only known habitat of the plant in Scotland, except, one. It is rare in Ireland, and still more rare in England. A year or two ago it had been found by me in Saltcoats Bay. I had observed it at low-water, in a little channel betwixt two rocks, as I was retreating with all convenient speed, lest I should be circumvented by the returning tide, as I had been some days before. In my haste, I snatched only a small portion from a large plant of it growing on a bed of shale, thinking that it was some common thing, with rather an uncommon aspect. On floating it in freshwater, spreading it on paper, and exposing it to the air, it changed in a short time from a dull brownishred to a fine bright crimson. I then found that it was not an old friend with a new face, but an alga of great beauty, which was new to Scotland, viz., Mesogloia, now Gloiosiphonia capillaris. Next season it was found in considerable abundance in the same locality, in shallow water; but from being too much exposed to the light, or to some other cause, it had lost much of its fine crimson colour. My son, by wading into deep water and catching the plants with his toes, got fine specimens, which, on being plunged in fresh-water, and then exposed to the air, assumed the rich crimson hue. fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from thine eyes." PICTURE OF A PILGRIMAGE. (From Cheever's "Pilgrim in the Shadow of the Jungfrau Alp.") EINSIEDELN constitutes the very head-quarters of the worship of the Virgin Mary. All day long, if you come into the region as we did, nigh about the season for the great annual worshipping festival or Virginal levee, you will meet pilgrims on the roads in every direction hurrying thither, or returning from the shrine; old men and robust peasants, maidens and little children, troops of old women telling their beads and repeating their prayers, as they tramp along the wet road, as if praying for a wager. What an intense, haggard zeal is depicted in some of their countenances! Their lips move, and they do not look work; for they probably have a certain number of at you, but hurry on undistracted from their great aves to repeat, or perhaps a bead roll of prayers so constructed, that if they miss one, they must go over the whole again from the beginning. beings who have heard of Jesus Christ, and of the And is this religion? Is it taught for religion by Sacred Scriptures, and of the character of God? Is this the influence of the Virgin Mary upon the soul? Do men expect thus to climb to heaven? Pass on to the great building, the spacious Temple of the Virgin, and you will see. It is a vast and guady ing a black image of the Virgin, almost as black as church within, a stately structure without, enshrinebony, which some believe came miraculously from heaven, as fully as ever the Ephesians believed in the heaven-descended character of the image of their great goddess Diana. This singular shrine is frequented by multitudes of penance-doing people, who go thither at the impulse of their anxious halfawakened consciences, under guidance of their priests, to deposit their offerings, perform their prayers, and quiet their souls with the hope, by Mary's help, of escaping unscathed both hell and purgatory. If some can find sermons in stones, and good in everything, may not we extract lessons even from weeds? The prescribed address of a certain order of monks in meeting each other is: "Il faut mourir, mon frere;" and the regular response is: "Oui, mon frere, il faut mourir !" The "il faut" (the must) shows that Death naturally is anything but welcome. But since he will come, however unwelcome, and since he may come at an inconvenient season, when we are ill prepared for receiving him, should we not consider whether it may not be so ordered that death, instead of being met with reluctance, may be hailed as the harbinger of a blessed change? This very alga which has been under our consideration, when living in its submarine habitation, is but an ungainly weed; and when torn from its native rock, and exposed to the air, after being plunged in fresh-water, death ensues. Yet it is only then that its worth appears. Then only it becomes permanently beautiful, when it is clothed in the unchangeable loveliness of death. If death is to make a change for the better on thee, gentle reader, instead of saying mournfully, "We must die," are you not ready to say, "I would not live alway" "willing rather"-yea, "having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." It was a mystery hid from ages, how the merciless king of terrors might be converted into a friend-how, by dying, the happiest and loveliest of human beings may become for ever unspeakably more happy and lovely. The mystery is over-the secret is divulged. The Volume of Inspiration reveals it. If thou believest in Jesus, the change which death effects is unspeakable Memoria Technica of her worship. The pope's ably for the better. The earthly house of this tabernacle dissolves; but thou shalt have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. "Thou shalt hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on thee, nor any heat; but he who is in the midst of the throne shall feed thee, and shall lead thee to living The multitude of pilgrims is sometimes prodigious. When the anniversary festival of the miraculous confifteen days, and is a great collective jubilee. From secration of the shrine comes on the Sabbath, it lasts every quarter the pilgrims flock, as to the opened gate of heaven. Here they may have pleasure by the way commuted for by light penances, or by the pilgrimage itself, indulgences for future pleasure, and pardons, number of pilgrims annually has been at an average unlimited, for sin. From the year 1820 to 1840, the of more than one hundred and fifty thousand. This vast concourse of strangers keeps the town and parish of Einsiedeln in a thriving business of inn-keepthe "Star of the Sea," the "Queen of Heaven." As ing, merchandise, and various light manufactures for and by her worship got their own wealth, so the Einsieof old the Ephesians made silver shrines for Diana, delners make images, shrines, and pictures for Mary, and by this craft maintain a thrifty state. Around the great church in front and on each side, as well as in the village, are rows of stalls or shops for the sale of books, beads, pictures, images, and a thousand knicknacks in honour of the Virgin, and as a port letter in her behalf makes appropriate display among all these treasures, and as it were fixes their value, just as the pontifical stamp coins money. It makes one's heart ache to see the mournful superstition of Virgin in the Romish worship is one of the most prothe people. Indeed the whole establishment of the digious transactions of spiritual fraud, one of the vast est pieces of forgery and speculation, in the history of Our race. PICTURE OF A PILGRIMAGE. It is a great South Sea bubble of religious superstition, by which thousands make a fortune in this world, but millions make shipwreck of their souls for ever. The pope and the priesthood are joint stockholders of a great bank in heaven, which they have reared on false capital, and of which they have appointed Mary the supreme and perpetual directress. So the pope and the priests issue their bills of credit on Mary, and for the people the whole concern is turned into a sort of savings bank, where believers deposit their ave marias, their pilgrimages, their penances, their orisons and acts of grace, receiving now, t for convenience in this world, drafts from the pope, and expecting to receive their whole reversionary fortune from Mary in paradise. If this be not as sheer, pure, unsophisticated a form of Paganism as the annals of Heathen mythology ever disclosed or perfected, we are at a loss to know what constitutes Paganism. The artful mixture of the Gospel scheme of redemption, and reference to it, in this Marianic system, makes it, if not a stronger poison, a far more subtle and dangerous delusion for the mind. 129 mad enthusiasm of the tunic-worshippers at Treves, "Holy Coat, pray for us!" And what is to be said of a religion which, instead of endeavouring to cure people of their ignorance, just takes advantage of it, enshrining and maintaining in state every absurd phantasm that a frightened superstitious brain can coin? It is the veriest trickery, worthy of a Turkish santon, a religious jugglery, not half so respectable as that of Jannes and Jambres to cajole the common uneducated mind in this manner. And it passes one's comprehension how educated men, in other respects upright and honest, can connive at the cherishing of such lunacies among the people. It is not merely the nature of these things as a curious system of superstitions that we wish to look at. The philosophic traveller desires to observe, and is bound to observe, their effect upon the character of the people the manner in which they take hold of the mind-the sort of atmosphere which they form around the common heart and life of the multitude. This is one of the most curious and instructive investigations in all a man's journeyings in Europe, espe cially when he comes upon an enclosure into which the light and influences of the Reformation have never penetrated, and where Romanism, not having come in contact with systems or controversies that might shake the faith of its votaries, may be sounded in its depths in the souls invested with it. There is too much of a disposition to set down a Protestant traveller's notes on the Romish system as he sees it to the score of bigotry or religious prejudice. This is both unfair and unwise; for it tends to make travellers neglectful of observing the workings of foreign religious systems, or restricted and uncandid in giving their impressions to the public. There is nothing that a traveller ought to watch more closely, or report more fully and fairly, than the nature of these two things, religion and education, among the peo The Romish scheme, as here demonstrated, is a system of mediators and courts of appeal, which puts the soul as far as possible from the Great Mediator, and prevents all direct access to the fountain of a Saviour's blood. Here we have the pope accrediting the saints-the saints interceding with MaryMary interceding with Christ. The system in general, and Einsiedeln in particular, with the legendary literature and litanies connected with it, constitutes a great development of the common faith and literature of the middle ages, the idea of which, examined not in the common mind, but only in a few great intellects, has been in some quarters so applauded, even by professed Protestants. Ages of faith, forsooth, where true faith was rendered almost impossible, and all the life of the soul was one vast super-ple where he journeys. What should we say if M. stition! In front of the great Einsiedeln Church there is a fountain with fourteen compartments or jets, at one of which the common people say and believe our Saviour drank, though when, or how, or by what possibility, it would puzzle the stanchest Judæus Apellas to tell. If this place were Sychar, nigh to the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph, or even if Einsiedeln were on the way to Egypt from the Holy Land, such a legend were more possibly accountable and admissible; but here in the Alpine Mountains, on the way from Schwytz to Zurich, no man can imagine how such a tradition came about. And yet the poor people believe it. I saw a peasant with the utmost gravity and reverence taking fourteen drinks in succession, in order that he might be sure he had got the right one; and probably all the more ignorant pilgrims do the same. Simultaneously with him, a flock of geese were drinking round the fountain, but with much more wit, to save the trouble of going the circuit, they dipped their splashing bill-cups in the reservoir below, into which all the fourteen jets pour their streams together, being sure that the contents of the sacred one must necessarily be there also. And do you really think that a goose has so much sense? Do you think a man can have so much folly? I would answer: Which ought to be the greatest marvel-that a goose should conclude, since all the jets fall into the pool, that there can be no one jet the water of which is not there, or that a man should have so much sad and blind credulity, as to believe that Jesus Christ once drank there, and that if he drinks at the same jet, his soul will be benefited? Which, I ask, ought to be the greatest marvel? Is it not a folly almost incredible, almost equal to the ness? D. Tocqueville, in writing of us in America, had abstained from all notices and remarks on our religious system, because this would have rendered his book obnoxious to some, and distasteful to others, and might have injured its popularity and acceptableA man travels in Europe blindfold, who either does not observe, or neglects to record, the workings of the great religious system, or who sees it, not in its effects on the whole character of the people, or on common minds, but only in its festival ceremonies in gorgeous cathedrals. It is to be feared that many persons look upon Romanism only with the outward eye, and only in its outward observances, without attempting to trace its progress and its influence on the mind and in the heart. I purchased and brought away with me several of the little images of the Virgin, which are sold in countless quantities for the use of worshippers. They look very much like the portable images of the household gods of Egypt, which I obtained several years ago while travelling in that country. They may lie on the same shelf in a man's cabinet of curiosities. And what a curious concatenation, after four thousand years, which brings the idolatry of the earliest Pagan system and that of the professedly Christian system, at the two extremes, so singularly together! Looking at these two sets of images, which a man may carry side by side in his trousers pocket, it is difficult to believe that there was one particle more or less of superstition and idolatry in the use of the one than of the other. For a poor peasant now may be as complete and unconscious an idolater of his "Star of the Sea," with the rude image which he carries in his pocket, or about his neck, as the ancient Egyptian peasant ever was of his Isis or Osiris. Indeed, the idolatry, whatever it be, which comes after Chris tianity, must, in some respects, be worse than that which preceded it. I gathered likewise several of the little tracts issued at Einsiedeln concerning the Virgin, the shrine, and the pilgrimage, constituting the catechisms of the people, and revealing, better than anything else, the water-courses, so to speak, of the superstition in their hearts. One of these consists of Litanies for the invocation of the Virgin, with an incredible number and repetition of her titles, and accompanying prayers and supplications to her in all hours and circumstances of danger and distress, from the first moment of temptation to the hour of death and the day of judgment, with a depth of earnestness and even anguish of soul, that exhausts all the religious sentiment of our fallen nature. "O Virgin, Mother of God! in all our pains and tribulations come to our aid, and we will love and bless you to all eternity. Amen." year 948. Another of these tracts consists of an ancient song upon the miraculous dedication of the Holy Chapel of the Virgin, which is said to have been visibly consecrated by our Lord Jesus Christ in honour of his most holy mother, the 14th of September, of the To this is added a long prayer to be said before the Holy Chapel or the Holy Image of our Lady, and a shorter prayer to be said before a portable image, by those who cannot serve the Virgin at her grand altar at Einsiedeln, for which last prayer two hundred days' indulgence are gained by gift of the pope. Three pater nosters and three ave marias answer instead of this prayer for those who do not know how to read. Then follows a prayer to St Meinrad, the first worshipper of the image, and a martyr in the chapel, addressed in the prayer as the mignon or dear one of Mary. St Meinrad is called upon to intercede with the "Almighty Mother, and to obtain for devout penitents the pardon of their sins, and the preservation of their bodies from all dangers, and their souls from damnation. In the supplication to the Virgin, the soul is represented as fleeing from the wrath of God, to be protected by her in the day of judgment; and the sinner renders up his last sigh into her hands, that his soul may praise her for ever in a blessed eternity. known him for many years as a High Churchman, and a thorough-paced man of the world, who paid no regard to the Sabbath, and hated religious people. I considered it, of course, my duty to go, and the parable of the ten virgins came with power into mind. Well, I thought, here is a fulfilment of that part, "Then said the foolish, Give us of your oil." I entered his chamber, and found him indeed very ill. He looked at me with a vacant stare, which seemed to say, You know something which I ought to know, and wish to know, but I am ashamed to tell you how ignorant I am. I endeavoured, as he was an aged man, to treat him with respectful tenderness, and to convey instruction to his mind without putting him to confusion by asking questions which he could not answer. I learned that he could not read a word, although he had carried on a considerable business, and gained a decent property. He said, "When I was a boy, there were no Sabbath schools, and my father sent me to work all the week, and I had no opportunity to learn. I have felt the want of it a long time; but never so much as since I have been ill." Then," I said, " as you cannot read the Bible yourself, you must take it on trust from others." He' seemed to think there was a great deal to be learned and to be done before he should be fit to die. This was the impression uppermost in his mind, and I found him as teachable as a little child. I asked him if he felt himself a sinner? "Yes," he said, "I do feel myself to be a very great sinner; but I fear I do not feel it so much as I ought." "Can you pray?" "A very little," he said; "I ask God to forgive me, but I do not know whether I pray right." I replied: "It is a great mercy that God hears short prayers, if they come from the heart; and that the Bible gives many instances in which short prayers have been heard." I said, "You can say, 'God be merciful to me a sinner."" To my surprise, he clasped his hands together, and with great fervour cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Finding this prayer congenial to his feelings I continued, "Lord, save me, or I perish. Create in me a clean heart. Teach me thy way. Take away all iniquity, for Christ's sake." He repeated all I said, and after reading a portion of the good Word to him, and praying with "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold him, I left him, encouraging him to try, when O wide, and sad, and powerful delusion! To all this variety of expedients, to all these successive ranks of spiritual lawyers, men run with costly fees in their hands, rather than straight to Christ! All this stately apparatus of ages-altars and images with men adoring them, crosses on the garments, crosses about the neck, crosses by the road-side, and pilgrims kneeling at them; while the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, stands by unnoticed, and the voice, "Come unto me!" is never heard. A SOUL SAVED. not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, Ir was in the spring of 1827 that a good woman the curate, to go. The next morning she called again, told me the clergyman had been there, but that the sick man was not satisfied, and would be glad if I would step over to see him. This affair greatly surprised me. I had he was alone, to carry up his desires to God in those short sentences I had mentioned to him. "Yes," he said, "I will, I will try." I saw him again in the evening of the same day; the interview of the morning had excited in my mind a deep interest on his behalf. I found that he had been praying at intervals through the day, and his wife told me that since I had visited him his temper seemed quite altered; that he was calm, and thankful for everything, whereas before nothing was right. I mentioned some texts of Scripture to him, ' and said, "They are in the Bible." I was much JOHN NEWTON'S TABLE-TALK. struck with his reply, "Yes, I dare say they are; I believe they are." Poor man! he had never read them, and never would. As his time seemed likely to be short, I confined my instructions to the three great points-man's ruin by sin; redemption by Christ Jesus; and regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost. His understanding was opened much more rapidly than I had expected. He felt himself a sinner, and that all about him was defiled; he bowed to the doctrine that man is born in sin, and that by nature he was evil, and only evil; he felt the truth of God which declares, " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them," and that he was under that curse-"that the wages of sin is death," and that his sins deserved all the wrath which God had threatened. When I told him that God had addressed sinners in such language as this: "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord," &c.; and again, that he had said, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth," &c.; he was filled with admiration. "How good! how merciful!" he exclaimed. "Ah!" I said, "you did not know what precious things the Bible contained." "O no," he said, "I never desired to read before, but now I grieve that I did not learn to read. I might have read these good things myself." I then spoke to him of the person, glory, and sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and that this wonderful and glorious person died for sinners. "O what precious blood must that be which he shed! This biood cleanseth from all sin. Can you trust in Christ's blood to redeem your soul?" "Yes; I hope I can." I said, "If you believe- he that believeth shall be saved. Do you understand what faith is?" I found he was not prepared to answer, and therefore said, "Just now I mentioned to you,' As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner,' &c.,-you think that is in the Bible?" "O! yes; I am sure it is." "But you cannot read-how can you be sure?" "You told me so, and I am sure you would not deceive me." "Then," I replied, "you believe I speak the truth: that is faith in me; but the great point of that text is, 'As I live, saith the Lord. To believe what God speaks, is faith in God; and that alone can relieve you. God has said that there is no hope for any sin ner out of Christ, but that every sinner may be saved by casting the burden of his sins on Christ. When you, seeing that you cannot save yourself, flee to Christ, and trust wholly to him for salvation, you believe on him." I asked him if he had ever heard that declaration of the Lord Jesus, "Ye must be born again; except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God?" He did not know that he had. "Yet this is as true as the promises." I endeavoured to show the nature and necessity of this change, and the Lord was pleased to give him so quickly to understand 131 and desire it, that I could not but hope the good Spirit was indeed working on his mind. I said before he was as teachable as a little child, and I could not but believe that the same Spirit which imparted a teachable mind, communicated understanding to the simple. He looked for my visits more than for his necessary food or medicine, and I was constrained to witness the most unequivocal and unbounded evidence of love in one to whom, before, I should scarcely have given credit for natural affection. Such wonders grace can do! During the last interview I had with him, I took some pains to obtain satisfaction as to his views and feelings. I mentioned to him the dying testimony of an aged Christian: "I know in whom I have believed," &c. I explained that passage to him, and endeavoured to set before him the near approach of that hour in which his soul would be separate from the body, and stand before the judgment-seat. After a short time I said, "Now suppose you were just dying, in full possession of your reason, and with those views of the value of your neverdying soul, and the unutterable importance of trusting it in safe hands. You are anxious to leave your earthly property in safe hands, but what is that compared with your soul? Do you know any being to whom, if dying, you could commit your soul?" With an expression and manner which spoke far more forcibly than words, he replied, "To the Lord Jesus Christ." "Yes," I said, "take fast hold of that; and remember the words of the dying martyr: Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commit my spirit." He looked up towards heaven and said, "Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commit my spirit." I said, "Farewell! I am going from home for a few days, and perhaps I may never see you again; but I shall think of you when absent, and commit you to the Lord Jesus, and though you will not see me, Jesus will be near, and he alone can help, and save, and bless you." He expressed his thankfulness for my attention to him, and said he never was happy before he knew these things. On my return, I found he was gone into eternity; that the few days he lived after my departure, he had been calm and resigned; and that he held fast hold of that truth, "Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commit my spirit," and that these were almost his last words. O blessed Gospel! that can thus suit the desperate condition of a poor guilty creature. 0 blessed power of the Spirit! which can rise above all obstacles, and convey life and light, and peace and joy, to a ruined, guilty, ignorant, miserable man! JOHN NEWTON'S TABLE-TALK. I TRIED to make crooked things straight, till I have made these knuckles sore, and now I must leave it to the Lord. If I want a man to fly, I must lend him wings; and if I would successfully enforce moral duties, I must advance Evangelical motives. I should have thought mowers very idle people, but they work while they whet their scythes. So devotedness to God, whether it mows or whets its scythe, still goes on with its work. My course of study, like that of the surgeon, has principally consisted in walking in the hospital. My principal method of defeating heresy, is that of establishing the truth. One proposes to fill a bushel with tares; now, if I can fill it first with wheat, I will defy his attempts. A Christian in the world is like a man who has a long intimacy with one who, at length, he finds out was the murderer of his father, and the intimacy ceases. We are surprised at the fall of a famous professor; but in the sight of God that man was gone beforeit is only we that have now discovered it. The devil told a lie when he said, "All these things are mine, and to whomsoever I will shall I give them." For if he had the disposal of preferments, you and I, brother C, should soon be dignitaries. If an angel were sent to find the most perfect man, he would probably not find him composing a body of divinity, but perhaps a cripple in the poor-house, whom the parish wish dead, but humbled before God by far lower thoughts of himself than others think of him. If two angels came down from heaven to execute a divine command, and one was appointed to conduct an empire, and another to sweep a street, they would feel no inclination to change employments. I have many books that I cannot sit down to read. They are indeed good and sound, but, like halfpence, there goes a great quantity to little amount. There are silver books, and a few golden books, but I have one book worth more than all, called the Bible; and that is a book of bank notes. CHILDREN-THE LESSONS WHICH THEY TEACH. POOR children! they bring and teach us, human beings, more good than they get in return! How often does the infant, with its soft cheek and helpless hand, awaken a mother from worldliness and egotism to a whole world of a new and higher feeling! How often does the mother repay this, by doing her best to wipe off, even before the time, the dew and fresh simplicity of childhood, and make her daughter too soon a woman of the world, as she has been. The hardened heart of the worldly man is unlocked by the guileless tones and simple caresses of his son; but he repays it in time, by imparting to his boy all the crooked tricks, and hard ways, and callous maxims which have undone himself." Go to the jail, to the penitentiary, and find there the wretch most sullen, brutal, and hardened-then look at your infant son. Such as he is to you, such to some mother was this man, That hard hand was soft and delicate-that rough voice was tender and lisping-fond eyes followed him as he played-and he was rocked and cradled as something holy. There was a time when his heart, soft and unworn, might have opened to questionings of God, and Jesus, and been sealed with the seal of Heaven. But harsh hands seized it, fierce goblin lineaments were impressed upon it, and all is over with him for ever! There was a time when the Divine One stood on earth, and little children sought to draw near to him. But harsh human beings stood between him and them, forbidding their approach. Ah! has it not been always so? Do not even we, with our hard and unsubdued feelings-our worldly and unscriptural habits and maxims-stand like a dark screen between our little child and its Saviour, and keep, even from the choice bud of our hearts, the sweet radiance which might unfold it for paradise? "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not," is still the voice of the Son of God; but the cold world still closes around and forbids. When of old, the disciples would question their Lord of the higher mysteries of his kingdom, he took a little child and set him in the midst, as a sign of him who should be greatest in heaven. That gentle teacher still remains to us. By every hearth and fire-side, Jesus still sets the little child in the midst of us! Wouldst thou know, O parent, what is that faith which unlocks heaven! Go not to wrangling polemics, but draw to thy bosom thy little one, and read in that clear, trusting eye the lessons of eternal life. Be only to thy God as thy child is to thee, and all is done! Blessed shalt thou be, indeed—“ a little child shall lead thee !" PEACE AT HOME. IT is just as possible to keep a calm house as a clean house, a cheerful house as a warm house, an orderly house as a furnished house, if the heads set themselves to do so. Where is the difficulty of consulting each other's weaknesses, as well as each other's wants; each other's tempers, as well as each other's health; each other's comfort, as well as each other's character? Oh! it is by leaving the peace at home to chance, instead of pursuing it by system, that so many houses are unhappy. It deserves notice, also, that almost any one can be courteous and forbearing, and patient in a neighbour's house. If anything go wrong, or be out of time, or disagreeable there, it is made the best of, not the worst; even efforts are if felt, it is attributed to accident, not to design: made to excuse it, and to show that it is not felt; or, and this is not only easy, but natural, in the house of a friend. I will not, therefore, believe that what is so natural in the house of another is impossible at home, but maintain, without fear, that all the courtesies of social life may be upheld in domestic societys. A husband, as willing to be pleased at home, and as anxious to please as in his neighbour's house, and a wife, as intent on making things comfortable every day to her family, as on set days to her guests, could not fail to make their own home happy. Let us not evade the point of these remarks by recurring to the maxim about allowances for temper. It is worse than folly to refer to our temper, unless we could prove that we ever gained anything good by giving way to it. Fits of ill humour punish us quite as much, if not more, than those they are vented upon; and it actually requires more effort, and inflicts more pain to give them up, than would be requisite to avoid them.-Philip. |