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a miserable and degraded being! Call you that life, which is thus cut off from life's highest powers and functions? It falls as much below the spiritual and real life of man, as that of the animal below the rational, and the plant below the animal. Call it existence, vegetation, but never call it life! That soul alone can be said to live, which lives in the exercise of its highest and noblest powers, in the consciousness of the possessson of its noblest faculties.

What is it that confers dignity on man, which makes us approach him with reverence; a reverence which we pay to no other creature, which makes his life sacred from our touch, and his rights hallowed from our violation, which pours around him a mysterious majesty, which crowns him with glory and honour? Is it not the image of God he bears about with him, his possession of a spiritual nature, his alliance with his Maker, his intrinsic worth in the universe? This is the grand secret of the reverence which we feel and pay, and delight to feel and pay to each other. It is the inward and inborn feeling we have, of the alliance of every human soul with. God, which causes us to set man apart from the rest of God's works, as something sacred and revered.

And what is it that raises one man above another? I do not ask in the eyes of a mistaken and ill-judging world. I do not ask whom the giddy and superficial admire, for they admire much that a wise man would never covet; I mean who are they whom we do really in our hearts esteem and reverence? Those who have cultivated that within them which is allied to God, their mind, their intellect, who have expanded their capacity for knowledge and virtue. We would almost make pilgrimages to the tombs of those of our race who have enlarged the bounds of knowledge, who have carried the lamp of discovery into the very inmost recesses of the works of God, and come back with new acquisitions to enrich the common treasury of the human mind. honour them, and while we do so, we feel that we are honouring ourselves, in the dignity they bestow upon our common nature. We are grateful to them for revealing its far reaching capacities, showing us what perfection and grandeur it was originally made capable of attaining. And the reverence we pay them, is such as we never lay before thrones, or yield to crowns and sceptres. These, we know, descend by hereditary right, knowledge and virtue are personal acquisitions. Thrones may crumble, sceptres may fall, but know

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ledge and virtue shall be immortal, immortal as the mind in which they reside.

But it is objected, perhaps, that great minds and cultivated minds are not needed, except, occasionally, for the exigences of human affairs, that the concerns of this world require the hands of many, but the intellect of few. Point me if you can, to one single individual whom intelligence would not benefit, would not refine and exalt; and enable to perform the duties of his station, with greater ease, efficiency and pleasure. The mind must have its aliment, the mind for whose sake the body was created, and from which alone it derives its dignity and value. Consider the sources of pleasure which are thus developed; the appetite of curiosity which is so exquisitely delighted with the acquisition of knowledge, which pants to comprehend the universe, and exults with a joy unspeakable at every step it takes, in its goings forth in discovery among the boundless works of God. Consider the cultivation of the taste, the capacity itself of being pleased by what we behold and learn, by which new beauties are unfolded in that which before was dark and uninteresting; which adds freshness to the landscape, and new glories to the orbs of heaven. Consider the power of cherishing the affections, and adding new delicacy and tenderness to the ties by which we are here bound together. This, this is to live, and life without these, is only a higher species of sleep. It is only when these parts of our nature are cultivated and exercised, that we awake to a full consciousness of our existence, that we enjoy the higher and more perfect modes of being. Tell me ye possessors of glorious and immortal natures, tell me, have ye not in the exercise of your nobler faculties, in one hour of intellectual and moral activity, lived more, than in whole days of drowsy and equivocal existence?

The deepest want of human nature, and that which unsupplied, leaves the widest desolation in man's heart, is religion. Without it, he is a gloomy wanderer and a hopeless exile, consumed with desires and aspirations too great for earth, and too guilty for heaven; goaded on by passions which he cannot restrain, and is ruined if he indulge; held back by a conscience which he is thwarted if he obey, and wretched if he violate. A helpless child, without a father or a friend, a vessel floating without a rudder, upon a stormy ocean, a meteor shooting lawless through the sky, his mind a chaos tossed by furious winds and surging waves; religion is the

voice of God, heard above the winds and waters, commanding light to spring out of darkness, beauty out of deformity, and order out of confusion.

As religion is the deepest want of human nature, so the satisfaction of that want creates the keenest and deepest delight. To no voice does curiosity listen with half the trembling solicitude, as to that which tells it there is a God. In no demonstration does the soul so triumph, as in that which assures it of his being. No discoveries fill it with the delight which those impart, that manifest him to be wise and good; no music more delightful than those sounds which convince us, that he is merciful and kind. No revelation so rapturous, as that by which Jesus Christ has told us, he is our Father in heaven. Earth never seems brighter, than when viewed as the manifestation of ineffable love, nor heaven more majestic, than when contemplated as the sublime temple of his residence. Never can we feel so safe, as when we feel ourselves to be His peculiar care, who watches the sparrow's fall. Man can never be more truly happy, than when pouring forth his heartfelt gratitude to the Author and Preserver of his being; or more truly dignified and exalted, than when holding communion with the Father of his spirit. The brightest lamp which cheers the darkness of this world, is that which Christ hath lighted in the portal of death, the brightest star which gilds the dawn, is that which rises over Bethlehem.

That soul only lives in the highest sense which maintains communion with the All-pervading Spirit, for it can thrive only on that spiritual food, which is adapted to its nature. It can rise to strength and vigour and enjoyment alone, when it is fed with knowledge and active obedience, with holy meditation, with heavenly hope, with deep devotion. Without this, all that there is of greatness and excellence in human kind is imperfect, wanting its crown of glory; without it, greatness may excite our admiration or awake our dread, but can never command what is higher and better, our confidence and love. With it, man fills up the full orb of the divine perfections, and shines by the same, but diminished and fainter light. Then shall he live, not a mere animal existence, but in higher and intenser consciousness of being; not days, and months, and years only, but live forever!

THE SPIRITUAL LAW.

SAY not, the law divine

Is hidden from thee, or afar removed;

That law within would shine,

If there its glorious light were sought and loved.

Soar not on high,

Nor ask who thence shall bring it down to earth;
That vaulted sky

Hath no such star, didst thou but know its worth.

Nor launch thy bark

In search thereof upon a shoreless sea
Which has no ark,

No dove to bring this olive-branch to thee.

Then do not roam

In search of that which wandering cannot win;
At home! at home!

That word is placed, thy mouth, thy heart within.

O! seek it there,

Turn to its teachings with devoted will;

Watch unto prayer,

And in the power of faith this law fulfil.

THE ROSE.

How fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower!
The glory of April and May!

But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour,
And they wither and die in a day.

Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast,
Above all the flowers of the field:

When its leaves are all dead, and fine colors are lost,
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!

So frail is the youth and the beauty of men,
Though they bloom and look gay like the rose!
But all our fond care to preserve them is vain:
Time kills them as fast as he goes.

Then I'll not be proud of my youth or my beauty,

Since both of them wither and fade;

But gain a good name by well doing my duty:
This will scent like a rose when I'm dead.

THE USES OF BOOKS.

LET our attention be directed to them, in the first place, as the friends, companions, and instructers of our solitude. What honest friends, what sympathizing companions, what excellent instructers they are! How can a man be really solitary, when these and nature are with him and around him? How can it be said of him, that he is without society, even though no being of flesh and blood should be near him, when he can sit down in his closet with the best and brightest minds which ever dwelt and beamed in residences of clay; with the master-spirits of all time; with the souls of the mighty living and the mighty dead, the dead who yet are living; with ancient lawgivers, philosophers, and bards; with modern lawgivers, philosophers, and bards; with moralists and satirists; with civilians and divines; with navigators and travelers; with the explorers of nature and the professors of art; with patriots; with saints; with martyrs; with apostles of Christ; with prophets of God? Who shall say, that with these, he is alone? Who shall say, that in his sorrow he is without consolers; that in his joy he is without partakers and helpers of his joy; that in his desires for information he is without teachers; that in trials and perplexities, and the various conditions of his mind and feelings, he is without spiritual advisers?

No, he is not alone. If he has books, and has learnt how to read them properly, he always has his friends about him, good and true ones. Is he fatigued with the labors of his vocation? They will refresh him with their pleasant conversation; they will sing to him care-dispelling melodies. Has he met with coldness and indifference in the world? Their welcome is always kind and warm. Has he suffered injury? They will teach him how to bear it. Has he himself been erring from the right way? They will faithfully admonish, and gently reclaim him. Has he been hurt, or is he in danger of being hurt, not by the rudeness and illtreatment, but by the flattery and indulgence of the world?

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