But when the family is impressed with the spirit of holiness, then affection opens itself without any fear of untimely dissolution, and grows up for eternity, and hath therein the gratification of its proper nature. For as it is the nature of the understanding to conceive all things under the conditions of time and place, it seems to be the nature of the affections to forget these conditions, and to act under the opposite conditions of eternity and omnipresence. They seem to defy time, and to unite as it were for ever; they are regardless of place, consume the intervening distance, dwell with their object, and rejoice over it. The contemplation of change by place or time is the death of affection; it lives for all places and for all duration, and cannot abide the thought of dissolution; nor is it ever dissolved, as hath been said, save by the withering hand of vice and worldliness. Therefore, without hope of everlasting, affection is miserable; and if I had time, I could show that it enjoys itself only by a kind of illusion that it is to be everlasting, from which, alas! it is awakened by the bereavements of death. But with hope of immortality, affection is in its element, and flourisheth beautifully. And the family state being a web of interlacing affection, religion is its very life; and in proportion as it is present, the affections wax warmer and warmer, purer and purer, more and more spiritual, less and less dependent upon adversity or affliction or death. And when so rooted and grounded in divine love, and glorious hope of immortality, a family is fenced against evil, and made triumphant over death. Life is but its cradle, and the actions of life are its childhood, and eternity is its maturity.

HOMAS CARLYLE, one of the most original of all contemporary writers and thinkers, was born at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, on the 4th

December 1795. He attended first the parish school of Ecclefechan, and afterwards that of Annan. In 1809 he came to study at the Edinburgh University. His habits at this time are said to have been lonely and contemplative, and his reading in all kinds of literature assiduous and extensive. In 1818 he returned to Edinburgh, became a contributor to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, and also made a translation of Legendre's Geometry. In 1823 he acted as tutor to Charles Buller. He published a translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister in 1824, and his other great works followed in succession. From the year of his marriage with a daughter of Dr. Welsh of Haddington in 1826, till 1834, he resided at Craigenputtoch, a retired farm-house about fifteen miles from Dumfries. In 1834 he removed to London, settling at Chelsea. In 1837 he delivered a course of lectures on German Literature, in Willis's Rooms, London; in 1839 he lectured on the Revolutions of Modern Europe, and in 1840 on Hero Worship. This was his last public appearance in this capacity, with the exception of his rectorial address to the Edinburgh students in 1866, from which our present extract is taken. Carlyle died at Chelsea on 5th February 1881, and his remains were laid to rest beside those of his forefathers in

the churchyard of Ecclefechan. By a provision of his will

the estate of Craigenputtoch was left to the Edinburgh University, to provide certain bursaries. A portion of his library, the books used in the preparation of Cromwell and Frederick, were bequeathed to Harvard University Library, Boston, U.S. Carlyle's Reminiscences, issued shortly after his death by Mr. Froude, his literary executor, caused a great sensation in the literary world, from the outspokenness with which he dealt with his contemporaries. Since his decease suitable memorials were in progress in London and elsewhere.

ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.

The most unhappy of all men is the man that cannot tell what he is going to do, that has got no work cut out for him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind --honest work, which you intend getting done. If you are in a strait, a very good indication as to choice-perhaps the best you could get is a book you have a great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best of all possible conditions to improve by that book. It is analogous to what doctors tell us about the physical health and appetites of the patient. You must learn to distinguish between false appetite and real. There is such a thing as a false appetite, which will lead a man into vagaries with regard to diet, will tempt him to eat spicy things which he should not eat at all, and would not but that it is toothsome, and for the moment in baseness of mind. A man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for-what suits his constitution; and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books. As applicable to almost all of you, I will say that it is highly expedient to go into history—to inquire into what has passed before you in the families of men. The history of the Romans and Greeks will first of all concern you; and you will find that all the knowledge you have got will be

M

extremely applicable to elucidate that. There you have the most remarkable race of men in the world set before you, to say nothing of the languages, which your professors can better explain, and which, I believe, are admitted to be the most perfect orders of speech we have yet found to exist among

men. . . .

One remark more about your reading. I do not know whether it has been sufficiently brought home to you that there are two kinds of books. When a man is reading on any kind of subject, in most departments of books-in all books, if you take it in a wide sense, you will find that there is a division of good books and bad books,-there is a good kind of a book and a bad kind of a book. I am not to assume that you are all ill acquainted with this; but I may remind you that it is a very important consideration at present. It casts aside altogether the idea that people have, that if they are reading any book-that if an ignorant man is reading any book, he is doing rather better than nothing at all. I entirely call that in question. I even venture to deny it. It would be much safer and better would he have no concern with books at all than with some of them. You know these are my views. There are a number, an increasing number, of books that are decidedly to him not useful. But he will learn also that a certain number of books were written by a supreme, noble kind of peoplenot a very great number-but a great number adhere more or less to that side of things. In short, as I have written it down somewhere else, I conceive that books are like men's soulsdivided into sheep and goats. Some of them are calculated to be of very great advantage in teaching-in forwarding the teaching of all generations. Others are going down, down, doing more and more, wilder and wilder mischief.

And for the rest, in regard to all your studies here, and whatever you may learn, you are to remember that the object is not particular knowledge-that you are going to get higher in technical perfections, and all that sort of thing. There is a higher aim lies at the rear of all that, especially among those

who are intended for literary, for speaking pursuits-the sacred profession. You are ever to bear in mind that there lies behind that the acquisition of what may be called wisdomnamely, sound appreciation and just decision as to all the objects that come round about you, and the habit of behaving with justice and wisdom. In short, great is wisdom-great is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated. The highest achievement of man-' Blessed is he that getteth understanding.' And that, I believe, occasionally may be missed very easily; but never more easily than now, I think. If that is a failure, all is a failure. However, I will not touch further upon

that matter..

Man is born to expend every particle of strength that God Almighty has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for to stand it out to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get-which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it—is that we have got the work done, or, at least, that we have tried to do the work; for that is a great blessing in itself, and I should say there is not very much more reward than that going on in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matter it whether he have £10,000 or £10,000,000, or £70 a year. He can get meat and clothes for that; and he will find very little difference intrinsically, if he is a wise man. I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men-'Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to success; be loyal and modest.' Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now. Finally, gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which is practically of very great importance, though a very humble

one.

I have no doubt you will have among you people ardently bent to consider life cheap, for the purpose of getting forward in what they are aiming at of high; and you are to consider