spection always affords little enough to satisfy us, even when engaged in the most philanthropic enterprise, for whatever we may have done, our ideal, the key-note of aspiration, is still unattained. One of the greatest blessings of any occupation, is this little leisure it gives for reflection and regret. Repentance is good, and when the mind stops there, leaving the past to bury its dead, great results follow. Regrets, whether with or without cause, should never bo indulged in. The conscience becomes morbid, the intellect clouded, and the mind is unfitted for the satisfactory performance of any duty or participation in any enjoyment. To prevent this it must be supplied with other food to fill the vacancy, and employ it, something which shall create an interest aside from the mere occupation. The matron of a hospital, or the care-taker of a family of orphan children, finds a rational enjoyment the pleasures of home could not yield unless her presence were needed there for something more than her society. Let the construction of the text be what it may, concerning labor being ordained as a curse, it must be the conviction of every candid mind that it was ordained as a blessing from the beginning of the world,—not that labor which consigns thousands to a cheerless life in crowded attics or sunless basements every hour of the twenty-four, in order to ward off starvation from the door, but the healthful, stimulating exercise for both body and mind every individual craves as the requisite of a sound physical and mental bodily development.
Kate, in her rough, unpolished way, lived out this
