dience. This absurd sentiment strikes at the root of individuality of character.

Honest industry is always rewarded: no young man need complain of being left poor, if he rolls up his sleeves and goes cheerfully to work. Indolent people, who are always taking care of their health, are like misers who are hoarding a treasure they have not spirit enough to enjoy. Vitiated humours are the product of indolence, and not unfrequently end in suicide. The humours of the body have a stated and regular course, which impels and imperceptibly guides our will. They co-operate with each other, and exercise a secret empire within us, so that they have a considerable part in all our actions, without our being able to know it. We have some fine touches of thought, which we cull from Warren. "The language of the ancient orator concerning his art, may be applied to life, that its enjoyment consists in action-action-action. Without it, the feelings may become so morbidly sensitive as to give an appearance of weakness to the whole character. Relaxation can have no existence separate from employment; for what is there then to relax from? On the other hand, action prepares for repose; and labour not only sweetens, but justifies relaxation; so that we feel it to be not only innocent indulgence, but a kind of recompense." The second is, that of such a precious talent as time nothing should be lost, so much may be done by gathering up the fragments. To act is far easier than to suffer; yet we every day see the progress of life retarded by the mere repugnance to exertion; and find multitudes repining at the want of that which nothing

but idleness hinders them from enjoying. Laziness is commonly associated with timidity. Either fear originally prohibits endeavours, by infusing despair of success, or the frequency of irresolute struggles, and the constant desire of avoiding labour, impress by false terrors the mind; and the end is, such lapse into that lowest of all idolatries-the worship of themselves. The indolent

ones are ignorant ones; they know no more of these secrets-what luxury, what measureless value there are in them-than Eve knew of pin-money.

Probably the greatness of our great men, observes the Times, is quite as much a bodily affair as a mental one, Nature has presented them not only with extraordinary minds, but, what has quite as much to do with the matter, with wonderful bodies. What can a man do without a constitution-a working constitution? He is laid on the shelf from the day he is born. For him no munificent destiny reserves the Great Seal, or the Rolls, or the Chief-Justiceship, or the Leadership of the House of Commons, the Treasury or the Admiralty, the Home Office or the Colonies. The Church may promote him, for it does not seem to signify much to the Church whether a man does his work or not; but the State will have nothing to do with the poor constitutionless wretch. He will not rise higher than a Recordership or a Poor Law Board. "But," somebody will ask, "has that pale lean man, with a face like parchment, and nothing on his bones, a constitution ?" Yes,-he has; he has a working constitution, and a ten times better one than you, my good friend, with your ruddy face and strong muscular

frame. You look, indeed, the very picture of health, but you have in reality only a sporting constitution, not a working one. You do very well in the open air, and get on tolerably well with fine healthy exercise, and no strain on your brain. But try close air for a week-try confinement, with heaps of confused papers, and books of reference, blue books, law books, or despatches to get through, and therefrom extract liquid and transparent results, and you will find yourself knocked up and fainting, when the pale lean man is—if not as "fresh as a daisy," which he never is, being of the perpetually cadaverous type-at least as unaffected as a bit of leather, and not shewing the smallest sign of giving way.

There are two sorts of good constitutions-good idle constitutions, and good working ones. When nature makes a great man, she often presents him with the latter gift. Not that we wish to deprive our great men of their merit. A man must make one or two experiments before he finds out his constitution. A man of spirit and metal makes the experiment, tries himself, and runs the risk, as a soldier does on the field of battle. The battle of life and death is often fought as really in chambers, or in an office, as it is on the field. A soul is required to make use of the body; but a great man must have a body as well as a soul to work with. Charles Buller, Sir William Molesworth, and others, are instances of men whose bodies refused to support their souls, and were, therefore, obliged to give up the prize when they had just reached it. And how many hundreds and thousands, if one did but know them, perish in an earlier stage! The sword wears the

scabbard out, before they have made any way at all, simply because, though they had splendid minds, they had very poor bodies! Let our lean cadaverous friend, then, when the laurel surmounts his knotty parchment face, thank heaven for his body, which, he may depend upon, is almost as great a treasure as his soul. Nature may not have made him a handsome man, but what does that signify? She has made him a strong one. The law of labour is indeed the law of love. Mr. Stowell opened his subject at an Exeter Hall lecture, by shewing that all creation indicated the law of labour to be the law of the universe. Every thing was in action. All things were serving a purpose: the sun, the moon, and stars, were all serving a purpose; and so it was with all things. They saw around them that every thing was active; the rivers were hastening to the ocean, and the ocean was perpetually rolling on; and they had reason to believe that if they could take the wings of an eagle, and soar up to the higher heaven, they would find that all was activity there. He then applied this principle of universal labour to the case of man; showing how intimately his happiness was bound up with the full and healthy exercise of his mental and bodily faculties. There was a notion that a gentleman was a man who had nothing to do; and if that be the case, he could only say-"Save me from ever being a gentleman." He referred to the labours performed by those who did not require to labour, and pointed by way of illustration, to the deeds of Elizabeth Fry, Howard the philanthropist, Florence Nightingale, and of their own illustrious President, Lord Shaftesbury. Labour was an

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ordinance of GOD for our good, and His glory. They were accustomed to look upon labour as a curse associated with their fallen state; but such was not the case, because GOD had ordered man before his fall, to "dress the garden." It was not right, then, to associate it with a blessing; and if it were necessary in paradise, how much more necessary was it in the world? The more a man laboured, the more easy became his labours, and the more free became his actions. Self-denying labour enhanced rest, and increased the pleasure of enjoyment. It gave a relish to wholesome recreation, and augmented the preciousness of what man enjoyed. The labouring man, on his straw bed and chaff pillow, wanted no opiate; for he had the best of all opiates in weariness, the result of wholesome and healthy toil. As it was with sleep, so it was with the homely meal of the working man, who with good digestion really enjoyed the things of life. So it was with other things. How little did a man enjoy what he had gained easily. The man who did not labour must suffer, because he nursed his own fancies and vapours. He found it in the gentler sex, as he found it in the sterner sex: the ladies who spent their time in folly and fashion, reading novels in bed, and getting up at evening time, turning day into night, who never visited the poor, -were always talking of their fancies, and taking opium to get rid of the flutter of their nerves. They should get rid of the flutter by making themselves useful in their families and in their neighbourhood. When a young lady talked of her nerves, he would tell her she wanted labour. Let her undergo real hardship, and see what real trouble