in traversing his own country, and others, that he may buy up the fleeting opportunities of doing good and be permitted to weep with those who weep. See a Fletcher who denied himself the comforts of life that he might have to give to those who needed. Hear him upon his death-bed exclaiming, " O, my poor! what will become of the poor of my parish?"

Behold how it diffuses its gentle influence in the palace of the king! When Edward VI. was requested to sign the death-warrant of an alleged heretic, he at first positively refused; but being pressed by Cranmer, he at length yielded, and with tears in his eyes said to his instigator, " You shall bear the responsibility!" See how it softens the horrors of the battle scene! Sir Philip Sidney being wounded in battle, and being faint from the loss of blood, some one handed him a cordial. As he was in the act of putting it to his lips, he observed near him a wounded soldier looking him wishfully in the face. In his sympathy for his fellow sufferer, he forgot himself; and without tasting the cordial, handed it to the soldier, saying, "Drink-your necessities are greater than mine!"

Behold how this feeling shines in a character greater than divine, soldier, or statesman, and in scenes more imposing than those of the palace or the battle-field! For when the Saviour of the world looked upon Jerusalem, moved by her guilt and danger, he wept over her; and when he stood at the grave of Lazarus, the evangelist, crowding the whole of divine pathos and sympathy into two words, tells us "Jesus wept." If the institutions which assist the needy and protect the weak are of any value, cherish this feeling, for it is the seed from which they spring, and its tears the showers by which they are watered. If the picture of human misery and corruption is dark, cherish this feeling; for it is that which softens its horrors, and throws light upon its gloom. If

the pages of history have been stained with the cruelty of those whose names it records, cherish this holy sympathy; for those tyrants had a few virtuous cotemporaries who let fall upon the record of crime some drops of sorrow with which, in the mournful perusal, we may mingle our tears, and enjoy a feast of delicious grief.

But this feeling is not only rich and delightful in itself, but, if its promptings be obeyed, it is immediately followed by reward; for no sooner do we relieve the case of suffering or need which excited our sympathies, than we begin a rich repast on the gratitude we have awakened, and the happiness we have occasioned. This virtue is emphatically its own reward. Sympathy with human misery in a Christian is more pure and powerful-it leads him to look with ineffable concern upon the souls of others, both friends and foes. It causes him to weep over the wandering prodigal's return. And last it expands into universal Christian

benevolence, and at one generous embrace takes in the world, and labors for its salvation.

"As the smooth pebble stirs the peaceful lake,
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friends, neighbors, parents, first it will embrace,
Our country next, and next all human race;

Wide, and more wide, the o'erflowing of the mind
Takes every creature in, of every kind."-POPE.

Sympathy with human misery likens its possessor to all the good; and he who possesses most of it most resembles Him who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities-whose pity knew no abatement until he had redeemed the earth with his blood. 4. Another class of those feelings are those which arise from the domestic relations. Here we are presented with many a touching scene-within the sacred precincts of these relations we are called to contemplate the feelings of parents and children, and brother and sister. Have you never observed a fond father, as he sat in the midst of a group of playful children, looking alternately in the face of each, as if tracing his own features in them? And as he thus sat, have you not seen his feelings, his paternal feelings compel him to bury his face in his handkerchief? Have you not observed the interest he takes in all that concerns them that he is even pleased with the pictures in their primers, because they afford pleasure to the children-that he listens patiently to their school stories-that he sits and builds castles in the air by the hour, and that he is transported at any indication which they may give of superior intellect? It may be said these are small things-and so they are; but they develope the unfathomed fountain of paternal feeling.

Again. Do not most of my readers even now enjoy, or at least remember the affection of a mother? Did I say "remember!” Our right hand shall forget her cunning, and our tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth, when we dare forget her whose hands cradled us-whose care guided our feet in their first efforts to walk, and our lips and minds in our first attempts to speak and think-who taught us the holy exercise of prayers-who knelt by our cot-side in childhood, and poured forth devotion so pure and fervent as none but a mother's heart could indite. At that time we could not appreciate the feeling that prompted a mother's prayer; but O, what unutterable richness and beauty we see in it now!

The feeling of which we are speaking gives to home all its attraction, and to the little sonnet of home all its popularity. Why is no place like home? Because those we love are there. And even when the old parental tenement has fallen into decay, or passed into other hands, and there remain to us

"Nor man. nor child, nor thing of living birth,

Not e'en the dog that watched the household hearth,"

still the charm lingers when the associations which gave it being are no more. The brook in the meadow is brighter than other streams to me, because my little brother and myself together chased the affrighted mullet through its limpid waters. The shade of the old oak in the yard is more pleasant than the shade of other trees, because the children used to group themselves there on a summer's Saturday for the purpose of getting their tasks; and the old beech that stands by the path leading to the school-house is more precious to my memory than all the trees of the forest, because my little sister held my books while I carved her name and my own upon its bark. When these scenes are mentioned, or in any way called up before our minds, they awaken feelings which may possibly define themselves in the heart, but which never can be made clear by description.

SONG. IN EARTH'S LONELY DESERT.

SWISS AIR-"Rans des Vaches."

BY MRS. CRAWFORD.

IN Earth's lonely desert,
In regions above,
To mortals and angels,

There's nothing like love
It brightens the landscape
Wherever we go,

And beams like a star

On our pathway of wo.

When the myrtles of love

Breathe their odors around,

The music of hope

Gives to silence a sound.

O! dear is the spot,

Where our glances first met,

There sorrow will linger,
Though joy may forget.

All melody breathing,

All sunshine and bloom,
Love sings to our cradle,
And garlands our tomb.
Far away, far away,
Where bright planets roll,
O! there's Love's home,
In the land of the soul.

ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE MIND.

No. I.

BY THE REV. ROBERT LEE.

WHETHER there be a distinction, in nature, between the human Soul and the human Spirit? Whether Reason and Understanding be distinguishable? Whether the various acts of judgment, memory, imagination, are to be regarded only as so many dif ferent states of one simple indivisible substance; or whether they must be explained by supposing the existence of distinct powers or faculties in that substance? Whether ideas-(or notions, rather)-be innate, that is born with us, and only unfolded by education (which therefore may be defined a process of evolution); or whether, on the contrary, all the stores of the mind have been imported from without? These, and other kindred questions, which have deeply engaged the attention of philosophers, I am compelled to pass by with this general observation-that, though considerable light might be thrown on the topic before us, from the investigation of those other points, yet we may satisfactorily discuss this without even forming an opinion regarding any of them, or even being aware of their existence: as a person may easily be taught to use a telescope who is ignorant of the laws of the reflection or refraction of light, according to which the telescope is constructed: or as every soldier in a regiment can shoulder arms at the word of command, whereas, perhaps, not one of them could name the muscles which that act called into operation.

The word Mind is often used in a restricted sense; but I shall, in this discourse, employ it in its most extensive application; not to denote any one peculiar faculty or exercise of the human soul, but that which is the subject of all those faculties-the one agent in all those exercises. I include, as well the Moral and Imaginative powers, as the Intellectual, in my idea of the mind.

The objects with which we are conversant present themselves to our minds principally under these three grand aspects: first, as true or false; second, as beautiful and noble, or mean and deformed; third, as right or wrong, good or evil. That which is conversant with the true or false is the Intellectual faculty-called, in common language, indifferently, Reason or Understanding: that which is employed about the beautiful or sublime is Imagination, Fancy, Taste: that which takes cognizance of the

right and the wrong is Conscience, sometimes called also Moral Sense.

The Cultivation of the Mind includes whatever has the effect of enlarging and invigorating it in these and all its other faculties or exercises, and of delivering them from those trammels and impediments which hinder their free and beneficial action: so that the imagination shall be a prolific mother of healthful and well-favored thoughts: the Understanding an acute and jealous guardian lest any illegitimate notions be received into the family and cherished there as truths; and the conscience, sitting a severe and incorruptible judge, impartially pronouncing sentence on all the mental offspring, and inexorably carrying his judgments into effect, unseduced by his handmaids the Passions, entreating him to spare their foster-children.

We not unfrequently observe minds having some one faculty or more in great strength, while the others are little developed. Some men grow all to understanding, some all to imagination. The former see all objects through the glass of logic, the latter look at everything through the medium of poetry. The one are hard and dry trees, bearing no blossoms, and even their fruit, though not unwholesome, wants juice and flavor; the others run all to flowers and essence, perfuming the air and regaling the senses, but they yield little fruit, and that too pungent to be nutritious. These are cases of monstrosity as much as those bodies one member of which has grown great and strong at the expense of the rest, all of which its increase has dwarfed and ruined.

Cases may also be found in which the Conscience, not satisfied with asserting his claims to a constitutional monarchy, has raised himself to absolute dominion in the soul. Instead of governing the other faculties, he sought to slay them, like those eastern despots who fancy they do not sit securely on their thrones till they have murdered their kindred. It is, indeed, necessary we should be acutely alive to the right and the wrong in all subjects in which these qualities exist; but it is not desirable that we should see nothing in them but the right or wrong. In short, as the perfection of the human body consists not in the strength and energy of any one member or sense, but in the health and activity of all; and as the highest idea of a civil government is not realized by the exclusive development of any one element of polity, but by such combination of them all as shall, to the greatest extent possible, neutralize the deleterious effects which each displays when acting uncombined with the countervailing elements; so the perfection of the mind, and the point to which its cultivation should be directed, is to educate, strengthen, and regulate whatever is in the mind-implanted there by that "manifold