''

Gray was somewhat advanced in years, he was one day superintending a piece of carpenter's work, and he had occasion to reprimand the man who was performing it for not doing his work well.The carpenter turned upon him-he and Billy having known each other in youth-and said, "Billy Gray, what do you presume to scold me for? You are a rich man, it is true; but didn't I know you when you were nothing but a drummer ?" Well," said Mr. Gray, "didn't I drum well, eh? didn't I drum well?" Let every lad, whose eye is upon this page, try to do his drumming well. The nobility or the ignobility is not in the employment, but in our elevation or degradation of it. "This one thing do." The secret of success is very frequently in this power to concentrate energy and attention upon the " one thing." Strike out your aim, and then follow it with pertinacity, with earnestness, and resolution. The humblest powers are exalted by perpetual polishing and attention. Difficulties, as we have already said, yield up the combat, and retire from the field; and you have the satisfaction of feeling that your mind has borne the yoke and harness, in order that in the arena it might win the goal. This book must be a short

moreover, be a Book of Hints.

one, and it must, The first thought

that strikes upon our mind is the value of youth, when the blood is bounding high, when the feel

ings are fresh and strong, when habits are easily made-habits which may be for good or evil, rivet round the whole future life. And I will suppose that this youth is now yours, that my reader is thus blessed with the first energies of life, and that he is disposed to bring them, and consecrate them upon the Altars of Knowledge, and Virtue, and Religion. But Youth is flying even while I am writing, and while you are reading.

"No eye perceives our growth or our decay;

,—we look as we did yesterday,

To day,

And we shall look to-morrow as to-day.

Yet, while the loveliest smiles her locks grow grey,
And in her glass could she but see the face,
She'll see so soon amidst another race.
How would she start,-returning from afar,
After some years of travel-some of war?
In his own Halls Ulysses stood unknown,
Before a wife, a father, and a son."

Such a change so slow-sure, although imperceptible is stealing over us all; it is stealing, my young friend, over you. Does it not say, as its shadow creeps over you, "What thou doest do

quickly!"

Religion (will this seem an impertinence? did you expect a book upon a general subject would not introduce this matter)—Religion should be made the foundation of Duty and of Action.

C

Religion had better not be studied so much as it has been through the medium of books. "The Kingdom of God is within you." Sit lonely with the one book-the New Testament-the Powers of the world to come will, beyond all question, speak to your soul. The most illustrious and princely English thinker of our age, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, has said, "An hour of solitude in sincere and earnest prayer, or the conflict with, and conquest over a single passion, or subtle bosom sin, will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit of reflection than a years' study in the Schools without them." Religion, (that is " More of God made the property of the soul,"*) it should be remembered if it has any truth at all this is the truth, and all other instructions, and instructors, and studies, wave round it as so many subsidiary lights. If you are thirsting for some exalted religious sympathy, then read Pascal's Thoughts on Religion, the production of a truly wonderful man-profound, eloquent, philosophical, and simple beyond any book. Surely God, Immortality, Destiny, should be the first thoughts you attempt to weigh in their relation to yourself.

Finally, the young man stands, like Hercules of old, between two powerful Enchantresses-INDO

Edward Miall.

LENCE upon the one hand, and ENTERPRISE, or INDUSTRY, on the other. Each come to the youthful mind with spells of power. Indolence offers her tempting Lethean draught; she invites to a life of ease and quiet; to that genteel respectability that never allows its votary

"To say a foolish thing,

And never do a wise one."

Indolence, the guardian angel of the oriental throne; the spirit that weighs down the powers of the brave or the intellectual; who spreads the soft carpet and the gentle sward; who invites to meandering streams and all the tame enjoyments of life; the everlasting grumbler, who never wrote a book, or sung a glorious hymn, or perfected an existence, or enlarged the boundaries of Science, or ascended a mountain, or performed a noble feat. Indolence ! the enslaver of the popular mind, at once the tyrant's master and his sceptre, the inertia of the soul; she tells the listening votary that Books, and Problems, and Poems, and Discussions, and world betterings, are all full of trouble and anxiety; she implores her friends to take things coolly; she puts on a most amiable physiognomy, and speaks of the pleasures of the fireside, the enjoyments of home; she bids you nod over the fender, and recline at ease upon the sofa; and, while she offers

her garland of flowers, she bears away her lovers to the dance; and there they go who follow her, and who love her―

"A Parson much bemused by beer,

A maudlin Poet, and a rhyming Peer,
A Clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
To pen a stanza when he should engross."

Or may we impersonate the Genius of Intellectual and Moral Industry, the companion and assistant of Virtue and of Civilization. She offers to the generous youth her book, her pen. What tales has she to recite of

"Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his Pride;
Of him who walked in Glory and in Joy,
Following his plough along the mountain's side."

She evades no difficulty; she invokes her followers by the prophecy of difficulties to be conquered. "He who wrestles with you," she says, "strengthens your nerves, and sharpens your skill; your Antagonist is your Helper; your conflict with difficulty will not suffer you to be superficial." Industry comes to the task of the youthful student, and hallows it; she makes the page to shine out with the impression of great names; she points to the temples where the illustrious dead of every age and nation are gathered. Her deeds have often been called madness; but even as when