tumid with vanity-that wen of the mind, which alike deforms it, and hinders its growth.

The natural gifts of the mind are dealt out with a frugal hand; to none so abundantly as to surpersede the necessity of mental labor; and to few so sparingly, that they may not, under the enjoyment of suitable means and with well-directed industry, attain to a respectable standing for knowledge; and whatever differences there may be between mankind in regard to the original powers of their minds, the most common and the greatest differences between them, arises from a diligent cultivation of these powers on the one hand, and a slothful neglect of them on the other. With respect to intellectual, as well as worldly treasure, it is the hand of the diligent that maketh rich; while the sluggard, who neglects to cultivate and improve his mind, will find that mind a wretched waste at the age of fifty, of however great promise it had been at the age of twenty. Like rare-ripe fruit, its maturity and its decay will be simultaneous.

There is yet another cause, and a fearful one, by means of which a delightsome dawn is frequently succeeded by a lowering sky. Nothing is more infectious than bad example, especially the corrupt example of those who are elevated by their fortune or rank, or by their personal accomplishments and the amenity of their manners; its poison insinuates itself imperceptibly into the young heart, where it produces a moral gangrene, awfully dangerous, if not utterly desperate. And to this deadly poison none are more eminently exposed than the boy that is thought to possess uncommon talents. Often does it blight some of the most promising plants of human nature, at the period when the crudity of youth is beginning to ripen into manhood.

Two inferences are obvious, and of practical impor

tance :

1. Parents should ever be thankful, rather than dissatisfied and repining, if their children are gifted with common faculties, though there be observable in them no indication of extraordinary brightness. Mere common sense, well cultivated and well directed, is capable of arriving at great excellence.

2. A youth should not be discouraged by being, in comparison with some others, slow to learn. The race is not always to the swift. As in pecuniary, so in intellectual acquisition, small gains unceasingly continued, accumulate at length to a large hoard. Drops added to drops," says the Arabian proverb, "constitute the

ocean.

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On the other hand, the mind, as well as the body, may move rapidly, and yet, through the infrequency or misdirection of its motions, make but little progress.

CHAP. XXIII.

Of bridling the tongue.

"The tongue can no man tame."

If this had not been the language of inspiration, experience has proved it to be the language of truth. The tongue is the most untameable thing in nature. "Every kind of beasts and birds, and of serpents, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind." But not so with the tongue. Who amongst the sons of men ever yet tamed his own tongue? Not one.-A person can bridle his tongue, or hold it: but no sooner does he take off the bridle, or let go his hold, than this little member runs wild, and out slips something from it, in the moment of passion or of levity, which the speaker presently wishes back.

Mark Anthony, it has been said, tamed lions, and drove them, harnessed to his chariot, through the streets of Rome. Had he tamed his own tongue, it had been a greater wonder still.-The rattle-snake has been tamed, and even the crocodile: but the tongue never.

Pythagoras imposed on his pupils constant silence, for months and years together. But what did it all signify? No sooner were they permitted to talk than they gabbled a deal of impertinence.-Besides, to withhold the tongue from speaking at all, is destroying its end and use, rather than taming it. The gift of speech is too precious to be thrown away. Let the tongue be ac

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customed to speak, and to speak as it ought. "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!"

Unruly tongues, on the contrary, produce "a world of iniquity."-Some are "full of deadly poison.' Such are they that curse men and blaspheme God, and which utter lies, for mischief or for sport. Such too is the deceitful tongue, "whose words are smoother than oil; yet they are drawn swords." There is the sly, whispering tongue, and the babbling, tattling tongue; each of which " separateth very friends." "The words of a tale-bearer are as wounds." He wounds others thereby, and himself too. For the mouth of such a fool is his destruction.

An impertinent, meddling tongue, makes bad worse, even when employed in offices of friendship. When Job was smit from head to foot, the busy tongues of his wife and his friends were a sorer plague to him than all his biles. And thus it often happens, that a person under misfortunes, suffers, as well from the busy meddling tongues of friends as from the malicious tongues of enemies.

There are fiery tongues. "The tongue is a fire." Such is the tongue of the passionate man or woman, whose mouth, foaming with rage, casteth abroad words which are as 66 firebrands, arrows, and death." Such also is the tongue of the slanderer and backbiter, which being itself "set on fire of hell," puts whole neighborhoods and communities in a flame, and "setteth on fire the course of nature." How many a pretty mouth has been disfigured and made hideous, by the fiery tongue

in it.

What then is to be done with this unruly little member, which "boasteth great things," and occasioneth infinite mischief in the world? Since no man, nor woman can quite tame it, what is the best way to manage it?

First, correct the heart, and keep that with all diligence. The foolishness of the lips is first uttered in the heart. "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

Next, carefully bridle the tongue. Keep the bit upon it at all times; especially in the moment of sudden anger, and in the hour of joy and conviviality.

as it is difficult.

Self-command, as respects the tongue, is as necessary For we are told from divine authority, "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body."

As it is of the utmost importance that we rule our own tongues, so, on the other hand, it is of no small importance that we be guarded against the unruly tongues of others. And here I will lay down one caution, and commend it to the particular remembrance of the young and unexperienced. Beware of close intimacy with those whose tongues are calumnious toward almost every one except their present company, to which they are ever smooth and fair. For he that commonly indulges himself in calumniating or ridiculing the absent, plainly shows his company what it has to expect from him after he leaves it.

CHAP. XXIV.

Of saying too much.

THE art of holding the tongue is quite as necessary as the art of speaking, and, in some instances, it is even more difficult to learn.

In a biographical notice of a celebrated speaker in and manager of, the British House of Commons, it is remarked, that “he never said too much." This is, in truth, a rare commendation of a public speaker. One who, without circumlocution or parade, comes to the matter in hand at once, and pertinaciously adheres to it throughout-who seizes on the strong points in the argument and sets them to view in the clearest lightwho says all that is proper, and nothing more-whose every sentence, strikes home, and who remembers "to leave off when he has done :"-such a public speaker, whether in the hall of legislation, in the pulpit, or at the bar, will never tire his hearers.

But my present business is not with Speakers, but with Talkers; the last being much the most numerous tribe, and entitled of course to the first notice.

Man, or even woman, when enjoying the freedom of the tongue, and gifted with the faculty of using it fluently, is more apt to say too much than too little.

When a room full of ladies are all speaking at the same instant, only with this difference, that some tune their voices higher, and some lower-it is pretty clear that they say too much. But this is tender ground, on which I would tread lightly.

They who expect to be listened to by every body, but are unwilling themselves to listen to any body-who will hold you by the sleeve or button if you attempt to escape them, and din you the harder, the more you shew signs of weariness; this tribe of talkers, as all but themselves will readily admit, say too much.

Persons who have wit, or (what is as bad) who think they have it, are in particular hazard of saying too much. It is one of the hardest things in the world to make a temperate use of real or of self-supposed wit, and more particularly of the talent for raillery. And hence, many a one, not ill-natured, and meaning nothing more than to show off his wit, multiplies enemies, and sometimes wounds his best friends. To make use of a line in one of Crabbe's poems,

"He kindles anger by untimely jokes."

They who talk merely with intent to shine in company, or for the sake of showing off to advantage their own parts and learning-always say too much.

The fond pair, who entertain their visitants by the hour, with setting forth the excellent qualities or smart sayings of their own children, or with ridiculous details of the rare conjugal affection that subsists between themselves-say too much.

Those who are inordinately fond of speaking in the first person-I Myself—it is more than an even chance that they will say too much.

When a young man, whose stock is small, is more eager to expend it in talking, than to increase it by patient listening-he is very apt to say too much.

Old men are prone to say too much, when, getting into the preterpluperfect tense, they represent the former days as every way better than these. As if the human