of the detail of common wants, and so appreciative of the aspirations of the people, as to be the best possible expression of social worship and common petitions, will do more to lift the average prayer meeting out of decrepitude, not to say disgrace, than can be done by any other means. If nonEpiscopal Protestants wish to learn why it is that the Episcopal Church makes converts with such comparative ease, they need not go outside of our suggestion for their information.

American Incivility.

THERE is, most undoubtedly, something in the political equality established by American institutions which interferes with the development of civility among those who occupy what are denominated the lower walks of life. It is hard to see why this should be so. One would naturally suppose that political equality would breed reciprocal respect among all classes and individuals, no less than self-respect. Certainly there could hardly be a better basis of good manners than self-respect and respect for others; yet, with everything in our institutions to develop these, together with a respect for woman which is entertained in no other country with which we are acquainted, it is not to be denied that among the workers of the nation politeness is little known and less practiced. A man who steps into Washington Market, with a good coat on, looking for his dinner, will receive the utmost politeness of which the stall-keeper is capable, and this will consist in calling him "boss"-a boorish concession to civility for the sake of trade. The courteous greeting, the "Sir," and the "Madam," the civil answer, the thousand indescribable deferences and attentions, equally without servility or arrogance, which reveal good manners, are wanting.

It all comes, we suppose, of the fear of those who find themselves engaged in humble employments, that they shall virtually concede that somebody somewhere is better than themselves. It is singular that they should voluntarily take a course that proves the fact that they are so unwilling to admit to themselves and others. The man who undertakes to prove that he is as good as a gentleman, by behaving like a boor, volunteers a decision against himself; while he who treats all men politely builds for himself a position which secures the respect of all whose conduct is not condemned by his own. The American is a kinder man than the Frenchman, and bettered-natured than the Englishman, but the humble American is less polite than either. One of the charms of Paris to the traveling American grows out of the fact that it is one of the first places he visits, and that then, for the first time in his life, he comes into contact with a class of humble people who have thoroughly good manners. He is not called "boss," or " hoss." He is himself put upon his good behavior, by the thoroughly courteous treatment he receives among railway officials,

shop-keepers, waiters at café and hotel, cab-drivers, &c. The "bien ! Monsieur," and "bien! Madame," which responds to one's requests in Paris, is certainly very sweet and satisfactory after: "all right. boss; you can bet on't."

Where the cure for our National trouble is com.. ing from, it is hard to tell. There was a time, fifty years ago, when there was a degree of reverence in American children, and at least a show of good manners. Great respect to those of superior age and culture was then inculcated, and at least formal courtesy exacted. Those of country breeding who are old enough remember the strings of school children at the road side, who arrayed themselves for the formal exhibitions of courtesy to the passenger. Certainly all this training is done with, and such a sight as this we presume has not been witnessed in America within twenty-five years. Even the men and women-fathers, mothers, and teachers of fifty years ago, had receded from the courteous habits of previous generations. In the old colonial, and even later days, great respect was paid to dignities. The clergyman was reverenced because he was a clergyman, and occupied the supreme position of teacher of the people. He was reverenced not only because of his holy calling, but because he was a scholar. All this has gone by. The clergyman, if he is a good fellow, is very much liked and petted, but the old reverence for him, and universal courtesy toward him, are unknown.

Are the people any better for all this change? We think not, and we do not doubt that the change itself has much to do with the habits of incivility of which we complain. Men must have some principle of reverence in them, as a basis of good manners, and this principle of reverence in the modern American child has very little development. He comes forward early, and the first thing he does in multitudes of instances is to lose his respect for his parents. Indeed, courtesy toward parents is in no way exacted. Poor men and women try to give their children better chances than they had themselves, and the children grow up with contempt for those whose sacrifices have raised them to a higher plane of culture. They call the teacher "Old Snooks," or "Old Bumble," or whatever his name may happen to be. It is not unjust to declare that there is in America to-day no attempt, distinctly and definitely made, to cultivate a spirit of reverence in children.

We acknowledge that we have no faith in any attempt to reform the manners of the adult population of the country. Our efforts to make sober men out of drunkards, and total-abstinence men out of moderate drinkers, are failures. Our temperance armies are to be made entirely out of children. We can raise more Christians by juvenile Christian culture, than by adult conversion, a thousand to one. So it will be in this matter of National politeness. The parents and teachers of the country can give us a polite people, and this by the cultivation of the

artist will do when he is hard up for a modelpaint himself. "Cheap and verra improving," as canny Scotch Wilkie said when he was caught at it. I never did invent a plot, but I think I could do it in the course of time.

The perplexity is, how to get together scene, incident, character and plot in one story! If it had not been done, I should say it could not be done In fact I don't think it is done, very often.

Breakfast, Socially Considered.

BREAKFAST, according to the usual American idea, is a hurried half-way place of entertainment between bed and business: a mere halt for supplies before taking the road; a glimpse at the new day through the medium of a grumpish dressing-gown, buck-wheat cakes, and a damp newspaper-a whispered colloquy with the cook going on at one end of the table, and the children scuffling off to school from the other. It was our neighbors in Boston, we believe, who first gave us the hint of its æsthetic and hospitable capabilities. The late dinners of city life long ago thrust from us the possibility of keeping up the old-fashioned pleasant meal of " tea," about which the whole family, and its one or two favorite guests, were wont to gather. It was lucky thought in somebody to transfer its charm and uses back to breakfast, the early morning hours being, for most business men, the real leisure of the day.

a

Dinner is always more or less a matter of state and preparation, to which we carry all the burden of anxiety rolled up since morning; our very jokes are feverish and eager; but at breakfast we stand at ease in mind and body. The house is clean and freshly dressed. Joe and Bob have not yet begun to squabble; the coffee sends a hungry whiff through the bright frosty air; the fresh dew, in a word, sparkles for us, not only on the glass of red roses on the table, but on all the world outside; what better time is there to call our friend into the house that we may together "give the sun goodmorrow?" Invitations to breakfast are almost as common as to dinner latterly in the cities; but there is a difference between them, as everybody knows. You do not ask a man to breakfast with whom you have to wear any sort of defensive armor; he is coming into your friendship by a short cut. There is no such intimate hob-nobbing as that over a cup of coffee, and a first cigar. He sees your wife in her pretty muslin wrapper, and the baby is brought in to be kissed, fresh from its bath. There will always hereafter be a subtile home flavor in his remembrance of you. You can never again be to him nothing but a bull or a bear. There are nice dis tinctions in the hospitalities of city life which have

not penetrated to provincial society. In town where money can command any luxury for the table at a moment's notice, and where Johns and Johnson have the same amount of money, these worthies, when they would regale each other, must have recourse to some other attraction than victuals and cookery. Art, music, culture of every kind, are taxed to their utmost limits to offer an entertainment of thought, of brain as well as body, in the universal, rapid, touch-and-go habit of town hospitality. Unfortunately, out of the cities, we Americans are too apt to cherish the old English creed, that hospitality is purely an affair of the stomach. In farm neighborhoods and villages the man of note must be a "good provider," and his wife a notable housekeeper, with cellars packed with potatoes and bacon, and pantries stored with jellies and pickles to support their social claims. Who has ever assisted at the preparation of a New England Thanksgiving, a tea party in Pennsylvania, or a dinner at the West, and does not remember the weariness of brain and agonies of muscle, out of which the baked meats, the cakes, the ice-creams, many colored, were evolved? If, unluckily, the would-be host or hostess has lately "gone east," and dined with Johns or Johnson, they are sure to attempt an imitation of what impressed them as "city style," and end in a vulgarized reproduction of that vulgar thing-outside show. We have known delicate fair young brides devote their last weeks of maidenhood to baking enormous masses of cake, and covering them with icing in order to have "a more fashionable spread" than their neigh

bors.

And we remember one gently-bred and cultured woman who spent two days in a hot cellar trying to reproduce some spun-sugar abomination, in imitation of the master-piece of a city confectioner, while flowers of priceless beauty were blooming all around her ready to decorate her table; and after that to drill the man of all work into some similitude of a trained footman! What can be done

to open the eyes of such a woman? Ordinary sense

and tact ought to teach her that cookery and serving, like a woman's dress, are only perfect when there It needs, is nothing about them to be remembered. perhaps, wider intercourse with the world to show

her that true hospitality includes the giving to our friend a glimpse of our home life, of our real selves, some drops of whatever best cordial knowledge, or art, or life has brought to us, as well as the choicest dish out of our kitchen.

Killing Time.

PEOPLE are incessantly talking of killing time,

unmindful that it is time that kills them. Everything

but actual, practical work they regard as a means to that irrational, and, in truth, impossible end. They read, not for instruction, not for interest, not for enjoyment even; but, as they say, simply to kill time. Without exercising discretion or taste in what they read, they take anything that is near at

hand provided they feel confident that its perusal will require no mental effort; will preserve them from the need of reflection. There are a great many books of this sort--the more's the pity!—so many, indeed, that it is harder to miss than to hit them. But there is neither reason nor excuse for making their acquaintance, unless you are literally suffering for some occupation, and think any occupation better than none. There is neither virtue nor advantage in reading unless your mind be stimulated by what you read, and your memory retain, at least a part, of it. To read a worthless book is worse than wasting time; since wasting time is negative, and such reading may be positive harm.

The error of these would-be time-killers is, in their thinking, that works of any solidity, scholarship or reputation are either a tax on the understanding, or extremely wearisome. They seem to forget that many of the best books, best in every sense, are the most interesting; that, if they once fairly began these, a new and higher pleasure would be opened to them, and they would leave off with ten times as much reluctance as they had begun.

If they doubt this, let them try the experiment, and be convinced. They will be certain to find such a difference between good books and poor books that their appreciation of the former will entirely cure them of their liking for the latter.

Even if killing time be the sole object, it is just as easy to kill time to advantage as to disadvantage; and, after a certain experience with able authors, be they philosophers, historians, poets or novelists, they will come to value time as altogether too precious to be wasted. Nothing is more tedious than a book whose only purpose in being was to get itself printed.

Table Customs.

WHILE certain forms of table etiquette may seem altogether conventional, even fantastic, the forms usually observed are founded on good sense, and adapted to general convenience. Table etiquette is not, as is often alleged, merely a matter of fashion, although some things that were in vogue, a genera

tion or two ago, are no longer deemed polite. The reason is that manners and table furniture have undergone so many changes; have really so much improved, as to require a mutual readjustment. For example, everybody was accustomed, twenty or thirty years since, to use the knife to carry food to the mouth, because the fork of the day was not adapted to the purpose. Since the introduction of the four-tined silver fork, it has so entirely sup

planted the knife that the usage of the latter, in that way, is not only superfluous, but is regarded as a vulgarism.

saucer.

Another example is the discontinuance of the custom of turning tea or coffee from the cup into the Although small plates were frequently employed to set the cup in, they were not at all in general use; and even when they were used, the tea or coffee was likely to be spilled upon the cloth.

The habit, likewise, of putting one's knife into the butter arose from the fact that the butter-knife proper had not then been thought of. Such customs as these, once necessitated by circumstances, are now obviously inappropriate.

Certain habits, however, are regulated by good taste and delicacy of feeling, and the failure to

adopt them argues a lack of fine perception or social insight. One of these is eating or drinking audibly. No sensitive person can hear any one taking his soup, coffee, or other liquid, without positive annoyance. Yet, those who would be very unwilling to consider themselves ill-bred are constantly guilty of such breach of politeness. The defect is that they are not so sensitive as those with whom they come in contact. They would not be disturbed by the offense; they never imagine, therefore, that any one else can be. It is for them that rules of etiquette are particularly designed. Were their instinct correct, they would not need the rule, which, from the absence of instinct, appears to them irrational, purely arbitrary.

To rest one's elbow on the table is more than a transgression of courtesy, it is an absolute inconvenience to one's neighbors. All awkwardness of position, such as sitting too far back from, or leaning over the table, are reckoned as rudenesses, because they put others ill at ease through fear of such accidents as are liable to happen from any uncouthness.

Biting bread or cake, instead of cutting or breaking it into mouthfuls, is unpleasant, since it offends our sense of form or fitness.

These and kindred matters are trifles; but social life is so largely composed of trifles that to disregard them wholly is a serious affront. We can hardly realize to what extent our satisfaction or dissatisfaction is made up of things in themselves insignificant, until their observance or non-observance is brought directly home to us.

"Excuse my Glove!"

CERTAIN kinds of mistaken politeness, sincere as