sweeping sneer at curious coincidences, for even pure faith is built up with such material.

THE COUNTENANCE.

The countenance is the escutcheon of the man, and the features combine to express the armorial device. Every man, woman, and child in the world is a physiognomist; and if physiognomy is a science, man is not the only reasoning animal. It is enough to call forth a melancholy thought that we know so many palpable likenesses of the brutes as to be quite satisfied with Emerson's explanation of the doctrine of metempsychosis. "Ah! brother," says he, "hold fast to the man and and awe the beast; stop the ebb of thy soul, ebbing downwards into the forms of those into whose habits thou hast now for these many years slid." All the passions unveil themselves in the countenance, and gleam from the eye. Milton says of Satan-who has made a speech wherein acknowledgment of the goodness of God is mixed up with defiance of his power, and remorse struggles with obduracy until the reasoning of despair

is wound up by the diabolic principle, "Evil, be thou my good"

"Thus while he spake each passion dimm'd his face,
Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair;
Which marked his borrowed visage, and betrayed
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld:

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear."

The beautiful moral qualities are as distinctly represented here :

"One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place."

-Hebrew Melodies.

The connection between features of character and features of the face is not an arbitrary one, or dependent upon fanciful association ; but the intellect and the heart cannot act without moulding the countenance. There must be some fine light in the eye, some sweet melody in the voice, some peculiar charm in the manners, to reconcile us to an ugly face; for ugliness is always repulsive,

and suggests depravity. Instinct has taught us truly that the beautiful is the good.

IMPETUOSITY AND PERSEVERANCE.

Enthusiasm gains an empty triumph of a moment; perseverance has the ultimate reward in success. The passionate efforts of enthusiasm quickly produce weariness ; the cool plodding of perseverance is economy of force. Enthusiasm is the adornment of the machinery of perseverance. Perseverance is respectable and commendable; enthusiasm is admirable and noble. Any base fellow with any base purpose may possess the virtue of perseverance, but it generally needs an elevated object to rouse one into enthusiasm. These two qualities-calm perseverance and restless eagerness -are never both strongly marked in the same character. When you find a man remarkable for his steadfast pursuit of some definite object, his sober perseverance in working out some general business of his life, you need not look in him for sudden flashes of genius, outbursts of earnest eloquence, explosions of mines of passion sprung as it

were by a chance footfall; neither can you expect much firmness of will or long-sustained exertion from persons easily and often excited to vehement manifestations of feeling. Perseverance is indispensable to success in life, but without a little enthusiasm now and then it would be a dull drama.

THE AUTHOR'S VANITY.

The author's vanity, shown in his writings, may possibly be tolerated sometimes for the sake of his true merits; but it is never concealed among any number of excellencies, and certainly it is never justified by any amount of success. Affectation and vanity are such sins in an author that, possessing them, he would not be sanctified if he wrote with the pen of an archangel.

THE STARS.

The stars-pearls round the tiara of night -lamps guiding winged Fancy's flight to Heaven-how natural is the child's thought, "O, how I wonder what you are!" Come out into the open air on a clear calm night

when you can see three thousand eyes gazing upon you from the sky, and say if it is wonderful that there should be star-worshippers? There is not a more sublime view in Nature. We look with contempt upon the idolatry that bows to pieces of carved and blackened wood, but in the adoration of the heavenly bodies there is something less unworthy of the human intellect. According to the Sabian story, the idols of the whole earth came together one night into a Babylonian temple to mourn for a priest who had been put to death by his king because he recommended the worship of the stars. No two subjects have been made so much use of by the poets as the stars and the eyes. The expression of the human eye may be infinitely varied the aspect of the glistening heavens is always one of beauty and solemnity. One cannot gaze alone on the blue sky brilliant with stars and not feel serious. Imagination, wandering onwards towards the cresset of the sky, soon loses sight of earthly landmarks in the realms beyond the grave: these it peoples with angelic friends who welcome us to Eden.

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