And what though mortal insufficiency attain to small knowledge of any?
Man loveth exclusions delighting in the sterile, trodden path,
While the broad green meadow is jewelled with wild flowers:
And whether is it better with the many to follow a beaten track,
Or by eccentric wanderings to cull unheeded sweets?

WHEN his reason yieldeth fruit, make thy child thy friend;
For a filial friend is a double gain, a diamond set in gold.

As an infant, thy mandate was enough, but now let him see thy reasons;
Confide in him, but with discretion; and bend a willing ear to his questions.
More to thee than all beside, let him owe good counsel and good guidance;
Let him feel his pursuits have an interest, more to thee than to all beside.
Watch his native capacities; nourish that which suiteth him the readiest;
And cultivate early those good inclinations wherein thou fearest he is
most lacking;

Is he phlegmatic and desponding? let small successes comfort his hope:
Is he obstinate and sanguine? let petty crosses accustom him to life:
Showeth he a sordid spirit? be quick and teach him generosity:
Inclineth he to liberal excess? prove to him how hard it is to earn.
Gather to thy hearth such friends as are worthy of honour and attention,
For the company a man chooseth is a visible index of his heart;
But let not the pastor whom thou hearest be too much a familar in thy
house,

For thy children may see his infirmities, and learn to cavil at his teaching.
It is well to take hold on occasions, and render indirect instruction;
It is better to teach upon a system, and reap the wisdom of books:
The history of nations yieldeth grand outlines; of persons, minute details;
Poetry is polish to the mind, and high abstractions cleanse it. [ment:
Consider the station of thy son, and breed him to his fortune with judg.
The rich may profit in much which would bring small advantage to the

poor.

But with all thy care for thy son, with all thy strivings for his welfare, Expect disappointment, and look for pain; for he is of an evil stock, and will grieve thee.

10

OF TOLERANCE.

A WISE man in a crowded street winneth his way with gentleness,
Nor rudely pusheth aside the stranger that standeth in his path; [him,
He knoweth that blind hurry will but hinder, stirring up contention against
Yet holdeth he steadily right on, with his face to the scope of his pursuit,
Even so, in the congress of opinions, the bustling highway of intelligence,
Each man should ask of his neighbour, and yield to him again concession.
Terms ill defined, and forms misunderstood, and customs, where their

reasons are unknown,

Have stirred up many zealous souls to fight against imaginary giants; But wisdom will hear the matter out, and often, by keenness of perception, Will find in strange disguise the precious truth he seeketh;

So he leaveth unto prejudice or taste the garb and the manner of her Content to see so nigh the mistress of his love.

[presence,

There is no similitude in nature that owneth not also to a difference, Yea, no two berries are alike, though twins upon one stem;

No drop in the ocean, no pebble on the beach, no leaf in the forest, hath

its counterpart,

No mind in its dwelling of mortality, no spirit in the world unseen;
And therefore, since capacity and essence differ alike with accident,
None but a bigot partisan will hope for impossible unity.
Wilt thou ensue peace, nor buffet with the waters of contention,
Wilt thou be counted wise, and gain the love of men,

Let unobtruded error escape the frown of censure,

[wrong;

Nor lift the glass of truth alway before thy fellows.
I say not, compromise the right; I would not have thee countenance the
But hear with charitable heart the reasons of an honest judgment,
For thou also hast erred, and knowest not when thou art most right;
Nor whether to-morrow's wisdom may not prove thee simple to-day;
Perchance thou art chiding in another what once thou wast thyself;
Perchance thou sharply reprovest what thou wilt be hereafter.

A man that can render a reason, is a man worthy of an answer;

But he that argueth for victory, deserveth not the tenderness of Truth.

WHILES a man liveth, he may mend: count not thy brother reprobate; When he is dead, his chance is gone: remember not his faults in bitterness.

A man, till he dieth, is immortal in thy sight: and then he is as nothing.
Make not the living thy foe, nor take weak vengeance of the dead;
For life is as a game of chess, where least causeth greatest,
And an ill move bringeth loss, and a pawn may insure victory.
Dost thou suspect? seek out certainty; for now, by self-inflicted pain,
Or ill-directed wrath, thou wrongest thyself or thy neighbour:
Suspicion is an early lesson, taught in the school of experience,

Neither shalt thou easily unlearn it, though Charity ply thee with her preaching;

Yet look thou well for reasons, or ever mistrust hath marred thee,
Or fear curdled thy blood, or jealousy goaded thee to madness;
For a look, or a word, or an act, may be taken well or ill,

As construed by the latitude of love, or the closeness of cold suspicion.

BETTER is the wrong with sincerity, rather than the right with falsehood;
And a prudent man will not lay siege to the stronghold of ignorant bigotry.
To unsettle a weak mind were an easy, inglorious triumph,
And a strong cause taketh little count of the worthless suffrage of a fool;
Lightly he held to the wrong, loosely will he cling to the right;

Weakness is the essence of his mind, and the reed cannot yield an acorn.
Dogged obstinacy is often-times the buttress that proppeth an unstable

spirit,

But a candid man blusheth not to own he is wiser to-day than yesterday. A man of a little wisdom is a sage among fools;

But himself is chief among the fools, if he look for admiration from them.
A heresy is an evil thing, for its shame is its pride:

Its necessary difference of error is the character it most esteemeth;
Give a man all things short of liberty, thou shalt have no thanks,
And little wilt thou speed with thine opponent, by proving points he will
concede.

The tost sand darkeneth the waves: and clear had been the pages of truth,
Had not the glosses of men obscured the simplicity of faith. [taught;
In all things consider thine own ignorance, and gladly take occasion to be
But suffer not excess of liberality to neutralize thy mental independence.
The faults and follies of most men make their deaths a gain;
But thou also art a man, full of faults and follies;

Therefore sorrow for the dead, or none shall weep for thee, [bosom.
For the measure of charity thou dealest shall be poured into thine own
That which vexeth thee now, provoking thee to hate thy brother,

Bear with it; the annoyance passeth, and may not return for ever:
The same combinations and results which aggravate thy soul to-day,
May not meet again for centuries in the kaleidoscope of circumstance;
For men and matters change, new elements mixing in continually,
And, as with chemical magic, the sour is transmuted into sweetness;
A little explained, a little endured, a little passed over as a foible,
And, lo! the jagged atoms fit like smooth mosaic.

Thou canst not shape another's mind to suit thine own body;
Think not, then, to be furnishing his brain with thy special notions.
Charity walketh with a high step, and stumbleth not at a trifle:
Charity hath keen eyes, but the lashes half conceal them:
Charity is praised of all, and fear not thou that praise;
God will not love thee less because men love thee more.*

OF SORROW.

I SAID, I will seek out Sorrow, and minister the balm of pity: [train.
So I sought her in the house of mourning; but Peace followed in her
Then I marked her brooding silently in the gloomy cavern of Regret;
But a sunbeam of heavenly hope gleamed on her folded wing..
So I turned to the cabin of the poor, where Famine dwelt with Disease;
But the bed of the sick was smoothed, and the ploughman whistled at
his labour.

So I stopped, and mused within myself, to remember where Sorrow dwelt,
For I sought to see her alone, uncomforted, uncompanioned.

I went to the prison, but penitence was there, and promise of better times;
I listened at the madman's cell, but it echoed with deluded laughter.
Then I turned me to the rich and noble; I noted the sons of fashion:
A smile was on the languid cheek, that had no commerce with the heart;
Unhallowed thoughts, like fires, gleamed from the window of the eye,
And Sorrow lived with those whose pleasures add unto their sins.

"God will not love thee less, because men love thee more."] It may be scarcely necessary to remark, that the gist of the argument in Matt. v. 11, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you,” lies in the "falsely, for my sake." This verse has all the characteristics of an epigram -paradox, brevity, and final satisfaction.

His infancy wanted not guilt; his life was continued evil :

[cursing.

He drew in pride with his mother's milk, and a father's lips taught him.
I marked him as the wayward boy: I traced the dissolute youth:
I saw him betray the innocent, and sacrifice affection to his lust.

I saw him the companion of knaves, and a squanderer of ill-got gain;
I heard him curse his own misery, while he hugged the chains that galled
For well had experience declared the bitterness of guilty pleasure, [him;
But habit, with its iron net, involved him in its folds.

Behind him lowered the thunder-storm, which the caldron of his wickedness had brewed;

Before him was the smooth, steep cliff, whose base is ruin and despair. So he madly rushed on, and tried to forget his being:

The noisy revel, and the low debauch, and fierce excitement of play, With dreary interchange of palling pleasures, filled the dull round of

existence.

Memory was to him as a foe; so he flew for false solace to the wine-cup, And stunned his enemy at even, but she rent him as a giant in the

morning.

I TURNED aside to weep; I lost him a little while:

I looked, and years had passed; he was hoar with the winter of his age.
And what was now his hope? where was the balm for his sadness?
The memory of the past was guilt; the feeling of the present, remorse.
Then he set his affections on gold, he worshipped the shrine of Mammon,
And to lay richer gifts before his idol, he starved his own bowels;
So the youth spent in profligacy ended in the gripings of want: [gal.
The miser grudged himself husks, to take deeper vengeance of the prodi-
And I said, this is sorrow; but pity cannot reach it.

This is to be wretched indeed, to be guilty without repentance.

OF JOY.

My soul was sickened within me; so I sought the dwelling-place of Joy:
And I met it not in laughter; I found it not in wealth or power;
But I saw it in the pleasant home, where religion smiled upon content,
And the satisfied ambition of the heart rejoiced in the favour of its God.