USES OF SICKNESS.

Sickness teaches us not only the uncertain tenure, but the utter vanity and unsatisfactoriness, of the dearest objects of human pursuit. Introduce into the chamber of a sick and dying man the whole pantheon of idols which he has vainly worshipped,-fame, wealth, pleasure, beauty, power,-what miserable comforters are they all! Bind a wreath of laurel round his brow, and see if it will assuage his aching temples. Spread before him the deeds. and instruments which prove him the lord of innumerable possessions, and see if you can beguile him of a moment's anguish ; see if he will not give you up those barren parchments for one drop of cool water, one draught of pure air. Go, tell him, when a fever rages through his veins, that his table smokes with luxuries, that the wine moveth itself aright and giveth its color in the cup, and see if this will calm his throbbing pulse. Tell him, as he lies prostrate, helpless and sinking with debility, that the song and dance are ready to begin, and that all without him is life, alacrity, and joy. Nay, more, place in his motionless hand the sceptre of a mighty empire, and see if he will be eager to grasp it. This, my friends, this is the school in which our desires must be disciplined, and our judgments of ourselves and the objects of our pursuit corrected.

TEMPTATIONS OF THE YOUNG.

It is true that every age and employment has its snares; but the feet of the young are most easily entrapped. Issuing forth, as you do, in the morning of life, into the wide field of existence, where the flowers are all open, it is no wonder that you pluck some that are poisonous. Tasting every golden fruit that hangs over the garden of life, it is no wonder that you should find some of the most tempting hollow and mouldy. But the peculiar characteristic of your age, my young friends, is impetuosity and presumptuousness. You are without caution, because without experience. You are precipitate, because you have enjoyed so long the protection of others that you have yet to learn to protect yourselves. You grasp at every pleasure because it is new, and every society charms with a freshness which you will be surprised to find gradually wearing away. Young as you are upon the stage, there seems to be little for you to know of yourselves; therefore you are contented to know little, and the world will not let you know more till it has disappointed you oftener.

Entering, then, into life, you will find every rank and occupation environed with its peculiar temptations; and, without some other and higher principle than that which influences a merely

worldly man, you are not a moment secure. You are poor, and you think pleasure and fashion and ambition will disdain to spread their snares for so ignoble a prey. It is true, they may. But take care that dishonesty does not dazzle you with an exhibition of sudden gains. Take care that want does not disturb your imagination by temptations to fraud. Distress may drive you to indolence and despair, and these united may drown you in intemperance. Even robbery and murder have sometimes stalked in at the breach which poverty or calamity has left unguarded. You are rich, and you think that pride and a just sense of reputation will preserve you from the vices of the vulgar. It is true, they may; and you may be ruined in the progress of luxury, and lost to society, and, at last, to God, while sleeping in the lap of the most flattering and enervating abundance.

The last resource against temptation is prayer. Escaping, then, from your tempter, fly to God. Cultivate the habit of devotion. It shall be a wall of fire around you, and your glory in the midst of you. To this practice the uncorrupted sentiments of the heart impel you, and invitations are as numerous as they are merciful to encourage you. When danger has threatened your life, you have called upon God. When disease has wasted your health, and you have felt the tomb opening under your feet, you have called upon God. When you have apprehended heavy misfortunes or engaged in hazardous enterprises, you have, perhaps, resorted to God to ask his blessing. But what are all these dangers to the danger which your virtue may be called to encounter on your first entrance into life? In habitual prayer you will find a safeguard. You will find every good resolution fortified by it, and every seduction losing its power, when seen in the new light which a short communion with Heaven affords. In prayer you will find that a state of mind is generated which will shed a holy influence over the whole character; and those temptations to which you were just yielding will vanish, with all their allurements, when the day-star of devotion rises in your hearts.

ACTIVE AND INACTIVE LEARNING.

The history of letters does not, at this moment, suggest to me a more fortunate parallel between the effects of active and of inactive learning than in the well-known characters of Cicero and Atticus. Let me hold them up to your observation, not because Cicero was faultless, or Atticus always to blame, but because, ke you, they were the citizens of a republic. They lived in an age of learning and of dangers, and acted upon opposite principles when Rome was to be saved, if saved at all, by the virtuous energy of ber most accomplished minds. If we look now for

Atticus, we find him in the quiet of his library, surrounded with books, while Cicero was passing through the regular course of public honors and services, where all the treasures of his mind were at the command of his country. If we follow them, we find Atticus pleasantly wandering among the ruins of Athens, purchasing up statues and antiques, while Cicero was at home, blasting the projects of Catiline, and at the head of the senate, like the tutelary spirit of his country, as the storm was gathering, secretly watching the doubtful movements of Cæsar. If we look to the period of the civil wars, we find Atticus always reputed, indeed, to belong to the party of the friends of liberty, yet originally dear to Sylla and intimate with Chius, recommending himself to Cæsar by his neutrality, courted by Antony, and connected with Octavius; poorly concealing the epicureanism of his principles under the ornaments of literature and the splendor of his benefactions; till at last this inoffensive and polished friend of successive usurpers hastens out of life to escape from the pains of a lingering disease. Turn now to Cicero, the only great man at whom Cæsar always trembled, the only great man whom falling Rome did not fear. Do you tell me that his hand once offered incense to the dictator? Remember, it was the gift of gratitude only, and not of servility; for the same hand launched its indignation against the infamous Antony, whose power was more to be dreaded, and whose revenge pursued him till this father of his country gave his head to the executioner without a struggle, for he knew that Rome was no longer to be saved. If, my friends, you would feel what learning, and genius, and virtue should aspire to in a day of peril and depravity, when you are tired of the factions of the city, the battles of Cæsar, the crimes of the triumvirate, and the splendid court of Augustus, do not go and repose in the easy chair of Atticus, but refresh your virtues and your spirits with the contemplation of Cicero.1

Phi Beta Kappa Oration.

1 "If I should attempt to fix the period at which I first felt all the power of Mr. Buckminster's influence, it would be at the delivery of his cration before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in August, 1809; at which time I had been two years in college, but still hardly emerged from boyhood. That address-although the standard of merit for such performances is higher now than it was then--will, I think, still be regarded as one of the very best of its class, admirably appropriate, thoroughly medited, and exquisitely wrought. It unites sterling sense, sound and various scholarship, precision of thought, the utmost elegance of style, witout pomp or laborious ornament, with a fervor and depth of feeling truly evangelical. These qualities, of course, are preserved in the printed text of the oration. But the indescribable charm of his personal appearance and manner,--the look, the voice, the gesture and attitude, the unstudied outward expression of the inward feeling.-of these no idea can be formed by those who never heard him." -EDWARD EVERETT.

LEVI FRISBIE, 1784-1822.

LEVI FRISBIE, whose father, of the same name, was a clergyman of Ipswich, Massachusetts, was born in that ancient town in the year 1784. After completing his preparatory studies at Andover Academy, Mr. Frisbie entered Harvard University in 1798. As a student, he was among the most distinguished in his class for talents and acquisitions, for correctness of conduct, integrity, and manliness. Soon after leaving college, he commenced the study of the law; but his fair prospects were soon clouded by an affection of his eyes, which so deprived him of their use for the purpose of study that he was never after able to employ them except for very short periods.

Being thus unable to pursue his professional studies, he accepted the place of Latin tutor in Harvard University in 1805, in which he continued till 1811, when he was appointed Professor of the Latin Language, which chair he held till 1817. On the 5th of November of that year, he was inaugurated as Professor of Moral Philosophy; and the address which he delivered upon the occasion is one that shows his eminent fitness for that high office, as a scholar of enlarged views, refined taste, deep thought, and elevated Christian principles. But, alas! "Death loves a shining mark." Professor Frisbie had given but two courses of lectures when symptoms of that insidious but fatal disease-consumption-appeared, and on the 9th of July, 1822, after a lingering illness, he breathed his last.

Of his character, one who was associated with him in the faculty of the college, and his most intimate friend,' thus writes:-"If those who knew him best were called upon to mention any virtue of which he was particularly distinguished, I believe they would unite in naming INTEGRITY. He was a man who, if ever ANY ONE could, might have told the world his purposes, and risen in their respect. If you were to determine whether he would pursue any particular course of conduct or aim at any particular object, you had only to determine whether he would think that object right, and that course of conduct his duty, and you were sure that no selfish or mean passion, and no sinister purpose, would interfere to lead insensibly his judgment astray. There were no false appearances about him. He had nothing of that disguise and cunning which are sometimes mistaken for policy. His conduct lay before you in broad daylight; and you never were at a loss for his motives, and you never perceived any but what were honorable. His notions of right and wrong were founded upon the laws of religion and of God and not upon the maxims of the world. He compared his actions, not with the opinions and sentiments of the day, but with the eternal principles of morality."

THE RECIPROCAL INFLUENCE OF MORALS AND LITERATURE.

In no productions of modern genius is the reciprocal influence of morals and literature more distinctly seen than in those of the

Professor Andrews Norton,-one of Harvard's most distinguished sons,-in his "Address at the Interment of Professor Frisbie."

2 In 1817, Professor Frisbie was married to Miss Catharine Saltonstall Mellen, daughter of John Mellen, Esq., of Cambridge.

author of Childe Harold. His character produced the poems, and it cannot be doubted that his poems are adapted to produce such a character. His heroes speak a language supplied not more by imagination than consciousness. They are not those machines that, by a contrivance of the artist, send forth a music of their own, but instruments through which he breathes his very soul, in tones of agonized sensibility that cannot but give a sympathetic impulse to those who hear. The desolate misanthropy of his mind rises, and throws its dark shade over his poetry like one of his own ruined castles; we feel it to be sublime, but we forget that it is a sublimity it cannot have till it is abandoned by every thing that is kind, and peaceful, and happy, and its halls are ready to become the haunts of outlaws and assassins. Nor are his more tender and affectionate passages those to which we can yield ourselves without a feeling of uneasiness. It is not that we can here and there select a proposition formally false or pernicious, but that he leaves an impression unfavorable to a healthful state of thought and feeling, peculiarly dangerous to the finest minds and most susceptible hearts. They are the scene of a summer evening, where all is tender, and beautiful, and grand; but the damps of disease descend with the dews of heaven, and the pestilent vapors of night are breathed in with the fragrance and balm, and the delicate and fair are the surest victims of the exposure.

Although I have illustrated the moral influence of literature, principally from its mischiefs, yet it is obvious, if what I have said be just, it may be rendered no less powerful as a means of good. Indeed, the fountains of literature into which an enemy has sometimes infused poison naturally flow with refreshment and health. Cowper and Campbell have led the muses to repose in the bowers of religion and virtue; and Miss Edgeworth has so cautiously combined the features of her characters that the predominant expression is ever what it should be. She has shown us not vices ennobled by virtues, but virtues degraded and perverted by their union with vices. The success of this lady has been great; but, had she availed herself more of the motives and sentiments of religion, we think it would have been greater. She has stretched forth a powerful hand to the impotent in virtue; and had she added, with the Apostle, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth," we should almost have expected miracles from its touch.

The incorporating of religion with morality is a means of practical influence, and extends to every order in society. It is not the fountain which plays only in the gardens of the palace, but the rain of heaven, which descends alike upon the enclosures of the rich and the poor, and refreshes the meanest shrub no less than the fairest flower. The sages of antiquity seem to have