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To have judged by the unsteady attendance at school, and the little solicitude observable among the young people about preparing for their classes, to say nothing of the wilful speeches, such as, 'Mamma, I don't feel like studying French any more;" or, "Ma, I am going to drop mathematics, they are so tiresome;" one would suppose there are many imperfectly educated women. But meet them grown up, engaged in the useful pursuits of life, and you will find well-informed, cultivated, refined minds, strong in their sense of right and pursuit of duty. Ask them of their early years, and you will find they were nearly as idle as their children seem to be, and then you must draw the conclusion that their wilfulness is only seeming or vanquished while it is yet time, and that they acquire as much amid their springy, vivid ways, as we do in our more sedate and careful fashion.

The means of education extend continually with the need of it. Yet as food, shelter, and clothing form the most imperative necessaries of life, each new settlement must first secure these, leaving the mental and spiritual supplies to lag behind, and overtake these as they best may. Taking pity on the uninstructed condition of the settlers around them, some young gentlemen have begun to give an hour or two of evening teaching to their young neighbours. Some have employed themselves during the winter months in that benevolent exercise. Some have collected Sabbath-schools, and in a few

cases, the log school-house has formed the nucleus of a church, where at last, when the population thickens, a church is erected, a minister of Christ appears, and next comes the colporteur with his load of good books, and a library is formed. How sound is the patriotism, how true the benevolence, which, amidst the earnest pursuits of present advantage, step aside from the tumult and the cares of life, to enter on such engagements as these! And how happy the man who falls on that era of his new district's cultivation which enables him to be the founder of useful institutions, which will continue to bless the land when he is resting from his labours! His stock-in-trade for this kind of usefulness need not be brilliancy of genius, nor high attainment, but simply common sense with some power of arrangement, and a heart to love his neighbour.

It is not for me to tell of college halls and professors. The names of the first, and the faces or writings of many of the others, are familiar to students in Britain; yet it is pleasant to recall the shades of Yale-the more than half venerable aspect of a portion of its numerous edifices-the extent and excellent order of its museum-the countenances of learned men, and their portraits in its picture gallery, and the interest excited by the living men who study and walk its academic groves. The hours passed at Princeton, also, amid the courtesies and hospitalities of the venerable Dr Alex

ner.

ander, are amongst the hoarded gems of memory. A powerful interest hangs around that aged man so true of heart, so distinct of mind, so affable of manHe is full of Christian sympathies, and ready to communicate, so that you require but to put an inquiry, and he flows out, whether the subject be a thing of sixty years since or of yesterday, and it is your own fault if you are not the wiser for his communings. Perhaps others may have remarked, what adds much to the interest that cleaves to the demeanour of this excellent gentleman-his strong resemblance to Wilberforce. Though much more bulky, yet the figure is like that of a twin-brother. manner of sitting in his easy-chair, of speaking, of smiling, and, above all, his ready way of giving information, and his edifying Christian remarks, shewed a resemblance both in the mould and in the jewel within.*

His

Princeton! with its troops of busy students, with 'its historical memorials of battles, shewing still with

* How touchingly are those remembrances deepened in pathos by the tidings just arrived, that the Patriarch is with Abraham and Moses, and all the prophets in glory. It is true he has reached the consummation of his faith and hope, but then his family have lost him-his students have lost him. Princeton will see his face no more. The Church will never again appeal to his wisdom and experience. America must number him with her patriots, and heroes, and divines, who have departed-and I, a passing stranger, while I prize the more the privilege of having seen him, feel but the more keenly that the anticipated "passing away" has begun. One leaves a country where admiration, respect, and love have been awakened, with the conviction that we shall see the faces of most of these estimable persons no more; and that while one's own life lasts, the tidings will come ever and anon, that one and another has entered into rest, and left ourselves and the world the poorer.

pride the frame now encircling the portrait of Washington, but once occupied by a portrait of George II., which was hit by a cannon ball in the hall where it hung-Princeton, with its lecture-rooms, and libraries, and, above all, with its row of monuments, over the tombs of departed presidents, amongst whom lie Witherspoon and Edwards Princeton seems to surpass most spots in that young country in its claims to classic veneration. It is a gratification not to be forgotten, to have seen and heard the dwellers there, and to have trodden their familiar pathways; but they have been described many times already.

Colleges multiply rapidly, and seem pretty fairly dispersed over the face of the country. In 1800 there were only twenty-five. Drs Reed and Matheson, in 1835, found ninety-six colleges, and nine thousand and thirty-two students. Dr Baird, in 1851, stated before the Evangelical Alliance, in London, that the number of colleges in the United States amounted to one hundred and twenty. That these suffice for the wants of so wide a dominion, or that they are all equally sound in principle, or successful in teaching, cannot be said; yet the zeal and energy which has raised so many seminaries of learning, some even in districts which are scarcely cleared of the forest, and where the raising of bread requires the first effort, proves that some members of the community feel keenly the intellectual and spiritual wants of the country. It is also very

striking to observe, that however little it was impressed on the minds of some founders of the seminaries, that they ought to be vehicles for conveying Christian views to their alumni, yet nearly the whole of them have so far yielded to the principles which touch, conscience and control thought, as to accept of religious teaching.

It has been remarked, that of the three colleges whose founders openly repudiated revealed truth and Christian principle from their scheme, two of them have already been glad to adopt the opinions they have contemned, as the only method by which they could rule their students, and guide their professors. Shut their eyes as they may against the sight of the Divine economy which is established for the restoration of an apostate world, yet they are made to feel the powers of the world to come, and the workings of a spiritual kingdom within and around them, which they cannot shake off. Cooper's College, in South Carolina, and Jefferson's in Virginia, are of those marked with the stigma of "no religion," yet they have been gradually led to admit religious professors as their teachers, and have thereby found good order and peace much promoted.

It was very pleasing, in looking over the long rows of orphan boys in the Girard College, at Philadelphia, to know that the purpose of the man who left his gold (for he could carry nothing away with him) for their benefit, had been so far frustrated.

His very magnificent marble halls, which, accord