was, and she would soon forget her fancied troubles, when compared with the dark realities endured by her poor fellow-creatures around her. Idleness was a luxuriant forcing-house, in which all the weeds of their nature were thrown out most disastrously. He never knew a very indolent man, who was not a very bad man, with all his evil passions and desires afloat. There was dignity in labour. He could not look down upon the labouring man; he looked upon him with respect; but he could hardly help despising the man who was like the drone in the hive. There was no such safeguard, under GOD, against temptation, as honest and earnest toil. It had been well said, that while the devil tempted other men, the slothful man tempted the devil; and any one who wished him to do wrong, found ready access to him. The most labouring man-labouring as he ought-was the most happy man, but it was not simply working that made a man happy; let him work for a high end, and that would make a man happy indeed.

Children say what they do; old people what they have done; and fools what they wish to do. Speak the truth in love; Erasmus-like-convince, in order to conciliate, rather than convict in order to condemn: and what is deserving of consideration, let there not be a bushel of extravagance and twaddle in your ounce of solid truth. It seems to be a universal law, that nothing which is not born from above, can ever live long. "Impartial posterity detects all deceit, and the truth asserts her right. There is but one road to lasting fame-the untiring pursuit of real excellence."

The nursery and educational literature of this country, are cognate inquiries worthy of investigation. The Gospel, we think, is the best to be taught in Sunday schools; but avoid mechanical teaching, by which the young mind becomes worn, deadened to great truths: the life-giving Gospel is rendered wholly inoperative by the want of life in the instructor; the very commonness of the Bible tends to impair its power; familiarity breeds indifference, and there is no other book which requires such a living power in the teacher. Lay the chief stress on what is most important in religion. Do not conduct the child over the gospels as over a dead level. Seize on the great salient points the great ideas-"the weightier matters." Carry a cheerful spirit into religious teaching. Youth is the age of joy and hope; and nothing repels it more than gloom. Do not array religion in terror; to be severely and sternly pious is particularly repulsive to the young idea. Speak of God's Fatherly interest with a warm heart and beaming eye. Truth in her severest, as well as her mildest form, must be placed before the young. Above all, teach them the sacrifice of self-will, to the consideration of the right and happiness of others. Help them to sympathise with the toils, pains, and sacrifices of the philanthropist, the martyr, the patriot; and inspire contempt of fear and peril, in adhering to truth and GoD. Show the application of the truths of Christianity to the familiar scenes and pursuits of life. A wise man is neither weakly credulous nor wantonly sceptical. Bring it out to them as the great reality. So teach, and you will not teach in vain.

Habit in a child is at first like a spider's web; if neglected, it becomes a thread of twine; next a cord of rope; finally a cable; and then, who can break it? The gossamer texture of the sensorial and other nerves, is not often taken into account in the tuition of children. The natural operation of an external stimulus, is to induce an immediate re-action, directed to realise the pleasure it offers, or to avert the pain it occasions. In early life, more especially, the body re-acts with infinite promptitude upon its sensitive impressions. At this period of existence, all the organic movements indicate by their rapidity the acuteness of sensibility, and the vigour of the vital forces. The pulse of infants beats 120 in the minute, and the organic functions, being mounted not only to preserve life, but to extend the bulk of the body in all directions, possess a vigour and promptitude of action which render the constitution more susceptible of external impressions. The circulation and digestion proceed with a greater velocity; diseases are more acute, sensations more vivid. The variety and intensity of impressions which accompany this constitution, hurry forward volition with a rapidity unfavourable to reflection. The percipient is neither conscious of the value of half the complex sensations he receives, nor has experience furnished his memory with analogies by which he can compare them. Youth is perpetually the dupe of appearances, and the victim of a confiding obedience to first impressions. But as life advances towards maturity, this physical condition of the body, so necessary to its growth and development, gradually subsides; and an acquaintance with the world

begets a necessity for pursuing more attentively the chain of causes and consequences. Hope and fear-the first a stimulant, the latter a sedative-mix their suggestions with all the impressions of sense; and by balancing the other tendencies, dissever the original organic associations of stimulus and re-action, by establishing others, in which long trains of ideas intervene between the sensation and its ultimate consequences. Without a good nervous system, the brain is comparatively a wreck, a shadow, without life or determinate form. It is a fact well attested by experience, says Sir H. Holland, in his Mental Physiology, that "the memory may be seriously injured by pressing upon it too hardly and continuously in early life." Whatever theory we hold as to the great function of our nature, it is certain that its powers are only gradually developed; and that, if forced into premature exercise, they are impaired by the effort. This is a maxim, indeed, of general import, applying to the condition and culture of every faculty of body and mind; but singularly so to the one we are now considering, which forms, in one sense, the foundation of intellectual life. A regulated exercise, short of fatigue, is improving to it; but we are bound to refrain from goading it by constant and laborious efforts in early life, and before the instrument is strengthened to its work; or it decays under our hands.

Principles can only be strong by the strength of understanding, or the cogency of religion. No earthly element can be found in a true virgin state. tion is a seminary of infinite importance.

Fireside educa

It is imparted,

because it is universal; and besides the education it bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form and colour to the whole texture of life. There are few who can receive the honours of a college; but all are graduates of the hearth. Providence allows to every intellect only a certain amount of development, limited by certain laws, spiritual and physical; yet not one of which can be broken with impunity. The brain is like a rich quarry, you may work it a year, or you may with care and diligence make it last a life-time; but you cannot get out of it more than there is in it; and work as you will, you must get to the end of the vein some day. A voluminous brain, and a divine intellect, can never be obtained generally under our present regime. We do not argue for enormous heads, resting on limbs and muscleof a disproportionate size; neither do we advocate the latter to be expanded at the cost of the cerebral develops ment; but the whole machinery (as in an edifice) we contend, should be built up together, if you would have a perfect man. The million are il-legitimately born; some brains are so ponderous behind and light before, that their heads seem in danger of tilting backwards. We know several literary men, who, in the ardour of composition, exhibit all the symptoms of a kind of brain fever; their faces become red, suffused, and animated; their eyes. sparkling, the carotids pulsate violently; the jugular veins are swollen; everything indicates that the blood is carried to the brain with an impetus and quantity proportioned to its degree of excitement. It is, indeed, only during this kind of erection of the cerebral organ, that his ideas flow