lower Alps. Here, he was often required to

act as guide or host to lost or weary travellers. For these services he frequently received liberal rewards; and, for the first

time in his life, became the possessor of

gold. It fascinated him, and he learned to taste a strange pleasure in hoarding it up, and in listening to its chink, as he counted it unnumbered times.

It happened, on a certain day, while he was en

gaged in hunting, that he found a cavern in a lone mountain nook. He removed a stone which filed the entrance, that he might eat his noontide meal beneath its roof. Judge of his surprise, on entering, to perceive a vase filled with golden coins and glittering ore! The sight enchanted him. He handled the precious treasure, gazed at it, counted the coins, and was half frantic with insane joy. Nor did he stir from the spot until the day had waned. Then he securely closed the cave, for he was afraid to reveal the secret even to his wife, and returned to his cottage to dream of his magnificent discovery.

Day after day, he visited his treasure. From "early morn to dusky eve," he lay beside it, feasting his eyes upon the dazzling wealth. All his interest in his home, his wife and children, seemed extinguished. He no longer bounded over the hills in search of the wild chamois, nor cared to lend his services to the mountain traveller. His family pined for want of food. His own person grew gaunt and poor. His spirit waxed sullen and gloomy. That cave became his world. To watch the vase, and

gloat upon its contents, was his life. The gold demon had enslaved him; he was dead to every other passion, save that terrible idolatry of gold.

One day, as he lay upon the ground, absorbed in counting the money, a portion of the rock that formed the cave fell from above upon his waist, and pinned him to the earth. Vainly he struggled and writhed, to escape from his strange imprisonment. Vain were his cries for aid. The cave was in a spot so wild, that even the hunters of the Alps rarely passed it in their wanderings. There, then, in fearful agony, he perished. And when, after searching vainly for a week, his friends discovered his body the fatal gold was found firmly clutched in his dead fingers.

The folly of this foolish huntsman is so apparent, that pity for his fate is almost lost in indignation at his insane sacrifice of all the interests of life to a destructive passion. My reader shrinks from such an example, with disdainful pity. Yet many of her sex are the victims of a folly equally egregious, and no less dangerous. Possibly my reader may herself

be guilty of spending these golden years of her life in devotion to the frivolous and transitory joy of the passing hour, paying no regard to those qualifications which are absolutely necessary for her subsequent conflict with real life. Her daily, hourly devotion, is paid at the shrine of some idle pleasure, which, like the hunter's gold, sways her as with the enchantment of some great magician. Amused, infatuated, thoughtless, she lives on the plenty of her paternal home, an absolute dependant upon its boun ty. The future, with its thousand possibilities and probabilities of affliction, stands before her, claiming her attention and demanding preparation for its duties. It whispers her need of mental and moral qualifications, as strong foundations within her heart. for self-reliance, in the day of desolation. It bids her imitate the high example of the poet, whc said:

"I from that secret store

Wrought linked armor for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind."

To this whisper she is deaf; or, hearing it, she

turns, like GINEVRA,

"Laughing and looking back, and flying still."

She will live in and for the present only;—for the present, which will not stay with her, but which glides past and leaves her to the mercy of that future, which, in spite of her neglect to prepare for it, will come, with its harsh realities. Will it be wonderful. if its coming should be as the falling of the stone upon the unhappy Swiss, a cause of suffering, of

ruin, of sorrow unto death?-if she should erewhile sit amid the desolations of a life-storm,

"Like a scorched and mildewed bough,
Leafless 'mid the blooms of May?"

I hope, therefore, young lady, you will pluck the fruit of wisdom from my illustration, and learn that one of your first duties is to acquire those qualifications which are necessary to fit you for the emergencies of life, and to enable you to rely upon yourself, if, at any time, your natural protectors should be removed by death, or forsake you through the