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then encaged and surrounded by a multitude, that hath the roll of thunder, the sight of a next, as Faithful stands at the martyr stake, mountain, the rising and the setting of the thence as Christian and Hopeful appear, all sun in open heavens, the vegetation and through the course up to the Dark River, and growth of plants or the singing of birds in beyond it, does the cunning tool of the en- the sky. In the heart of Bunyan, well pregraver delineate the pilgrims. These pictures pared by tribulation, already had Nature and the clear type and broad page, weather planted germs of beauty, of pathos and of stained, of the old editions, lent a charm to sublimity, which grew, strangely enough, in the story as when a little boy we read it, seat- the confinement of a jail. In such soil, so ed by the window on a cloudy Saturday af- prepared, always grow the strongest plants ternoon, or at the fireside on a winter eve- and the rarest fruits. There is, therefore, no ning. Over and again we perused the account difficulty in accounting for the vigor of his of Vanity Fair, of Christian's fight with style when the book was new or for its presApollyon and the gloomy passage through the ent heartiness, now that the work has become dreadful valley, fiend-haunted, opening to the an old one. Sooner will the pyramids fall fires of Hell. We loved, too, to linger on the than the productions of such a mind. banks of the Jordan of death, looking up to the hills where Christian and Hopeful had gone, and like Bunyan, when those pearly gates were closed, "I wished myself among

them."

The journey of Christiana with Mercy and her family is as beautiful and as entertaining, but, from the nature of the subject, not so atriking as the account of Christian and his companions. We love and respect courageous Great Heart, and wish that he may accompany us when we go on pilgrimage.

The employment of dialogues or colloquies was common among the writers of the seventeenth century. By the use of these, Bunyan avoids the tiresomeness of a narrative and succeeds in conveying truth in an engaging manner. Those pages are read with most avidity in any work whose matter is broken up into this form or into short paragraphs. Few readers have patience to grope through a dense array of thoughts, especially if they be darkened by figurative language.

Dissenting preachers made much use of the language of the Bible, especially of the Old Testament. In the Journal of the Pilgrims, quotations abound from the threatenings of God, applied by them to wicked acts of the

edge of the scriptures, possessed a deep understanding of human nature and a power of imagination which gave effect to his writing, Overflowing from his heart, his thoughts reached and affected the hearts of others.

Conceived in an earnest mind, in their style these works are earnest and forcible. Here lies the motive the operation succeeds. Grammarians deal only with modes of expression; colleges teach little more. With-church. Bunyan, in addition to his knowlin the man abides that deep, energetic moving of the soul which is as fire and water to the working of machinery, as winds to the motion of the ocean, as solar heat to winds. Bedford jail, the den wherein Bunyan laid him down to sleep, was not filled with the influences of inspiration, as are the scenes and circumstances of nature. The employment of lace knitting had in it little of that power to inspire moving thoughts, living creations, and Feeble - Mind.

A spirit of benevolence pervades the whole of his writings. He had learned the failings of Christians. He knew Mr. Fearing, Despondency and Much-Afraid, Ready - to - Halt

He had fought with

Apollyon in the valley and had conquered, as Christian did, when almost overcome. He knew every step of the way from the city of Destruction to the brink of the river over which there is no bridge, and he loved his Master so well that he would feed his sheep. Many a man, as he has read, has trembled, hoped, rejoiced, at the lessons which the good man teaches.

The book is so common, and so often read, that extracts seem to be useless. I shall, however, quote a few short passages which may have escaped some readers.

1. The use of all means.

"You see the ways the fisherman doth take
To catch the fish; what engines doth he make!
Behold now he engageth all his wits;
Also his snares, lines, angles, hooks and nets;
Yet fish there be, that neither hook nor line,
Nor snare, nor net, nor engine can make thine:
They must be groped for, and be tickled, too,
Or they will not be catched, whate'er you do. "
2. Hidden merit.

"If that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell,
And may be found too in an oyster-shell;
If things that promise nothing do contain
What better is than gold; who will disdain,
That have an inkling of it, there to look
That they may find it?"

The Author's Apology.

Among the sentences uttered by Interpreter for the edification of Christiana and her company are bold, beautiful and truthful thoughts.

3. Sentences.

"If the world, which God sets light by, is counted a thing of that worth with men, what is heaven that God commendeth!"

"Everybody will cry up the goodness of men; but who is there that is, as he should be, affected with the goodness of God?"

"We seldom sit down to meat, but we eat and leave. So there is in Jesus Christ more merit and righteousness than the whole world has need of."

John Bunyan seems to have been a man of much emotion, naturally impulsive, distrustful and somewhat rash. These qualities, doubtless led him into the commission of many flagrant sins, chiefest of which was profane swearing. After his conversion he evinced a tender conscientiousness, kindness and charity, which seemed to contrast with his former character, though not to be inconsistent with his previous life. He never ceased to feel the effects of his sinful conduct.

The accounts of his life prefixed to his Pilgrim's Progress, state that he was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, 1628, of poor parents; through trials, dangers, by convictions, was led to choose the right path, became a preacher, was imprisoned in Bedford jail for refusing to conform, and died August 12, 1688, at the age of 60, from a fever caused by exposure to inclement weather when returning from a visit to restore peace to a divided family. Many of his works, which are numerous, are well known.

The earnestness and the plainness of Bunyan's style are now rarely found. This age

"One leak will sink a ship, and one sin needs less weak fiction and more bold, honest, will destroy a sinner."

"He that forgets his friend, is ungrateful unto him; but he that forgets his Saviour, is unmerciful to himself."

"If a man would live well, let him fetch his last day to him, and make it always his company-keeper."

direct writing, which shall not only thrill and affect the reader, but shall also increase the vigor of his mind and open his eyes to realities. A reform does not come in a day.

J. W. O.

UNOCCUPIED moments are dangerous.

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A. The degeneracy of man is seen not merely in each feature of his physical and moral nature, but his intellect, also, bears

"Come closer to me, mother, put your hand upon my witness to the deplorable truth. To consider brow,

As you kissed me when we parted, my mother, kiss me now;

Life's dream is almost over, it shall waken soon in joy, My mother, bless me softly, as you blessed me when a boy."

He died-alone and friendless, but in his fevered dream
A mother, like an angel, came beside that golden stream;
But the heartless hands of strangers, as the sun sank
in the west,

the savage who employs the mighty resources of an immortal mind in sustaining an existence little superior to that of the beasts around him; to speak of those who, even in Christian lands, have no appetite for the feast set before them, no desire to improve the invaluable treasure which God has given; would be treading the beaten path along which thou

Without a tear, without a prayer, consigned him to his sands of the great and good have sadly stray

rest.

Wherever in this western land has rolled the living tide

Of emigrants with golden dreams, the mounds lie side
by side;

In Nevada's rugged gorges, in every mountain glen,
On hill-side and by river, are graves of noble men.
The wild flowers bloom above them in beauty every
spring,

ed. Let us then, for a few moments, contemplate another aspect of our mental degradation which has seldom or never been viewed. It is our mental sloth. An hereditary indolence is the disease of every mind; and when one has hasted through the outer courts of knowledge to the inner tabernacle of thought, he nevertheless feels the weakness of his mind,

Sweet offerings of Nature's hand which friends may not, indeed by nature, but by the habits of all

never bring.

But far away, in other lands, fond eyes grow dim with tears,

And vainly wait the coming of the loved of other

years.

The stars drift up the mountains into depths of azure skies

And gaze upon the lonely graves like watchful spirit eyes,

But far

those who have preceded him. This condition of intellect is evidently not what our Maker intended. With memory to store up treasure, with reason to combine into new forms of truth, with a world- nay, almost a universe within the grasp of the senses, it was designed that man should constitute crea

away, in eastern lands, the bright stars gazing tion's noblest work, but in neglecting his natthere,

Look down on faces watching in tearful midnight prayer
In the western El Dorado, beside the mountain streams,
The hearts of weary men, at night, turn homeward in
their dreams,

But far away, across the sea, how many hearts are
breaking

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ural gifts, man is below those animals which are commonly said to belong to the "lower orders. Was it intended that he should be so weak and blind, laboring years for knowledge, and drinking in thought as a medicine rather than a beverage? No. There is a de

For those who sleep beside those streams the sleep that gree of mental rapidity, of which few can

knows no waking.

FEATHER RIVER, California.

speak from experience; but which we may attain, for our intellectual nature, as we be

hold it in ourselves, in history, and in the obvious design of its creator, tells us that this is possible.

must suppose it to be divested of those properties which fix a limit to the speed of material operations, and preclude unlimited velocity and perpetual motion.

B. True is it that mankind bear upon the intellect the stamp of degradation. It is ap- B. I will not dispute that your view of the palling to contrast what man might be with mind's future is at once the most noble and what he is. But not to consider for the pres- reasonable, but it is my opinion that our present the disadvantages which would follow if ent mental speed is as great as in our present the majority of human beings thought and state can be attained. You seem to forget acquired more rapidly, I must beg leave to that we are not now disembodied spirits. disagree with you concerning the possibility While you asserted that the action of matter of greater speed with mental operations of is controlled by its inherent properties, you beings constituted like ourselves. I doubt appeared not to remember that in this world not that, when men shall be disencumbered they govern also the operations of mind. from clay, they will possess more perfectly | This is the great objection to your theory. developed powers; to say, however, that man Thought wastes brain; great exertion proean, either in his present or future state, per-duces fatigue. If this be so, it becomes eviform intellectual labor with inconceivable dent that our present intellectual rapidity is rapidity, and without labor, is elevating him most in accordance with the laws arising from to the level of Deity. Let us not, in contem- our physical constitution. plating the soul's majesty, forget that we are finite beings.

But to what a result does this fancy of yours lead. While you give man such sublime powers, you would so degrade him as to say that he has never used them. Let us be wise, and observing the development of his intellect in the past and present, consider the ordinary standard as most proper in this life. A. To see the absurdity of your last re

4. Blasphemous and irrational would it be thus to raise ourselves; but that is not my idea. The mind in its future state of bliss, will it be as feeble and slothful as it is now? While it shall go on imbibing the infinite perfections of its Creator, the labor of thought, which to the disembodied spirit is intense de-mark, let us apply it to morals and health. light, will transcend our present irksome efforts, while it will excel them in rapidity. What I said was correct and rational; since, while God knows all things, the soul shall spend eternity in vain to grasp his attributes, and study his works.

I admit this to be a supposition; but can we imagine for the soul a more blissful or adoring future than in drinking from Infinity's exhaustless springs? Whence comes, now, our idea of speed, and of its limit? Is it not from matter? There is a certain harmonious and healthful regularity with which all things move, but if we would conceive of spirit we

Shall we say, because men sin and are sick, that they can never hope for anything better; or shall we place before them a perfect health and morality which may be theirs if they will but fully obey the laws of their being?

I agree with you that, in our present existence, there is a limit to the speed of our powers, but I must insist that this is so far above

the ordinary standard, so near perfection, that few if any have ever attained it.

First, let me appeal to your own experience. Have you ever found a limit to your powers? Do not your most laborious efforts become easy and rapid? Do not your great

est expenditures of labor correct you of mental sloth, and suggest a perfection beyond which you probably never will attain? If this be so, I think you must allow that the limit which you wisely supposed to exist, is farther distant than you at first imagined.

B. You have correctly remarked concerning my experience, but I am not aware that many have ever arrived at any remarkable degree of mental speed. Until such instances can be adduced, my opinion must remain unchanged.

A. History furnishes many examples. Though rare, they yet show the nature of the mind; just as the diamond tells us what carbon is in a crystallized state. Instances of rapid thought are seen in the lives of many mathematicians. Newton, when he first entered Cambridge, neglected Euclid. Regarding his propositions as mere axioms, he immediately commenced the higher

branches of mathmatics.

that he once completed a comedy before breakfast; but what time he arose, and when he partook of his morning meal is not stated.

B. Your examples are all of those whose minds by nature transcended all others. All men are not geniuses.

A.. True; yet these instances indicate that the speed of the mind may be increased; for men are all alike constituted. The mental activity which in those cases is consistent with bodily health, may be without detriment exercised by all. The gift, I allow, was theirs by nature; but there are few endowments of genius which labor may not earn. Why are some souls sent into the world in full and complete development, if it be not to show by way of example the majesty which the mind by its own efforts may win for itself?

Instances of rapid acquiring are numerous. Sir Humphrey Davy could, in youth, read pages at a glance, and acquaint himself perfectly with their contents. One of the most

B. But Newton, in later life, regretted his remarkable instances which now occurs to me is the case of the distinguished Florentine Anneglect of Euclid. A. Yes; but for what reason. He thought tonio Magliabecchi. He was not only the it presumptuous in a youth like him to dis-most learned man of his time; but probably card a work to which time and genius had the greatest student of books that ever lived. done equal honor. This person had a shorthand method of acquiring knowledge.

I

I think speed in reading attainable by any one of ordinary copacity. I often find myself able to read entire sentences at a glance, and to anticipate each member of a complicated period to its close.

History furnishes many examples of rapid composition. The majority of celebrated writers have been able to compose with speed. Byron possessed unrivalled facility in writing; often completing a long poem at a sitting. have read hundreds of anecdotes, illustrating the great speed attained in composition. Many of our best and most popular poems have been impromptu. A distinguished mod-hend words and phrases at sight. Is it necessary to stop here. I think it in our power, by practice, to read longer combinations of words - -even pages, at a glance.

When you first learned to read, you spelled each word separately. Now you compre

ern novelist employs two amanuenses, thus dictating two works at a time. Under the influence of a large quantity of brandy, Thomas Paine wrote with surpassing speed, and, without correction, sent it to the printer. Lopez de Vega was a remarkable instance. It is said that few have attained it; but, though our

B. I acknowledge now that while there is a limit in our present state, it is so distant

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