and piety, these followers of the Cross are apt to overleap the bounds of propriety in attempting to implant the principles of a Christian life on tender minds of ten and twelve, which, without working at all upon their judgment, yet lay a hold of them too powerful even for becoming respect to parental affections and social ties. These class-philanthropists have done much for India, and will do yet more; and but for their undue zeal in seeking to work strong impressions on our young boys at an age when they may as easily be enlisted under the Satanic banner, to try their puny strength against the powers of Heaven, every child of India would find himself entrusted, not through necessity, like Harris, but through choice and better instincts, to a Piffard, a Wilson, or a Mitchell. This circumstance has been well touched on by one of their own order in a recent work-by Mr. Gaster, though he also has his theory for the propagation of Christianity in India:"I don't like schools. No, I don't like them at all as a part of a missionary's work among the Mussulmans and heathen. Now, don't mistake me: I do like schools; yes, I do like schools for

*

*"Missions in India."

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Native Christians, both for adults and children, because I believe the sole duty of a missionary in the educational department is to raise the standard of the Native Christians. But how can a missionary be bound to prepare a number of Mussulmans and heathen for situations in Government offices? What claim is there on me, or on any other minister of the Gospel, to cram heathen boys with algebra, Euclid, botany, the poets,' and a dozen other matters? The reply is, 'By teaching the young such matters, we get them to read the Bible one hour every morning,'-i. e., you use five hours' algebra and botany as a bribe for one hour's Christianity. Depend on it, Christianity needs no bribes whatever-neither intellectual nor tangible--to help it on through the world. If the heathen will not hear the Gospel, it is their fault; but pray don't bribe them," &c. But, be the case as it stands, it is not to be denied that it was a happy circumstance in the early life of Harris to be under the management of the Rev. Mr. Piffard from the age of seven: it was this, more than anything else, that shaped and moulded the future man of substantial strength, right direction, and noble aims.

But it has been remarked above, that there

had also operated an influence other than this of the school upon Harris, in which Providence seemed to take him most conspicuously by a kindly hand. At the very early age of thirteen he left school: he had made no great progress in learning, and he had no more settled purpose, when he left his form, than the very vague one of falling upon the world to procure a bare livelihood; and it was at this time that he was most perilously situated. The period, reader, between the school and manhood, is the most critical in life. In our grown-up manhood it is that we pause, and look back with interest on the world of circumstances through which life has been drawn. In our retrospective glance, we meet with a number of friends and acquaintances, who have had contact with us; a number of impressions and thoughts that we received from these, and gave to these; a number of exhibitions of virtue that fell to our notice, and excited our admiration and sympathy, as well as, at the same time, of evil, that forced themselves before the eye and awoke natural or forced disgust and abhorrence; a number of books read, or narrations heard, and contemplations and musings, that pictured to the imagination dreams and vanities, which

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proved futile as soon as formed;-and all these multitudinous circumstances have had their influences upon us; though we may wonder how all these jarring impressions and incidents conspired, like that imaginary attraction which produces the resurrection of the body by drawing in particles from the hills, wind, dust, and everything, to produce our individual character, without diversity or inconsistency. The reason of this, and which takes away the wonderment, is, that amidst all these jarring and incongruous influences, natural, moral, and intellectual, operating on the individual mind, there is some one of them that is most prominent, and that at once determines its future cast and tendency. Yes; it is from some particular contact, reading, or scene, forcibly impressed on the mind during this period of life, that the future man is determined. Whatever the character of the boy in the school, something now touches the vital chain, and he is snatched away from all earlier habits and tastes, and born again, and lives anew, if the influence and the impression be healthy and wholesome. His latent energies and tastes (these must be naturally good, or the influence is lost) are awakened, ambition is enkindled, and studies

commenced and continued. He comes to it,. perhaps, as many do, an idle boy, of desultory habits; but leaves it in purpose and career a man. He sees its loftiness, catches the infection, Nature whispering within-“You might also do that, if you awake out of your torpor"; and the determination re-echoes, "I must-I will!"—and there the man is stamped. Man sees the mystic lights above world upon world, infinite, incalculable, rolling for ever in a fixed determinate order and course; and in an hour of gloomy dejection and despair, he is tempted to cast up his eyes towards the high vault, and, reading in them his destiny, is apt, in superstitious submission, to question those orbs with impassioned feeling-" Can I look upon you, your determinate order, your fixed orbit, from which you, with all your mighty massiveness, cannot move one atom of your bodies, and not discern therein that I and my fellow-creatures are indeed the poor victims of an all-powerful destiny? Oh! can aught avert the doom predestined to us; will not the change in a mere particle of our fate involve partiality from One who has sternly fixed the destiny of millions. mightier than man himself? Away, then, vain efforts, ineffectual prayers: we must move blind