HOWEVER extensive may be our acquaintance with books, let us remember, that book-knowledge is a "rude, unprofitable mass," until it is moulded and fashioned by patient meditation; that it is "the mere materials with which wisdom builds, and does but encumber whom it seems to enrich, until it is smoothed and squared and fitted to its place." It is reading, says Lord Bacon, which makes a full man; it is thinking, allow me to add, which makes a wise man. Your reading is the

food of the mind, but unless it is digested and assimilated, it avails little to mental health and activity. The mind abhors a vacuum no less than the body, and like the body too, becomes torpid under the oppression of a constant piethore. The frequent repletion of the stomach may impart for a time an unnatural vigor and stimulate to unnatural efforts, but ultimately engenders vicious humours which terminate in fatal distempers. Moderate meals which go into the circulation and become incorporated with the system contribute more to the growth and energy of the body than a constant state of plethoric fulness. But to drop this rather vulgar but apposite simile, I would repeat what has been said a thousand times before, because it is so true that a single volume well conned over, understood and appropriated as our own, strengthens and enriches the mind more than running through a dozen octavos in the superficial

way which is so common among young readers. Let us rectify then that sickly, disordered appetite which seeks its gratifications only in variety and abundance. Let us restrain that restless, excursive curiosity, which is ever tempting us aside from the straight-forward path of systematic effort; let our ripening judgments cure the youthful mania for reading many books, and teach us not to estimate the profits of a journey by the despatch with which it is accomplished, but by the increase which it may have made to our slender stock of knowledge. But I would not utterly proscribe light reading, nor forbid an occasional digression from that course of more serious reading, which, in order to be profitable, must be accompanied with close thinking. These hints are designed more especially for that class of unaided miscellaneous readers, who, "too weak to bear the insupportable fatigue of thought, swallow without pause or choice the total grist unsifted, husks and all." A reader of this description, it is true, may accumulate scraps and fragments of knowledge, but will seldom obtain comprehensive views of any system of truth. His mind is a warehouse, filled indeed with valuable merchandize, but so confusedly huddled together, that you cannot find two articles of the same kind in one place. While, on the other hand, the youth who has not suffered himself to range at large in the wide field of knowledge, but resolutely confined his attention to a definite portion, until he has contemplated every prominent truth under all the aspects and bearings in which different points of close observation may present it, the furniture of such a mind is the merchandise of this same warehouse, packed in bales ready for sale or shipment.

ESSAY.

PLEASURES OF PIETY.

The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.

DAVID.

THE benevolent Parent of the universe has conferred on us capacities for deriving pleasure through the me

dium of all the senses, and from most of the objects of sense. From the sight and hearing, the touch, the taste, and the smell, a thousand pleasurable sensations are conveyed to the mind. But the man without reflection has these pleasures only in common with the animal world around him. The less our mental powers are exercised, the less mankind rise above the brutes that perish. The cultivation of man's intellectual powers, opens new sources of pleasures from the same objects of sense. The eye is delighted with proportions and the ear is charmed with harmony, in a taste cultivated for the discernment and relish of such pleasures. The astronomer and philosopher, in the expansion of their intellectual powers, derive pleasures from the sublime and the beautiful in nature, to which the uncultivated mind is a stranger. Now the truly pious man may in proportion as his mind is cultivated enjoy all these pleasures of sense and of intellect which can be innocently enjoyed as well as an other man. And in addition to these he may possess more exalted pleasures in viewing God in every one of his works and ways. To him the works of the Lord always seem great, for he is exploring them in search of that wisdom, power, and goodness, which they all display, and thus new sources of rational, sublime, and elevated pleasures are opened to him.

This is the leading thought in our motto, which we shall attempt to expand and illustrate.

Contemplate the pious child, whose heart is warmed with love to God, and who, through faithful parental instruction accompanied by the power of Divine grace, has learned to trace his Maker's presence and perfece tions every where In common with other children, his eyes and his ears drink in delight from beholding the flowers which adorn the landscape, and from hearing the singing of birds, which attends the morning twilight. But how much superior is his delight, when he views God as painting every flower he sees, and tuning the melody of the groves to their Maker's praise for the light of a new morning. In common with other children he relishes his food, and enjoys the carresses

of his kind friends: but his pleasures are much enhanced when he traces the goodness of God in awaking him from his slumbers, providing him food and raiment, and exciting all the kind affections and offices which he enjoys from earthly friends. To trace all these to the hand of a Heavenly Father, how delightful!

Children, here are sources of rational and exalted pleasures opened before you every day and every where, if your hearts did but love God and delight in viewing his perfections. No person and no circumstance while your reason remained could deprive you of these pleasures; they are innocent and multiplied, they refine and refresh the immortal soul.

Behold the pious husbandman at his labour. In com mon with his undevout neighbours, he takes delight in seeing the earth clad in luxuriant vegetation, the sun shining in his strength, or the gentle showers descending, and causing the fields to smile with plenty. But he has sublimer pleasures than they, in reflecting that, God causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and bread which strengtheneth man's heart; that his all-pervading energy and goodness are manifested in the sun-shine and the showers which cause his crops to spring, and grow, and ripen. He has pleasures more elevated than merely that his own store-house is filled with plenty and his own heart with food and gladness. He rejoices in beholding Divine goodness supplying the diversified wants of the myriads of creatures whose eyes wait on him that they may receive their meat in due season. The pious mind, though not highly cultivated, has boundless sources of pleasure opened before it in the kingdoms of, nature and of Providence. When God is seen in the daily objects of sense, when his power and his goodness are recognized in the gentle breeze and in the violent tempest, in upholding the falling sparrow and watching over the hairs of our heads; what satisfaction these reflections can afford to the soul that delights in God. How sweet to reflect that a heavenly Father of such power and goodness cannot be at a loss for means of supplying every temporal necessity of his children.

When the Botanist examines the vegetable world and discovers the wonderful economy which is manifested in the manner in which plants and shrubs and trees derive nourishment from the earth and the air, and observes how the same soil, and heat, and moisture produce different colours, tastes, and qualities in the vegetable kingdom, he finds admiration and pleasure attend his researches in this department of science. But if his heart is warmed with love to God, his pleasures are increased an hundred fold, in tracing his Maker's hand in the diversified beauty and utility of every one object which falls under his observation. Great wisdom and goodness which escape the vulgar and undevout eye, meet him at every step of his progress in acquiring knowledge of the vegetable kingdom. The more minute his researches, the more profound his admiration.

Similar results attend the Anotomist's investigations of the human body. He finds every part in its proper place, adapted to its particular office. The different parts of the eye are all adapted to the purposes of vision, near and remote, with greater and less degrees of light. The same adaptation to their proper offices is manifested in the other organs of sense; while the whole internal structure combines symmetry and utility in the most wonderful manner If pleasure attends the examination of a curious piece of mechanism, higher pleasures must attend the examination of the mechanism of man. But the pious anatomist, at every step, feels the force of the Psalmist's exclamation, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." To consider the formation and preservation of man as the work of an all-pervading, all-powerful, and all-perfect Deity opens a delightful and extended field of sublime pleasures. New confidence in the wisdom and goodness of God is spontaneously arising.

When the Astronomer lifts his eyes to the luminaries of heaven, essays to count their number, to measure their magnitudes and distances, and calculate their motions, and finds such order and regularity pervading them all, he can hardly fail of deriving pleasure from every observation he takes. But when he contemplates them