with seer's eye and heart, discerned the Godlike amid the human; struck tones that were an echo of the sphereharmonies, and are still felt to be such. Reader, art thou one of a thousand, able still to read a Psalm of David, and catch some echo of it through the old dim centuries; feeling far off, in thy own heart, what it once was to other hearts made as thine? To sing it attempt not, for it is impossible in this late time; only know that it once was sung. Then go to the opera, and hear, with unspeakable reflections, what things men now sing!

THE MODERN OPERA.

Good sirs, surely I by no means expect the opera will abolish itself this year or the next. But if you ask me, Why heroes are not born now, why heroisms are not done now? I will answer you: It is a world all calculated for strangling of heroisms. At every ingress into life, the genius of the world lies in wait for heroisms, and by seduction or compulsion unweariedly does its utmost to pervert them or extinguish them. Yes; to its hells of sweating tailors, distressed needlewomen and the like, this opera of yours is the appropriate heaven! Of a truth, if you will read a psalm of Asaph till you understand it, and then come hither and hear the Rossini-and-Coletti psalm, you will find the ages have altered a good deal.

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Nor do I wish all men to become psalmist Asaphs and fanatic Hebrews. Far other is my wish; far other, and wider, is now my notion of this universe. Populations of stern faces, stern as any Hebrew, but capable withal of bursting into inextinguishable laughter on occasion-do you understand that new and better form of character? Laughter also, if it come from the heart, is a heavenly thing. But, at least and lowest, I would have you a population abhorring phantasms-abhorring unveracity in all things; and in your "amusements," which are voluntarily and not compulsory things, abhorring it most impatiently of all.

FOOD AND RAIMENT.

Man is born to expend every particle of strength that God Almighty has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for-to stand it out to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get— which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it—is that we have got the work done, or, at least, that we have tried to do the work; for that is a great blessing in itself; and I should say there is not very much more reward than that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters it whether he have 10,000l., or 10,000,000l., or 70%. a year. He can get meat and clothes for that; and he will find very little difference intrinsically, if he is a wise man.

I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men—“ Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to succeed; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now.

Pride is base from the necessary foolishness of it, because at its best, that is when grounded on a just estimation of our own elevation or superiority above certain others, it cannot but imply that our eyes look downward only, and have never been raised above our own measure, for there is not the man so lofty in his standing nor capacity but he must be humble in thinking of the cloud habitation and far sight of the angelic intelligences above him, and in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether under

stand not one: not to speak of that wicked and fond attributing of such excellency as he may have to himself, and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminality of pride, nor of those viler forms of it, founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irrational contemning of them: but taken at its best, it is still base to that degree that there is no grandeur of feature which it cannot destroy and make despicable.

THE TRUTH OF TRUTHS.

Truth is to be discovered, and pardon to be won for every man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts of Scripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to seek after truth, and which connect knowing with doing. We are to seek after knowledge as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures; therefore, from every man she must be naturally hid, and the discovery of her is to be the reward only of personal search. The kingdom of God is as treasure hid in a field; and of those who profess to help us to seek for it, we are not to put confidence in those who say-Here is the treasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give you some of it; but to those who say-We think that is a good place to dig, and you will dig most easily in such and such a way.

Farther, it has been promised that if such earnest search be made, truth shall be discovered: as much truth, that is, as is necessary for the person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, for two fundamental principles of religion-that, without seeking, truth cannot be known at all; and that, by seeking, it may be discovered by the simplest. I say, without seeking it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise "prepared and sold" in packages, ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own. In what science is knowledge to be had cheap? or