as thou journeyest with a never-fading radiance, and guide thee through all untoward and perplexing paths, to the vocation and the duty that befits thee. A young man may become very much what he wills, he makes his own bed whether it is composed of roses or thorns; he is the arbiter of his own destiny, the architect of his own fortunes. How? By working, struggling, and studying. Buxton was right:-he wrote, that "the great difference between the feeble and the powerful is energy, invincible determination, a purpose once fixed; and then death or victory!" All these lofty aspirations (pardon the echo and the re-echo), however, must have a firm basis, or the young aspirant will, in all probability, be nipped in the bud-prematurely wrecked-no sooner distinguished, than than extinguished. The established system of education is antagonistic to all our ideas, being utterly at enmity with that spirit of free inquiry and independent thinking, by which youth, and more particularly riper years, should be animated and guided. Who can relish the thought of being in mental chains, forced to move in a circle like a gin-horse,-iron-harnessed to a party or sect, as exclusive as they are narrow and bigoted?

The inevitable consequence of poverty, whether of intellect, or purse, is dependence. That conversion will always be suspected, that apparently concurs with interest. He that never finds his error till it hinders his progress towards wealth or honour, will not be thought to love truth only for herself. A modern philosopher was right in saying, there is no society except between intellects; that society only subsists upon points, and within

limits, where the union of intellects is accomplished; that where intellects have nothing in common, there is no society; in other words that intellectual society is the only society, the necessary elements, and as it were, the foundation of all external and visible associations. We do not care to be over curious in observing the labour of the bees, or we may be stung for our curiosity. May we, however, venture to inquire-Do not our amiable defects win more than our noblest virtues ? I envy not their painful pre-eminence; not even a Bonaparte, who boasted truthfully, however, on one occasion when he asserted he belonged to himself. This little corporal, Mr. Ego, was the personification of selfishness. Alas! whether it be deformity or excellence which makes us say with Richard the Third:-"I am myself alone!" does it not come much to the same thing?

A great writer remarks, most men full to overflowing of honey and happiness, are a set of nameless ninnies; at every stumbling step they take, painfully feel their intellectual impotence; modestly abjure all claim to talent of which no line is visible on their mild unmeaning visages, and lack lustre eyes; and are satisfied in their humility that nature to them-her favoured blockheads, her own darling dunces, and more especial chosen sumphs-in compensation gave the gift of genius; the fire which cld Prometheus had to steal from heaven. But what a strange desire, that even the intellectual Solons, who betray a feverish impatience for public life, ardently seek power over others, and lose power and liberty over themselves. The restless ambitious know well from the past experience

of their predecessors, their standing is slippery; and the regress is either downfal, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. We are continually reminded— Whatever our hands, heads, and hearts find to do, to do it quickly; for "the night cometh when no man can work." Yesterday-where is it? It is gone to give an account to its Great Author of the manner in which it has been spent. Happy is the man who can review its employment with pleasure! whose recollections are calculated to soothe and satisfy the mind, without the obtrusion of painful feelings! "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing."-DEUT: XXX. 19. Praise be to GOD, who has woven the web of human affairs in the loom of His will, and of His wisdom; and has made waves of times and of seasons, to flow from the fountain of His Providence into the ocean of His Power. What especial thing is it, that is continually engaged in the foul work of sealing up each crevice of the mind, by which a sunbeam might glint through to drive away the opaque mist? Again we reiterate-in one word, it is Excess; non-abuse of free agency which gives to fallen man his supremacy. He stands erect so long as he shuns the vital principle of all error.

It is, we think, fully demonstrated that it is the peculiar effect of virtue to make a man's chief happiness arise from himself, and his own conduct. A bad man is wholly the creature of the world; he hangs upon its favours; lives by its smiles; and is happy or miserable in proportion to his success. But to a virtuous mind, success in worldly matters is a secondary object. To discharge his own part with integrity and honour, is his great aim; having done

properly what was incumbent upon him to do, his mind is at rest, and he leaves the event to Providence. His witness is in Heaven,-his record is on high. Satisfied with the approbation of GOD, and the testimony of a good conscience, he enjoys himself, and despises the triumph of guilt. In proportion as such manly principles rule your heart, you will become independent of the world, and forbear complaining of its discouragements. A character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. The duties of self-denial, and the sacrifice of passion and principle, are seldom remunerated here; but virtue will have its reward ultimately; and the internal consciousness of high-mindedness is that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.

The late Hugh Miller, who consumed himself to enlighten others, lost hope while in the wilderness,-beheld not the Pisgah. He thus writes:-"Religion, in its character as a serious intellectual exercise, was never brought down to the common English mind, in the way in which it once pervaded, and to a certain extent still saturates, the common mind of Scotland. Nor is the peculiar form of religion best known in England, so well suited as that to awaken the popular intellect. Liturgies and ceremonies may constitute the vehicle of sincere devotion; but they have no tendency to exercise the thinking faculties; their tendencies bear rather the other way,-they constitute the ready-made channels through which abstract, un-ideal sentiments flow without effort. The Armenianism, too, so common in the English Church, and so largely de

veloped in at least one of the more influential and numerous bodies of English Dissenters, is a greatly lessawakening system of doctrine, than the Calvanism of Scotland. It does not lead the earnest mind into those abstruse recesses of thought, to which the peculiar Calvanistic doctrines form so inevitable a vestibule. The man who deems himself free, is content simply to believe he is so; while he who regards himself as bound, is sure to institute a narrow scrutiny into the nature of the chain that binds him and hence it is that Calvanism proves the best possible of all schoolmasters for teaching a religious people to think. I found (says Miller) no such peasant-metaphysicians in England, as those we so often meet with in my own country;-men who, under the influence of earnest belief, had wrought their way all unassisted by the philosopher into some of the abstrusest questions of the schools. And yet, were I asked to illustrate by example, the grand principle of the intellectual development of Scotland, it would be to the history of one of the selftaught geniuses of England,-Bunyan, the inimitable Shakspeare of theological literature, that I would refer. Had the Tinker of Elstow continued to be throughout life what he was in his early youth, a profane and irreligious man, he would have lived and died an obscure and illiterate one. It was the wild turmoil of his religious convictions that awakened his mental faculties. Had his convictions slept, the whole mind would have slept with them, and he would have remained intellectually what the great bulk of the common English people are,-viz., good easy souls, taking a pipe post prandium, sliding down into