proposed condition. I was obliged also to confess that I was querulous by constitution, and that my taste for the dissatisfied was positive and decided; while they, on the contrary, who avowed sentiments with which if they acted in accordance you would think would constitute a character very uncertain and angular-they, the same men and women who laughed all my common places to scorn, and held all my fixed principles and truisms in derision-they were satisfied and contented, living in ease and complacency, while I, the actual common sense individual, existed in dissatisfaction and inconvenience. With them there was a certain kind of harmony and order; with me there was nothing but blunder and confusion.

"I am sick at heart," I thought, "of such a state; and will deliberate upon these subjects no more. Sure and certain am I that such contemplations do not accord with the human constitution, nor is it proper that the charming convivialities here

should be sacrificed to these considerations— Vive la Bagatelle."

And I did try to make this bagatelle live. For a time the entire abandonment to pleasure had its reward and its satisfaction, but after awhile the restless mind began to champ the bit, and even this blithe state of continual enjoyment

seemed a sort of restraint, and cloyed and nauseated in its very plentitude of consummation. Like the Pontic kind of old, I had grown so accustomed to hazard, doubt, and the delirium of speculation, that these sparkling and frothy stimulants seemed but vapid swipes. The deep element was not to be thus appeased, and I gloried to find that every impulse of my nature dragged me from this ignoble sloth, and prompted to higher circles of existence. Trust the old heart again, wrong though it may be, in all foregone conclusions, and have faith in the eternal rectitude which guides every sincere thought.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"The only true and natural foundations of Society are the wants and the fears of individuals."-BLACKSTONE.

WE had been talking one morning in a general way as to the numerous creeds and sects which have ever existed among mankind, and some one ventured to suggest a certain agreement and accordance among those jarring and contradictory elements which have hitherto prevailed in every species of religious association.

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Worship," said he, "is no accidental whim, but an instinct, and religion is an intuitive impulse. Cicero derives it from Relegere, and Servius from Religare. Take either authority you please, or take neither, it matters not, for derivation contributes only a supplemental evidence, and every science has outgrown its original name, and this is one of the sciences requisite for civilized life. It is a real and sincere thing, and nothing is more absurd than that vulgar Tom Paine opinion which would make it wholly unnecessary. Men must

and will believe in something, and this creed should be accommodating to their habits, passions, wants, and the usages of society. All this it accomplishes-it blends the conscience into harmony with the passions, uniting the conflicting motives of principle and expediency; it is the foundation on which morality and the great fabric of social happiness entirely rests, strengthening virtue with hope, and affrighting vice with fears, and to the calamitous and afflicted it yields consolation and condolence, making those ample allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which bare reason would seem to refuse, but which our manifest imperfection, illogically, but necessarily, demands. The great problem of every sincere man, is to bring his actions in conformity with his perceptions, and these but seldom agree; his mind is constantly reproaching the impulses of his nature, and these again are always committing some outrage upon his understanding. It is true that the generality of people do not carry their speculations on this point so far; they disregard all, save the immediate purposes of the day, and yet, every one of us is, in a manner, tinctured with these doubts, and perplexed to know whether the propensity he burns to gratify, will accord with his notions of wrong or right. Now, religion becomes

of great service to a community so disposed, that is, to a body of people, engaged in commerce, and the arts of civilized life, too much occupied to become fanatical or contemplative, but with sufficient inherent instinct of the supernatural, to render them anxious, as to their spiritual welfare. For them, therefore, there must be a proper provision made, and according to those laws which hold communities together, a distinct profession must be ordained, and a division of labour acknowledged.

"We talk of our religious duties--we go to church or chapel, conforming to all the ceremonials of our creed with great exactness-we consult a priest, who shrives us-a very useful and commonsense proceeding-very consoling, to us in particular, and advantageous to society in general; for a man of troubled conscience is no desirable companion, and cannot make a good citizen. There is much innate wisdom in this same doctrine of confession, so much spoken against every where, and the whole religious fabric seems to rest chiefly upon this foundation. What father does not know it, and use it.. My child,' says he, to the crying infant, you have done wrong, but think no more about it, and do not wrong again-upon this condition I will forgive you.' The most solitary boozer, who arrays himself in white