that happened but yesterday, is resolvable in part into the dependence of memory on attention. We attend most, for example, where there is the greatest inducement or pleasure. In youth, pleasure is particularly felt, the faculties or capacities of enjoyment being then very strong and susceptible. In old age, sensibility is considerably impaired; less pleasure is therefore experienced, and less attention is exercised; consequently there is a fainter recollection of recent circumstances. Besides, we are perhaps so constituted as to remember pleasing things more than painful. Accordingly, the aged seldom dilate on the disagreeable incidents or feelings of their earlier days. To these considerations may be added, as haply of more weight than all the rest, that during so long an interval fancy has frequently reverted to the particulars retained, which have thus become blended with a number of subsequent reflections or occurrences.

COMFORTS parting from old age are like the leaves falling from a tree that is destined to be cut down or blasted before the return of spring. Add to which, that for the most part but minor comforts then remain to vanish,—our joys being like the flowers, of which the fairest fade the most quickly: a symbol or foreshadowing of the state in which the activities of existence subside near its close, as the sounds of music that die away in the distance. For the course of mortal life is as those crested waves of the sea, that rush in long line towards the shore, foaming and resounding as they go, but sink down quietly at last on the smooth and level sands.

THE views or pursuits of a person whose character has attained maturity, are less influenced than is often supposed by the earlier parts of his history, however the incidents or fancies of that season may be blended with his riper reflections, or worked up into his maturer efforts. To most people of gifted understanding, there seems to occur a

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period when the faculties receive a sudden and decisive expansion, and it is from that epoch chiefly that the impressions are worth recording: somewhat as opinions entertained on speculative or critical points before the thinking power is awakened, and applied, vigorously and independently, to those particular subjects-a consummation which happens but to few- are mentally of no value whatever.

THERE are several reasons why entrance on active scenes and duties should commence at an earlier date than is customary. First, because of the shortness of human existence. Were our years like those of the antediluvians, the delay might well be prolonged till the age of thirty or forty; but by that time, alas! the best portion of our life is consumed; the freshness of feeling at least, like the fragrance of flowers that have been gathered, soon perishing; while the shadows of objects lengthen as the evening draws on. In the next place, there are energies and capabilities in the young, which should not be allowed to remain dormant or unappropriated. For certain purposes of utility, youth is better qualified than riper age; and though failures or defects may sometimes accompany juvenile efforts, allowance will commonly be made for them by candid minds, indulgence and good-will being almost universally conceded to the young. Besides, the evil need not be of frequent occurrence, if those placed in immediate connexion were to afford the benefit of their friendly suggestions. But perhaps the most important consideration is the desirableness of avoiding the formation of tastes and habits too foreign to general feeling; a disadvantage almost inseparable from having the character and sentiments moulded in a sphere of comparative inactivity and seclusion. As it is, we appear too dilatory in all our movements. We begin to live when we should rather be learning to die; and the greater part of our brief and fitful day is spent in preparations for happiness, which never arrives, or only, as the transient colourings of the heavens before

sunset, when that day is closing. At the age of twentyfour, Pitt was prime minister of England; at twenty-six, Napoleon had the command of the army of Italy; and Augustus, when but twenty, was first consul of the Roman republic, and in effect master of the world.

The people of America are on the whole perhaps best circumstanced in these respects; the demand for most species of employment being there so ample, and the means of subsistence so abundant, that a person is rather forwarded than embarrassed by the contraction of early domestic ties. There is something wrong, prima facie, in the prevailing usages of society among us, as interposing so many formidable barriers to the indulgence of a sentiment which nature has implanted, and of which she may fairly be considered the best interpreter with regard to time. Marry in thy youth, was a maxim inculcated by the ancient Persians. Franklin seems to have taken the right view of the subject, with his usual practical sagacity, in one of those Essays which, however characterised by material and unimaginative tendencies, are both ingenious and entertaining. In several of the older states of Europe, feeling is often allowed to remain ripe so long till it falls from the tree.

ETHICAL ADVERSARIA.

HE separation of ethics from the religious element as embodying a reverence, spirituality, and affection, that express themselves in allegiance to the will of God, whether charactered in man's nature, or exhibited in any more precise or independent form, involves, if not the imperfect comprehension of morality as a science, or the partial fulfilment of its obligations as a law, yet such a deficiency as belongs to a landscape without the beauty and the glow of sunshine. A divine philosophy, unfolding the principle and the standard of duty as emanations of the Infinite and All-perfect, is, in relation to the adequate developement of a divine life, somewhat as the sight at sea of those heavens, sparkling with stars, that have furnished the rules of guidance over the deep.

It would be a different thing to say with some, in disregard alike of the structure of human nature, the evidence of fact, and the accumulated reasonings of Butler and others, that Morals can have no foundation, nor a high tone of purity be realised, apart from Religion. This were a narrowness akin to that which could censure the writings of a recent novelist as utterly irreligious for depicting virtuous characters with no trace of piety ;- -a criticism that would prohibit the delineation of certain classes not uncommon in actual life, or the delineation unaccompanied by a species of theological commentary.

For the mind to be rightly disposed, and rightly informed, is all that is requisite to ensure proper conduct. Yet of the two qualifications, the former will carry a person much farther in the right path than the latter. It is remarkable how often mere rectitude of aim will lead to sound intellectual conclusions; as plants in shady recesses thrust themselves, by a sort of instinet, towards the light, which is so needful to their health and luxuriance. "The integrity of the upright," says the Hebrew sage, "shall guide them:" he does not say, their perspicacity or reach of thought. So in the beautiful imagery portraying the Divine Reason or Intelligence by which the world was created, and which is the source at once of vitality and illumination, it is the life. which gives the light-not light the life.*

CERTAIN vices, when brought into connexion, neutralise each other's force; as avarice and vanity, or ambition and the love of ease; somewhat as in landscape gardening the deformities of one tree are capable of correction by those of another in grouping. It may happen also that the operation of one powerful principle, though of exceptionable or equivocal kind, shall prevent the growth of many inferior qualities; as appears to have been the case for a time with Marius, whom Sallust reproaches with inordinate thirst of glory, but commends for a number of distinguished excellences-"industria, probitas, militiæ magna scientia, animus belli ingens, domi modicus, lubidinus et divitiarum victor, tantummodo gloriæ avidus." Were it not for the counteracting influence of different propensities in the same subject, or of the vices of one person brought into collision with those of another, the state of society would be incalculably

* Πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἐν ὅ γέγονεν· ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων.

"All thynges were made by it, and without it was made nothynge that was made. In it was lyfe, and the lyfe was the lyght of men."Proëm to St. John's Gospel-Tyndale's Translation.