and profligacy do not set their mark upon such an one, it will only be because they are not the fashion!

Another danger attending amusements is that of excess. We too commonly gain from education the false and injurious idea, that business is the drudgery, and that amusements are the pleasures of life. Hence we rush into the latter with eagerness; we are liable to be engrossed in them—to pursue them, not as a subordinate, but the principal enjoyment, and thus to pursue them to excess and exhaustion. Hence, also, anxious and agitating preparation, late hours, and dull mornings, to the prejudice alike of comfort, health, and business. We cannot help speaking particularly of excessive and unseasonable appropriations of time to the purposes of recreation. The order of nature is repose in the night season, and invigorated action in the daytime. But to turn night into day, to make recreation or what ought to be such, a wearisome toil, and to give the hours proper for application, to sleep or to dull languor, is to break the harmonies of Providence. We ought to look at this subject as rational beings, conscious that life was given for great and valuable purposes, and desirous so to arrange its employments and pleasures, as best to accomplish its true designs. There is a time for everything; there is a seasonable appropriation to be made of our time, for amusements. But it cannot ordinarily, we think, be very long. Three hours, we suspect, is as much time as most persons can spend together with profit and interest. If there is spirited conversation during that time it will exhaust; if mere and light amusement, it is enough.

The suggestion here made does not apply, perhaps, to what are called fashionable circles; and indeed where evening parties are very frequent, the hours allotted do not usually, it is probable, run much beyond the time specified. But there is another view of the waste of time, applying particularly to the habits of our cities, which carries it up to a much larger amount. Few of our young men in this country, it is true, are exonerated from the necessity of attending to some kind of business. It has not been possible yet to form here a class of those, whose lives are devoted to "killing time,' under the notion of seeking pleasure. Far distant be the day when such shame on manhood shall be seen among us! This may seem to be rather a serious opening for a suggestion with regard to persons of the other sex-and we do not intend to be so serious with them. But we ask, and leave

it to others to answer, whether, with morning calls and evening parties, with late rising and the languors of exhaustion, with the cares of the wardrobe and the toilet, life is not, in one way and another, nearly consumed, by many, upon amusements?-whether, with some, the splendors and gaieties of social exhibition and pleasure-we speak of the young-do not, either in preparation or enjoyment, form the very business, anxiety, fear, hope, and object of life? Our question is asked, and we are aware that others can answer it better than ourselves. But we do say, that those whom Providence has exempted from the toils and cares which weigh upon many of their less favored sisters, are bound to give some decided evidence of superior intellectual accomplishment. Whether they do, we again leave others to judge, being ourselves grave men, little experienced in matters of this sort. We can moralize, however, and this is what we are doing. And we must take upon us, in this character, to say to fathers and mothers, that, if a fair portion of the leisure time of their daughters, is not devoted to the cultivation of their minds, and that too, by some higher means than novel reading, no christian law can warrant the course they are pursuing. We might ask, indeed, if such a question did not carry its own answer, whether those to whom God has given leisure and means, should not do something to alleviate human want and misery-something to smooth the neglected pillow of sickness, to cheer the cold and desolate abodes of suffering poverty, to still the cries of half-famished children, and soothe the anguish that none will pity or care forsomething to claim kindred for them with that noble band of devoted females, the Sisters of Charity.

INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.

'I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot per

ceive him.'

WHERE art thou?-THOU! Source and Support of all That is or seen or felt; Thyself unseen,

Unfelt, unknown,-alas! unknowable!

I look abroad among thy works—the sky,

Vast, distant, glorious with its world of suns,-
Life-giving earth, and ever-moving main,—
And speaking winds,-and ask if these are Thee!
The stars that twinkle on, the eternal hills,

The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep-breathing air-
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less-
Are not the Power I seek; are thine, not Thee!
I ask Thee from the past; if in the years,
Since first intelligence could search its source,
Or in some former unremembered being,

If such, perchance, were mine-did they behold Thee?
And next interrogate futurity-

So fondly tenanted with better things

Than e're experience owned-but both are mute;
And past and future, vocal on all else,

So full of memories and phantasies,

Are deaf and speechless here! Fatigued, I turn
From all vain parley with the elements;

And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn inward.
From each material thing its anxious guest,

If, in the stillness of the waiting soul,

He may vouchsafe himself-Spirit to spirit!

O Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,

Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt thou hide thee?
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,
Nor human eye may look on thine and live?
Welcome the penalty! let that come now,

Which soon or late must come. For light like this

Who would not dare to die!

Peace, my proud aim, And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.

Await his will, who hath appointed this,

With every other trial. Be that will

Done now, as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze

On Him-the Unrevealed-learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy novitiate in these outer courts,
Till rent the veil, no longer separating
The holiest of all-as erst, disclosing
A brighter dispensation; whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend

E'en to the perfecting thyself-thy kind—
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart!

430

OF PREJUDICES CALLED RELIGIOUS.

THERE is nothing more humbling than the history of prejudices, when they have ceased to awaken any feeling; and among all human prejudices, none have been more unreasonable or lasting than such as bear the name of religion. In ordinary life it is sad enough to see them separate men and keep them asunder, thus resisting the social feeling which is one of the most important elements of our nature. We feel that there must be a want of generosity in the breast that harbors and defends them, and that nothing can be done for moral or intellectual improvement till they are done away.— But such prejudices grow alarming when they come armed with the authority of numbers. Then truth lies browbeaten and still, leaving its wrongs to be redressed by the reformer, Time. The prejudice passes from breast to breast, and from generation to generation. Though in the hearts of a few it was an obstinate and passive affection, in the hearts of many it grows savage, bloodthirsty, and revengeful. It soon forgets its first humble pretensions, and will not be satisfied till it bends the world to its power. Then prison doors begin to grate upon their hinges, and scaffolds to run with blood; no excellence can atone for some trifling mistake in opinion; man appears like an evil spirit exulting in the ruin he has made. Many a page of history is red as scarlet with its registry of religious prejudices, leading on to the worst of crimes. But we do wrong to call these religious prejudices. There is no religion in the matter. Men form opinions of religious subjects, as well as all others. These opinions are no more sacred than any other; they are often formed with even less deliberation. They are called religious, not because they are inspired by religion, but because they supply the place of religious principles and feeling. Men are constantly saying to themselves, Any thing but obedience-any thing but duty. We will believe the most positive contradictions; we will be converted, once for all, if that will answer; we will do any thing and submit to any thing, sooner than this weary, heart-breaking and hopeless labor of constantly regarding the divine will. And when they see this channel of prejudice open, one in which their passions may flow without censure, they seize the opportunity and indulge them to the heart's desire, under the name of religion.—

Thanks to the growing light of the world, men are now beginning to discover, that, while conviction may make them firm in their own opinions, it is only selfishness that makes them interfere with those of others. Not only is this persuasion breaking down the barricades of different christian factions, it reaches even to Jews, and beyond them to infidels, by teaching us, that, if we complain of the opinions of others, we are bound to examine our own. This process, if conducted with tolerable fairness, never fails to show, that, if it is certain that others are in the wrong, it is equally certain that we are not the persons who can safely cast the stone.

Ir is a sultry day; the sun has drank
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again,
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors; the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,—
Their bases on the mountains-their white tops
Shining in the far ether,-fire the air
With a reflected radiance, and make turn
The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?

O come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,