As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystis symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion; and his death. I knew the whole history; but never until then had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so coloured! It was all new; and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be at that moment acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews; the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage We saw the buffet: my soul kindled with a flame of indignation; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.

But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiv ing meekness of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.

It was sometime before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.

The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence, was a quotation from Rousseau: "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!"

I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the itch of passion and enthusiasm, to which the congregation were raised; and then the few moments of portentous, deathlike silence, which reigned throughout the house: the preacher, removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears,) and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, "Socrates died like a philosopher"-then, pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together, with warmth and energy, to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice-" but Jesus Christ-like a God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine. Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence.

If this description give you the impression, that this incomparable minister had any thing of shallow, 'heatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice I have never seen, in any other orator, such a union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude, or an accent, to which he does not seem forced by the sentiment he is expressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from ostentation as a

man can be, yet it is clear, from the train, the style and substance of his thoughts, that he is not only a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and profound erudition. was forcibly struck with a short yet beautiful character, which he drew of your learned and amiable countryman, Sir Robert Boyle: he spoke of him, as if "his noble mind had, even before death, divested herself of all influence from his frail tabernacle of flesh;" and called him, in his peculiarly emphatic and impressive manner, "a pure intelligence: the link between men and angels."

This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A thousand times, as I rode along, I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to imitate his quotation from Rousseau; a thousand times I abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded, that his peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of soul, which nature could give, but which no human being could justly copy. As I recall, at this moment, several of his awfully striking attitudes, the chilling tide, with which my blood begins to pour along my arteries, reminds me of the emotions produced by the first sight of Gray's introductory picture of his Bard.

The humble Man and the proud.—THACHER. COMPARE, then, the proud man with the man of humility, and tell me which is the more dignified being. Pride, like humility, supposes an act of comparison. But the comparison of the proud man is not between himself and the standard of his duty; between what he is and what he ought to be; but between himself and his fellow-men. He looks around him, forgets his own defects and weakresses, infirmities and sins, and because he finds, or imagines he finds, in some respects, a little superiority to his fellow-men-at the greatest it can be but a little-because he, one worm of the dust, believes himself to be somewhat more rich, more learned, more successful than another, he thinks this to be a sufficient ground for swelling with selfcomplacency, and regarding those around him with disdain

and contempt. The humble man, on the contrary, is so full of the thought of the exceeding breadth of the commandments of God, and of that supreme excellence, to which his religion teaches him to aspire; and he so constantly recollects the imperfection of his approaches to it, that every idea of a vain-glorious comparison of himself with his neighbour dies away within him. He can only remember that God is every thing, and that in his august presence all distinctions are lost, and all human beings reduced to the same level. Say, then, my friends; is it not pride, that is so mean, so poor-spirited and low? is it not pride, that is a mark of a little, and narrow, and feeble mind? and is not humility alone the truly noble, the truly generous and sublime quality?

There is this further proof of the superior elevation of the humble man. The man of pride, with all his affected contempt of the world, must evidently estimate it very highly; else, whence so much complacency at the idea of surpassing others? Whence that restless desire of distinction, that passion for theatrical display, which inflames his heart, and occupies his whole attention? Why is it that his strongest motive to good actions is their notoriety, and that he considers every worthy deed as lost, when it is not publicly displayed? It is only because the world and the world's applause are every thing to him; and that he cannot live but on the breath of popular favour. But the humble man, with all his real lowliness, has yet risen above the world. He looks for that honour, which cometh down from on high, and the whispers of worldly praise die away upon his ear. When his thoughts return from the contemplation of the infinite excellence of God, and the future glories of virtue, the objects of this life appear reduced in their importance; in the same way as the landscape around appears little and low to him, whose eye has been long directed to the solemn grandeur and wide magnificence of the starry heavens. I appeal to you, my friends, to decide on the comparative dignity of the characters of the proud and the humble man. . I call on you to say, whether our blessed Master has given to humility too high a rank in the scale of excellence.

The Son.-From "The Idle Man."-RICHArd Dana

THERE is no virtue without a characteristic beauty to make it particularly loved of the good, and to make the bad ashamed of their neglect of it. To do what is right argues superior taste as well as morals; and those, whose practice is evil, feel an inferiority of intellectual power and enjoyment, even where they take no concern for a principle. Doing well has something more in it than the fulfilling of a duty. It is a cause of a just sense of elevation of character; it clears and strengthens the spirits; it gives higher reaches of thought; it widens our benevolence, and makes the current of our peculiar affections swift and deep.

A sacrifice was never yet offered to a principle, that was not made up to us by self-appróval, and the consideration of what our degradation would have been had we done otherwise. Certainly, it is a pleasant and a wise thing. then, to follow what is right, when we only go along with our affections, and take the easy way of the virtuous propensities of our nature.

The world is sensible of these truths, let it act as it may. It is not because of his integrity alone that, it relies on an honest man; but it has more confidence in his judgment and wise conduct in the long run, than in the schemes of those of greater intellect, who go at large without any landmarks of principle. So that virtue seems of a double nature, and to stand oftentimes in the place of what we call talent.

The reasoning, or rather feeling, of the world is all right, for the honest man only falls in with the order of nature, which is grounded in truth, and will endure along with it. And such a hold has a good man upon the world, that, even where he has not been called upon to make a sacrifice to a principle, or to take a stand against wrong, but has merely avoided running into vices, and suffered himself to be borne along by the delightful and virtuous affections of pr vate life, and has found his pleasure in practising the du ties of home, he is looked up to with respect, as well regarded with kindness. We attach certain notions of re