and soothed the feelings of Gertrude. He arose, and was about to retire, but as if suddenly recollecting somewhat that he had forgotten, he turned ere he had reached the door of the library, and said, "Your own feelings, I am sure, Miss Bouverie, require not that I should remind you that silence and reserve must be maintained regarding these holy mysteries which, alas! are understood by so few even of the professing members of our Holy Church. For this reason, and also because its quiet and retirement are favourable to that abstraction of mind needful to our engaging aright in those sacred duties, the early morning is the best time for their performance. At an early hour, therefore, on Friday morning, may I hope that you will meet me in my study." Gertrude bowed, and he retired.

The succeeding days were almost entirely spent by her in the solitude of her apartment, but not in the calm that at first had soothed her spirit, when, in endeavouring to prepare her mind for confession, she had looked back upon her past life. The storms that had wrecked her peace again seemed to awaken around her the anguish that had long lain sealed in the depths of her heart now overflowed it-and passions that she had believed stilled for ever arose in all their power. Conflict after conflict shook the depths of her spirit, till she almost forgot to look for peace, and felt as if all she might hope for on earth was to regain the quiet-cheerless though that quiet had been-that was now so fearfully broken. She sought at last to enchain her thoughts to the present-the past, with all its buried depths, let it lie silent as it so long had been. But when she would have stilled with this thought the tempest that shook her soul, it would not be thus hushed. If confession was the appointed means for receiving the absolution that alone could heal her soul, then was the confession of long buried sins as deeply needed as that of those whose stain of guilt, though more recent, was not perhaps more deep; and too faithfully did memory record the sins of heart that were deeply written on a page of her history,

that had seemed all fair to the world's eye. Too well did she remember the rebellion towards God-the almost hatred towards one who had usurped her place that had made her heart a prison house of misery at a period when her conduct had attracted the admiration of all around her. But to confess these sins to Vernon-to unveil to his eye "the inner chambers" of her heart to reveal to one with whom she mingled in the familiar intercourse of daily life-a portion of her history which she would gladly have hidden for ever from every human eye-it was impossible, it could not, must not be.

It was upon the night of the Wednesday preceding the morning of her appointed meeting with Vernon, that these thoughts filled the mind of the unhappy Gertrude. The midnight hour had long passed, and the castle was hushed in silence. A dreary sense of desolation fell upon her spirit, and she longed to hear one sound of human life, if but to break the spell that bound her. With the last thought, a new element of conflict had awakened within herthat thought was rebellion against the ordinance of God; in admitting it, had she not been guilty of rebellion against God himself? She sunk upon her knees, and long and deep was her spirit's conflict. But it was the last. The sacrifice was complete. The nature God had formed was violatedthe deeply rooted feelings that he had implanted were crushed; and with the calmness of a self-devoted martyr, Gertrude arose.

When she joined the little circle at the breakfast table on the following morning, her brow was calm, and her look still as ever; but an expression lingered on her pale features that told of the storm that had passed over her spirit-that spoke of the self-immolation that alone remained. Vernon had been no unheeding spectator of the ordeal through which Gertrude had passed, but he had wisely suffered the torrent of human feeling to have its way without even the consciousness of his observation to check its flow. When they met upon this morning, he saw that the conflict had

passed; and in the expression of Gertrude's countenance, he read the nature of its termination. But in the faint blush and averted eye with which she met his morning salutation, he read also that the spell of the confessional was already upon her, and that she shrunk from his presence as if the secrets of her heart even now were open to his eye. During the day he withdrew even more than usual from the family circle, and when present with it, his conversation was so perfectly general, yet always directed to subjects interesting to Gertrude, and his attentions to herself were so delicate, yet so unobtrusive, that she felt relieved and grateful. His parting salutation at night was so brief, yet so pastoral, and the words, "the Lord be with you," spoken in a tone so low as to be heard only by her, conveyed a benediction so earnest and feeling, that Gertrude hastened to her room, to give way to the softened emotion that his manner had called forth. Again the still hours of midnight were passed by Gertrude in watching, but her spirit no longer felt the desolation that had weighed so drearily on it before.

Deep and soothing thoughts of the nature of that refuge which God had provided for His children in the guidance and sympathy of the pastors of His Church, blended with the meditations and prayers that occupied the hours of that quiet night. The thought of unveiling the secrets of her heart to a mere human being was almost ab sorbed in that of reposing alike her sin and sorrow in the bosom of one whom, by virtue of his high office, she regarded as a more than mortal guide; and when, at the dawn of morning, she prepared to keep her appointment with Vernon, she did so with the feelings of one about to retire into a sanctuary of refuge, alike from the storms of the world and the storms that desolate the heart.

She found Vernon awaiting her in his study. The curtains had not been withdrawn to admit the early morning light, and the room was still only illuminated by the glow of the fire and the pale rays of a lamp that stood upon an altar-shaped table at its further

extremity. A cushioned hassock was placed in front of a table near the fire, and a chair stood beside it, from which Vernon appeared to have risen as she entered, for he was now pacing the apartment with an expression of what appeared to Gertrude holy abstraction, that at once softened, as he addressed her, into one of the gentlest courtesy.

'Let us engage in prayer, dear Miss Bouverie," he said, "that we may be prepared to engage aright in the solemn duty before us. I would then request the privilege of a little conversation with you before we enter upon its performance. It needs that the spiritual pastor should be acquainted with the previous history of the mind he seeks to guide, before he can form a just estimate of the degree of guilt involved in the errors laid open before him, or direct to the best means for setting the spirit free from their remaining thraldom."

Almost un

Gertrude felt relieved. consciously to herself, the idea had been oppressive to her of disclosing as a part of the holy mystery of confession, that troubled portion of her history, the knowledge of which was needful to enable Vernon to understand the nature of the sin that burdened her spirit in connection with it; and she felt that it would be easier to speak of it in the way of communication to one whom she already looked upon as a friend divinely commissioned to instruct and direct her, than as forming a part of a duty so solemn and awful. They knelt, and after a few moments' brief silence, the deep melody of Vernon's voice breathed forth a prayer so touching, so solemn, so sublime, that Gertrude felt at once soothed and elevated, and rose with the feeling that she had at last reached a sanctuary, from which she wished that it were possible to return no more to the cold blighting world. The quiet of the scene and hour contributed to the feelings of repose that stole over Gertrude's spirit. Vernon drew for her a seat near the fire, and placed himself near her upon that which he had previously occupied. For some time both were silent.

Over the conversation that followed

in the wide compass of their province, the disciple and the instructor find a most pressing preliminary difficulty to secure a starting point whence the more systematic course of instruction and mental discipline may depart on its way through richly productive regions, with the security that those who attempt to follow it, are really going forward and gaining something—a difficulty not diminished, but rather increased in the present crisis of European speculation, and in the attitude of the public mind of this country towards these studies. To substitute for this unfavourable preliminary mental state distinct ideas of the scope and aim of the several Sciences of Reflection, and to associate with each of them a well-adapted nomenclature, I would count an important service to philosophy.

But such a state of preparedness as is implied in the clear and distinct consciousness of its aims, is in one view the issue rather than the outset of a prosperous course of philosophical study; and definitions and finished classifications are the completion and not the commencement of a course in which the student is supposed throughout to be aiming at a position from which he may define and classify his knowledge. It would not be a commencement promising of vigorous and living study, and devotion to these sciences, that you should be required to set down, or even to receive, at the first, definitions and descriptions of the principal things contained in that portion of philosophy denominated "Logic and Metaphysics." One of our most important steps of progress in these sciences may be expected to be the power of making a better classification of them, and of marking their respective limits. Such method and classification, at the commencement of a course of research, have a sedative tendency and effect rather than the reverse. One of the errors animadverted on by Bacon, is the "over early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods; from which time," he adds,

chance be further polished and illustrated, and accommodated for use and practice; but it increaseth no more in bulk and substance.'

Yet there is a medium between entire vagueness on the one hand, and a finished classification and nomenclature on the other, which medium seems the safe position to be occupied by the student and the instructor at the commencement of their work, in a department so very peculiar as ours is, and so far removed from such ascertained, purely positive, and comparatively unchangeable departments of knowledge as the classic languages and the mathematics. There is a medium, I say, between the aimlessness of entire vagueness, and finished definitions or results. We may give descriptions, classifications, and names expressly transitional, or provisional, accompanied with general views of our scope and aim.

On this principle, we must set out, then, with very vague and superficial descriptions and classifications, and we must use these as instruments for the attainment of better results, for it will be found that they are helps needed in our after researches. The future progress of our analysis must indeed explode many of our original classifications, and yet these exploded classifications may have served a useful purpose. They are the scaffolding by means of which we are enabled to build higher. Such is the law of progress in philosophy. It receives illustrations in all the history of social as well as individual advances. The best results of the world's thinkers, given for their use to the thinking men of each age, are a momentum towards still better results. The amount of actual thinking power in any age may be greater or it may be less than in the preceding age. Yet the starting point

is a more advanced one in each succeeding age, and that because each has the benefit of the provisional definitions and classifications of the age that went before it. So is it with the individual in the silent history of his own mental progress, while he has the advantage not merely of the transitional results of his own former studies, but the extra one of the increased develop

The

ment of reflective power generated by such construction of gradually improving results. He has the benefit of two momentums; the world, in general, only one. He has a better starting point, and more power to start. later generations of thinkers have the former help only, but not the latter species of superiority over their predecessors inasmuch as the world's movements may often, for more than a generation or two, be retrograde ones, and the aggregate of thinking power may be actually diminished.

Perhaps the opportunity of this first occasion of our meeting, Gentlemen, cannot be better used than in casting a prospective glance, such as I have indicated, towards what we are to aim at— I mean the kind of truths we want to secure, and the kind of mental changes or progress we expect that you shall realize-in other words, what some of the direct and reflex aims of an academical course of instruction in Logic and Metaphysics ought to be—and that not in the way of giving completed descriptions, but ones avowedly preparatory and inquiring, much more in the spirit of queries than of answers to queries.

DIRECT OR OBJECTIVE AIMS.

The phi

It may be said, then, in a general way, that we have in this class to regard man as a knower, rather than as a doer or spiritual force. We have to consider him as a thinking and understanding being, having Truth for his aim, rather than as an acting being, with Duty for his aim and law. The two views are indeed very nearly related. losophy of knowledge is cognate, and almost intermixed with the philosophy of practice or action-whether individual or social action. For we cannot act without knowledge, and knowledge is itself an act, and is valuable as a means to farther action. They are sufficiently distinct, however, fully to justify the customary association of the Philosophy of Knowledge, with its vast complication of included problems, with one chair of public instruction, and the Philosophy of Practice, with its sublime themes, suggested by the appearance and history of moral and responsible agents upon the stage of

existence, with another and a distinct chair.

The cognate sciences of Logic and Metaphysics-these most comprehensive of all the sciences- -are assumed to exhaust the discussion of the main questions connected with the philosophy of knowledge, especially the limits and certainty of knowledge, and the methods of adding to it; and to be conversant generally with the intelligent and methodical search for truth-truth, whether in regard to God, man, or the world, and truth absolute as distinct from those idol substitutes which language and conventionalism have established in its place.

These cognate sciences, which in their wide embrace thus include, in one sense, all that comes within the compass of the human understanding, which, in their profound spirit of research, seek for the first principles of all that is known, and of the very power of knowing, and which are not satisfied till they have exhausted the theory of knowledge and truth-these sciences, thus entirely vague and aimlessly comprehensive in their most general scope and conception, are put before us in this place in order that we may work in certain defined departments of the boundless field. Let me here notice some of these, assuming meanwhile before this audience many things, the fuller elucidation of which should form part of the after course of instruction.

I. The weakness of human understanding, which cannot intuitivelygrasp at once all the relations of all the objects with which it has to do, and which needs to absorb them into general statements or propositions, out of which they may be developed, as they were collected, by the processes, and according to the laws of thought, and especially of argumentation, has given birth to a special science, whose office it is to treat of the laws of such manipulation (if we may use the word) with propositions according to the general principles of argumentation. To this science the name Logic is sometimes exclusively appropriated, a conventionalism of which I shall not at this stage discuss the propriety, nor the more serious and important question of the possibility of an