after useful knowledge is confessedly so noble, and so worthy of much sacrifice of time and labour, that, even when sometimes conscious of its wasting influence on the body, he seems almost, if not wholly, justified to himself in pursuing it with unrelaxing efforts. How hardly, then, shall such an one be persuaded! Besides, the decays of strength and the approaches of disease are so gradual, so imperceptible, so insidious, that he becomes a victim almost unawares. Who that passes to-day by the margin of the brightly glistening and rapid stream, and marks the green bank so gay with flowers and apparently so firm, would suspect that the waters are secretly sapping its foundation, and that when he returns to-morrow he shall find that it has sunk, with all its beauty, into the tide, and left in its place a sightless ruin!

But, in these days, the voice of warning needs to be powerfully addressed to those young persons also who are likely to suffer from the prevailing mode of female education. Time was when for them, that instruction was deemed the best which formed them to be adepts in domestic economy; active, thrifty, and notable housewives; when literary

pursuits and elegant accomplishments were regarded as unsuitable to their province, and as having a direct tendency to disqualify them for the discharge of their proper duties. But though the notions then entertained on the subject of female education are now generally allowed to have been too contracted and illiberal, yet the prejudices of what, on some accounts, still deserve to be called the good old times, made a valuable provision for training up a race of healthful and active, as well as useful women. Who can contemplate, without alarm for the consequences, the inordinate time and pains that, in the present day, are bestowed on the acquisition of light accomplishments, the continued hours spent in sedentary occupation, and commonly in a confined and unwholesome atmosphere? To what cause so probable can be ascribed the increase of some prevalent disorders, as to this method of education, which leaves so little opportunity for the cultivation of bodily strength and activity, by the free and plentiful use of exercise in the fresh, enlivening, and invigorating air? Alas for the next generation of husbands and children, if they are to be tended and nursed by sickly wives and mothers! The

want of healthful cheerful activity in household and maternal duties, will be poorly compensated by the sight of faded drawings, or the sound of half-forgotten French phrases, and, now and then, of an ill-played tune on a neglected instrument. But even if considerable proficiency be made in accomplishments, and real ability and skill be acquired, what will they all profit if health be lost?

It can never be too often inculcated, nor too deeply impressed on the minds of young persons, that, while "one thing is needful" in the highest and most absolute sense; while "wisdom," or true religion, "is the principal thing;" the next in importance is health. Without it even religion loses much of its value, in so far as it almost wholly terminates in the benefit of the possessor, who lives in melancholy inability, a stranger to the blessedness of going about doing good. Ask the missionary the value of health, who, sinking under the power of some consuming malady, sees the wretched multitude dying in their sins around him, and can no more warn nor intreat them, nor point to Him who is the way, the truth, and the life. He shall tell you how willingly he would forego all wealth, and learning, and repu

tation; how gladly, were he possessed of them, he would exchange them all for ability again to devote himself to the "work of faith and labour of love." But what he deeply feels is not embittered by mournful regrets and selfupbraiding at the remembrance of health once enjoyed but wilfully neglected, or 'wasted in the pursuit of inferior, if not unworthy, objects. No: with all due care, he falls by a stroke that neither foresight, nor prudence, nor skill could avert; but he falls in the noblest of all human undertakings, and God approves, and all just men and all holy angels bless him in his fall; for, while the exalted privilege was granted to him, as one" bought with a price," he had glorified God with his body as well as with his spirit, which were God's.

But, to return: Jesus grew, and increased in stature, no doubt industriously and cheerfully employed in the labours of an occupation despised by many among men as mean and degrading. Yet Jesus chose it. Are we, therefore, to choose it? If the option be given us, are we to prefer a life of manual labour to pursuits that employ the intellect more than the hands? By no means. He who says to all, "Follow me," has nowhere

forbidden us to choose the more noble employment, as that certainly is which calls into exercise chiefly the nobler faculties. It is not in adopting the same earthly occupation that we are required to imitate him; for that we might do, and remain destitute of any real resemblance to him; but it is in the spirit with which he submitted to labour, and in the motives by which he was actuated, that we are called on to be like him. The young person who is influenced by that spirit and by those motives, will be ready to engage in any honest calling, however mean in the estimation of men; for he will justly consider that though Christ does not require of those who would follow him to choose after his example a mechanical occupation, yet that the fact of his having done so plainly teaches us that every useful employmént is also honourable, if its duties be performed with fidelity and uprightness towards man, and in the fear and love of God. this is a lesson which, if well learned and extensively acted on, would be productive of immense benefit both to individuals, and to society at large.

And

The mischiefs that result from a spirit and motives the opposite of Christ's, are in