perfect accuracy, where so vast an array of names and figures is concerned, is most desirable but not always possible. The critic, if his microscopic eye detect any errata, is assured that they will be at least as annoying to the author as to himself. The same "harmless, necessary " judge will no doubt be disposed to repeat that old accusation of "truisms" and "platitudes" which is always brought up against a writer whose business it is to enforce the ordinary laws of morality and advocate the ordinary principles of duty. But what may be a "truism" and a "platitude" to the experienced observer, to the mature thinker, is often a new, fresh truth to the young and inexperienced. At all events, it is only by constant repetition that even the ordinary commonplaces of moralists can be impressed on the minds of young men. The nail, if you would drive it home, must be struck again and again. With the rising generation the labour must be repeated that our fathers underwent for the benefit of us, their sons. It would be difficult to say much that is new, I suppose, on such subjects as industry, and perseverance, and fixity of purpose; and the new might very probably not be the true; but that is no reason for not incessantly commending them to the consideration of the young. I do not presume to think that I have said anything startlingly original; but I have sought to put some useful counsel before my readers and to render it acceptable by illustration and anecdote. I have endeavoured to place before them "plain living and high thinking" as the "motive" which should govern all their conduct. I have endeavoured to inspire them with a consciousness of the noble work that each one of them may do for God and their fellow-men in their respective spheres of action, if they will but cultivate the faculties that have been given to them for this purpose. I have endeavoured to show them such a view of the possibilities, capabilities, and aims and ends of life, as may enable them to return a wise and thoughtful answer to the much-debated question, "Is life worth living?" Yes, it is indeed worth living if we can appreciate its opportunities for self-culture, for thinking lofty thoughts and doing generous deeds. It is indeed worth living if we resolve to use it as a gift from Heaven, to be returned, like the five talents, with an abundant interest. It is indeed worth living if we avail ourselves of it to develop in our mind, our soul, our heart, our body, their best and brightest faculties. Let us aim, then, friends and readers-young men for whom the following pages have primarily been composed-let us aim at the expansion and growth of a true Christian manhood: "The manhood of an understanding open to all truth, and venerating it too deeply to love it except for itself, or barter it for honour or for gold; of a heart enthralled by no conventionalisms, bound by no frost of custom, but the perennial fountain of all pure humanities; of a will at the mercy of no tyrant without and no passion within; of a conscience erect under all the pressure of circumstances, and ruled by no power inferior to the everlasting law of duty; of affections gentle enough for the humblest sources of earth, lofty enough for the aspirings of the skies. In such manhood, full of devout strength and open love, let every one that owns a soul see that he stands fast; in its spirit, at once humane and heavenly, do the work, accept the good, and bear the burdens of his life." In the attainment of such a manhood I humbly hope this book may advise, assist, and encourage you. W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. "To those who have opportunities of culture placed within their reach, these are the instruments of the divine discipline. It is part of that discipline to put large opportunities in men's hands, and to leave it to themselves whether they will use or neglect them. There shall be no coercion to make us turn them to account. Occasions of learning and self-improvement come, stay with us for a while, then pass. And the wheels of time shall not be reversed to bring them back once they are gone. If we neglect them, we shall be permanent losers for this life. We cannot say how much we may be losers hereafter. But if we do what we can to use them while they are granted, we shall have learnt one lesson of the heavenly discipline, and shall be, we may hope, the better prepared for the others, whether of action or endurance, which are yet to come.”—Principal Shairp. "An employment, the satisfactory pursuit of which requires of a man that he shall be endowed with a retentive memory, quick at learning, loftyminded and graceful, the friend and brother of truth, justice, fortitude, and temperance."-Plato, "The Republic." A 2 MORAL SELF-CULTure. "In the affairs of life, what is said and what is thought are almost of more importance than what is done.”—Sir Arthur Helps. "Strive to heal yourself, to change your nature; put not off the work till to-morrow. If you say, 'To-morrow I will take heed to myself,' it is just as though you said, "To-day I will be mean, shameless, cowardly, passionate, malicious.' See what evil you allow yourself by this fatal indulgence. But if it be good for you to be converted, and to watch with heart and soul over every action and desire, how much more is it good to do so this very moment! If it is expedient to-morrow, how much rather is it to-day! For beginning to-day, you will leave more strength for it to-morrow, and you will not be tempted to leave the work to the day after."-Epictetus. "And from the soul itself there must be sent A sweet and potent voice of its own birth, -Coleridge. "The high-born soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing -Akenside. "If to be true in heart and just in act are the first qualities necessary for the elevation of humanity, if without them all else is worthless, intellectual culture cannot give what intellectual culture does not require or imply. You cultivate the plant which has already life; you will waste your labour in cultivating a stone. The moral life is the counterpart of the natural, alike mysterious in its origin and alike visible only in its effects."-J. A. Froude. CHAPTER I. AT HOME. N that most delightful book, "Hora Subsecivæ," Dr. John Brown includes a touching and eloquent sketch of his father, an eminent Scottish divine, one passage of which it is impossible to read without emotion. 66 After my mother's death," he says, "I slept with him. His bed was in his study, a small room with a very small grate; and I remember well his getting those fat, shapeless, spongy books [the German Exegetics], as if one would sink in them, and be bogged in their bibulous, unsized paper; and watching him as he impatiently cut them up, and dived into them in his rapid, eclectic way, tasting them, and dropping for my play such a lot of soft, large, curled bits from the paper-cutter, leaving the edges all shaggy. He never came to bed while I was awake, which was not to be wondered at; but I can remember often awaking far on in the night or morning, and seeing that keen, beautiful, intense face bending over these Rosenmüllers, and Ernestis, and Storrs, and Kuinoels, the fire out and the grey dawn peering through the window; and when he heard me move, he would speak to me in the foolish words of endearment my mother was wont to use, and come to bed and take me, warm as I was, into his cold bosom." This anecdote seems to put before us an ideal of the relation of love and trustfulness that should subsist between father and son; the son watching the father with the gaze of vigilant affection, the father taking the son to his heart with a deep and earnest sympathy. It is not the relation that binds mother and son; for in that there is less of command on the one side and of obedience on the other; but if there be less tenderness, there is more confidence; if less of passion, more of reason; if less of sweet dependence, more of wise equality. The father may not know so much of his son's heart as his mother does, but he will know more of his mind; he will stand to him in the threefold capacity of guide, philosopher, and friend. Such an intercourse as that which passed between Dr. John Brown and his father was in the highest degree good for both. The father's |