pounds; so that a quantity of blood equal to the whole mass of blood passes throught the heart fourteen times in one hour; which is about once in every four minutes."

Dr. Paley, upon this stupendous subject, says, "The heart is so complex in its mechanism, so delicate in many of its parts, as seemingly to be little durable, and always liable to derangement: yet shall this wonderful machine go, night and day, for eighty years together, at the rate of a hundred thousand strokes every twenty-four hours, having, at every stroke, a great resistance to overcome; and shall continue this action this length of time, without disorder, and without wearinesss."

It is a fact worthy of notice, that in this wonderful piece of mechanism there is, as it were, thepower of repelling the meddlesome eye of curiosity; since, whilst we are in sound health, the mighty labor that is perpetually going on in the little laboratory within, gives us no sort of disquietude, so long as we pay no close attention to the process; but no sooner does one contemplate it with close and divided attention, than unpleasant and almost insupportable sensations check his impertinent inquisitiveness. Perhaps no one living would be able to fix his whole mind, for the space of a single minute, upon the pulsations of his own heart without experiencing sensations of undescribable uneasiness.

All this is wonderful-"A mighty maze, but not without a plan."-Who that takes a sober view of the mechanism of his own heart, can say, in that very heart, There is no God!

It is

Nor is the moral heart of man less wonderful. remarkable that this too, as well as the material or natural heart, is repulsive to careful and strict scrutiny. Who can know it? None but the omniscient eye has the power of seeing a naked human heart. It is one of the most difficult of performances for one to scrutinize the moral frame and operations of one's own heat with a steadfast and impartial eye; the difficulty principally consisting in violent aversion to that kind of scrutiny and the irksomeness of the process. And hence it is, that a great many persons know less of their own

hearts, considered in a moral point of view, than of any thing else with which they are in a considerable degree conversant. Partial as we always are to our own understandings and our intellectual powers in general, we judge of them with a great deal more uprightness and truth, than we do of our hearts. The defects of the former we perceive, and own; but those of the latter we conceal as much as possible, not only fron; others, but from ourselves; and are mightily offended when the finger even of a friend points them out to us.

As the heart is the source of the affections and the volitions, so it is the seat of all real beauty and of all real deformity belonging to man or woman. By its qualities, and by no standard else, is the worth or the vileness of every human character to be determined. No splendor of talent, no brilliancy of action even on virtue's side, can countervail the want of rightness of heart. Hence, while we are bound to judge others to be virtuous, in so far as they appear so from the tenor of their overt acts, we must look deeper, far deeper, in forming a judgment upon ourselves.

In choosing a wife, a husband, or any familiar and bosom friend, the very first consideration is to be had to the qualities of the heart; for if those be vile, no intellectual excellence can give promise of good. A man, or a woman, either bad-hearted or heartless, however gifted with intellect or furnished with accomplishments, is not one that will brighten the chain of friendship, or smooth the path of life.

The heart that gravitates the wrong way, draws the understanding along with it; blinding, perverting, and duping that noble faculty: so that it judges of the thing, not according to what it really is, but according to the feeling and inclination of its treacherous adviser. This makes it so difficult for one to determine right in one's own cause.

It is much less difficult to operate successfully upon the understanding than upon the heart: sound and cogent reasoning may remove the speculative errors of the former; but the blind and stubborn prejudices of the latter no reasoning car reach.

"Convince a man against his will,
He's of the same opinion still."

It is no less melancholy than true, that, in general, we take infinitely less pains to improve our hearts than to improve our understandings. Yet no point is clearer, than that the improvement of the intellectual faculties can turn to no good account, without a corresponding improvement of the moral faculties.

Again, in educating children, the least degree of pains is usually taken with their hearts. It is not their moral education that is so much attended to: the body and the mind are too generally made the chief subjects of tuition, and not the heart, the temper, the moral frame. The vast superiority of the christian morality over the best part of the morality of the wisest pagans, consists very materially in this, that the former embraces the views, motives and feelings of the heart, whereas the latter regards the outward act alone. Socrates taught some things excellent in themselves, but his system reached only the surface of morality. It was for the Divine Teacher alone, to inculcate moral duties upon true principles, by prescribing the cleansing of the fountain, as not only the best and the shortest, but as the only way to purify the streams.

I will conclude this paper with a few remarks upon that particular quality of the heart, which goes by the name of Sensibility. No quality, especially in female character, is so much praised, admired, and loved; and, for that reason, no quality is so often counterfeited. And what is it? Not the susceptible temperament, which feels only for self or for one's own-Not that sickly sensibility, which so enervates the mind that it yields to even the lightest wind of adversity-Not that mock-sensibility, which weeps over a fictitious tale of woe, but has no sympathy for the real woes of life. Genuine sensibility that sensibility which is indeed so estimable and lovely-is a moral quality; of which it would be difficult to find a better definition than is given in the following admirable lines of the poet Gray:

"Teach me to love and to forgive;
Exact my own defects to scan;

What others are to feel; and know myself a man."

Extraordinary sensibility, under the guidance of sound discretion, is the source of noble virtues; but if discre

tion is wanting, it may be the source of lamentable errors and faults. We are rational as well as sentient beings, and our sensibilities, however genuine and gener- ous, will lead us astray if they are variant from the sober dictates of the understanding.

Affected people are generally found to be the reverse of what they endeavor to appear, and, according to this key to true character, one who greatly affects sensibility may be set down for marble-hearted.

CHAP. LXI.

Of an interesting trial of old, before the Royal Court of Persia.

FEW questions have been agitated more frequently or with more spirit, than that of the balance of power between the two sexes; a question that had occupied the attention of mankind long before the political balance between the powers of Europe was so much as thought of. In Asia, from its earliest history, the rights of women, generally speaking, have been much less respected than they are in Europe, and the goodly country where we ourselves draw the breath of life; yet even in Asia, it was of old contended that the balance of power leaned towards the female side.

Three young men belonging to the body guard of King Darius, who reigned from India unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and twenty and seven provinces, wrote, each, his sentence, which they delivered to the king. Of the last of the three the sentence was, Women are strongest-which paradoxical principle the noble youth vindicated before all the princes of Persia, in the following strain of eloquence:

"O ye men, it is not the great king, nor the multitude of men, neither is it wine that excelleth: who is it then that ruleth them, or hath the lordship over them? Are they not women? Women have borne the king, and all the people that bear rule by sea and land.Even of them came they; and they nourished them up

that planted the vineyards from whence the wine cometh. These also make garments for men; these bring glory unto men; and without women, men cannot be. Yea, and if men have gathered together gold and silver, or any other goodly thing, do they not love a woman which is comely in favor and beauty? And letting all these things go, do they not gape, and even with open mouth fix their eyes fast upon her; and have not all men more desire unto her, than unto silver or gold, or any goodly thing whatsoever? a man leaveth his own father that brought him up, and his own country, and cleaveth unto his wife. He sticketh not to spend his life with his wife, and remembereth neither father, nor mother, nor country. By this also, ye must know that women have dominion over you. Do ye not labor and toil and bring all to the woman ?"

After the young orator had pursued this strain to a still further length, he turns himself particularly, as it would seem, to the terrible monarch, and tells him to his face that his power is in no wise comparable to that of woman.

"And now," says he, "do ye not believe me? Is not the king great in his power? Do not all regions fear to touch him? Yet did I see him and Apame-the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the right hand of the king, and taking the crown from the king's head, and setting it upon her own head: she also struck the king with her left hand: and yet for all this, the king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth: if she laughed upon him, he laughed also; but if she took any displeasure at him, the king was fain to flatter, that she might be reconciled to him again. O ye men, how can it be but that women should be strong, seeing they do this?""*

The sequel was, that "the king and the princes looked upon one another"-no doubt with such gloaring glances as betrayed their full conviction that what had been spoken was but too true.

But though the generous young advocater of the superior strength of women had manifestly gained the

*The 4th chapter of the 1st apochryphal book of Esdras.