stacle, peril, and suffering, serve only to reveal in the heart sources of energy hidden and undreamed of before. The great master of the drama, and of human nature, expounds the principle.

"The fire i' the flint

Shows not, till it be struck."

One of the most accomplished of the Latin classics declares the effect which trial and difficulty exert in bringing out this mighty force of character, "Adversa magnos probant." All history and observation demon

strate it.

The mind, thrown upon its own resources, and summoning them resolutely to the effort, rises with every emergency, and confronts and surmounts all that can be brought against it. Such was the discipline of the early New England character. Cold, hunger, disease, desolation, grappled with it in vain at the beginning. Neither the tomahawk nor war-whoop of the Indian, nor all the terrors which hung over their defenceless hamlets, could subdue hearts armed with this inward strength. It grew with constant and healthful vigor through all vicissitudes. The neglect of the mother country could not cast a shade dark or damp enough to wither it; the most violent storms of its anger could not break it. Charters were torn away by the ruthless hand of arbitrary power, and every resource of despotism was exhausted to curb and crush it. But all was in vain.

The people, severally and universally, had realized their rights and their power, as men; and a determination to advance their own condition, to retain and enlarge their privileges, thus pervading the entire population, made them superior to all local disadvantages, and triumphant over all opposition. It placed their prosperity beyond the reach of power or fortune. So long as the arm of the settler could wield an axe, or his hand cast a vote; so long as the district schoolhouse opened its doors to impart the knowledge and the mental culture enabling him to understand and maintain his rights, or the village church lifted its spire into the heavens to remind him of that immortal element which, glowing

in his breast, placed him on a level with the highest of his fellow-men, it would be impossible to enslave him, or prevent his progress.

EXERCISE XXVI.

INDUSTRY NECESSARY TO SUCCESS.

SUCCESS in every art, whatever may be the natural talent, is always the reward of industry and pains. But the instances are many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and made no effort to improve. That there have never been other men of equal endowments with Cicero and Demosthenes, none would venture to suppose; but who have so devoted themselves to their art, or become equal in excellence? If those great men had been content, like others, to continue as they began, and had never made their persevering efforts for improvement, what could their countries have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of their fame? They would have been lost in the undistinguished crowd, that sank to oblivion around them.

Of how many more will the same remark prove true! What encouragement is thus given to the industrious! With such encouragement, how inexcusable is the negligence which suffers the most interesting and important truths to seem heavy and dull, and fall ineffectual to the ground, through mere sluggishness in the delivery. How unworthy of one who performs the high function of a religious instructor upon whom depend, in a great measure, the religious knowledge, and devotional sentiment, and final character, of many fellow-beings — to imagine that he can worthily discharge this great concern by occasionally talking for an hour, he knows not how, and in a manner he has taken no pains to render correct, impressive, or attractive! and which, simply through that want of command over himself which study would give, is immethodical, verbose, inaccurate, feeble, trifling! It has been said of the good preacher,

"That truths divine come mended from his tongue

Alas! they come ruined and worthless from such a man as this! They lose that holy energy by which they are to convert the soul and purify man for heaven, and sink, in interest and efficacy, below the level of those principles which govern the ordinary affairs of this lower world.

EXERCISE XXVII.

THE SPIRIT OF WAR.

MEN rush to the contest not only to gratify their own martial passion, but to partake in the glory which crowns great feats of arms. The military feeling is too easily excited in this country for our welfare. It is one of the most unfavorable signs of our political times, that brilliant success in war is such a ready passport to the highest confidence and estimation of the people. It seems as if the skill that can gain a battle was connected in very many minds with every talent and virtue under

heaven.

Because we have had a General Washington, who gave victory to our arms, many seem to think that all successful generals must be Washingtons, and that the exchange of a conquering sword for the sceptre of civil dominion, in the father of his country, has fixed the model for all succeeding ages. So war has become a manufacturing of candidates for office. Every new field of blood is another step towards the civil promotion of some of the combatants, to shoot and be shot at, is a qualification for office; hence men will put on the plume and epaulet, and hasten to the scene of strife, to gain political distinction by killing men. General Taylor's camp has rivalled Congress with multitudes who thirst for distinction, and the road to Mexico has become the path to the highest honors of the state.

Some of the members of Congress have exchanged the Honorable for the Colonel, and have left the arena of combat at Washington, for the bloody field of Mexico, . to gain, by the valorous use of the sword, that elevation which they could not reach by eloquence of debate. The

common soldier, who cannot lift his eyes so high as to the summits of political distinction, hurries away from the quiet pursuits of life, to partake in the strifes of a successful campaign, and acquire a petty renown among the inhabitants of his native village. When shall a just estimate of the requisites of our national safety, and a proper application of those talents and pursuits which tend in the highest manner to develop the humane and noble theory of our republican institutions, check that excess of military feeling which bestows such undue honors on the achievements of mighty warriors?

EXERCISE XXVIII.

WAR AND PEACE.

WAR crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that is godlike in man. "It is," says the eloquent Robert Hall, "the temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." True, it cannot be disguised that there are passages in its dreary annals cheered by deeds of generosity and sacrifice. But the virtues which shed their charm over its horrors are all borrowed of Peace; they are emanations of the spirit of love, which is so strong in the heart of man that it survives the rudest assaults. The flowers of gentleness, of kindliness, of fidelity, of humanity, which flourish in unregarded luxuriance in the rich meadows of Peace, receive unwonted admiration when we discern them in war, like violets shedding their perfume on the perilous edges of the precipice, beyond the smiling borders of civilization.

God be praised for all the examples of magnanimous virtue which he has vouchsafed to mankind! God be praised that the Roman emperor, about to start on a distant expedition of war, encompassed by squadrons of cavalry and by golden eagles which moved in the winds, stooped from his saddle to listen to the prayer of the humble widow, demanding justice for the death of her son! God be praised that Sydney, on the field of battle, gave with dying hand the cup of cold water to the dying soldier! That single act of self-forgetful sacrifice has

consecrated the fenny field of Zutphen far, oh! far beyond its battle; it has consecrated thy name, gallant Sydney, beyond any feat of thy sword, beyond any triumph of thy pen! But there are hands outstretched elsewhere than on fields of blood, for so little as a cup of cold water; the world is full of opportunities for deeds of kindness. Let me not be told, then, of the virtues of War. Let not the acts of generosity and sacrifice which have triumphed on its fields be invoked in its defence. In the words of Oriental imagery, the poisonous tree, though watered by nectar, can produce only the fruit of death!

As we cast our eyes over the history of nations, we discern with horror the succession of murderous slaughters by which their progress has been marked. As the hunter traces the wild beast, when pursued to his lair, by the drops of blood on the earth, so we follow Man, faint, weary, staggering with wounds, through the black forest of the past, which he has reddened with his gore. Oh! let it not be in the future ages as in those which we now contemplate. Let the grandeur of man be discerned in the blessings which he has secured in the good he has accomplished: in the triumphs of benevolence and justice; in the establishment of perpetual peace!

As the ocean washes every shore, and clasps, with all-embracing arms, every land, while it bears on its heaving bosom, the products of various climes; so Peace surrounds, protects, and upholds all other blessings. Without it, commerce is vain, the ardor of industry is restrained, happiness is blasted, virtue sickens and dies.

EXERCISE XXIX.

PROVIDENTIAL AGENCY.

It is, I think, the great error and fault of our times and country, that but little reliance is placed on the overruling and coöperating agency of God, and but little room allowed for it, in the calculations and projects of men. The philanthropists and reformers of the age,