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WEEKLY

No. 53.

INSTRUCT

EDINBURGH, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1846.

OUR ANNIVERSARY WORD.

It is now a twelvemonth since we launched our bark on the tide of public favour. We may thus be said to have completed our first voyage, and before we again commit ourselves to the wave, our friends and well-wishers may probably expect us to give them some account of our past enterprise, and some notice of our prospects and hopes for the future. The occurrence of an epoch such as that supplied by the anniversary of the INSTRUCTOR, is full of interest to ourselves; nor will our readers, we feel assured, chide or frown upon us, if for a few moments we hold a little confidential intercourse with them. A feeling akin to personal friendship rises spontaneously in generous minds even in the interchange of secular business. How much stronger and purer is this feeling when it is associated with the genial intimacies of thought, the suggestion of high motives and aims, the expression and reciprocation of kindly sentiments. Under its influence would we give utterance to Our Anniversary Word.'

PRICE 1 d.

union with higher motives, they will tend to quicken our zeal and industry, so that the kind wishes of our friends, and our own hopes, may be fully realised. Our weekly sheet was meant to occupy a peculiar, and, we are free to own, a rather delicate position among the cheap periodicals of the day. By far the best portion of the community were conscious of a craving which these did not satisfy, but which (we do not of course include in this censure publications avowedly religious) they rather mocked. No particular fault could be found with them; the evil lay not so much in what was said as in what was left unsaid; the sin, to borrow a theological phrase, was one of omission rather than commission. There was no dearth of talent or even the rarer gift of genius. A pure morality, moreover, was inculcated-a morality, thanks to the New Testament, in many points superior to that which adorned the pages of Socrates and Seneca, and which embraced the ordinary routine of every day duty. Generous sentiments were proclaimed, heroic deeds were extolled; in short, only one thing was awanting to please the most Robert Hall being asked his opinion of the moral ten- fastidious of tastes. But the absence of that one thing dency of the works of a celebrated authoress of our own gave a cold and cheerless aspect to our journals and magatimes, replied-In point of tendency, I should class her zines, besides that it could scarcely fail to foster the deluwritings among the most irreligious I ever read. Not from sion that literature and science, instead of being the handany desire she evinces to do mischief, or to unsettle the mind maids of Christian truth, were its antagonists. The light like some of the insidious infidels in the last century; not from heaven, in short, was needed; the presence of an so much from any attack she makes upon religion as from authority more sacred and awful was longed for. With a universal and studied omission of the subject. In her devout thankfulness we review our resolution to supply, writings a very high strain of morality is assumed; she de- if possible, this want, and look back with pleasure up on lineates the most virtuous characters, and represents them the path over which we have trodden. Nor Lave we been in the most affecting circumstances of life-in sickness, in left to solace ourselves merely with the consciousness of distress, even in the prospect of eternity, and finally sends being actuated by good motives, and the hope of eventually them off the stage with their virtue unsullied-and all gaining the cordial approbation of an enlightened public. this without the most remote allusion to Christianity, the The praises of the press have alinost excceded our wishes; only true religion. Thus she does not attack religion or assuredly they have surpassed our expectations. As we inveigh against it, but makes it appear unnecessary by have just hinted, we have received numerous private comexhibiting perfect virtue without it.' The conviction that munications from parties, whose good opinion we are proud a very large proportion of the periodical literature of our to possess, approving of the plan and conduct of the INcountry is objectionable on this very ground, and that STRUCTOR, while our large and daily increasing circulation thus as much harm may be done as when the Christian is to us the surest pledge that our efforts are appreciated. revelation is boldly and openly assailed-this conviction, For these and every other mark of kindly interest we beg and we have the happiness of knowing that it is hourly publicly to record our thanks, and we do so with the asgaining strength in those quarters where the desire to pro-surance that no effort shall be awanting to render our mote the real welfare of society is strongest, may be said pages worthy the commendation of those whose commento have originated the INSTRUCTOR. The desideratum we dation we earnestly wish to have. took in hand to supply was, in fact, a widely felt one. We have received repeated assurances to this effect from parties, both lay and clerical, who deservedly hold the highest place in public esteem and confidence. For these, coupled as in every instance they were with warm commendation of our humble labours, we feel grateful, and we trust that, in

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At the commencement of our undertaking we endeavoured to indicate, as distinctly as we could, the position we intended to take up, the exact sphere we wished to fill. It was never our design to step into the province of the Theological Magazine, and discuss in our pages the sublime and consoling doctrines of revealed religion. This we at

once admit is a higher and holier part of the field than what we sought to occupy. How well occupied it is we need not say. Still we have had difficulty in making some of our excellent and well-meaning friends realise the distinction between a periodical professedly devoted to the defence and exposition of Christian doctrine, and another like ours, mainly literary in its character, yet recognising on all proper occasions the truth as it is in Jesus,' not insulting it by cold and sullen silence, but uniformly deferring to its authority, and evincing on its pages a regard to the fine sentiment, that in the examination of Scripture, then only does reason show herself noble, when, conscious of the presence of a king, the knee is bent and the head uncovered.' On this point we wish not even the slightest misunderstanding to exist. A devout respect for the disclosures and precepts of Christianity may pervade a man's temper and deportment though his religion be not always on his tongue. The holy fire may be burning on the altar of his spirit though it be not always blazing forth. It is enough if he act in accordance with the truth. It is enough if he discover no guilty shame of it. It is enough if he do it all honour and pay it all deference when occasion calls. He may not, for example, be one of its professional defenders, and yet his 'walk and conversation' may be one of its most eloquent defences. It is easy to transfer these remarks to a publication like ours. Nothing alien to the spirit or requirements of the gospel shall appear in our pages. If through mistake or inadvertence this rule should even once be violated, none will regret the circumstance more than ourselves. This, however, were promising little. If the highest praise which could be justly awarded the INSTRUCTOR amounted merely to this, that it contained nothing hostile to Christianity, then we should be free to confess that we had broken faith with the public, and done nothing more for the best and most sacred of causes than what many of our cotemporaries are doing. But we can appeal with confidence to the past, whether, for example, such points as these the remedial scheme which the Bible reveals-the great motives to virtue and holiness it propounds-the majestic hopes it unfolds, and the exalted standard of excellence it sets up-have not all along been treated by us with that respect and reverence to which their sacredness and importance entitle them. For the future, we have only to assure our readers, that we have no feeble or faltering convictions as to the meaning of those words uttered by the highest of all authorities, and applicable to every department of our conduct: Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.' Christianity alone can purify the public taste, and secure the harmonious evolution of all our powers. But this it can do, only when it mixes with every influence that concurs to form the character. Do we need amusement, for example, then Christianity must look on and approve, otherwise the harmony is destroyed; and the pleasures of taste and of religion become first indifferent, then cold, and afterwards positively hostile to each other. Such a crisis is to be deprecated. Even though religion | should overcome, (how often is the issue the contrary!) there is yet, in this violent and unnatural separation, an injury inflicted on the minds of individuals. Christianity, instead of being aided, is thereby depressed, by literature; and, at the best, a positive loss is sustained, because the moral harmony is less perfect, and the spiritual result less copious, than otherwise they would have been.

The idea of thus uniting literature and Christianity, in a cheap weekly periodical, was embodied in the INSTRUCTOR. The remarkable prosperity of our Journal, striking into an untrodden path, the best proof that we had rightly estimated the want of the public. To the future we look with cheerful confidence. On parents, Christian ministers, and indeed all who feel an interest in the welfare of the young and rising generation, the INSTRUCTOR has, we conceive, strong and special claims. To strictly religious periodicals it is quite idle to expect youthful readers will confine themselves. How important there

fore it is, that those of a literary character which are put into their hands should not have the slightest tendency to vitiate their principles or create an impression injurious to the claims of sacred truth. And we are satisfied that our readers have not found our pages less amusing or exciting on account of the vigilance we have exercised in this matter.

To the improvement in the external appearance of our sheet, which this the first number of a new volume presents, we may, in conclusion, call the attention of our readers, hoping they will regard it as an indication of our desire to make the INSTRUCTOR in all respects worthy of their continued patronage and support.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D.

MEN of poetical tendencies receive very little credit from the world as philosophers. The word poet suggests the idea of a pale, interesting gentleman, with his shirt-collar thrown over, and his hair as redundant as his metaphors; his eyes turned towards the sun, or the green grass and blushing flowers; his ears regaled by murmuring brooks, or the warbling choristers of the grove, and his hand always laid upon his bosom. He is an etherealised being, a combination of ideality and wonder, a lover of nature in the abstract, yet so magnanimous, that he can despise it in the concrete. The word philosopher, on the other hand, suggests the idea of a thin old man, whose flesh has be come sapless from roasting over crucibles, or who has lost his tongue and temper in the pursuit of the occult sciences, and who frightens people with the profundity of his knowledge and the acerbity of his face. The characters are, to all appearance, irreconcileable; for the one is assumed to be a mere superficialist, an observer of purely external phenomena, while the other has credit for despising the flashings of fancy, rather delighting to grapple with herculean propositions involving intricate reasoning and patient research. Notwithstanding this impression, however, philosophy has often been arrayed in the most glowing rhyme; and elegant and fascinating poets have often been acute and powerful thinkers. Philosophy has too often hidden below the ambiguity of its name, a cold and worldly tissue of speculations that, striking at the root of man's holiest principles, seek to degrade him in the scale of creation, or exalt his intellect above the subordinate and finite position to which God has limited it. True poetry, which is loving and harmonising in its tendency, finds its most heart-stirring images in the Scriptures, and is a delightful vehicle for conveying the lessons of life to man; the philosophy of Christian charity and love becomes fascinating in its garments; and the harmony of its numbers inclines the soul to hear instruction's warning voice.' Expansive intellect, with keen critical acumen, are not incompatible with brilliancy of fancy; and in the subject of this sketch these combinations were happily blended.

Dr Beattie was born at Laurencekirk, in Kincardineshire, on the 25th October, 1735. His father, James Beattie, had a small retail shop in Laurencekirk; and, at the same time, rented a few acres of ground in the vicinity of the town. His mother's name was Jean Watson, and she and her husband were much esteemed in their own sphere for probity and intelligence. Mr Beattie, especially, had the reputation of being book-learned beyond what was common in his station of life. The author of the 'Minstrel' was the youngest of six children; at an early age, he was sent to the parish school of Laurencekirk, and his progress was so rapid, that it was determined to devote him to the ministry. It is asserted, that his perusal of Ogilby's translation of Virgil gave his mind, at a very early age, a poetical bias; a circumstance remarkable from the fact, that a translation of the Odyssey, by the same author (who, by the way, was a native of Edinburgh, and by profession a dancing-master), first awoke the latent muse of Pope.

In 1749, Beattie was sent to Aberdeen to prosecute his

studies. He obtained a bursary, and soon distinguished himself in the Greek class of the celebrated Dr Blackwell of the Marischal College. He studied philosophy under the learned and pious Dr Gerard; and for three sessions attended the theological lectures of Dr Pollock, with the view of entering the church. During his attendance at the divinity-hall, he preached a sermon which his fellow-students rallied him for, on account of its flowery style, and its being replete with poetical allusions and epithets. The professor of theology at Edinburgh is said to have reproved Thomson, the author of the Seasons, for delivering his thoughts much in the same manner as Beattie; and the rebuke so operated upon Thomson's mind, that he forsook the church for the temple of the Muses. Beattie did not take orders; but the probability is, that the poverty of his relatives, and not his will, was the cause of his continuing a layman. He was appointed schoolmaster of Fordoun on the 1st August, 1753; and, in accordance with the prevailing practice, he became precentor and parish clerk. Fordoun is a small hamlet, about six miles distant from Laurencekirk, and situated at the foot of the Grampians. Deprived of congenial society, Beattie roamed the wilds and climbed the mountains contiguous to his home, deriving from his observations of external nature and the wildness of the scenes around him, those poetical germs which, in their growth and fruition, became the Minstrel.' Mr Garden, sheriff of Kincardine, afterwards Lord Gardenstone, discovered and appreciated the poetical talents of the obscure schoolmaster; and, to satisfy himself of Beattie's powers of versification, gave him part of a Latin poem to translate, which, after a short retirement, was executed to his entire satisfaction. The patronage of the sheriff assisted him to obtain the vacant situation of usher in the grammar school of Aberdeen; and, on the 20th June, 1758, be removed to that city, where, having access to books and cultivated society, he added to his stock of knowledge, and prosecuted his studies of the classics.

In 1760, a vacancy occurred in the professorship of natural history, Marischal College, and Mr Beattie, incidentally mentioning this circumstance to his friend Mr Arbuthnot, he was advised by him to apply for the situation. This idea had never crossed the mind of Beattie, and he looked upon the proposition as chimerical; but his friend seems to have understood the power of patronage better than the young usher, and he accordingly wrote to the Earl of Errol, who applied to the Duke of Argyll, at that period distributor of the crown patronage for Scotland; and Beattie was translated from his problematical position, as an under teacher, to a chair in the Senatus Academicus of Marischal College, which he had left only seven years before, at the age of eighteen years. By an exchange with the professor of moral philosophy and logic, he gave up the situation to which he was presented, and was inducted into a position more consonant to his taste, on the 8th October, 1760. He applied himself with great diligence to the preparation of a course of lectures for his class, and his pupils received the benefits of his ability and zeal. The young professor felt the advantage of the society into which his situation gave him admittance. He became a member of the Theological Club, of which the Rev. Dr George Campbell, principal of Marischal College, and professor of divinity, was one of the founders; and of a literary society subsequently founded, of which the celebrated Drs Reid, Gregory, and Skene, were members.

Previous to 1760, Dr Beattie had contributed some fugitive pieces to the Scots Magazine, published at Edinburgh, but his first acknowledged production was a small volume of original poems and translations, dedicated to his patron, the Earl of Errol, and edited shortly after his instalment as professor. The volume was well received, and obtained for him a high reputation.

Dr Beattie's life possesses few incidents beyond the ordiBary routine of years devoted to literature and the duties of his important situation; but that situation and his literary fame procured him an extensive acquaintance with the literati of the day, and his correspondence is replete with judicious criticisms on books and principles, and it evinces

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extensive biblical knowledge. In 1765, Gray, author of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard,' visited the Earl of Strathmore at his seat, Glammis Castle. An interchange of compliments took place between him and Dr Beattie, which resulted in the latter visiting Glammis Castle, and contracting a friendship with the amiable and delightful poet, which continued to the death of Mr Gray, which took place on 31st July, 1771. In the summer of 1766, Beattie published a volume of poems in London, and in this edition he omitted all his poetical translations. It was also well received, and rendered the doctor known beyond the limits of his native land.

spirit was possessed of great vivacity. The following exHe was not by any means robust in health, yet his tract from a letter to Mr Boyd, son of the unfortunate Lord Kilmarnock, gives an amusing account of the doctor's infirmities, and is valuable as an illustration of his playful epistolary style:-'I flatter myself I shall soon get rid of this infirmity, nay, that I shall ere long be in the way of becoming a great man. For have I not headachs like Pope-vertigo like Swift-grey hairs like Homer? Do I not wear large shoes (for fear of corns) like Virgil-and sometimes complain of sore eyes (though not of lippitude) like Horace? Am I not at this present moment writing, invested with a garment not less ragged than that of Socrates? Like Joseph the patriarch, I am a mighty dreamer of dreams; like Nimrod the hunter, I am an eminent builder of castles (in the air); I procrastinate, like Julius Cæsar; and very lately, in imitation of Don Quixote, I rode a horse, lean, old, and lazy, like Rosinante; sometimes, like Cicero, I write bad verses; and sometimes bad prose, like Virgil: this last instance I have on the authority of Seneca; I am of small stature like Alexander the Great; I am somewhat inclined to fatness, like Dr Arbuthnot and Aristotle; and I drink brandy and water like Mr Boyd.' Playful as Dr Beattie's mind is shown to have been by this extract, he scepticism which Hume had rendered fashionable in certain was deeply convinced of the disastrous influences of that circles. During 1767, while confined to his home from the state of his health, he felt himself called upon to combat the assumptions of the sceptics-assumptions which, by their insidiousness, were calculated to glide unquestioned into the unguarded minds of youth, and to obliterate or corrode the principles of religion and virtue. Sensible of the importance of defending our faith against a system whose votaries conducted themselves as if they had proscribed Christianity, Dr Beattie began his defence of truth, which he at first denominated An Essay on Reason and Common Sense.' This title he changed for An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism.' He made himself master of all the arguments of the enemies of religion, and carefully considered his subject. He re-wrote portions of this essay three times, and some parts of it oftener, and was studious not to pervert or misconstrue one proposition of his opponents. After four years' application to the subject, this famous essay appeared. It had been intrusted to Mr Arbuthnot, Dr Gregory, and Sir W. Forbes for publication; they presented it to a bookseller who refused to purchase it, and, resolved that society should not be deprived of such a defence of religion, they purchased it themselves, and concealed this transaction from Dr Beattie, lest they should offend his delicacy. The essay appeared in May, 1770, and such was its success, that a second edition was called for the following year.

promised him every happiness, but which was productive On 28th June, 1767, Beattie contracted a union which of much domestic misery. While he was usher at the grammar school, Aberdeen, he had become intimate with Miss Mary Dun, the daughter of Dr Dun, the rector. This lady inherited insanity from her mother, which awful mathat they embittered the life of the doctor. In 1768, his lady manifested itself in such numberless eccentricities first son was born; he was named James Hay, after the Earl of Errol, and was a youth of precocious talent; but, like many premature geniuses, his life was of short duration. When thirteen years old, he was entered a student of Marischal College; at eighteen, he took the degree of M.A.;

at nineteen, he was appointed assistant professor of moral philosophy and logic; and at twenty-two, he died.

In 1771, very soon after the second edition of the essay on truth, Dr Beattie published the first canto of the Minstrel. The subject was suggested by Dr Percy's essay on English Minstrelsy; and the versification is in the Spenserian stanza. It pleased Beattie's car, he says, and seemed, from its Gothic structure and original, to bear some affinity to the spirit and subject of the poem. The Minstrel is the composition on which Beattie's celebrity as a poet rests. It is full of beautiful sentiments, clothed in soft, harmonious numbers; perhaps an infusion of Corinthian ornaments amidst the strong buttresses and stately pillars of its Gothic simplicity, might have increased its beauty without detracting from its strength.

much that he could not teach. Mr George Glennie was accordingly engaged as his assistant, and he never permanently resumed his duties, although he lectured occasionally till 1797. Dr Beattie's paternal affections were of a very strong character; his elder son had been his peculiar care and pride; and since his premature death, the younger, Montagu, became the object of great attention and solicitude. To speculate upon the probable eminence and usefulness of his boy, and to provide for him every means of mental culture, were the cares of the doating father; but alas! his life was not to be long spared, for on the 14th March, 1796, Montagu Beattie died, aged eighteen years, of a fever, which carried him off in a week. It is most affecting to mark the effect of this event upon the mind of his father. It did not produce insanity; but it caused that mental estrangement, temporary deprivation of memory, which so often accompanies dotage. He would arrange his son's books, in order that he might resume his studies with facility. The objects which he had regarded with favour were placed in their old familiar places, and carefully attended to, lest they should have been disturbed or soiled. He visited all his son's resorts, for he longed for him, and wondered why he tarried. After searching every room in his house, with a sorrowful yet anxious visage he would come to his niece, Mrs Glennie, and looking in her face with a sad and longing eye, he would say, You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is?' And, as she told him of his bereavement, his face would lighten with a melancholy intelwill be done. I am now done with the world.' In 1799, he was struck with palsy, which for eight days almost deprived him of the power of utterance. At different succeeding periods he had returns of this malady; the last attack of which took place in October, 1802. He lingered till the 18th August, 1803, when death put a period to his mortal existence and his earthly sufferings. It was his earnest wish that he might be buried in the grave with his sons; and he lies in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Aberdeen. The spot is indicated by an elegant epitaph, written by Dr James Gregory, professor of the practice of physic at Edinburgh.

In 1771, Beattie visited London, and was introduced to Mrs Montagu, authoress of Dialogues of the Dead' and other works. Her house was the resort of the most celebrated writers in London, and there Beattie met and became intimate with Dr Samuel Johnson and Drs Armstrong, Hawkesworth, and Goldsmith. In 1773, the university of Oxford presented him with the honorary degree of LL.D., and the king conferred upon him a yearly pension of £200. He also contracted a friendship with Sir Joshua Reynolds; and that famous painter executed his portrait, together with an allegorical painting, into which the doctor was introduced, with the robes he had worn at Oxford on the occasion of his being presented with his academical honours. About this period, a vacancy occurred in the chair of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, and although arrange-ligence, and he would bow his head, and whisper, God's ments for allowing him to occupy the chair of moral philosophy could have been easily consummated, he refused to quit Aberdeen, and rejected overtures of church preferment in England with equal firmness and disinterestedness. In 1766, he issued a corrected edition of the essay on truth; another on poetry and music, and their influence upon the mind; one on laughter and ludicrous composition, together with one on the utility of classical learning. These essays evince their author's sensibility, wit, and erudition.

In 1786, three years after the war of independence was brought to a close, Dr Beattie was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was president. The intimation of his election was accompanied with expressions of high esteem, as honourable to the Americans who sent them as to him for whom their respectful sentiments were entertained. The celebrated Mrs Siddons was a most esteemed friend of Dr Beattie; as much for her amiability as her great histrionic reputation. He was an excellent performer on the violoncello, and she had a passionate fondness for Scottish music. Once in a company, where the doctor played the air of She rose and let me in,' the tears started into the great tragedian's eyes; upon which the instrument was laid aside. Go on,' said she, and you will soon have your revenge;' alluding to the effect which she had produced upon the performer's feelings at a former time.

The most prosperous and seemingly happy life is chequered with the ills to which humanity is subject, as surely as night alternates with day. Feeble health was a clog upon Dr Beattie's energies; his wife's incurable malady was a source of misery; and the infirm constitution of his son James was the cause of much anxiety. But he bore these calamities with Christian resignation; like his own hermit, he thought as a sage, though he felt like a man.' In 1790, he published the first volume of the Elements of Moral Philosophy; the second did not appear till three years afterwards. This work was an abridgment of the lectures he had delivered to his pupils in Marischal College, and though designated by himself a mere syllabus of a course of lectures, it is so luminous in arrangement and excellent in sentiment that it may be reckoned of vastly more practical importance than the abstruse emanations of the metaphysicians, which perplex and be wilder, without benefiting the student. This was a year of heavy affliction to Beattie. Mrs Valentine, a sister whom he dearly loved, died of apoplexy; and this shock, acting upon his own shattered constitution, affected him so

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Dr Beattie's reputation as a poet chiefly rests upon Edwin's Simple Tale.' But where is the schoolboy who has not felt delighted with the Hermit,' as his strengthening mind comprehended its moral and descriptive beauty, and his ear drank in its flowing numbers? Sweetness and simplicity are the characteristics of Beattie's poetry; the inculcation of pure morality and correct principles, the aim of all his writings. His principal production is undoubtedly his essay on truth; and considering the object of its composition, has rendered him deservedly honoured. In all the relations of life he conducted himself with honour. He was a kind son and brother, an indulgent husband, and fond father; perhaps the love he bore to learning was in fault,' in connexion with his duties as a parent. The mental labour of his son James superinduced nervous atrophy, while judicious restraint might have prolonged his life and usefulness. He was a devoted and kind friend, esteemed by the great, who respected his genius and Christian worth; and beloved by those who knew him in his obscurity, and whom he never forgot. He was a patient and indefatigable teacher, zealous alike to promote the intellectual and religious welfare of his students. Cowper pronounced him to be the only author of his acquaintance, whose critical and philosophical researches were diversified and embellished by a poetical imagination.

A DREA M.

BY THE REV. W. ANDERSON, GLASGOW.

WHAT sort of inscription, reader, do you wish to be put on your gravestone, when you die and are buried? Or rather, let me ask, Should you proceed to the end in your present course, what will be the inscription, if the world record the truth?

I dreamed I was in a burial-ground, and engaged my

self in reading the epitaphs. It consisted of two departments-an outer and an inner. The outer, which was by far the more extensive, was a dreary scene. There was no dressing of the graves in it, and the nettles grew rankly on them. Nevertheless, every one was furnished with a stone and an inscription. This, I was told, was done at the public expense, which appointed a council of the wisest and most upright of the community, according to whose determination the dead were buried in one or other of the departments of the cemetery, and the inscriptions framed. In the outer, all the stones were titled in the same manner -The character of the dead for the warning of the living-and then followed the character, sketched in a few Eines or sentences. I shall give a specimen of what I saw. No. 10 read as follows:-The character of the dead for the warning of the living.-Here lies interred the body of a man who, though he lived till he was seventy years of age, never did anything that was good. He did no harm, indeed; he was not contentious; nor did he contract debts. || But he was a useless and profitless weed, vegetating in the midst of society. No poor man was ever the better for his alms, no ignorant man for his counsel, and no sick man for his prayers. It would have been AS WELL for the world had he not been born.

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Also, here lies interred the body of his younger son. He also was allowed of his useless parent to wander wild without education, and being of a lively and impetuous temper, he commenced a career of vice, which terminated in an ignominious execution. It would have been MUCH BETTER for the world had he never been born.

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Also, here lies interred the body of his daughter. She was a fair and sprightly child; but being destitute of prinple, through her father's neglect, she was early and easily seduced by the destroyer, and became a destroyer herself. After slaying a multitude of youth, she died in a brothel. It woull have been A MERCY to the world had she never been born.

All lie here till the resurrection, when they shall rise to be subjected to the second death.'

Such was the epitaph. I thought in my dream, and I equally think when I am awake, that the council had acted somewhat injudiciously. Should they not have pronounced on the father too, if not on him pre-eminently, that it would have been MUCH BETTER for the world, and better for himself, as the fountain of the misery, that no mother had conceived him, or that he had died when an infant. A merely useless parent there can scarcely be. If he is not profitable he must be injurious. He is the | natural guardian of his child; and, independently of any positively evil example, if he do not actively perform a guardian's duty, he stands an obstruction in the way of others who might undertake the charge. The apostacy of father Malthus and madam Martineau, forbidding to marry, is a most accursed one; but undoubtedly no man or woman has a right to become a parent who is not morally qualified and resolved to labour in the training of his or her offspring. Alas! for the child of man-that it often fares better with the young of the beasts of the field and fowls of the air, whose parents weary not in the conducting of their charge, till, by patient education, they have qualified them for occupying their sphere in the creation of God.

ing; and so he turned away from the solicitation. He was waited on for a subscription in aid of the dissemination of the gospel; he answered that he had no conceit for such enterprises; and, besides, that he suspected there was a mismanagement of the funds; so he turned away from the solicitation again. He died, leaving his wealth to a spendthrift heir, who with it not only ruined himself but many besides. It had been AS WELL for the world that this earthling had not been born. He shall have no part in the resurrection of the just.'

Here again I thought in my dream, and think so still when I am awake, that the council was too tender on his memory, and not sufficiently faithful in their warning of the living. They should have pronounced on him that it would have been MUCH BETTER for the world had he never existed. For besides the ruining of his heir, a better man, who would have turned the wealth to profitable account, was, in the competition of business, kept in a state of depression by him, and circumscribed in his means of usefulness.

The epitaph proceeded― Also, here lies the body of his brother, Demetrius. Like his elder brother, Nabal, he was industrious and amassed wealth. But like Nabal, too, he shut his heart against the indigent and against the gospel, so long as he lived. But when about to die, he bequeathed his property to charitable and religious institutions. world is nowise obliged to him. He kept hold of his riches so long as he could. He would never have parted with them had it been in his power to retain them. Neither shall he have part in the resurrection of the just.'

The

I was much pleased in my dream, and am so still when awake, with the decision of the council. Not only that they should have decided on his being buried in the outer department, among the unrighteous mob, but that they should have framed his epitaph so well, for the warning of some who delude themselves in their avarice, while they live in the prospect of being charitable after they die! I was, if possible, however, better pleased with what followed: :

Also, here lies the body of the remaining brother. Like the other two, he was industrious, active, and successful. He was a parent, and spared no expense in accomplishing his children in the refinements of this world. In dancing, in music, in painting, and talking in foreign languages, they had been taught to excel. And as he lay on his bed, after having exhibited them before the company whom he had invited to witness the display, he would congratulate himself on having educated them so well, and for having so faithfully discharged the vows he made at their baptism! But beyond his family, his thoughts never wandered. He did a little for the poor and the gospel, in the way of decency, lest his children should be despised on account of the hard-heartedness of their father; but that little he did with a grudge. Even the wife of his bosom shared little of his attention and affection. He was a profitless man to the world. It has no blessing for his mcmory. Yea, it would have been better for it if he had not been born, since those children to whom he left his wealth have proved, in consequence of their neglected moral and religious education, the affliction of society. His sons have become corruptors. And his proud, selfish, and unamiable daughters are, as wives, the torment of the fools who wedded them, and as mothers, are rearing an offspring which threaten the world with an accumulation of misery. Can such a man be admitted to the inheritance of the righteous? Let his children, whom he pampered, praise him if they will;-the world made no profit by him, but rather sustained a loss. He lies here among the unrighteous mob; and there shall be no rising for him until the resurrection of condemnation.'

I proceed with my dream. No. 52 was titled as before, The character of the dead for the warning of the living,' and then the epitaph went on- Here lies the body of a man who speculated at night and toiled during day; he No. 105 was a case which arrested my attention with boasted of his industry; he quoted the scripture 'Be dili- great force. The common title, The character of the gent in business;' he amassed wealth, built houses, and dead for the warning of the living,' was chiselled in larger purchased land. But when he was called on for a sub- letters than usual; and the epitaph proceeded—‘Here lies scription for the relief of the indigent, he answered that if all the body of a man whose memory the world deplores. had been as industrious and sober and economical as him- He was ingenious, and benefited the useful arts by his inself, there would have been no poor to oppress the deserv-ventions. He was amiable and social in his disposition,

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