to riches. Specimens of humanity hardly escaped from petticoats and pinafores, talked with knowing look of nothing but "scrip" and "premium;" and hoary-headed age with one foot in eternity and the other on the shore of time, might be seen tracing its palsied signature to letters of application, and hastening to be rich. Imposing prospectuses, headed by "influential committees," "eminent engineers," and "solicitors of high standing," descended for a while from the "railway world" like showers. All was bright and glittering, aud as substantial too as a Russian ice palace while the frost continues; but the thaw came, and many are submerged by the "breaking up" of the once sparkling edifice-andand Many would laugh at an individual allowing himself to be duped by a "bottle conjuror" now-a-days; but does not the history of the railway mania prove that dupes of equal magnitude yet exist? We look upon this national misfortune as one of the most melancholy instances at once of human weakness and human depravity. Miserable self-delusion it is, both for time. and eternity, to concentrate the noble energies of the human soul upon the acquisition of mere wealth. If but one-half of that anxiety, deep and intense, which is displayed in the pursuit of riches, were evinced in the cause of universal benevolence and genuine morality, what a different aspect would our world present? How many anxious days and sleepless nights will the loss of gold create, while the loss of heaven scarcely excites a thought? We are none of those who preach up poverty as a blessing, and tell the man pressed by its sharp gripes, to be content with his lot. No; poverty is an evil, and we joy when we see honest industry shaking off its thraldom. But when gold, mere gold, is in man's affections elevated above the Creator, when it transforms the human soul from its Godlike essence into pounds, shillings, and pence, it becomes a tenfold deeper curse than poverty. Gold should occupy its legitimate, and that is an infinitely subordinate, position, and be valued and sought after only as a means to an end-to promote the greatest amount of true happiness, individual and social. The tendencies of the present day are, in this respect, earthward, grovelling, and base. Never was the struggle for mere wealth more general or intense; and seldom has such an unworthy struggle met a more signal and worthy disappointment than that produced by the last few months. So may it ever be where gold is sought only for its own sake. We pity the blind idolator who prostrates himself before "stocks and stones." Perchance we contribute to a missionary fund to emancipate him from this gross superstition, but we ought not to neglect our own manumission from the slavery of mam mon. That man endowed with an immortal soul"that pearl of matchless price"-should yield up its sublime energies to such slavery, is, with a heaven to hope for and a hell to fear, appalling infatuation. Truly this is, this is the climax of wretched, miserable "selfdelusion." Occasional manifestations of gullibility on a grand scale would seem almost inseparable from human nature. Its workings besides are widely diffused through all the ramifications of social life. Self-delusion! How many whose lives from the cradle to the grave are little else? Nursed amid prejudice and intolerance, the bigot denounces all religions save his own false, and lives and dies in the delusion that he alone is right. The poet, the painter, and the soldier rushing up ambition's path, and sacrificing time and talents on the altar of fame, find after years of struggling that they have grasped a shadow. The victim of intemperance seeking happiness among the elements of misery, bartering health and wealth for woe and want, perchance treads the road of ruin till the heavy hand of self-induced disease strips the false colours from his wretched life, and displays the true horrors of his situation. The Pharisee, with long face and longer prayers, deludes himself, and thinks to delude Omniscience, by the observance of form for spirit. The man who seeks and wins a woman's affec N tions for her money; who scruples not to immolate love and duty on the shrine of mammon, often finds too late that a life of married misery is but ill compensated by the possession of cold, affectionless gold. He whose precious youth has been absorbed in material pursuits, who has neglected self-cultivation, finds that an old age barren of internal sources of enjoyment, is a privation that wealth and luxury can never balance. In thousands of other instances do we discover self-delusion at work; and all to the reflecting mind read an important moral lesson. They show us "godlike" man, with all his boasted powers, wandering with childlike eagerness and imbecility after the "Will o' Wisp" meteors of unsubstantial fancies-ever anxious to secure happiness-ever deceiving himself by embracing its shadow. Truly did. the poet speak when he described him as being— “In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reasoning but to err; VOLTAIRE. FRANCIS MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE, one of the most distinguished men of modern times, was born at Chatenay, near Paris, on the 20th of February, 1694. His father, Francis Arouet, notary of the Chatelet and treasurer of the Chamber of Accounts, being in easy circumstances, caused his son to be educated with the greatest care. Even in his earliest years the boy gave promise of the future man, both in respect to morals and intellect for he says of himself that he made verses before he was out of his cradle; and one of his tutors predicted that he would become the Coryphæus of Deism in France- -a prediction which was but too well verified. Many of his essays, written between twelve and fourteen, so far from bearing marks of juvenility, would do honour to far maturer years. His father was anxious that the young Voltaire should devote himself to the profession of an advocate; but after submitting to the dry details |