power that expands illimitably to the illimitable necessities of man; weeps with his weepings, and rejoices with his rejoi cings; crowns his best triumphs, and becomes the rainbow of hope amid his bitterest depressions; cools the fever of inordinate excitement, spiritualizes his worldliness, consecrates his endeavors, and immerses him in the threefold baptism which all true soldiers of Christ require -the baptism of enthusiasm, reason, and religion. Vague yearnings of soul fail not to the gifted youth, as he grows up a predestined hero: dreaming fancies, like gorgeous clouds, hang around him, as the curtains of existence slowly rise, in commingled splendor and gloom. Bright visions greet him, ever and anon, like star-formed faces peering between sombre clouds, and the auroral light of intense love gilds the horizon of auspicious day, while the music of heavenly song is on his path. And so he walks, - as was said of Burns, "In glory and in joy, Behind his plough, upon the mountain side!" 66 It has Hunger But "the world knows nothing of its greatest men." ever shown but small favor to the most deserving. and nakedness, perils and reviling, the prison, the cross, the poison-chalice, have, in most times and countries, been the market price it has offered for Wisdom, the welcome with which it has greeted those who have come to enlighten and purify it. Homer and Socrates, and the Christian apostles, belong to old days; but the world's Martyrology was not completed with these. Roger Bacon and Galileo languish in priestly dungeons. Tasso pines in the cell of a madhouse; Camoens dies begging on the streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so "persecuted they the prophets," not in Judea only, but in all places where men have been. But the gold that is refined in the hottest furnace comes out the purest; and, as Jean Paul said, "the canarybird sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage." The Scotch peasant, the British laborer, and American slave, have a painful, but we hope not long, road yet to travel before they arrive at what the soul calls liberty, and which it is the highest crime to impede or destroy. Too many laws and customs, now in full force, have for their whole tendency to pamper the pride and feed the luxuries of the born-great, while they check the aspirations and depress the hopes of the bornlittle; and, as this state of things is in direct hostility with the spirit of Christianity, we cannot believe that a just God will permit such systems long to endure. The spirit of heavenly freedom, like the poetry of earth, never dies; its light is growing brighter, and its spreadings wider, each day; and speedily shall each cottage be reached, and each troubled spirit be filled with the radiant light, the invincible power, the austere charms, and immortal peace, of celestial virtue. In the obscurest walks of life, as in the most prominent, true religion will then develop its legitimate influence and worth, acting upon every mind as Nature when she forms a flower, unfolding the whole system of the plant at the same time, and breathing life and beauty on every leaf. Sectarian creeds and partial systems actuate only fragmentary natures, leaving the best faculties in worse than useless repose, like palsied limbs; while to Christianity, as a whole, in its primitive purity and power, belongs the glorious prerogative of eliciting each vital principle of the soul, giving appropriate exercise to every function, proportion to every part, and to the harmonious whole a happy reward; thus animating its subject when most depressed, maturing all his powers with the most salutary discipline, and bringing him, in the end, to the exalted condition of "a perfect man in Christ Jesus." It is this religion which opens to the obscurest devotee the prospect of unbounded progression and improvement; inspirits him to enter on a career of emulation with angels; to despair of nothing, but to hope for every thing requisite to promote the moral advancement of the world; to stop at no point short of universal liberty and perfect holiness; to toil for these results without ceasing, and to invoke, in every struggle, the almighty energies of God. That which is most needed amongst the youth of our age is the culture of a humanizing spirit, which would refine the feelings, call forth the affections, purify and expand the reflective faculties, and which, ever aiming toward true catholicity of sentiment, of perception, and aspiration, would evolve the good from the husk of error and sin, would transmute antipathy into affection, and evil into excellence, would teach men to scan, not so much the transient and repulsive in each other, as the unchangeable and praiseworthy, which is the glory of their common nature, and which makes them one with their Father in heaven. It is kindness that we want, and not coërcion; substantial support, and not hypocritical homilies. The heart must have a prop without as well as within, on which to lean, or it will fall and break. O, how sad and crushing it is to the young heart thirsting for truth, to be mocked with empty traditions and frigid advice, which tell nothing to, and nothing of, the mystery within that burns for utterance, sympathy, and solution! arrogant dogmatizers, who set up antiquated mummies, skeletons of by-gone barbarism, as their idolatrous standards, and teach youth that their damnation is certain to result if they do not implicitly adore. But the greatest and best messengers from God to man, who reveal God to man, and man to himself, who elucidate the universe, as a divine language to humanity, down to its most desponding sons, teaching each of our brethren to address his Maker in the fervor, fulness, and sincerity of his heart, without foolish formalities inspired by craft or fear,not trained after this manner. They are the greatest, wisest, and best teachers, because the Bible is their only creed, the Spirit of God and the universe their only inspiration, and Jesus Christ their only master; therefore are they the most truthful, instructive, and free. The predominant feeling of their bosom is that of perfection, aspirations after something sublimer and more beautiful than our gross physical perceptions can ever present. Beyond the brightest, they would soar to a brighter; beyond the grandest, to a grander; beyond the best that we are permitted to attain beneath the skies, to a better more glo are riously beaming beyond. All external glory waxes dim, when compared to the radiant forms that burst brightly on the imagination of such, and perpetually purify, while they inflame, the heart. When a brave-hearted and noble-minded youth appears on the public stage, stained not by the prevalent vices of the age, and yearning with earnest desire to consecrate his faculties to the benefit of his race, his country, and his God, the probability of distinguished success will depend mainly, whether conventional forms have a firm hold upon his nature, and whether he have moral force enough to shatter and escape from the base trammels they impose. No youth ever becomes a man fully developed in head and heart, till he feels most deeply and constantly that the universe exists as much for every other human creature as for himself, and that every such fellowmortal exists in order that he may freely receive and enjoy every good and perfect gift that the Maker of the universe can confer. Feeling and knowing this, the exemplary Christian will be most studious to seek out and encourage the most timid and needy, knowing that in this consists the greatest bliss and best reward. "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives We have said that Christianity was proudly contemned when most pure, and is adapted to encourage the deserving when most depressed. We remark, Thirdly, it patronizes all aspirations that are both free and grand. He whose own moral powers are most divinely cultivated is always the most kind and tolerant towards all mankind. He will gladly hail the fond hopes of the human spirit, its most daring enterprise, the bold and illimitable navigation into the unknown regions of truth; he will cheer on the Argonauts of humanity who boldly put to sea beyond the pillars of Hercules, and who already seem to discover rising before them the Fortunate Islands of the future. Through the gathering tempests that lower on the present view, they behold a better era dawning, which shall bring a perfect regeneration of popular ideas, a full development of Christian civilization, and the universal establishment of truth republican and omnipotent. These are the brave and beneficent citizens of the time to come, who prove the solidity of their faith and the sincerity of their zeal by most industriously toiling to promote present good. It is thus: "They prove unto themselves that nought but God Moral perfection, by its vital energy and symmetrical proportions, always kindles the most fervid desires in the heart, and makes the most beautiful as well as sublime impressions on the mind. Introduced to the soul through a pure medium, it produces, in the greatest degree and most salutary mode, an elevating, liberating, and purifying effect. It elicits and fortifies in the popular heart that nobler sense latent in all which is adapted to the perception of divine things; and does this, not by a formal, didactic process, but by fostering a spontaneous worship of the beautiful and good, through that life-giving, inspiring influence which invariably attends the labors of him who exercises all his better faculties for the best interest of all his fellow-men. He bends his ear with fraternal solicitude to hear the melody of free spirits every where overflowing with irrepressible joys, like birds" singing of summer in full-throated ease." These are the workmen for building up eternal things. They are of divine origin, serve a divine law, fulfil a divine mission, and lead to divinely-ordained results. Their piety is a living and loving essence, which assuredly stands higher than mere ceremonial worship. It is that adoration of God as the merciful Father of a common race, the Christian faith, which makes Jesus its own, in a fuller, deeper, more consolatory sense, as the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, the Intercessor on behalf of the most wretched and obscure, than |