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; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, 195 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 of law for a short period, he betook himself to the more congenial field of general literature, in which henceforth he was to become so famous. Voltaire early imbibed a propensity for satire; and for some philippics aimed against the government, of which he was erroneously supposed to be the author, he was imprisoned by the regent Orleans in the Bastile for nearly a year. In this situation he planned the Henriade; and in 1718 his tragedy of Edipus was brought upon the stage, with the most unequivocal success, being performed no less than forty-five times in one year. His father having witnessed the representation of his son's production, was so much pleased that he embraced him with tears of joy in his eyes, and henceforth left him to the bent of his own inclinations. In 1722, having made an excursion to Brussels, he became acquainted with the celebrated Jean Baptiste Rousseau; but the characters of the two poets were so totally at variance, that they speedily became disgusted with each other, and their acquaintance terminated in a complete separation. His reckless vivacity and frequent attacks on religion subjected him to many annoyances. Having offended a proud young nobleman, who, in consequence, had caused his servant to chastise him, Voltaire was again imprisoned in the Bastile, in the thirty-second year of |