of gratification, which are not within his reach; all would experience a comfortable manhood, and learn from their own sensations that every one may be in this agreeable condition. The apostle presents to us the true and golden rule on this subject:-"For I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."* On this principle we shall find that we may all sing with sincerity the sensible old song, "My mind to me a kingdom is, Such perfect joy therein I find."t Every class of life may by this means be the builders of their own happiness here, in a much greater degree than most believe; and we may all make ourselves as joyous in a cottage as in a palace. How often have travellers verified this possibility, and we should all remember that we are but sojourners and travellers here. Life is a journey; our habitations in it are our inns, and we are all moving with various speed to a permanent home, which will be a paradise to every being, if we will take the trouble-not over-burdensome -to make it so to us. But, you may ask, is every manhood thus happy? is it not the complaint and the experience that it is accompanied with disease, trouble, and sorrow, anxieties and vicissitudes? Certainly; it has these visitants; and we all, in great diversities of degree and mode, have to receive and to endure them. But these are evils which arise from the actions and conduct of others, by which we are affected, or by our own mismanagement; or by that state of things which, as man has shaped his social world, in disregard or opposition to better laws or principles, he has brought upon himself. We are all living and walking in a labyrinth and entanglement of human things, which human errors and follies have been for ages creating and continuing, and by which the divine formations and provisions for our benefit are every day and hour counteracted. The natural is checkered and saddened greatly by the artificial. But these considerations belong to another part of our *Phil. iv. 11. † Milton's idea is similar "The mind is its own place; and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell; a Hell of Heaven." Par. L. book i. subject, and therefore shall not be pursued here; yet it may be remarked, that if the posterity of Adam and Eve had not been ever since, like them, thwarting and disobeying their Creator, and opposing his government, and disliking and refusing his guidance, it must be manifest to every judgment that the present state and circumstances of our social world, under which we all at various times suffer, would not have existed. He would have directed us, if we would have followed his directions; and his moral laws and counsels are still ever striving to lead us, if we would but steadily observe them, into those systems, habits, and dispositions of social life, which would have made earth, and in no long time would yet make it again, a moral, intellectual, and even physical paradise; for there are all the natural means, and materials, and agencies now afloat around us to cause such a result, as soon as human nature will acquire and receive from him the wisdom and the virtue to produce it. Most of our afflictions, and even our diseases, we bring on ourselves, and contribute to do so towards others, by doing so often what we ought not, and by omitting so much to do what we ought. It is essential that we should act in conformity to his moral and natural laws, if we expect to be benefited by them. It is impossible that we can derive or sustain our wellbeing by neglecting or resisting them. But my present object and duty are only to show, that in his plan and constitution of our nature, he has formed us so that every season of our human life may, as far as our frame and as external nature are concerned, be successive periods of successive enjoyments; and that, according to their habitual laws and agencies, they always in themselves tend and act to this end. The disturbing causes come from other sources to us, in counteraction to his gracious system and provisions for our welfare. He made us to be happy; he gave us every natural means and powers to be so; it is our fault, not his, if we are otherwise. If mankind had let him always regulate their mind and conduct, as he desired and proposed to do, the social world would have been long since a practical and beautiful Utopia in every period, both of individual life and of its general history. The happinesses which I have been enumerating show what his creation of us has endowed us with the natural ability to experience; and we inust ask ourselves and the biography of our fellow-creatures why such skilful and benevolent provisions of our Maker, for our continual comfort, have been so greatly frustrated. If our Creator has made our youthful sensibilities so delicious to us, they do not naturally lessen as our frame-becomes more complete and mature, unless we choose to neglect them, or to let other impressions overpower them. All conditions of life prove this to be the fact. Beethoven, in all the glory of his success, as one of the princely musicians of the human race, avowed his gratifications from nature in the prime of his manhood.* We find effusions of the same sort from the Ettrick Shepherd, in his highland moors.† The traveller in the wild forest scenes of Canada, alike displays Beethoven, when residing in 1824 near Vienna, walking out with the writer of the incident, ascended a hill to a large and stately wood, with ruins of castles and vines loaded with grapes in the prospect from it. "Here!" exclaimed Beethoven, his eyes sparkling like diamonds, "here you see nature's laboratory, roofed by heaven itself. How glorious is this roof! How beautiful its azure colour! unobstructed by men's works of clay. And yonder, behold the great luminary, full of majesty, distributing nourishment to all which his paternal influence has fostered into life, and clothing them with such beautiful colours as the rainbow exhibits. Here, sir, we ought to worship; in the temple formed by nature herself, and inhabited by numberless creatures, all adoring their Creator, in the enjoyment of their existence, warbling contentment in a thousand accents. Here the soul of man expands with joy and awe. Sometimes I try to express my emotions in songs like birds, essaying to fix with my pen the impressions which I exhale. But, alas! how different is what I write from what I wish to portray! I believe it to be altogether useless to attempt to convey our mind fully to that of another. We must be contented with the rough sketch, which our unskilful hands may make of our glowing imaginations."-Quarterly Musical Mag. 1828. † Mr. Hogg's Song to the Skylark, amid several others, breathes a pleasant feeling from the sight of one of the natural objects in the fields he traversed. It reminds me of what the same bird has excited in myself, as I have seen it ascending and carolling over Epsom Downs. "Bird of the wilderness! Blithesome and cumberless! Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Blest is thy dwelling-place. O to abide in the desert with thee! Wild is thy lay, and loud; Love gives it energy: love gave it birth. Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven: thy love is on earth. O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, them.* In every path of life and nature we are so framed, that even the very atmosphere kindles animating emotions in the manly breast.† But are there any, in their mature life, who cannot, from their own experience, bear testimony to the gracious provision which has been made, in their natural constitution, for being as happy in their middle period as in their earlier one? Vicious habits indeed may, and must, and ever will banish comfort and happiness from life; and especially the O'er the red streamer that heralds the day; Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim; Musical cherub! soar, singing away. Then when the evening comes, Low in the heather blooms Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be. Blest is thy dwelling-place! O to abide in the desert with thee!" Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd. * Mr. Head, in his Forest Scenes of Canada, thus describes one of his days as he traversed them: June 2. Clear and warm. I came to a fine spot. In this sweet shrubbery, there were the birch and maple, the token of an improved soil, while wild currant and gooseberry bushes, in rich abundance, tufted the banks of a little stream of clear water. I sat down; quite delighted with so charming a spot. "Beautiful birds were drinking and splashing themselves in the water; and gaudy butterflies, of a very large size, were fanning the air with their yellow and black wings." "At this moment a little blazing meteor shot like a glowing coal of fire across the glen. And I saw, for the first time, what, in a moment, I recognised to be the greatest of nature's beauties of the feathered race; that resplendent living gem, the hummingbird. Buzzing like an humblebee, which it exactly resembles in its flight and sound, it sprang through the air, tracing angle after angle, with the velocity of lightning; till poised above its favourite flower, all motion seemed lost in its very intensity. The humming sound alone certified to the ear the rapid vibration of wing by which it supported its little airy form. I was never more excited to wonder than by this little creature; so unexpected was its appearance, and so much more did it resemble a splendid insect than a bird."-Head's Forest Scenes. "What a lovely morning! What a delicious air! What a splendid scene! This is truly exhilarating. I feel at this moment just as if neither strength nor spirits could ever fail me. Often have I thus felt the reviving influence of morning. Often, after a hot and restless night, spent in a comfortless bivouac, I have hailed the approach of dawn, and blessed the dewy freshness, even when I knew it would be the harbinger of carnage and death."-Frazer's High!. Smugg. v. i. p. 91. I have felt this myself as much between 40 and 50 as between 15 and 20. abuse of those indulgences which are connected with our daily subsistence.* But these dismal contrasts and frightful exceptions only point out the utilities, as well as the dignity and ornament,-nay, the necessity of virtue: without this, nothing can make life, at any age, happy; or in any country. The moral maxims of all the sages acknowledge this fact. It is the law of Providence that all shall feel this monitory truth. But with the ennobling companionship and actuating influences of the virtuous principle, the humblest and the poorest may, as the American novelist, who has seen and read life largely, intimates, secure to themselves a personal distinction. But are not the reasons of this ever legible to us? What is the moral panorama around us? Instead of mutual kindness, aid, courtesy, and benevolence, which the Deity has recommended and commanded, and which he meant to be the forming and guiding principles of our social world, are we not too much envying, jostling, thwarting, lashing, impeding, repelling, opposing, provoking, and jarring with each other? Whether we write or whether we talk, how little does philanthropy influence either our voice or our pen! We act too frequently in the Arab spirit: "His hand * The vicinity of Dublin could, in June, 1830, exhibit such a scene as this. "Yesterday was what was called the Walking Sunday of St. John's Well. An immense assemblage ;-all were dancing, singing, eating, or drinking.-I have just returned from the fair ground, and the scene it presented was horrible and disgusting in the extreme. Dozens of drunken wretches, hatless, coatless, shoeless, nay, even shirtless, were scattered along the road; some sleeping away their last night's debauchery, and others, with drooping heads, stealing into the city, to avoid the gaze of others. Numbers too of decently dressed women and girls, actually intoxicated, with tattered bonnets and torn clothes, were returning with shame to their respective homes. The sight was abominable."-Morn. Herald, 26 June, 1830. It is to Mr. Cooper's honour that he has frankly written his conviction on this point. "While all must be conscious of the fearful infirmities which beset human nature, there are none so base as not to know that their being contains the seeds of that godlike principle which still likens them to their divine Creator. VIRTUE commands the respect of man, in whatever accidental stage of civilization or of mental improvement he may happen to exist: and he who practises its precepts is certain of the respect, though he may not always secure the protection, of his contemporaries."-The Heiden Mauer, v. ii. p. 2. It is gratifying to read the illustrious Beethoven's analogous sentiments. "Recommend to your children the practice of virtue for virtue alone, and not wealth, can render men happy. This I know from my own experience. It was virtue which upheld me, even in my misery; and to her, together with the Art, I am indebted for not being |