Thus, every thing, in the constitution and movements of society, may be referred to labor: it is the universal lever of the power of man over nature, the source of every production. In this relation, every kind of labor acquires a character of nobleness, being elevated to the dignity of virtue, becoming the fulfilment of a universal duty, and being converted into a tribute to the society to which we owe all that we are. We are too much accustomed to seek virtue in extraordinary and brilliant actions, or in whatever is out of the common course. We should recognize it in the most common actions, when they enter into the designs of Providence concerning our destination. Let us make it the very substance of our life, nor allow self-love to corrupt and satisfy our notions of excellence. Labor is a virtue; and this cheering thought changes entirely the point of view, under which man's destiny here below presents itself: for it is a virtue, which is the patrimony of all, and especially of the most obscure, the most numerous, and the least favored by fortune. It is a virtue, which consecrates all those unknown fatigues so ill rewarded; and which are even disdained by the world, for the tribute which they carry to the general prosperity. It is a virtue which impresses a moral character on occupations in appearance wholly material; a virtue giving merit to actions, that fill the largest part of our life, and which would have been done otherwise from mere necessity,—a virtue giving elevated motives for what we must at any rate do. The miner, buried in the earth, striking the rock with his hammer, and seeming rather to suffer punishment, than exercise industry, sees his existence reanimated, embellished; a light, purer than the day-light of which he is deprived, shines into his subterranean cavern; he cheerfully resumes the instrument, which had fallen from his discouraged hands, and says, 'And I also accomplish the sacred law, imposed upon the creature! For me also, life is the novitiate of a higher destiny! This 'working-day-world' becomes a temple, whence arises the concert of a universal hymn, the hymn of submission to the supreme decree. Thus man raises his brow with a just loftiness. The creature of God is not left with a withered heart and broken spirit. Is it not even the work of creation that his hand adorns and brings to perfection, accomplishing the designs of the creator? Is it not the great edifice of society, which he helps to raise? What a hidden value he discovers under these gross appearances!

This victory, gained over external nature, becomes the image and the emblem of a wise and sublime victory, that should be gained over the senses and passions. The first also disposes to the second.

In labor there is a moral mystery, profound and serious; it is a fundamental and necessary means of education for every individual.

A fixed and regular occupation is indispensable to man, preventing the disorder into which he is thrown by his impatience to move, combined with the uncertainty of his movements; relieving him from ennui; preventing his strength from being perhaps destroyed; preserving activity by regulating and guarding it from error. Labor subjects the senses to a salutary regimen, teaching them, that they are not only instruments of enjoyment, but organs of action, and means of useful production. It is the school of sobriety and temperance, preventing and appeasing the storms of imagination, dissipating vain delusions, turning us from vague reveries, leading us back to reality, and giving authority to the teachings of practice. Exercises of labor cultivate attention by the application they demand, and constrain us to perseverance, precision, method, and to enter into the secrets of method and perseverance,-secrets so important for the whole of our conduct. Labor restrains those secret desires, whose unregulated impetuosity would not be perhaps sufficiently prevented by mere reason; thus assisting wisdom to preserve moderation, and with it, inward peace, the balance of the faculties, and the health of the soul.

Under the protection of serious and regular habits of labor, man tastes more security, being better defended against the passions; his feebleness finding a refuge, his effeminacy a remedy. Constrained to master himself continually, struggling habitually with difficulties, suffering privation, especially of liberty, he is strengthened daily, and in proportion as these labors are painful, his will becomes powerful; and by patience he acquires the vigor, which renders him capable of perseverance. And in fact, the laborious, in inferior conditions, notwithstanding our disdainful prejudices, experience, generally, a pride, inward, peaceful, silent, unsuspected by the world, undiscovered by the superficial observer, but well known to those who can obtain their confidence; nourishing a secret disdain for those, who, in the bosom of luxury, lead a life of indolence.

IMAGINATION AND REASON.

PHILOSOPHERS have constantly accused imagination of being the irreconcilable enemy of your reason, morality, and happiness; considering it the source of illusions that lead us astray; of the ambition, which excites us so excessively, and of all the agitations of our hearts. These views are in some respects but too just. Disorders of imagination may corrupt, in a thousand ways, our ideas of excellence, cover them with a thick cloud, and give a fatal taint to the worship of which they were the object. Imagination is only called to fulfil subordinate functions, the part of obedience; and if it is abandoned to itself, the order of things is reversed, and self-government is inevitably enfeebled. Hence we remark, that the abuse of imagination enervates the character, giving new vivacity to the sensible impressions, which in their nature are all passive. It furnishes abundant aliment to the passions; it destroys peace, that principle of true force: it substitutes soft and fugitive pictures for the solid substance of reality; it gives power to illusions over the soul, which, in the midst of trials, was called to strengthen itself by resistance, hiding the combat, in order to dispence with vanquishing; leading into reverie him who was destined to act seriously in a positive world, offering him only light, transitory objects, subject to his own good pleasure; transforming his existence into a vain sport, the government of himself into a kind of anarchy, and leaving a free course to all the aberrations of independence. There is in the exercises of imagination something voluptuous, which lulls the soul to sleep. We breathe and feel with extreme vivacity, but as if in a dream. In a word, this capricious faculty resists in a thousand ways the inflexible and austere rules of right; disorder of ideas gives birth to disorder of feelings. Among the different kinds of illusions of which the aberrations of imagination may be the source, there is one which demands to be pointed out especially, because the snares it spreads are most subtle, and may surprise the most honest: such are the illusions, which lead us astray in self-knowledge, deceiving us concerning our own sentiments, concerning the reality and the strength of our attachment to virtue: these illusions, encompassing us by enjoyments purely speculative, put us into a state of exaltation by the images of an ideal perfection, which charms our mind, without taking possession of our soul, without governing our charac

ter, without impressing itself upon our life. These images of perfection compose for us a sort of artificial and deceptive morality, converting virtue into a kind of delicious poetry; but banishing it into the clouds, and taking from it that deep, secret, positive power, which it ought to exercise over our sentiments and actions: as if virtue were a recreation or an ornament, and not the rule of our existence. If wisdom proceeds by making sensible objects give birth to moral notions, imagination proceeds, on the contrary, by making moral notions take sensible forms, and veiling abstract conceptions in sensible figures. Let us defend ourselves then from a disposition, too common at present, of considering subjects belonging to the most serious destiny of man, under that aspect which we call their poetic side. We expose ourselves thus to make those artificial chords, which charm the imagination, prevail over the solemn harmonies of duty, to take elegance of form for real goodness of heart, grace for truth, the symbol for the thing; introducing into the sound and pure worship of virtue a sort of superstition and idolatry.

But after having heaped upon imagination the heaviest reproaches, ought not philosophy to have been more just towards that brilliant faculty of the mind? Should not morality itself have better recognized the services which might be received from it? Confined to its legitimate functions, directed to its true destination, ought not this faculty, like all others, to contribute to the progress of our character? What is this power, which puts us in possession of the future, transports us to all distance, makes us conceive objects invisible to sense, introduces us to what is merely possible, sustains our strength by hope, extends the narrow sphere of our existence beyond the limits of the present? Would it not, merely by renewing the sources of our sensibility, fertilize the field of our virtue? Does it not, by refreshing and embellishing our inward life with pure and innocent enjoyment, restore our strength? Does it not, by attaching us to the contemplation of nature, conduct us in that alone to a great and instructive school? We would not leave our virtue to evaporate in a vain, fantastic poetry; but let us permit poetry to put itself in the service of virtue; to bring near to us the divine model; to lend its eloquence and its graces to the austere voice of duty. This entirely moral poetry, the messenger of excellence, Providence has made to appear in all its works. It breathes in all the scenes of nature, if we know how to consider them,

not with the eye of the body alone, but with the attentive and collected eye of the soul: it resounds in the hymn of creation; it borrows majesty from the phenomena of the heavens, varied and graceful expressions from landscapes and simple flowers. It breathes in the songs of man, when, the worthy interpreter of this universal concert, he restores the image of virtue to those scenes which seem to invoke it, and which become animated by its presence;—in the monuments raised to the memory of great men, and to the remembrance of great actions; in public solemnities, sacred to the honor of what merits respect, and to the confirmation of the ties which unite the members of society: in the imposing circumstances, which surround the magistrate, and decorate the temple of laws. It is this poetry, which raises the standard, at the sight of which patriotism rallies; which gathers the palm decreed to heroes; which composes all the attributes of glory. Let those creative arts, which are the pride and the light of the earth, gather round the holy image of virtue! Let them announce its presence, and be transported in contemplating it with a truer and a surer enthusiasm than can be drawn from earthly sentiments, and thus render themselves worthy of receiving from it an order of immortal beauties!

If we understand the true vocation of imagination, and the spirit in which it ought to be cultivated and examined, and its productions conceived and enjoyed, our soul will not drink poison, but salutary beverage from its brilliant cup.

Reason presiding over our intellectual faculties, moderator, regulator, supreme arbiter, assigns to each its department, its functions, its limits. Its attributes consist in this high prerogative, in the empire which it grants to the mind over itself: armed with method, it classifies, plans out, distributes; armed with judgment, and supported upon good sense, it weighs and decides,-order and truth being its domain. It takes care of our intellectual progress, being charged to obtain general harmony. Its energy should always grow in proportion to the development of the subordinate faculties. Here, at least, no fatal influence is to be feared; all the influences will be salutary. If reason is not virtue itself, as some wise men have pretended, it is at least its sister; having the same aspect, the same language, recognizing the same authority, obeying the same rules, following in a thousand things the same paths, with a mutual intelligence and communication Habits of order and of regularity, established in ideas, are communica