suppose from the iron constitution in which they are encased, that they will escape the thousand ills which flesh is heir to. They are often strangers to the luxury of kind "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep;" they toss and wriggle about from side to side, inviting Morpheus by every variety of posture in vain; rise heavy and stupid; their life is one continuous routine of restless disquiet and chagrin; their every effort is inert and purposeless; and verily they have their reward.

To be useful, indeed, is to be happy. The selfish man who is his own idol, is the man who suffers most acutely; and this is doubly augmented by his receiving the least sympathy from those around him; for they have never felt the sunshine of his heart, and how can he expect the cheering rays, in the shape of a re-percussion of its beams, to be shed upon him?

Obloquy is the price which every public man must pay who serves his country with ardent zeal and activity. We are all apt to give persons and things a value and importance that have no intrinsic worth whatever. It is all twaddle that merit is purchased by the merit of the wearer. Dress elaborately-gilded pills will be swallowed -cut a dash, awe Mr. Bull, all are honourable men, become supple and pliant as a twig of the acacia, dazzle the people till you are ready to blush for your folly, throw in a large sprinkling of insincerity-in short, become a man of the world-"all things to all men," these accomplishments fix you on the pedestal of honours and respectability. He who would turn the errors of the dead to the advantage of the living, must be prepared to be calum

niated by his own friends, and for the most upright actions of his life. His noble disinterestedness, of which anon I possibly may go out of my beat to give my readers a luminous example or two, if space will allow of more than one illustration,-will be misunderstood, if in the remotest degree the sentiments approach to a trenching upon the interests to number one pecuniarily, or pre-conceived opinions. There is no truism more true than this -Miseris succurrere disco:-"the experience of misery has taught me to succour the miserable." Let us be satisfied with the decision of the public; they will judge us as men, in matters in which we have studied only their happiness. If we have had the supreme consolation of communicating new pleasures and extending the views of any on our pet theme physiology, think that these are only the perceptions of a man, that if the area is widened they are only the shadows of eternal truth collected by another shadow, and that it is only a very small ray of the sun of intelligence which fills the universe, that has been playing in a drop of troubled water.

The author flatters himself he has proved that it is in Nature herself we must seek her laws, and that it is only when we deviate from them that we encounter calamities. To study Nature therefore, is to serve the human family; to banish sin and misery from the world is our giant hobby. In our researches we have employed the whole strength of our reason; perseverance (which is greater power than knowledge or even cash), has served the place of bad organs and a lacking of genius; and though our means have been feeble and limited, yet we can safely aver for

the last thirty-five years we have never passed a single day without collecting some edifying and agreeable observations from the sunshine of the world. With trembling anxiety we launch our bark on the ocean of life, leaving our readers to make a mosaic of the whole after their own way. In gleaning our materials we may liken ourselves to the child who with a shell dug a hole in the sand to receive the waters of the ocean. The circle we have essayed is a circumscribed one; life is too short to embrace and compass well, with a master hand, more than one useful science. We think we have kept within the limits of our genius, accustoming ourselves to enclose in them all our ideas, and incredulously to reject all that cannot be brought within their compass. We do not wish to resemble the Sicilian tyrant, who extended every passer-by on his bed of iron. If our memory serves us, he stretched by force the limbs of those who were shorter than his bed, and cut off the legs of such as were longer.

Our Church is that whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere. "God's works are the best epistles to mankind." Folly will always find faith wherever impostures find impudence. Religion which does not produce morality, does not deserve the name. True morality is the only religion which human society, considered as such, has any occasion to see practised. If a man really be moral, neither the civil magistrate nor his fellow-citizens ought to have any authority as to what he believes. Our actions are in our power, but our thoughts are no more than our dreams. Belief necessarily follows evidence, but belief without examination is a nullity; and

where the evidence does not appear to be sufficient, a man cannot believe it if he would.

There was virtue in the world before there was orthodoxy in it;—which hard equivocal word has done more mischief to mankind than all

the tyrants that ever plagued the earth. To propagate impiety is to propagate human misery; and human creeds have made more infidels than the Papists. In matters of religion, it too often happens that belief goes before examination. We take our creed from our nurse, but not our conviction. How long will mental shavings be preferred to solid blocks?

CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW TO CUT UP THE ROOT OF ATHEISM.-BURKE'S UNBENDING PRINCIPLES.-A FEW WORDS ON SHAMS.-EARLY TRAINING.INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

ALL-or nearly all-modern scepticism and atheism arises from pietists, so-called: but let one of our own champions for ecclesiastical polity, of the last century, give proof. Burke-no mean authority-on the agitation of a bill introduced for the relief of Protestant Dissenters, to whom he always displayed the utmost liberality and regard,(1773) supported it in a long and able speech, against the petitions of the Methodist body, who, schismatics themselves, deprecated indulgence to others, and were severely handled by Mr. Burke. His exertions on a previous occasion touching ecclesiastical matters, exciting some suspicions of his orthodoxy among our zealous Churchmen, the delivery of the following passage in this speech, drew very warm and general applause. The speech is so applicable to our own times, that we may be allowed to give an extract, referring those who take an interest in the question, to his Works, vol. x., for the entire speech, which is well worthy perusal. "At the same time I would cut up the very root of Atheism, I would respect all conscience that is really such, and which, perhaps, its very tenderness proves to be sincere. I wish to see the Established