think that the day may come to each of us, when we shall have ceased to hope for discovery and for progress; when a thing will seem à priori false to us, simply because it is new; and we shall be saying querulously to the Divine Light which lightens every man who comes into the world, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." Surely such a temper is to be fought against, prayed against, both in ourselves and in the generation in which we live. Surely there is no reason why such a temper should overtake old age. There may be reason enough, “in the nature of things." For that which is of nature is born only to decay and die. But in man there is more than dying nature; there is spirit, and a capability of spiritual and everlasting life.

Let us throw the blame of failure on man, on our own selves, rather than on God, and the perfect law of His universe. At least let us be sure for ourselves, that such an old age as befell Alexandrian society, as befalls many a man nowadays, need not be our lot. Let us be sure that earth shows no fairer sight than the old man, whose wornout brain and nerves make it painful, and perhaps impossible to produce fresh thought himself; but who can yet welcome smilingly and joyfully the fresh thoughts of others; who keeps unwearied his faith in God's government of the universe, in God's continual education of the human race, who hands over without envy and repining the lamp of truth to younger runners than himself, and sits contented by, bidding the new generation God speed along the paths untrodden by him, but seen afar off by faith. Kingsley.

III.

INSTINCT AND EMOTION GUIDES.

INSTINCT A GUIDE.

WHILE in all indifferent matters the inward instinct is the rightful guide, its powers are stimulated by discerning the instincts of others; and this is God's provision for the progress of moral sentiment. Even brute animals have taught men most valuable lessons, and act as daily monitors to us. Their patience and docility, their gratitude and faithfulness, their bravery and self-devotion, are delightful to see; and the same may be said of a hundred virtues, which, like wild flowers, bloom all round us in simple halfinstructed natures. Let not the spiritual man despise the world of common men; for if he is wise, that world is his best outward moral teacher. F. W. Newman.

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies. No man ever followed his genius till it misled

him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity with higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being apprehended. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. Thoreau.

Wherever power of any kind is given there is responsibility attached. Even with respect to impressions of sense, we have a power of preference and a corresponding duty. This power is not actual nor immediate, but only a power of testing and comparing them frequently and carefully, until that which is the more permanent, the more consistently agreeable, be determined. And we find that not only changes of opinion take place in consequence of experience, but that those changes are from variation of opinion to unity of opinion; and that whatever may be the differences of estimate among unpractised or unculti

vated tastes, there will be unity of taste among the experienced.

The duty attached to this power is to bring every sense into that state of cultivation, in which it shall both form the truest conclusions respecting all that is submitted to it, and procure us the greatest amount of pleasure consistent with its due relation to other senses and functions. Which three constituents of perfection in sense, true judgment, maximum sensibility, and right relation to others, are invariably coexistent and involved one by the other, for the true judgment is the result of the high sensibility, and the high sensibility of the right relation.

That then which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the beautiful, is nothing more than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it, by which those which are shallow, false, or peculiar to times and temperaments, may be distinguished from those that are eternal. And this dwelling upon, and fond contemplation of them, (the anschaung of the Germans,) is perhaps as much as was meant by the Greek theoria; and it is indeed a very noble exercise of the souls of men, and one by which they are peculiarly distinguished from the anima of lower creatures, which cannot be proved to have any capacity of contemplation at all, but only a restless vividness of perception and conception. And yet this dwelling upon them comes not up to that which I wish to express by the word theoria, unless it be accompanied by full perception of their being a gift from and manifestation of God, since not until so felt is their essential nature comprehended.

The temper, therefore, by which right taste is formed, is patient it is distrustful of itself, so as to be ready to believe and to try all things, and yet so trustful of itself, that it will neither quit what it has tried, nor take any thing without trying.

Our purity of taste, therefore, is best tested by its universality, for if we can only admire this thing or that, we may be sure that our cause for liking is of a finite or false nature. But if we can perceive beauty in every thing of God's doing, we may argue that we have reached the true perception of its universal laws. Hence, false taste may be known by its fastidiousness, by its demands of pomp, splendor, and unusual combination, by its enjoyment only of particular styles and modes of things, and by its pride also, for it is forever meddling, mending, accumulating, and self-exulting; its eye is always upon itself, and it tests all things around it by the way in which they fit it. But true taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy, lamenting over itself and testing itself by the way that it fits things. And it finds whereof to feed, and whereby to grow.

Let, therefore, the young artist beware of the spirit of choice; it is an insolent spirit at the best, and commonly a base and blind one too, checking all progress and blasting all power, encouraging weaknesses, pampering partialities, and teaching us to look to accidents of nature for the help and the joy which should come from our own hearts.

Ruskin.