power to conquer difficulties. In him we see one of the most perfect types of this trait, any where to be found. We see it, in his character, carried to its utmost limit, and stopping only this side fanaticism. His cotemporaries, indeed, stigmatized him as a visionary, but posterity has reversed the verdict, and if they call him a visionary, they mean it in the literal signification, a keen-sighted, prophetic man.

Opposition, ridicule, and cold neglect, so far from damping the ardor of his soul, only made it glow with a steadier, and intenser heat, and to this fact was due his final success. For, though possessed of courage equal to any danger, and fortitude as firm as adamant, without this crowning trait, it would not have been for him to open the path to the new world. From the moment he conceived the idea of reaching land by sailing westward, the ardent activity of his temperament put him at once upon the realization of that idea, crown the thought with acts, and that object soon became the one thing for which he lived, and for which he was ready to die.

- to

During those eighteen years of hope deferred, consumed in vain appeals to the ambition, the piety, and the cupidity of princes, in behalf of his sublime enterprise, from the day his grand conception dawned upon his own mind, till it received the smile of the great Castilian queen, amidst the treachery of enemies and the misgivings of friends, that great man was as true to his mission, and as undeviating from his course, as the sun in the heaven. Who would not emulate such a noble enthusiasm ?

And who can read Kepler's announcement of his

celebrated discoveries, which procured for him the proud title of the "Legislator of the Heavens," without feeling the power of enthusiasm? "What I prophesied," says he, "two-and-twenty years ago, as soon as I discovered the five solids among the heavenly orbits, what I firmly believed long before I had seen Ptolemy's Harmonics,' what I had promised my friends, in the title of this book, which I named before I was sure of my discovery, what sixteen years ago, I urged as a thing to be sought, that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled at Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to astronomical contemplations, at length I have brought to light, and have recognized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations. Great as is the absolute nature of Harmonics, with all its details, as set forth in my third book, it is all found among the celes‐ tial motions, not indeed in the manner which I imagined, (that is not the least part of my delight) but in another very different, and yet most perfect and excellent. It is now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most admirable to gaze on, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me; I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians, to build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it; the die is cast, the book is written; to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may

If

well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

Surely the literal meaning of enthusiasm (God within us) has a deep significance. Surely it is the divinity within man, which stirs him to God-like deeds. In our own profession, this trait is well illustrated in the character of the celebrated Dr. Arnold, as well as the others I have considered as characteristic of the true teacher, together with common sense, the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of a Christian, which time fails me to notice. And they were suggested to me as topics, by his letter of inquiry for a master.

“What I want,” he says, "is a man who is a Christian and a gentleman, an active man, and one who has common sense, and understands boys. I do not care much about scholarship, as he will have immediately under him the lowest forms in the school; and yet on second thoughts I do care about it, very much, because his pupils may be in the highest forms; and besides, I think even the elements may be best taught by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter.** I deem it essential to the due performance of a master's duties here, that a man enter his business, not as a secondary matter, but as a substantive and most important duty, that he should devote himself to it **, that he should enter heartily into the interest, honor, and general respectability of the society which he has joined, and he should have sufficient vigor of mind and thirst for knowledge to persist in adding to his own stores without neglecting the full improvement of those whom he is teaching."

These are weighty words, and worthy to be pondered

by all who aspire to the noble character of a true teacher, the object to which all of us who teach should strive. To this end let us prefer a large library to a large wardrobe, and, like Erasmus "buy first books and then clothes;" and, believing with Shakspeare, that "it is the mind that makes the body sigh," abhor an empty head more than an empty purse; and think more of the flavor of our conversation than of the flavor of our meat and drink, "knowing that conversation is the food of the soul," which is higher than the body; and covet a well furnished and elegant mind, before a well furnished and elegant house, for "wisdom is above rubies,"

LECTURE V.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL RELATIONS IN THE WEST UPON PROFESSIONAL USEFULNESS AND SUCCESS.

To those of you, if such there are, who, after many years of absence and a laborious and prolific experience in distant communities, have again visited the scenes of youthful ardor and early discipline, have again felt the rejuvenating glow of blissful recollections, and called up a thousand images of the past for melancholy yet joyous contemplation; to those of you who have loved to tread the hearth-stone of home, though you have to turn to the tomb-stone for all that remains of those who gave it its charm; to those who can commune with nature, can look upon those inanimate, but familiar forms of hers that have left an enduring impress upon the mind, and see reflected from them the faces of those who once sat by your side, and with you drank in their sweet influences; to those of you, who, in retrospective reverie, love to revive and re-people