those authors he had read were well chosen, that he had made them his study, and had never let a single sentence pass without thoroughly making himself master of the author's meaning. "There are some persons," says Dr. Watts," who never arrive at any deep, solid, or valuable knowledge, in any science or business of life, because they are perpetually fluttering over the surface of things, in endless search of variety; ever enquiring after something that is new, without taking any pains to lay up and preserve the ideas they have gained." Their minds may be compared to a looking-glass, which receives a variety of impressions without retaining any.

On Happiness and Pleasure.

"Oh Happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh
For which we bear to live, or dare to die."

Pope.

PLACED by Providence on the palæstra

of Life, every human being is a wrestler, and happiness is that prize for which he is bound to contend. may bowl his bowl at the jack of pleasure, he

He

may

level his rifle at the bull's eye of ease, shoot his arrow at the target of contentment, or tilt his spear at the ring with the courtly votaries of fame; but under whatever name, and seconded by whatever exertions, his first aim, and his ultimate hope, is HAPPINESS.

But what is happiness? Before we begin our course, it behoves us to define that object of which we are in search. What is happiness, and wherein is it distinguished from pleasure? Is pleasure sensual, while happiness is intellectual? Is the body alone gratified by pleasure, while happiness fills and satisfies the soul? Is pleasure transient, while happiness is eternal? Such is mine idea. I think that the fruition of happiness includes all that is substantially pleasant, while much of what men call pleasure may be enjoyed, without any real, positive, and enduring happiness.

In our translation of the Old Testament, the word pleasure is sometimes employed to convey an idea of celestial bliss. When that translation was made, our language was less fixed than it is at present; the intervening century bath changed the application of many words, and pleasure, it is probable, is now used in a much more circumscribed sense than it formerly was. When the modern moralist employs the word, he more often intimates

sensual gratification, mere local and temporary enjoyment, or the trifles with which folly amuses fashionable vacuity, than the sublime and rapturous feelings of conscious virtue. But such, evidently, were not the precise ideas of pleasure, which our translators of the sacred text entertained. And when we consider the imperfect notions of a bliss beyond the grave, which the Jews from the time of David to that of our Saviour held, and the undue stress which they laid on temporal advantages, we need not wonder at its use. Their grovelling sen

timents to elevate, their wrong ideas of happiness to correct, was one great object of the Redeemer's mission. In the Old Testament there is a faint glimmering, but the GOSPEL of JESUS brought Life and Immortality to light. One page of his recorded doctrine, conveys more clear ideas, both

of the vanity of mundane affairs, of the eternity of our being, and of what infinite importance are things eternal; of happiness as superior to, and contradistinguished from pleasure; than all the dogmas, which Hebrew Doctors ever taught, or Gentile Philosophers ever inculcated.

To man in pristine innocence, to man in perfect redemption, to glorified spirits of every degree, happiness and goodness are convertible terms. Their happiness consists in goodness, and their goodness is the most sublime happiness. But

it is incident to man's fallen and unregenerated nature, to perplex things that are plain, and to confuse things that are simple. We have lost our

pure vision, and that sound understanding which alone can apprehend intellectual things, and groping in the night of sensuality, we call light darkness, and darkness, light; pain pleasure, and pleasure, pain.

whom they sup"Know thyself!" Hebrew and of

despite of all tra

"Know thyself!" was the adinired adage of remote antiquity. So highly was it esteemed by the wise inhabitants of Greece, that they inscribed it on the pediment of their most sacred temple, and exalted it as the epigraph of him, posed, the giver of inspiration. is the unvarying tenor both of Christian Scripture; and yet, in ditional, all recorded wisdom; in despite of the accumulated experience of all preceding generations; in despite of reason, and in despite of revelation; our men, miscalled of pleasure, are for ever endeavoring to elude this knowledge. Instead of scanning their own hearts, and evolving that most important truth, that the means of true and perfect felicity are there, and there only deposited ; they are ever endeavoring to escape from themselves. The guest whom they seek is already in. their own houses, and they persist in looking for him every where but there.

Why should any lament that life is brief, and that their days of probation are few, while they are so solicitous to abbreviate the one, and to reduce the number of the other; or as they express themselves, to "kill their time"? Whatever enables them to avoid self-reflection, and to "forget what manner of men they are", the children of this world call enjoyment. Though told on the highest authority, that "the ways of Religion are ways of Pleasure, and that all her paths are Peace', yet the perversity of the world appears to have established as its axiom, "that where pleasure is, there must be no religion; and that wherever religion obtrudes, there can be no pleasure ". False, delusive, and most dangerous opinion! It was born of Darkness, for the use of Death; Death and Darkness therefore vouch for its verity, exalt its importance, and promulgate it with all their power.

As,

A perfect happiness, bliss without alloy, is not to be found on this side of the grave. while hope remains, there can be no full and positive misery; so, while fear is yet alive, happiness is incomplete. Fear and hope must accompany the whole progress of our being here; while we live upon earth they must live also. But hope and fear will be buried with the larva of mortality; they are plants of time alone, and there is no soil in eternity on which they can grow. Then will the fruition