to poverty of spirit or intellect. If happiness can be had. only by pandering to worldly conformists, who only study their own, we cannot stoop to the conditions. We prefer standing alone under any difficulties, rather than be propt up by gilded buttresses, or artificial crutches of any kind.

Madame de Stael said to the wounded Byron, when in Switzerland-"You should not have warred with the world; it will not do-it is too strong always for any individual. I myself once tried it in early life, but it was too much for me." We perfectly concur in Byron's acquiescing in the truth of this remark, but if the world has done us the honour to begin the war; and with him we may add-Assuredly if peace is only to be obtained by courting and paying tribute to the world, we are not qualified to obtain its countenance. It was quite natural for the poet to be reminded of the words of Campbell:"Then wed thee to an exiled lot,

And if the world has loved thee not,

Its absence may be borne."

In the fatness of these pursy times, gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than talent; for wealth, although it has a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible. For those who are straining every nerve to make "the brethren" happy, GOD speed them! As to our charitable and universal or catholic men,-where are they? The mediocres make use of a lute, when they should call for a trumpet. Good men should be willing to leave their reputation, like everything else, with GoD; at the grand assize all will be right. The bashfulness which is a cloak

that hides merit, can only be appreciated in "that bourne from whence no traveller returns." Many an Addison can draw bills of merit for a thousand pounds, who has not a sovereign in his pocket. We learn from all good men, that submission, courage, and above all, exertion and selfreliance, are the weapons we must fight life's battles with.

The great lesson for men to learn, is-that happiness is in their own hands; that it is to be wrought out by their own faithfulness to GOD and conscience; that no outward institutions can supply the place of inward principle-of moral energy; whilst this can go far to supply the place of almost every outward aid. According to Fenelon, who paragons description, we are placed between two mighty attractions-self and GOD; and the only impor

tant question for every human being is, to which of these hostile powers he will determine to surrender his mind?

"Self-love, the spring of action, moves the soul;
Reason's comparing balance guides the whole ;
Man, but for this, no business would attend,

And, but for this, were active for no end."

But a Christian self-love ought to induce us to love our kind; and hence should arise our greatest enjoyment of self. The world's self-love, is love in a mistake. Selflove in a well-regulated breast, is as the steward of the household, superintending the expenditure, and seeing that benevolence herself should be prudential, in order to be permanent, by providing that the reservoir which feeds. should be fed. May we never divorce theory from practice. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life, sorrow and suffering

enough to disarm all hostility. Assenting to this truism, how much less difficult would it be to observe the divine precept "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that despitefully use you and persecute you."

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything, and who, having eyes to see what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him as he journeys along, misses nothing that he can fairly lay his hands on. No man can be just to himself, can comprehend his own existence, can put forth all his powers with an heroic confidence, can deserve to be a guide and inspirer of other minds,―till he has risen to communion with the Universal Parent; till he regards himself as the recipient and minister of the Infinite Spirit; till he feels his consecration to the ends which religion unfolds; till he rises above human opinion, and is moved by a higher impulse than fame. The expectation of future happiness is the best relief of anxious thoughts, the most perfect cure of melancholy, the guide of life, the comfort of death. A bird may be shot upwards to the skies by a foreign force; but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings, and soars by its own living power. So a man may be thrust upward into a conspicuous place by outward accidents; but he rises only in so far as he exerts himself, and expands his best faculties, and ascends by a free effort to a nobler region of thought and action. The snail can crawl up the pyramid, and support itself in its ascent from the adhesive quality of its own slime;

the eagle can do no such thing,—it may bound up by the power of its wings, but it cannot ascend by crawling. Surely humility may exist without servility!

may

Let the physical and physiological laws, and their natural sequences, economy, foresight, and self-reliance, instead of being ignored in the plan of education, be fully recognised as primary principles,-or vain and futile will be all our reforming efforts. Let us not vainly imagine that we can cheat our doom, or make any real impression upon the appalling evils, moral and physical, which exist We among us. exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may practise Christian resignation; we may dissolve the realities of human woe in a delusive mirage of poetry and ideal philosophy; we may lavish our substance in charity, and labour over possible and impossible poor-laws; we may form wild dreams of socialism, universal brotherhood, red republics, or unexampled revolutions; we may persecute or despise those who are striving for the welfare of all classes;—but not one step shall we advance till we acknowledge and pay deferential respect to the laws of our nature, and adopt the only possible mode in which they can be obeyed. But if we begin at the beginning, with the physical, it is our earnest hope and belief that we shall ultimately triumph over all lesser difficulties-that dead-lock which has hitherto laughed to scorn all the efforts of our race. We all suffer more or less from the ignorance and imprudence of others. Then let us no longer be separated from each other by impassable difference of circumstances. Let all philanthropists, of every clime and complexion, fuse

themselves into one great and united whole, and remove ignorance, the great stumbling-block that impedes progression.

We don't object to plain speaking-but don't quarrel. Your perpetual earnest people (says an article in Blackwood), who never say anything but what they mean, seem always full of unpleasant truth and ill-natured opinions. What they call plain speaking is more than plain-it is positively ugly speaking; and in nineteen cases out of twenty, does more harm than good. We all speak our minds plainly enough as it is, for the peace of society; perhaps, in some cases, far too much so. Indeed, if a little more of that reticence and smooth language which we call conventional politeness, were used in our home life, many an household would be all the happier for it. If husbands and wives preserved more of those "formulas" towards each other, which they adopt in their intercourse with society, they would be far more agreeable companions. Intrenched in these everlasting bulwarks against ignorance and barbarism, we are safe. The motto of every energetic man is progress, and community, unity, and social association to secure that progress. If England -the only country where speech, thought, the press, and action, are free-cannot arrive at this desirable and blessed consummation, what other nation can? Be the event what it may-liberavi animam meam!

FINIS.

J. WARD, PRINTER, CAXTON-SQUARE, Dewsbury