should be passed in planting good principles, cultivating good taste, strengthening good habits, and fleeing those pleasures which lay up bitterness and sorrow for the time to come! Take good care of the first twenty years of your life, and you may hope that the last twenty will take good care of you.

When the Roman general, sitting at supper with a plate of turnips before him, was solicited by large presents to betray his trust, he asked the messenger whether he that could sup on turnips, was a man likely to sell his country? Upon him who has reduced his senses to obedience, temptation has lost its power; he is able to attend impartially to virtue, and execute her commands without hesitation. A contented mind-which can only be obtained by developing the self-renunciation virtues, enabling you to appreciate the luxury of doing good-is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world: and if in the present life his happiness arises from subduing his desires, it will in the next arise from the gratification of them. Without this genuine selfishness, you have no more sure guarantee for good conduct, than you have of fishing up the golden wheels of Pharaoh's chariot.

Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance-the four cardinal virtues-cannot be carried out fully without embracing the latter in all things. "Each for all, and all for each," is our pet cardinal. An exclusive would sayLet a man be but orthodox, and no bungler can go wrong. The power of man to destroy himself, says Principal Lee, in his sermon preached before the Queen at Balmoral, is exemplified every day; but for one that is guilty of this

wickedness directly, thousands perish by intemperance, bad or insufficient food, want of ventilation, noxious gases, excessive mental excitement, idleness, overworking, and the like. These paths, indeed, are often so circuitous, that people will hardly be persuaded that their end is destruction. But that they lead down to the chambers of death as certainly as the shortest road, who does not know that ever took pains to trace them? Who does not know in his own experience who has walked in them? It is reckoned that 100,000 die annually of preventible diseases. In the same proportion, more than 1,250,000 must die annually over Europe; and if we consider certain customs prevailing in China and India, the great centres of population in the East, probably not fewer than five or six times that number must perish over the whole world. We shudder to look upon the sanguinary track of war, as well we may; but the numbers that are slain in war, are a mere fraction compared with the countless throng of human beings that vice and ignorance are constantly tumbling into their graves. Can we think of this without horror or pity? Our religion—the religion of mercy and charity— should prompt us to study the dreadful spectacle-sin reigning unto death.

Probably not fewer than 400,000 men were killed during the late Russian war. But during the same period, ten times as many died in Europe alone from preventible diseases. The slaughter of 4,000,000 persons during the three years, in war against the laws of health! So appalling a fact is surely deserving the earnest attention, not only of governors, politicians, and philanthropists, but of

CHAPTER XX.

APHORISTIC STYLE OF WRITING RECOMMENDED.-SKETCH OF DR. JOHNSON.-DRAGS ON THE WHEELS OF PROGRESS.

"A man's mind is parcel of his fortune."-SHAKSPEARE.

THE Princess Royal a bride at seventeen-at an age when the child and the woman are struggling against each other. Upon this question we concur with the editor of the Magnet, it is not a brilliant example for her liege subjects to follow. Precocious as she may be-however she may be graced with all the feminine virtues of the illustrious parent stock, exhibiting virtues in the bud which will adorn and glorify her in the flowering-these are not sufficient reasons for a matrimonial compact, which will conduct her suddenly from childhood to womanhood, from the sports of a play-room to the duties of a wife and matron. For her, there will be indeed no girlhood. The most beautiful, innocent, and happiest period of woman's life will be unknown to her. Educated as she may be, drilled as she may be, there can be no forming of nature. You can no more displace the thoughts and feelings of a child, and put those of a woman in their place than you can add one inch to her stature. You may obtain a simulation; but the true woman is a growth of time. The gentle spirit, the true and holy affection of the young princess, which fully warrant all that has been said in

Parliament, may ensure a happy lot, and a thornless path in the new land which our princess will make her own; but similar good fortune may not be hoped for in those numberless instances of early and imprudent marriages which it is to be feared the royal nuptials will give rise to. It will be the apex of feminine honour to be a bride, and the lowest depths of feminine humiliation to die an old maid.

All sorts of humbugs profess morality, from the House of Commons to the House of Correction. The heavy walls of wisdom are not, however, to be battered down with pop-guns and paper pellets. We honour the Queen, and respect the people; but we cannot agree sincerely with Lord Mansfield, whose judicial character still ranks high. Many things acquired by the favour of either, are in our account not worth ambition. We wish popularity, but it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run after. It is that popularity which sooner or later fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble ends by noble means. We will not do what conscience tells is wrong, to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the daily laudations of all the papers which come from the press. We will not avoid doing what is right, though it should draw on us the whole artillery of libels, all that falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded populace can swallow. We can say with a great magistrate-"Ego hoc animo, semper fui, ut invidiam virtute, partem gloriam haud infamiam putarem."

The Reformation did not settle final results. Its effect was to awaken and discipline thought, not to stereotype

it for future ages. God help us to preserve our indepen dent individuality! Bourdalone is neither elegant like Massillon, nor majestic like Bossuet, nor grave like the Paschal of "the thoughts," nor witty like him of “the Provincials," nor concise like Rochefoucald, nor dry like Descartes, nor gracious like Fenelon. What then is he? He is himself; and the signet of his individuality, as we say in these days, is profoundly impressed on every page, or we may rather say, on every line of his discourses. Language in Bourdalone's eyes, is but the garment of thought; and not a luxurious garment, but a necessary one, in which the least amplitude would be superfluous, and the reader has no trouble to become so while reading.

Sidney Smith tenderly implored every writing man before he put pen to paper, to think of the deluge-to gaze on Noah, and be brief. Mankind, he said, cannot now lounge over a pamphlet for ten years, as they did before the submersion, when an average life extended 800 years. In the ark, moreover, a great deal of matter was crowded into a very small space. Therefore, on all accounts, gaze on Noah, and be brief.

We say with the Spartan-Why do you speak so much to the purpose, of that which is not to the purpose? and if you do not speak to the purpose, to what purpose do you speak? We repeat, being a warm disciple of this giant mind, we have endeavoured to follow such oracular and sage advice, at the great cost of being thought by many abrupt and ambiguous. We hope Johnson's prediction-(viz., that all aspirants to literary noto