tice and Mercy kiss each other; and all these and whatsoever pieces else the crack't glasses of our Reasons may sometime link Divine and Intelligible Being into, are fast knit up together in the invincible bonds of Eternity. Dr. John Smith.

You speak with disgust of many vices with reference to their consequences, and ask my opinion thereupon. I acknowledge that I neither like nor approve those views which place all morality in particular virtues, which are set in opposition to certain vices. I cannot say which I most abhor among those which may be ranked under the class of pride, avarice, waste, or licentiousness; that depends on circumstances, for each may be worst according to the way in which it shows itself. I do not form my judgment of men, therefore, upon their overt acts, but upon the disposition which is the foundation of all thoughts, designs and actions, and upon the entire frame of the mind and temper. Whether these are tuned in accordance with or in opposition to duty, is the only thing that I think about. If two or three men have, in an equal degree, a mean selfish character, it matters not to me in what vice these ill qualities show themselves. One or another may be more hurtful or inconvenient, but all are equally bad and despicable. And thus it is with virtues. We may find a person who does not fall into any open immoralities, and practises much that is good; and another who, through a high spirit or a hot temper, may fall into some faults; yet if this last-which is very possible,

should have a nobler and loftier character, I should prefer him. But this character depends on two things; first, on the ideal principles upon and through which a man becomes good; and secondly, upon the strength of will by which he will make these ideas available against the license and passions of nature. William Von Humboldt.

Let us not value ourselves upon being on this or that side of the severing line, especially in externals or small matters. Though I cannot sincerely be of this or that way, but I must think myself in the right and others in the wrong that differ from me, yet I ought to consider this is but a small minute thing, a point compared with the vast orb of knowables, and of things needful and that ought to be known. Nor let us wonder that we differ, or feel that a wrong is done us if our judgment be not made the standard and measure to another man's. How secret and latent are the little springs that move our own mind this way or that; and what bars (which perhaps he discerns not himself) may obstruct and shut up towards us another man's. How difficult it is to speak even to another man's understanding. Speech is too penurious, not expressive enough. Nature and our present state have in some respects left us open to God only, and made us inaccessible to one another. Why then should it be strange to me, that I cannot convey my thought into another's mind.

Moreover there is, besides understanding and judgment, and diverse from that heavenly gift which in the Scrip

tures is called grace, such a thing as gust and relish belonging to the mind of man, and this is as unaccountable and as various as the relishes and disgusts of sense.

It can neither be universally said it is a better judgment or more grace that determines men the one way or the other; but somewhat in the temper of their minds distinct from both, a mental taste, the acts whereof are relishing or disrelishing, liking or disliking; and this hath no more of mystery in it, than that there is such a thing in our natures, as complacency or displacency as to the objects of the mind.

And it is in vain to say, who shall be judge? for every man will at length judge of his own notions for himself, and cannot help it for no man's judgment (or relish of things which influences his judgment though he know it not) is at the command of his will; and much less of another man's. John Howe.

Every one must think in his own way to arrive at truth. But he ought to keep himself in hand; we are too good for pure instinct. Goethe.

That part of every impression which arises in us, but not necessarily in others on the same occasion, is purely subjective and personal. This pre-established harmony and correspondence between different persons and different traits of character gives a glow to life, and secures to those who need them a warmer sympathy and compassion and aid than they are always, strictly judging, entitled to.

It binds different characters together by the most unexpected ties. Indeed it is the polar force to which society owes its form and strength.

We have a right to regard this mental taste-we try in vain to divide our time equally according to the merit we judge to be in our companions. This mental taste and the love which springs from it will have its way—we are untrue to love if we disregard it.

Our remedy lies not in forcibly diverting the love we now have, but in doubling our store by considering the character and needs of those to whom we are indifferent. We are drawn to those who seem to us lovely and noble, and sometimes held to others less attractive by infinite kindnesses. But these kindnesses have an excellent and lovely root which we need only to recognize to love.

The danger is that sentiment will chill homely affection, that the gratification of the taste will crowd out the exercise of the feelings, that the time and then the heart will be given to what pleases and never annoys.

Let him then who is happily endowed with lively tastes remember that the peculiar zest they give belongs to this world alone, and is nothing compared with the great permanent distinctions which will remain to us throughout eternity.

"There is," says a proverb, "no disputing tastes." It is far otherwise with Taste, another word for sound and cultivated sense, judgment, and perception of fitness. This

is a most legitimate, instructive, and fertile subject for useful discussion and conclusive argumentation. E. L. Garbett.

While I am ready to adopt any well-grounded opinion, my inmost soul revolts against receiving the judgment of others respecting persons; and whenever I have done so I have bitterly repented of it. Niebuhr.

No doubt we should regard others objectively as they absolutely are; but a subjective suitability adds variety and zest. The finer we are, the more true and well based is the perception, and the more exquisite and less dangerous is the subjective feeling. There is a limit to the proportion of these two elements which a sound mind cannot pass. The closer the tie, the greater the claim of the subjective to be regarded-as in friendship and love. Sometimes we feel as if we could make life tenfold richer by increasing our subjectivity. What worlds of enjoyment may hang on the prisoner's flower or Esmeralda's shoe. But the common sense of others revolts, if we pass the limit of emotion which each thing has a right to excite in us; and they by a natural reaction lose their rightful enjoyment of what over-delights us.

In manners the subjective and objective should be precisely balanced. If a man abandons himself to the object, he will want dignity.-If he feels himself too much, he will want modesty, pliancy, grace, and a nice adaptation.

To live in separate parts of the nature by turns, proves