not wheat, so sure will the devil be to sow tares.

Another strange notion, if another it may be termed, which has been entertained as if there were a repugnancy between morality and letters-as if the health of the affections and moral faculties depended, in this rank of life more than any other, upon a morbid state of the intellectual-letters, it has been said, may be an instrument of fraud; so may bread, if discharged from the mouth of a cannon, be an instrument of death.-Bentham.

R

ULES FOR CORRECTING CREDULOUS AND CONTRADICTORY

DISPOSITIONS. The prejudice of credulity may in

some measure be cured by learning to set a high value upon truth, and by taking more pains to attain it, remembering that truth often lies dark and deep, and requires us to dig for it as hid treasure; and that falsehood often puts on a fair disguise, and therefore we should not yield up our judgment to every plausible appearance. It is no part of civility or good breeding to part with truth, but to maintain it with decency and candour.-Watts.

XXIII.

HARITY. I fear we little know what a deep and almost terrific sentiment of hatred is often engendered in the breast of the poor by the ordinary administration of charities. They feel themselves degraded, rather than obliged, by this manner of giving, and become, in fact, enemies of their benefactors. They have their part to play as well as the philanthropist; they consider it a sort

amid these struggling aspirations of the nineteenth; the working classes of England were much less troublesome before they suspected themselves to be free men, or while at least they kept to themselves the unwelcome truth, than in these days of chartism and discontent. What then? It is through "much tribulation" that men must always "enter the kingdom of heaven," but this strife is surely better than slothful rest in the outer kingdom of darkness! The confusion and the conflict are not the dawn of the coming, but the relic of the parting time. The shorter the struggle, indeed, the better; but sometimes it must of necessity be prolonged. Ages of mistake and wrong are not to be effaced by the penitent efforts of a single day, or a single generation. The sins of the fathers are visited, in perplexity and strife, upon the children. Our consolation must be, that the children's children may hope for peace again, and on a sure foundation.-Green.

XXV.

HE MORAL EVILS OF WEALTH.-I am obliged to regard with considerable distrust the influence of wealth upon individuals. I know that it is a mere instrument, which may be converted to good or bad ends; but I more than doubt whether the chances lead that way. Independence and luxury are not likely to be good for any man. I know that there are noble exceptions; but as I have seen so much of the evil effects of wealth upon the mind-making it proud, haughty, and impatient-robbing it of its simplicity, modesty, and humility—bereaving it of its large and gentle and considerate humanity—and I have heard such testimonies, such

invariably goes down the rolling wheel of fortune, and there leaves the energy necessary to rise again. And yet we are, almost all of us, anxious to put our children, or to insure that our grandchildren shall be put, on this road to indulgence, vice, degradation, and ruin. This excessive desire for, and admiration of, wealth is one of the worst traits in our modern civilisation. We are, if I may say so, in an unfortunate dilemma in this matter. Our political civilisation has opened the way for multitudes to wealth, and created an insatiable desire for it; but our mental civilisation has not gone far enough to make a right use of it.-Dewey.

XXVI.

He Influence of Newspapers.- -It is almost impossible, we think, to overrate the immense moral and

political importance of a thoroughly good provincial journal. We hesitate not to say that in many instances the conductors of each publication have it in their power to serve the country more usefully even than some of our prominent politicians and statesmen. When, for instance, misunderstandings arise among large masses of workmen, in such parts of the country as Yorkshire and Lancashire, with regard to their employers, or to the rulers of the country, how important is it that the local press which they read should be under the conduct of good, loyal, liberal, and enlightened men! An injudicious article might keep alive a flame of discontent; when a few words of thorough good sense, dictated by a truly generous and liberal spirit, may keep a country in peace more effectively than the posse comitatus, or a regiment of slaughter-breathing yeomanry.-Green.