essentially aided to convert, and to whom the personal pronoun I, which by grammatical usage always agrees with something, is made to disagree with every thing but itself!

In this category may be recognised many who, having been decently educated, and possessing fair intellectual endowments, but unacquainted with the world except through books and through the windows of their domiciles, exhibit a remarkable interest in what they term progress;' indulging in severe commentaries on what the majority of society regard as wise and useful doctrines and manifesting a desire to sweep away much of what their predecessors held in veneration. So closely do they hug their favorite notions, that they become exceedingly restive, even when listening to words of wisdom from the lips of those capable of teaching, but who do not teach exactly in their way.

If the speaker or preacher does not jump over and above all the principles that bear on daily practical life, he does not jump high enough for them, and is deemed a lame, unprofitable servant.

The experience of a past age they unwillingly recognise and are averse to weaving it into the fabric of that in which they live; and it may almost be doubted whether their aspiring minds ever voluntarily draw from the pure fountain of Holy Writ any fitting inspiration.

'You may pull out the 'march-of-mind' peg, or the progress-peg, or the 'old-abuses' peg, and as long as you choose to turn the crank, you may have an unfailing continuity of lucubration, with a very respectable average of meaning, and a good deal of briskness. In about half an hour you begin to reflect that you have gained nothing tangible except an aching arm and a little giddiness in the head.

'Though it is all about man man is not in it.'

The state of mind to which we have alluded may often result from extreme culture; but its tendency, in seducing the less clever and uninformed inquirers into a path which they are much quicker to adopt than comprehend, and which consigns many of them to the hopeless mazes of a labyrinth, is what we chiefly regret; and if they ever emerge, they are very apt to enter the fold of the Romish church, where they may be relieved from thinking during the rest of their lives. The cardinal error of these transcendental leaders is to take the unit for the mass, the individual for the universal, the ego for DEITY.'

It requires no small degree of presumption in any mind to infer that it is itself in perfect harmony with all outward and inward existences. The attainment of so high and palmy a state the general mind is as yet unwilling to accord to the best of mortals; and until they can prove their position they will be regarded as false lights rather than the infallible guides of humanity. We are aware that views the most dissimilar are now entertained and urged in regard to the popular question, 'Which is the best path for human progress to take?' Strong and ardent minds are constantly engaged in illustrating systems which their own reason has either invented or adopted, while others, of equal forecast and logical acumen, are content to leave the great problem unresolved, but at the same time manifesting and advocating a steady faith in the sufficiency of those means which a wise Providence has

conferred on our race for its advancement, and which they are taught to believe are immutable. We can, if we choose, distrust the benign agency of some or all of God's laws; and among the seemingly incredulous of this class may be found some who are overlaid with scientific truth, embellished with literary graces and their brows moistened with the precious dew of Minerva. It is generally deemed an evidence of good sense to choose a straight path if for nothing else but its straightness.

We confess we have no desire to run down or cut away from the age in which our lot is cast; to be decently equipped to meet its requirements supposes a knowledge so various, passions so controlled, industry so unslumbering, that we are satisfied if we do what lies clearly at hand, and do not see what lies dimly at a distance.

We are not yet sufficiently 'ripe' to advocate the Millerite doctrine, which would urge us to 'hasten the union of the imaginative and actual.' These transcendental prodigals may, however, be seen occasionally returning with a limping gait to the embraces of their once forsaken friends. Nobody will deny that it is a noble spectacle to witness an ardent mind pursuing what it may deem truth, and kindling into quickened action as it advances and appropriates; but the contribution it may offer to the great store-house of useful knowledge would surely be rejected if it tended to throw no additional light on the olden track of time or on that which is crowded by the generations of today.

The topic which has engaged our thoughts thus far is capable of indefinite enlargement, and we feel a reluctance to separate from one so rich and varied in its suggestive character. New England is a great study. Are there not among her sons some who might delineate her entire features and bearing with the skill and fidelity of a Phydias? We think it will be admitted that the undeviating steadiness with which New England has pursued her course, guided by lofty principles, has eminently conduced to that prevalence of well-being which is so perceptible at the present time. 'Decision, which is the best earthly ally of wisdom and virtue,' has there found a fitting embodiment and a sturdy illustrator.

D. E. N.

P. S.-IT is not too much to say, that so far as systems have been devised to further the cause of sound education, New England is entitled to the first rank. It is too large a subject to be pressed into the narrow range of remark which we have prescribed in the present paper. To such as may desire an acquaintance with or seek information on this head, we would refer them to the annual reports of the various school committees, which seem to drop with increased ripeness from the tree of knowledge every successive year. The amount of intellectual labor and supervision which their system involves and receives can hardly be imagined. The stream of instruction is made to run every where, but especially where the most formidable obstructions exist, and its fertilizing influences are, without intending violence to the term, gigantic.

VI.

'Tribes of earth that pined and waited,
Groping in Time's straitened fold,
Crushed, benighted, sad, abated,
Shall the glorious day behold;

And the SHEPHERD forth shall lead them
(He hath watched them, though unseen,)
Forth to springs of living waters,

Forth to tracts of endless green.

VII.

'Meteor shapes-the shapes of error,

Glimmering through night's hideous waste-
Rumor, scattering words of terror,
'Flytheir hated reign is past!'

While the stars which at creation's
Dawn dissolved in tears of ruth,
Hail anew the ransomed nations,
Ransomed by their shepherd, TRUTH.'

A FEW THOUGHTS ON CLOUDS.

THE beauty of the cloud has sometimes attracted the poet's eye, but in general he has banished it from his pictures of Paradise, as if it was an earthly imperfection. That blissful region is said to know no cloud.' The realms of the spirit-world are 'ever bright and fair,' and repose in eternal serenity and peace. Yet in fact the cloud has exhibited scenes of as fearful majesty and of as gorgeous and exquisite beauty as earth has ever witnessed. The mass of unthinking mortals, dwellers in tabernacles of burnt clay, would fain, even in this lower world, realize the dream of the poet, and sweep away the clouds as impediments of their rightful sunshine. Were their wishes to be gratified, they would be the first to weary of such an unvarying sameness; were the sun ever to rise and set in the same cloudless splendor, the stars ever twinkle in the same diamond brilliancy; were the moon ever to beam in the cloudless majesty of the full, neither wax nor wane, neither show its slight silvery crescent in the west, and 'fill its horn' and then fade away, till nights of clouds and darkness make us watch and wait for its reäppearance; should we gain in happiness and beauty by the change? I trow not.

It is not proposed to speak of the important part performed by the cloud in the economy of nature; how by a silent and unseen process from brook, river, lake and ocean, its material is rising ceaselessly into the atmosphere, by a division so minute as to conquer the all-pervading force of gravitation, to descend in the blessed rain-drops on the parched and withering earth, refreshing alike the crowded city and the trackless desert, the cultivated valley and the rocky mountain-top, and imparting even there a brighter green and lovelier hue to the humble shrub and unseen flower, at least by mortal eye, that grow and bloom in quiet