he has gradually withdrawn himself from the world, and for the last eight or ten years, has spent the greater part of his time in his library. Latterly he does appear oftener in the social circle; for he has naturally an affable temper, and is withal conscious of his obligations to society. But in the midst of the liveliest company his thoughts are often wandering to their accustomed solitude, so that usually he has but half a mind for the present entertainment. He is so wedded to abstract reflection, and is so little accustomed to be occupied or amused with the objects of the senses, that nothing but metaphysical truths and problems has power to fix his thoughts. He sits in the still light that illumines the dust of his library, amidst the tomes that sleep in solemn repose around him, till he is more a companion of the dead than of the living.

Pascal immured himself in the study of the abstract sciences, but became disgusted with them because he found so few persons with whom he could converse about them. My friend Brownleaf is disgusted, not with his intellectual occupations, that are unsuited to the world, but with the world itself that will not be interested in his occupations. The world usually reciprocates the pity that is bestowed upon it; and if Brownleaf lowers upon the world's frivolities, the world stares at his abstrusities.

From this account of the habits of the man, it will not be wondered at that the topics of conversation he meets with when he comes abroad, have too little of intellect in them to detach him from his favorite subjects. Hence 1 never see him attempt to engage in general conversation but I am on the watch for some mental aberration, or some audible musing that shall astonish the company. As he and I were walking in the piazza of the Congress Hall after tea, and were speaking of the levity which too generally prevails in fashionable VOL. II.-No. VI.

38

life, we met with an acquaintance who introduced us to a party from New-York. We took a seat by a window, and being strangers to one another, the conversation commenced, of course, on common-place topics. Brownleaf attended to a reinark or two by the lady next to him, respecting the season, the company, and the waters, and then, uncon sciously put himself into his usual posture of meditation, while his fair colloquist turned to address another. I, in the mean time, was listening to the opinions of one of the ladies respecting the comparative merits of some paintings which were then exhibiting, when to my amazement Brownleaf resumed our conversation just where it had been broken off by our introduction to the company. "I agree with you," said he, "that their habits of intercourse are far from being worthy of them as claiming to be of the higher order of society, and indeed as rational beings. What employment of mind is there in all their idle entertainments, such as the chess-board or the cardtable; and what are most of their amusements but a plain confession of their inability to entertain each other in any more rational manner. The state of the weather is soon settled— the qualities of a horse, or a hound, or a fashion, are soon discussed--the incidents of an evening are soon talked over;-and then there comes a chasm in the conversation, and the hands are kindly employed to relieve the head. Speech," he continued, in spite of my looks and shakes of the head, "is a gift bestowed on man as possessing an intelligent mind. It is valuable only as reason's handmaid. The employment of this without the other is using the gift as parrots do, and such is talk without intelligence-articulate sounds on parrot tongues. Those ladies, for instance, to whom we were just now introduced"- -I gave him such a look, as startled him into his senses, and suddenly lowering his voice

"what," said he, "am I overheard?" and casting his eyes about him, with deep confusion made atonement for his error.

He was quite as unfortunate on another occasion. The company at the Pavilion was to be entertained, in the evening, by the performance of a celebrated opera singer, and a friend invited Brownleaf to be present. On entering the room, which was full, he noticed Mrs. Proud and her daughters and took a seat by them. The singing had not commenced; so, merely bowing to the ladies as he sat down, he cast his eyes around to survey the assembly. It happened that Mrs. Proud was quite near-sighted. Brownleaf had an impression that one of her senses was defective, but did not reflect which; so directly putting his mouth to her ear, he spoke to her very loud, as though she had been deaf. The eyes of the company, as might be expected, were immediately turned that way. And the nature of the address itself, besides making the lady disagreeably conspicuous, as wanting one of her senses, was calculated to heighten her embarrassment. A fashion prevails at present, towards which Brownleaf entertains a particular antipathy, and which indeed does want the quality of strict modesty. Upon this fashion Brownleaf was remarking rather severely to Mrs. Proud. "Formerly, Mrs. Proud," said he, at the top of his voice, "ladies were accustomed to collect the folds of their dresses behind: they bring them now to the front-an unseemly and preposterous fashion in that respect, but even more reprehensible in another. I mean the nudity into which it thrusts up the shoulders. One would think our belles were dressed for the shower-bath, instead of a public assembly."-It had escaped the notice of the speaker that the daughters of the lady herself were dressed in the very extreme of the fashion which he was reprobating; nor was he at all

aware that, in the silence he had produced, a dozen other fashionable fair ones were reddening at his ungracious homily which was as pertinent to themselves as to the daughters of Mrs. Proud.

It would be a misuse of time to relate all the mistakes of the bookish man. He went off in one of his reveries at the last, his trunk departing in one direction and himself in another,--reciting to himself as he went, these lines of Parnell :

"So part the buzzing, gaudy crowd and

he:

As careless he for them as they for him; He wrapt in wisdom, and they whirled by

whim."

In connection with this history, I am led to reflect on some of the ways in which learning is made a useless possession. I do not speak of its perversion. The world is filled with the productions of ingenious folly and learned error. But I allude to those who, though they cannot be censured for an abuse of their knowledge, are nevertheless chargeable with neglecting to employ it for the good of mankind. They hide it in the earth.

Of such is the man of the bookworm class. He is always acquiring but never imparting. He hoards up learning from a habit of hoarding, and for the sake of hoarding; without regard to the use he may make of the acquisition for the benefit of others. He is very learned-like one of his obsolete tomes; but what is the world the better. The love of knowledge-the noble instinct of an intelligent nature-in him degenerates into a selfish cupidity. Things merely curious, or recondite, are just as valued by him as the most solid and practical learning they are just as useful, for he uses neither to any practical end.

:

In a word, there are misers in knowledge as there are misers in silver and gold. With the one, as with the other, acquisition is the ultimate desire;-the means are pre

posterously made the end. Both experience the unsatisfied thirst of the slave of gain. The one injures his neighbors more while he lives; the other benefits them less by his death; for the hoarded gold is again restored to the world, but the treasured learning is buried with its pos

sessor.

There are others ofeducated men, who fall under the charge of the sin of omission, but in a lower degree. They entertain a just estimate of knowledge as a means of usefulness, and feel a general desire to live not in vain. Yet, somehow or other, life glides away and they accomplish little, compared with what they might do. Their inefficiency is owing to vari

ous causes.

In one it is indolence. It is easier to be passively reading a book than to be writing a treatise. It is easier to wish a good cause success than to see it accomplished. They have abundant preparation for usefulness, and there are objects enough, on which, but for their habitual inertness, they might employ their resources for the good of society. An able essay is wanted for a periodical work; a public libel in a quarterly is to be put to shame; a forcible appeal is to be made to the community; a popular evil is to be exposed, by an array of facts and arguments before the public mind: in a word, there are a thousand objects which are daily demanding talents such as theirs, but they shrink from the effort of meeting them. "They would do it well," it is often said, "if you could get them at it.”

Others are palsied by literary pride. They will do nothing crudely. Whatever they bring before the public must be executed in such a manner as shall be creditable to themselves, as well as merit the thanks of the cause to which the effort is devoted. The world will never be reformed by such men. Their nice and anxious minds are too correct for enthu

siasm, and can never rise to the accomplishment of lofty purposes.

There is another species of intellectual pride which calls itself modesty. It sits down in the back ground, and waits to be sought out, and courted, and put forward into notice.

There is also the pride of originality. Some have such a passion for being ingenious, that they despise any common-place exercise of their gifts. They will affect to set the obscurest subject in nature in a sun light, and will confound the plainest. So if a subject be novel, or strange, or peculiar, no matter whether it be practical. They will impugn for example a theory of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, while they will suffer a heresy to grow rank about them. With them novelty is of more account than utility, and common sense is plagiarism.

Again there is a class of literary men who have never any leisure for the public service because they cannot practise what may be called literary self-denial. There is always some new book of travels, or some fresh periodical, or some other new work just issued from the press, which they think it incumbent on them to read. But of reading as of making many books, there is no end. There are many things of which we must be content to be ignorant, if we would make the most of life.

Among our younger men of letters, there are those who have never completed their foundation. They are acquiring a stock of materials and a maturity of mind which they are to bring into operation by-andby. But the ardor of youth is passing away, and they arrive at middle age without enthusiasm, or the habit of action, to call their unpractised talents forth. This is not an imaginary class of men. I see them on every hand-those who remain inactive as to objects of public benevolence, simply because they neglected to form a habit of action

in early life. They "would not go into the water till they had learned to swim," and they never learned.

Almost all who have done much in the world, either as philanthropists or as professional men, have begun to put forth their efforts at an early period of their lives. They have united action with study, and have supplied their deficiencies in knowledge as enterprise itself created a necessity for information. Look into the histories of our great men.

Finally, it is a misuse of learning, and of the influence which is connected with it, to devote it solely to the purposes of a secular profession. By what precept of the gospel is it, that all the great plans of general benevolence should be devolved on one profession alone, and the others be exempted? What is there in the nature of a Colonization Society, a Temperate Society, or an Education, or Home Missionary Society, which should make the executive labors and responsibilities of originating and sustaining it incumbent on clergymen only, and not upon the men of other professions, though they be equally qual ified by their intelligence and influence, for the task of helping it for ward? But now if a convention of medical men shall favor us with their published opinion that drinking is pernicious to health, if a lawyer shall eulogise Sabbath Schools, or a judge shall uphold the Sabbath, or a States man shall patronise the Bible Society, we think philanthropy is bound to thank them, and we are fain to remember the prophecy which speaks of nursing fathers in Zion. Is this a libel? How much does the profession of law, for example, compared with its numbers, and influence, contribute to the furtherance of the great religious and philanthropic enterprises of the age? What is the weight of influence which it brings, as a profession, to the cause of missions abroad and of religion and morals at home? And with how much

zeal and faithfulness, let me ask by the way, are the pious members of the bench and the bar laboring among their brethren, with a view to bring the profession generally, with all its imposing array of talents and respectability, to a decided alliance with the cause of religion and virtue? The same questions may be repeated in reference to the medical profession.

No wonder that the clerical, of all the professions, should suffer the inroads of dyspepsia. The profes sion is loaded with labors. Every individual in it, who is faithful, has as much as he is able to bear,— while other professions, with individual exceptions, are favored with comparative leisure. Our lawyers sit in their offices in the vacations of courts, our physicians saunter through seasons of health, and our magistrates and statesmen and gentlemen of learned leisure, are glad of a newspaper to beguile away time.

The clerical profession, in its own appropriate duties, is such as made an apostle exclaim, Who is sufficient for these things?-but with the various demands of public benevolence pressing upon it, besides its exhaustions of sympathy and strength, in revivals and multiplied exhortings and teachings, it is bent to the ground with its burthens. I would not diminish those burthens. The cause of the Redeemer and the world requires them. The interests of millions demand them. And that cause and those interests demand all the moral force that can be brought to their aid. O ye lawyers and physicians, ye legislators, and magistrates, and men of all learned occupations, the great battle of the Lord is to be won, and ye lie at ease in your encampments! why bring ye not up your ranks to His help against the mighty?

The world lieth in wickedness around you, while ye sit content within the sphere of a secular profession.

THE SINNER'S INABILITY.

THERE have been many attempts to clear up the question of the sinher's inability. The distinction of natural and moral inability seemed to promise the desired relief from this difficulty. But I observe that many who use this distinction seem hardly to disencumber themselves of the impression that" inability is inability, call it what you will." Some have introduced the idea that the sinner should endeavor to do his duty, as to pray, and the like. This will do as far as it goes, but if he is allowed to rest in his endeavors, and to be his own judge when he has endeavored faithfully enough, there is reason to fear many will pacify themselves by saying they have tried as hard as they can. On this point it ought to be kept in view that a sinner's endeavors to do what God requires are never faithful until they are successful. I will not undertake to make all the distinctions plain in the following extract, especially that between holy endeavors and holy actions. The ex

tract itself may be worth reading, to show the course of men's reasonings and the progress of opinions. It is from a letter of President Finley to Dr. Bellamy, dated Nassau Hall, November 10, 1763.

"If God and Christ do not exhort to

unholy, unconverted endeavors, what None at all. But it is one thing to exright have ministers to do it? Answer. hort to unholy endeavors, and another to exhort unholy persons to endeavor holy actions. To exhort to unholy endeavors as such, is absurd; but to exhort sinners to seek, knock, strive, &c. as God has commanded, is to exhort them to holy, not unholy, endeavors. 'Tis one thing to say, the prayers of the unconverted are sin; and another to say, it is a sin for such to pray. Their ploughing is sin; but it cannot be their sin to plough. An endeavor to pray, is an endeavor to do an holy action; and that endeavor must be as much a duty, as to plough, which is a civil action. God, who does not require unholy actions, yet requires unholy persons to endeavor good actions: therefore such an endeavor is materially holy, and agreeable to the divine perfections to require."

years

have

and the fact that three not produced an American reprint may be identical. The author pronounces oracles, in the only just sense of that word; since. he imbibes the prophetic spirit at the fount of inspiration: whilst the community of readers, involved in the businessdetails of life, have scarcely leisure to ask for or to receive a response. Few like himself,can retire to Cavers, and in the stillness of silence and religion, invoke the supernal wisdom for so long an interval as these abstracted and powerful meditations demand; nor can all with whom the study of them would be congenial