health, usefulness and comfort, or for the comfort of all others with whom they may have to deal. In consequence of gross neglect in this particular, on the part of parents, the physician has often to contend with unlooked-for difficulties in his practice, and may be baffled in the cure of maladies, both in the nursery and amongst children of a larger growth, by "a mind diseased," for which the patient ought long before to have been taught to "minister unto himself."

Omitting then, in this place, the consideration of the effects produced by the indulgence and gratification of the particular passions, many of which, more directly than others, interfere with the bodily health, we will now return to our present subject of inquiry, and ask, by what mode is the greatest degree of permanent mental tranquillity to be ensured, without which the bodily health will be liable to perpetual disturbance?

It is only by correct views of life, and by diversified mental occupation, that the serenity of mind to which I allude can be attained.

Revealed Religion alone enables us to set a proper value upon the transitory things of this world. It emphatically teaches us not to be enamoured of its fleeting pleasures, or to be hopelessly depressed by its pains and disappointments.

"Sperat infestis, metuit secundis

Alteram sortem bene præparatum
Pectus."

It places before us a prize to be gained, and instructs us how to gain it. The rules are plain and simple, and intelligible to the meanest capacity.

The perusal of the written instructions, with a determination to be guided by them, meliorates the heart and affections, pacifies the restlessness of our inquisitive minds, and produces corresponding changes in our behaviour and conduct. In one word, it reduces the chaos of the human mind to order. Every mind not so reduced, is literally in a disordered state, unfit for its own government, bordering upon disease, and tending to produce corresponding bodily disturbance.

In the moral, as in the physical, government of the universe, the benevolent Maker wills perfect order. A presumptuous disobedience of his instructions, is as much a contravention of his goodness, as hurling, if it were possible, a planet from its orbit. An habitual disobedience induces moral insanity, unfits a man for intercourse with his fellow creatures, and directly and indirectly tends to the impairment of health. The following powerful description of the wretched state of mind of an irreligious man of pleasure, is not over-drawn. "He is (as Aristotle expresses it) at variance with himself. He is neither brute enough to enjoy his appetites, nor man enough to govern them. He knows and feels that what he pursues, is not his true good; his reflexion shewing him only that misery which his habitual sloth and ignorance will not suffer him to remedy. At length, being grown odious to himself and abhorring his own company, he runs into every idle assembly, not from the hopes of pleasure, but merely to respite the pains of his own mind. Listless and uneasy at the present, he has no delight in reflecting on what is past, or in the prospect of anything to come. This

man of pleasure, when, after a wretched scene of vanity and woe, his animal nature is worn to the stumps, wishes and dreads death, by turns, and is sick of living without having ever tried or known the true life of man."*

Vivit, et est vitæ nescius ipse suæ.

Without all doubt, the main purpose of man's existence is to please his Maker, and to be happy in himself by inward order, by purity and innocence of mind. No being can be pleasing to the infinite pattern of all goodness, but in as far as he is what he ought to be, in conformity with his Maker's purpose in his creation. Inward order and rectitude must, in their very nature, therefore, create agreea ble sensations, which are as conducive to bodily health, as bodily health is to cheerfulness of mind.

Hope, again, is a most safe and serviceable cordial, both in health and disease; but Religious hope is the only one which is enduring, which, like a true friend, faithful unto death, cheers and sustains us when all other hopes are leaving us, and all earthly joys are fading from our view.

A mind bereft of this, is deprived of an unfailing spring of comfort, and will have all its reflexions dimined with the sickly colouring of despondency, if not darkened by the pencil of despair. Is bodily health, cæteris paribus, as likely to make its abode with such an unhappy individual, as the man who in looking back upon the past has

"The gay conscience of a life well spent."

And, in looking forward, sees, with the gladdened

Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, Dialogue 2, p. 80.

eye of hope, gardens of ever-blooming amaranth beyond the appalling chasm of the grave?

I cannot, I fear, pursue this part of my subject further, without intrenching upon the province of the Divine; but there is one point which I must briefly insist upon, and that is, the acknowledged efficacy of habitually beseeching Him who bestows all the inward and outward means of amendment, to make us good and virtuous men, rejoicing in the approbation of our consciences, and in the inestimable blessing of a mind at peace.

Such a state is not only most favourable to health, but is the best possible mental preparation for the attacks of disease.

I now come to consider the power of diversified mental occupation, in inducing a healthy and tranquil state of the mind.

We cannot look around us without perceiving that, in the arbitrary relations which it has pleased the Creator to establish between matter and mind, an inexhaustible variety appears to have been studied; and this not only in the form, colour, and size of objects, but in odour, sound, hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, &c. as likewise in a never-ceasing succession of impressions interchangeably and interminably varied.

When we say "variety is pleasing," we unconsciously express the law that the succession of changes of sensations is salutary to the mind.

I need not here insist upon the irksomeness of monotony in sound, or of perpetual sameness in objects of sight.

Who would be doomed to gaze upon

A sky without a cloud or sun?

From the fatigue of unvarying dullness, the only refuge to the mind is sleep.

The want of motion, or expected succession of phenomena, in visible objects, is also unfavourable to the healthy activity of the mind.

If we continue to gaze, for a sufficient length of time, on even the finest painting of Claude de Lorraine, beautifully as the sloping beams of the rising or setting sun may gleam along the water, and gild the sides of his ruins, rocks, palaces and trees, and entranced as we may be for a time in rapturous delight at the surprising truth of his pencil, still, the unmoving sun, the unvarying light and shade, the motionless water, and the unwaving trees, will, at length, arouse us from our dream, and forcibly remind us that the greatest charın of nature is not there.

This sameness of impressions is the cause of what the French call ennui; the mind, in listless lassitude, recoils upon itself; it is idle, but not at ease; it is sore from repose, is inclined to melancholy and desponding views, is attended by peevishness, querulousness, or irascibility of temper, and is liable to be thrown off its balance by the most trifling accidents. To keep the mind, therefore, in the most favourable state for the preservation of bodily health, it is of consequence that its objects and pursuits should be diversified, and, as this cannot be long continued in solitude, the importance of mixing in society with our fellow creatures is obvious; for instance, there is nothing more favourable to the healthy digestion of our food, than to be cheerful at our meals; hence the advantage of our meals being