LESSON XXX.

The Importance of a Good Education,

1. I CONSIDER a human soul without education, like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of it.

2. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

3. If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force of education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells us, that a statue lies hid in a block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, and the sculptor only finds it.

4. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lies hidden and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have disinterred and brought to light. I am, therefore, much de lighted with reading the accounts of savage nations, and with contemplating those virtues which are wild and uncultivated: to see courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in obsti nacy, wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness and despair. 5. Men's passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of actions, according as they are more or less rectified and swayed by reason. When one hears of negroes, who, upon the death of their masters, or upon changing their service, hang themselves upon the next tree, as it sometimes happens in our American plantations, who can forbear admiring their fidelity, though it expresses itself in so dreadful a manner?

6. What might not that savage greatness of soul, which appears in these poor wretches on many occasions, be raised to, were it rightly cultivated? And what colour of excuse can there be for the contempt with which we treat this part of our species; that we should not put them upon the common footing of humanity; that we should only set an insignificant fine upon

the man who murders them; nay, that we should, as much as in us lies, cut them off from the prospects of happiness in another world as well as in this; and deny them that, which we look upon as the proper means for attaining it?

7. It is, therefore, an unspeakable blessing, to be born in those parts of the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish; though it must be confessed that there are, even in these parts, several poor uninstructed persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of those nations of which I have been here speaking; as those who have had the advantages of a more liberal education, rise above one another by several different degrees of perfection.

8. For, to return to our statue in the block of marble, we see it sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes rough hewn, and but just sketched into a human figure; sometimes we see the man appearing distinctly in all his limbs and features; sometimes we find the figure wrought up to great elegance; but seldom meet with any to which the hand of a Phidias or a Praxiteles could not give several nice touches and finishings. -ADDISON.

LESSON XXXI.

A Sister's Love.

1. THERE is no purer feeling kindled upon the altar of human affections, than a sister's pure, uncontaminated love for her brother. It is unlike all other affections; so disconnected with selfish sensuality; so feminine in its developements; so dignified, and yet, with all, so fond, so devoted. Nothing can alter it, nothing can surpass it.

2. The world may revolve, and its evolutions effect changes in the fortunes, in the character, and in the disposition of the brother, yet if he wants, whose hand will so speedily stretch out as that of his sister; and if his character is maligned, whose voice will so readily swell in his advocacy.

3. Next to a mother's unquenchable love, a sister's is pre-eminent. It rests so exclusively on the ties of consanguinity for its sustenance, it is so wholly divested of passion, and springs from such a deep recess in the human bosom, that when a sister once fondly and deeply regards her brother, that affection is. blended with her existence, and the lamp that nourishes it expires only with that existence.

4. In all the annals of crime it is considered something anomalous to find the hand of a sister raised in anger against her brother, or her heart nurturing the seeds of hatred, envy, or revenge, in regard to that brother.

5. In all affections of woman there is a devotedness which cannot be properly appreciated by man. In those regards where the passions are not at all necessary in increasing the strength of the affections, more sincere truth and pure feeling may be expected than in such as are dependant upon each other for their duration as well as their felicities.

6. A sister's love, in this respect, is peculiarly remarkable. There is no selfish gratification in its out-pourings; it lives from the natural impulse; and personal charms are not in the slightest degree necessary to its birth or duration.-ANONYMOUS.

LESSON XXXII.

On Happiness.

1. THE great pursuit of man is after happiness; it is the first and strongest desire of his nature;-in every stage of his life he searches for it as for hidden treasure; courts it under a thousand different shapes; and, though perpetually disappointed, still persists-runs after and inquires for it afreshasks every passenger who comes in his way, "Who will show him any good;"-who will assist him in the attainment of it, or direct him to the discovery of this great end of all his wishes.

2. He is told by one to search for it among the more gay and youthful pleasures of life; in scenes of mirth and sprightliness, where happiness ever presides, and is ever to be known by the joy and laughter which he will see at once painted in her looks.

3. A second, with a graver aspect, points out to him the costly dwellings which pride and extravagance have erected; tells the inquirer that the object he is in search of inhabits there; that happiness lives only in company with the great, in the midst of much pomp and outward state. That he will easily find her out by the coat of many colours she has on, and the great luxury and expense of equipage and furniture with which she always sits surrounded.

4. The miser wonders how any one would mislead and wilfully put him upon so wrong a scent-convinces him that happiness and extravagance never inhabited under the same

roof;-that, if he would not be disappointed in his search, he must look into the plain and thrifty dwelling of the prudent man, who knows and understands the worth of money, and cautiously lays it up against an evil hour.

5. That it is not the prostitution of wealth upon the passions, or the parting with it at all, that constitutes happiness; but that it is the keeping it together, and the having and holding it fast to him and his heirs for ever, which are the chie attributes that form this great idol of human worship, to which so much incense is offered up every day.

6. The epicure, though he easily rectifies so gross a mistake, yet, at the same time, he plunges him, if possible, into a greater; for, hearing the object of his pursuit to be happiness, and knowing of no other happiness than what is seated imme diately in his senses, he sends the inquirer there; tells him it is in vain to search elsewhere for it, than where nature herself has placed it, in the indulgence and gratification of the appetites, which are given us for that end and, in a word, if he will not take his opinion in the matter, he may trust the word of a much wiser man, who has assured us, that there is nothing better in this world, than that a man should eat and drink, and rejoice in his works, and make his soul enjoy good in his labour for that is his portion.

To rescue him from this brutal experiment, ambition takes him by the hand and carries him into the world; shows him all the kingdoms of the earth, and the glory of them; points out the many ways of advancing his fortune, and raising himself to honour; lays before his eyes all the charms and bewitching temptations of power, and asks if there be any happiness in this world like that of being caressed, courted, flattered, and followed.

8. To close all, the philosopher meets him bustling in the full career of his pursuits-stops him-tells him, if he is in search of happiness, he is gone far out of his way :-that this deity has long been banished from noise and tumults, where there was no rest found for her, and was fled into solitude, far from all commerce of the world; and, in a word, if he would find her, he must leave this busy and intriguing scene, and go back to that peaceful scene of retirement and books, from which he first set out.

9. In this circle, too often does a man run, tries all experiments, and generally sits down wearied and dissatisfied with them all at last-in utter despair of ever accomplishing what he wants-not knowing what to trust to after so many disappointments, or where to lay the fault, whether in the incapa

city of his own nature, or the insufficiency of the enjoyments themselves.

10. There is hardly any subject more exhausted, or which, at one time or other, has afforded more matter for argument and declamation than this one, of the insufficiency of our enjoyments. Scarce a reformed sensualist, from Solomon down to our own days, who has not in some fits of repentance or disappointment, uttered some sharp reflection upon the emptiness of human pleasure, and of the vanity of vanities which dis covers itself in all the pursuits of mortal man.

11. And though in our pilgrimage through this world, some of us may be so fortunate as to meet with some clear fountains by the way, that may cool for a few moments the heat of this great thirst of happiness; yet our Saviour, who knew the world, though he enjoyed but little of it, tells us, that whosoever drinketh of this water will thirst again; and we will find by experience it is so, and by reason, that it always must be so.-STERNE.

LESSON XXXIII.

Liberty and Slavery.

1. DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still slavery !—still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.

2. It is thou, Liberty!-thrice sweet and gracious goddess! whom all, in publick or in private, worship; whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No teint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymick power turn thy sceptre into iron.

3. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it! and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

4. Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close to my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so 1 gave full scope to my imagination.

5. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and