From giving happiness with bounteous hand.
Its Maker, full of goodness infinite,

Self-moved, in acts beneficent poured forth
Of his abundance, as the sun, all light
And heat itself, cannot but shine and warm.

That God is good, and nothing does but good,
Is the one truth of his whole written word.
'Tis the deep root, that to this tree of life
All its vitality and beauty gives.

Turn we again to nature, with the book
Of inspiration open in our hands

To be our guide, no longer need we seek
For single tokens of Jehovah's love.
All things declare it, and with accents loud
Call for loud songs of gratitude and praise.
The gifts of heaven, innumerable, descend
On all the earth, silent, and uniform,
Like dew distilling from a smiling sky,
Or like the steady falling of a shower
When the sun shines, and gilds the drops in air,
And on the quivering leaves, and bending grass.
Look where it may, the opened eye of faith
Beholds the fulness of benevolence,
And oft its overflowing, as in showers

Falling on seas, on barren rocks and sands;-
In wholesome fruit within the wilderness,
Growing each year, and perishing uncropt ;-
In myriads of living atoms, found

In every turf, and leaf, and breath of air,
Too small indeed for unassisted sight,
But not too small to feel the good they have,
Nor yet unworthy care that knows no bound.
Illumined by the rays of truth divine,
The universe a lovely aspect wears,
From its Creator's universal smile.
About its vast circumference his arms
In tender love are stretched, in one embrace
The whole encircling, as the milky zone
Surrounds the starry firmament immense.

Moral Efficacy of the Sacred Scriptures.—WAYLAND.

THAT the truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in man under every variety of character, learned or ignorant, civilized or savage; that they make bad men good, and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social relations; that they teach men to love right, to hate wrong, and to seek each other's welfare, as the children of one common parent; that they controul the baleful passions of the human heart, and thus make men proficients in the science of self-government; and, finally, that they teach him to aspire after a conformity to a Being of infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes infinitely more purifying, more exalting, more suited to his nature, than any other, which this world has ever known,-are facts incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics.

Evidence in support of all this can be brought from every age, in the history of man, since there has been a revelation from God on earth. We see the proof of it every where around us. There is scarcely a neighbourhood in our country, where the Bible is circulated, in which we cannot point you to a very considerable portion of its population, whom its truths have reclaimed from the practice of vice, and taught the practice of whatsoever things are pure, and honest, and just, and of good report.

That this distinctive and peculiar effect is produced upon every man to whom the Gospel is announced, we pretend not to affirm. But we do affirm, that, besides producing this special renovation, to which we have alluded, upon a part, it, in a most remarkable degree, elevates the tone of moral feeling throughout the whole community.

Wherever the Bible is freely circulated, and its doctrines carried home to the understandings of men, the aspect of society is altered; the frequency of crime is diminished; men begin to love justice, and to administer it by law; and a virtuous public opinion, that strongest safeguard of right, spreads over a nation the shield of its invisible protection. Wherever it has faithfully been brought to bear upon the human heart, even under most unpromising circumstances, it has, within a single generation, rev

olutionized the whole structure of society; and thus, within a few years, done more for man than all other means have for ages accomplished without it.

LESSON VI.

Neatness.-DENNIE.

AMONG the minor virtues, cleanliness ought to be conspicuously ranked; and in the common topics of praise we generally arrange some commendation of neatness. It involves much. It supposes a love of order, and attention to the laws of custom. My lord Bacon says, that a good person is a perpetual letter of recommendation. This idea may be extended. Of a well dressed man it may be affirmed, that he has a sure passport through the realms of civility.

In first interviews we can judge of no one except from appearances. He, therefore, whose exterior is agreeable, begins well in any society. Men and women are disposed to argue favourably rather than otherwise of him who manifests, by the purity and propriety of his garb, a disposition to comply and to please. As in rhetoric a judicious exordium is of admirable use to render an audience docile, attentive and benevolent, so, at our introduction into good company, clean and modish apparel is at least a serviceable herald of our exertions, though an humble one.

Negligence in men of letters sometimes arises from their inordinate application to books and papers, and may be palliated, by a good-natured man, as the natural product of a mind too intensely engaged in sublime speculations, to attend to the blackness of a shoe or the whiteness of a ruffle. Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton might be forgiven by their candid contemporaries, though the first had composed his Essay with unwashen hands, and the second had investigated the laws of nature when he was clad in a soiled night-gown.

But slovenliness is often affected by authors, or rather pretenders to authorship, and must then be considered as highly culpable; as an outrage of decorum; as a defiance to the world; as a pitiful scheme to attract notice, by

means which are equally in the power of the drayman and the chimney sweeper. I know a poet of this description, who anticipates renown no less from a dirty shirt than from an elegant couplet, and imagines that, when his appearance is the most sordid, the world must conclude, of course, that his mind is splendid and fair. In his opinion "marvellous foul linen" is a token of wit, and inky fingers indicate humour; he avers that a slouched hat is demonstrative of a well stored brain, and that genius always trudges about in unbuckled shoes. He looks for invention in rumpled ruffles, and finds highsounding poetry among the folds of a loose stocking.

Slovenliness, so far from being commendable in an author, is more inexcusable in men of letters than in many others, the nature of whose employment compels them to be conversant with objects sordid and impure. A smith from his forge, or a husbandman from his field, is obliged sometimes to appear stained with the smut of the one or the dust of the other. A writer, on the contrary, sitting in an easy chair at a polished desk, and leaning on white paper, or examining the pages of a book, is by no means obliged to be soiled by his labours. I see no reason why an author should not be a gentleman; or at least as clean and neat as a Quaker.

Far from thinking that filthy dress marks a liberal mind, I should suspect the good sense and talents of him, who affected to wear a tattered coat as the badge of his profession. Should I see a reputed genius totally regardless of his person, I should immediately doubt the delicaey of his taste and the accuracy of his judgment. I should conclude there was some obliquity in his mind—a dult sense of decorum, and a disregard of order. I should fancy that he consorted with low society; and, instead of claiming the privilege of genius to knock and be admitted at palaces, that he chose to sneak in at the back door of hovels, and wallow brutishly in the sty of the vulgar.

I cannot conclude better than by an extract from the works of Count Rumford, who, in few and strong words, has fortified my doctrine :-"With what care and attention do the feathered race wash themselves, and put their plumage in order! and how perfectly neat, clean, and elegant, do they ever appear? Among the beasts of the

field, we find that those which are the most cleanly are generally the most gay and cheerful, or are distinguished by a certain air of tranquillity and contentment; and singing birds are always remarkable for the neatness of their plumage. So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends even to his moral character. Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness, who was a consummate villain.'

LESSON VII.

The Miser.-POLLOCK.

GOLD many hunted, sweat and bled for gold;
Waked all the night, and laboured all the day.
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,
Which being cast into the fire, came out
A shining thing that fools admired, and called
A god; and in devout and humble plight
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less.
And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace,
Truth, faith, integrity; good conscience, friends,
Love, charity, benevolence, and all

The sweet and tender sympathies of life;

And to complete the horrid murderous rite,
And signalize their folly, offered up

Their souls, and an eternity of bliss,

To gain them-what? an hour of dreaming joy;
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of wo.

Most for the luxuries it bought-the pomp,
The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly farther gone;
With eye awry, incurable and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian angel quite given up-
The miser, who with dust inanimate