then a heavy footstep-in a moment more the hall door swung open, and the squire himself stood before the astonished tutor. Nathaniel was completely taken by surprise. The idea that the old gentleman might not have left home had never entered his mind, and had he seen a ghost he could not have been more confounded. He stood and stared into the squire's face without uttering a word. The silence however was not of long continuance. "Well, sir, and what now!" were the first words of the excited father.

"I did not know-I was not aware-I thought"

"Oh! you did, did you? Robert! Sam! I'll teach you to❞— the remaining words were lost-the squire drew from behind the door his trusty staff, and Robert and Sam appeared promptly at their master's summons. "Seize him-catch the scoundrel!" exclaimed the infuriated squire.

Nathaniel was off like a shot, and his three pursuers were after him down the broad path to the river towards which he had unconsciously bent his way. He hastened on until he came in sight of the water, and recollected that there was no way of escape there. He looked back. The old man was moving rapidly onward, and the two negroes were somewhat in advance of him, and both between himself and the road. He quickened his pace, and at last seeing that his only hope was in passing before them, he broke into a full run. On he went, and they at his heels, but he was little accustomed to active exertion, and he saw that they were gaining on him. He could run too but little farther, for the water was now full before him. What was to be done? He had but a moment to deliberate, for they were close upon him. Should he allow himself to be taken ? The idea was humiliating, and a glance at the squire's cane made it torture. There was no alternative, and with a rueful look at his pursuers, Nathaniel gathered up the skirts of his coat under his arms—rushed into the water, and shuffled through with all imaginable speed.

Once on the other side, he was safe, and he breathed freely. He waited not to hear the maledictions which followed him, but turned behind the bushes, and after wandering till it was dark in the woods, returned wet, hungry and unhappy. Whether the poor man's ardor was effectually cooled by his bath so that his former feelings no longer remained, or whether he was too fearful of the squire's wrath to remain any longer in the village, I know not; but when the morrow's sun rose he was snugly ensconced in a corner of the stage on his way to the city. His sudden departure excited no little surprise among the dames of the village. He no longer attended their little parties, or gallanted them or their daughters through the town. He left it at once and forever, and his name was no more heard among the gossips of Bushville.

A DEFENSE OF THE STUDY OF MIND.

THE ancient could call the soul a spark stolen from the skies-an emanation from the Deity-a drop from the essence of infinite Spirit. The modern can admire its colossal greatness, its gigantic power, and its wide control. But most have agreed in turning away from its study with disgust. They have been contented to see its power displayed on the surface, rather than acting underneath. Many might shelter themselves from just invective under the plea of incapacity to appreciate its excellence. But more act from ignorance. They seem to imagine, that as the study of mind presents little or no ornament in itself or in its results, it is therefore barren of profit and pleasure. Their eye seems formed only for colors. Whatever captivates not their senses, but sues their attention in a homely garb, is met habitually with a cold repulse. They wage a perpetual crusade against the display of mental power, unless it be expended in blending and perfecting before them the beauties of visible and tangible nature. If they admire the poet, it is not because in him is mirrored forth an exalted genius, so much as because that genius has gathered around them the selectest objects that attract the sense. The wise man's pleasure to shut the eye and ear, and hold protracted converse with one's self-would be to them a destiny as bitter as ever Tantalus or Sisyphus could mourn. The study of mind rises above all the pursuits which terminate in an acquaintance with colors, forms and qualities. It rises above the fictions of poetry. It leaves the research of the antiquarian, the speculations of the curious, and the collected stores of the erudite, far behind it. Yet when the panorama of human society has been spread before us, our eye has followed the finger of eulogy to every thing but the study of mind. The swollen tome, the gilded lay, and the inspiring tongue have been lavish in their praises of those whose studious zeal and quick success know only the compass of the present; while the laborious investigator of the greatest object-mind, has been left in forgotten solitude, to live unnoticed and to die unknown.

Perhaps nothing besides Philosophy in its original and higher sense so fully merits the civic crown, for its services to the world, as Poetry. It has been the nurse of genius, the mother of civilization, and the handmaid of the arts; and its services have always been reciprocated with filial reverence and praise. But, while poetry has nurtured the infancy of letters, or won and fired maturer intellect, the study of the mind has elevated and instructed all who have shared its blessings. If Greece could at first listen only to the wandering bard, who, with a sweet prelude on his harp, sang his poem in her

temples, if she could dandle on her knee only the child of Apollo and the friend of the muses, she could yet lean, in the decrepitude of age, upon the arm of him who taught the simple and the wise. If Rome could imitate her glorious career, and like her, deify the poet, that philosopher of nature, she could also remember him with affection, who forgot to study earth that he might know its lord.

Let it not then be imagined, that the study and science of mind have been wholly despised by the nations of antiquity. What if any one mental philosopher may have been despised in his lifetime? When the triumphal arches, obelisks and trophies of his cotemporaries have been mingled with their kindred dust, the memorial of his greatness has been as fresh in its glory as if it were but a creature of yesterday. But perhaps he was despised, not for his opinions, or the advocacy of them, but notwithstanding them. The union of mental philosophy with politics and religion, the jarring intercourse of the petty Grecian states, or of the Roman provinces, placing, as it did, the public instructor in the very front of the battle, and an extreme veneration for opinions settled in previous ages, though by unskillful hands, combined to cripple him in every thing like unshackled inquiry, and bold opposition to sanctioned authority. Yet if he has gone down with sorrow to the grave, posterity in after times has uniformly reversed the decision, which would have loaded him with obloquy.

Let not then poetry be called the only favorite of the enlightened past. While Greece and Rome have taught us, that though in the wayward enthusiasm of youth, they could be satisfied but with beauty then in actual being; yet at a riper age they were not contented without examining that agent-mind, whose power of fancy and of thought could make a vale of Tempe out of the darkest concavity that nature ever scooped, or gather new brightness into the most radiant point on high.

But there is a voice more deep and decisive than any from the tongue of man, that testifies in favor of the study of mind. It is the voice of experience. The importance of this study has been found to be commensurate with the ignorance of mankind. When the nations have been invested with the darkness of ignorance and vice, it has been because the philosophy which reveals what the study and knowledge of mind comprehend, has been neglected or perverted. When society has maintained its proper elevation of character, the presence and influence of this philosophy may have attracted no notice. But they have been as essential as the electric fluid in physics, which likewise would have been unobserved had the balance of nature been never disturbed. Yes! when that presence has been withdrawn, how sensible has been the void! During the slumber between the closing day of ancient greatness and the dawn of modern glory, the world enjoyed but a restless repose. And was that inquietude strange? Go! learn its cause from

the wild Arab who left the wilderness to teach philosophy to Europe. Go! learn the philosophy of that period, but remember that your instructors are Avicena and Averrhoes. Go! see the wild Moor studiously copying into his own tongue the philosophy of Greece. Philosophy had been cramped and smothered, and in its struggles for life, it could not but convulse the body which it had animated; while deafened and tongue-tied by law, it bade the wild Nomades, who had overrun Europe, stop in their wanderings to speak its praises and defend its cause.

It sought an asylum in the open and generous stranger who knew not what it was to violate the laws of hospitality; and under the umbrage of his favor, revisited the scenes of its youth. The sickly atmosphere which it there inhaled, and its struggles for liberty and life, left it enervated and almost destroyed. Yet it was destined to rise again from the dust. The breath from the four quarters of the heavens blew. Bone came to bone, sinew to sinew; and again it stands before us "a thing of life." Resuscitated, it looks around for the mementos of former days. In the midst of its researches, it finds the ruins of those eternal monuments which the spirits of other days had erected. Their treasures are laid bare. The inscriptions of their greatness are copied and deciphered. The events of by-gone ages are unfolded; and the admiring world is introduced to the society of the most exalted of our race. The ancient now converses with the modern, while the latter, fired with new energy in so ennobling society, bursts the bands of ignorance, and stands forth disenthralled from an iron bondage.

Among the advantages of the study of mind-its nature, powers and destiny, not the least which presents itself to us, is, that it reveals to us its true dignity and elevation. We are thus inspired with that respect for ourselves, which is our only safeguard against vice, and our guide to greatness. We are led to contemplate ourselves, and in that contemplation, to rise above ourselves. It teaches the orator what springs he is to touch, to move the world. It alone can inspire him with that confidence in himself and his cause, which will ensure his success. It raises the poet from the contemplation of breathless or animate nature, to that of the immortal and godlike. Thus it is that he "in himself is lost," and finding that he is "midway from nothing to the Deity"-"a beam ethereal," and "a god," kindles into rapture, as, through the glass of nature, he views his Creator-God.

"Yes, in my spirit doth thy Spirit shine,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew."

No longer will he sing of gods, who are but deified men, or the mere elements of Nature personified. Nor will he longer see the Divinity holding dalliance with earthly joys. If, in the contemplation of himself in his intellectual nature, he is lost in admiration, he

will infer that He who is the Supreme in all conceivable perfection, will be most delighted in surveying also Himself,-the only pattern of all that is great and glorious. To surround him, then, as he pictures his abode, with the vile beings of earth, would be a task more revolting than to present the purest intellects below in the most loathsome forms of the reptile world. But, as the poet has been the great regulator of society, he not only becomes thus elevated himself, but like the bird, that bears its eaglet upward, and bids it eye the sun and thither bend its wing, he bids the high and low to look upon their God, and bathe their spirits in his melting radiance.

An accurate studied knowledge of the mind also promotes religion. We must know ourselves—our capabilities, propensities and destiny, to know our duties. We must know, that, within these earthly tenements, are spirits destined to escape the bounds of time. We must understand their frame and nature, that, while they are but in the infancy of their being, we may secure for them a tone and nerve, which, through the vast range of their existence, will freshen them with unending bloom. If from "gods," we have become worms, we ought to learn how we may leave our mean estate, and gain our former glory. Even in the absence of revelation, the study of mind, with the lamp of Nature, will teach us how to "reascend." This alone gives us a solid consciousness of our powers and interests. When Cicero was bewildered by sophistical argument, and almost pronounced himself the creature of chance, one penetrating gaze within banished the thought that would rob him of his dignity. A similar reflection upon his nature and faculties, enabled Socrates to prove that there was a Divinity around and within us, and constituted him the great High Priest of the temple of Nature. Well did he inquire of one, who admired the genius which had animated the pictured canvass, and the sculptured marble: "And do you not much more perceive, with admiration, the design and wisdom betrayed in the mysterious specimens of living, acting beauty around you?" "I am," was the spirit of his proof, "and surely Thou must be." Let us, for a moment, exchange points of time with the venerable ancient. As we now contemplate mind, we look around us for its author. But all within our sight is under its control. We behold its possessor, man, the lord of this lower creation. Where then was his nativity? Did earth bring him forth? He rummages its bowels, and rifles it of its treasures; while he spurns to repose his hopes and feelings in its bosom. Did he start into being from the mighty deep? Even the small heat of summer will transform the liquid mass into a veil of gossamer, which the wind will gather together, fold upon fold, in its storehouse. Came he from the air? His spirit in its flight laughs at the rapid lightning, pacing far behind. Or, did the fire usher him into being? This can subsist only on matter. But the soul of man possesses the element of unending life. Around him can be found no creator but