Caldwell, Simpson, Levison, Symons, Dawson, Brougham, and a few other magniloquent choice spirits,-all of whom have dug deep into this mine of truth; their writings and philanthropic gushings, aspirations of the noblest kind, have been treated with comparative neglect. We would admonish our unbendable monitors, to attend to the pithy lines of two eminent men, who, in the fulness of their experience advise

"Make yourselves of leather,—not of stone."

"Right too rigid, hardens into wrong."

The more men contend, and the more they get into a labyrinth of woes; and the catastrophe is, to consume each other, like the elephant and dragon's conflict in Pliny; the dragon got under the elephant's belly and sucked his blood so long that he fell down dead upon the dragon, and killed him with the fall: so both were ruined. 'Tis an hydra-headed contention; the more they strive, the more they may they do as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, he brake it.

It was an excellent testimony which Armenius Marcellinus, a heathen, gave to Christianity, when speaking of Constantine, the Roman Emperor-" That he had marred the beauty of it by muffling it up in superstitious observance." Erasmus said, in answer to the Sorbonists, that external ceremonies teach backwards, by leading us retrograde from CHRIST to Moses.

If you can't keep awake," said a preacher to one of his hearers, "when you feel drowsy, why don't you take a pinch of snuff?" "I think," was the shrewd reply,"the snuff should be put into the sermon!"

There is a great stir about Church rates just now. On this theme we shall only re-echo the opinion of the Manchester Examiner and Times-"Let the Church throw away her crutches, and use her limbs." Church principles versus Church rates! Here is a capital cry-In hoc vince!

Wisely counsels Professor Newman. Instead of ordering men to rise above their circumstances, which few can or will do, political philosophy seeks to alter the circumstances, and through them affect the men, by preventing any from being exposed to temptations beyond their strength, and drawn within the whirling circles that narrow towards a vortex of ruin. Virtue must come from within; to this problem religion and morality must be directed. But vice may come from without; to hinder this, is the care of the politician. Knowledge, truth, and reason, are but abstractions; are strong only when put into action. The first duty of truth-holding, to act it out in the world, is to bring the circumstances into harmony with the theory of life, so that the truth may have free and fair play. Then, and then only, can it fructify, feed, and save the nations. "We cannot bid our strength remain,

Our cheeks continue round;
We cannot say to an aged back

Stoop not towards the ground:

We cannot bid our dim eyes see

Things as bright as ever,

Nor tell our friends-the friends from youth,

That they'll forsake us never :

But we can say I never will,

False world, be false for thee;

And oh! sound Truth, and old Regard,

Nothing shall part us three!"

The merit that gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every unit; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. Among all the causes of fanaticism there are none so conspicuous as intemperate abusers of religion; if there had been no hypocrites and superstitious persons, there would have been far less contempt for all external institutions. Those who talk, and those who do not walk, or do not act, become more or less atheistical fanatics. To those who prefer their sect to their country, our remarks will be a nullity. The great error of the existing Sectarian system, is the want of a simple but efficient plan for communicating scientific knowledge, and an inattention to man's compound nature as a moral, religious, and intelligent agent; and therefore they have miserably failed in being productive of that general benefit which the amiable propounders have contemplated. While rearing the scaffolding, they seem to have been oblivious to the patent fact, that the volume of Nature is the book of knowledge; and as our perceptive faculties were intended to make us acquainted with all the objects of the external world, surely that end should be systematically promoted.

"Rash enthusiasm in good society

Were nothing but a moral inebriety."

It is striking to remark how closely the philosophy of human nature harmonises with the declaration of the sacred writings. "This is the condemnation that light is come into the world, and men love darkness because

their deeds are evil." The Spanish lawyer's prayer is said to be "GOD send quarrels that I may live." It is to us a matter of deep regret that the three learned professions live by sin. In our quiet contemplative reveries, we think sometimes if every vice was a loss to the trinity of professions, we should make a short cut to a millennium. Would that this could be consummated! "Evil, be thou my good," would then have an end.

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Happiness does not consist in elevated stations. It was not the Shepherd of Bethlehem but the Monarch of Israel, who exclaimed-"O! that I had wings like a dove for then would I flee away and be at rest." Α philosopher said-take away interest and vanity from the heart of man, and humanity is perfect. Few really believe they want but little here below, nor want that little long;" if they did, they would be much happier than they generally are. Magnanimous souls are scarce. There is no surer mark of littleness of mind, than obstinacy in trifles. Heaven and hell are not more distant, than the benevolent spirit of the Gospel, and the malignant spirit of Party. God help the poor man who thinks for himself on his own account. This immobility on the part of those whose aim is the fusion of all parties into one, constitutes a great sin, by those who fear progress. Dryden's lines are applicable to very few

"Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple

Sacred by birth, and built by hand Divine :
His soul's the Deity that lodges there,
Nor is the pile unworthy of the GOD."

Well might a great genius exclaim-"Good GoD! how

W

CHAPTER XIX.

NURSERIES AND THE NATION.-FAMILIES, NURSERIES FOR THE STATE AND THE CHURCH.-POPULAR IGNORANCE.-CAUSES OF FANATICISM.-A SHORT CUT TO A MILLENNIUM.-CRITIQUE AND PANEGYRIC ON THE LATE MISS BRONTE.

Hamlet. "There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark

But he's an arrant knave."

Horatio. "There needs no ghost, my lord, to come from the grave
To tell us this."-SHAKSPEARE.

HERE is a peg on which we shall hang a brief sentiment. It is common with many to make light of the position of a domestic in a family, and to regard it as unimportant because it is subordinate. But this is a degree of mental blindness that verges almost on infatuation. Moral influences are not to be so measured. The nursery anticipates

both the school and the church; it sows the first seed; and in that little home-world first comes into close contact with the child's moral and immoral nature. Looking at it in its true light, what is the nursery, but just the next age in its bud and blossom? An enlightened regard, therefore, for the highest good of our children, should make us deeply concerned for that of our domestics; for in contributing to their knowledge of GOD, we are helping to purify the moral atmosphere in which our whole household shall live and move, and laying deeper by every such effort the foundations of our domestic happiness; and