maintain a respectable literary standing, during their collegiate course. Let such by no means attempt to do more than they are able. They may take a year from the midst of their literary course, or after its close.

With regard to the pecuniary prospects of the beneficiary, his ability to procure a library, &c., "the present system of appropriations" appears to be more eligible than one that might seem more liberal. I take for granted (what I presume will be found almost universally true) that before he settles as pastor, his debt will be paid or remitted. In such a case, the habit of economy, previously formed, cannot fail to increase pecuniary ability. But even if a small debt should remain, there seems to be no reason to fear that it will impair his usefulness by depressing his spirits. We may calculate with confidence, that it will soon be discharged, and that in five years, his basket and his store will acknowledge the superiority of the present system.

You express an apprehension, that the employment of beneficiaries in teaching may, at least for a time, prevent those efforts, that would otherwise be made, to furnish better qualified instructors, who shall be entirely devoted to the work. I cannot but indulge a hope that even in this respect, the consequences will not prove injurious. It appears highly probable, that in two ways the teaching beneficiary may conduce to the improvement of other teachers. His pious example, his faithful instructions, his tender exhortations, his ardent prayers, can hardly fail to have a salutary influence upon some others, and induce them to do the same. And when Seminaries shall be opened for the express purpose of qualifying teachers, as will doubtless very soon be the case, it is highly probable that some benefi

ciaries will become members; that they will there exert the same salutary influence, which they are now exerting in our academies and colleges, and thus conduce to prepare their associates to communicate the most important instructions in greater abundance, and in a manner more faithful and more effectual. A TEACHER.

REMARKS UPON WORDSWORTH'S PO

ETRY.

It is conceded, I believe, by all who have read the Poetry of Wordsworth, that he has just conceptions of the use and dignity of Poetry. A position which he strongly maintains is, that Poetry ought to enlighten and instruct. He contends that it is altogether an unworthy object for minds of true poetic compass and depth to be employed in furnishing amusement, or even in communicating indirect instruction. With him, a poet is a sound philosopher. He has accurately studied the laws of thought. His power does not consist simply in a reach of imagination, or in the felicitous selection or invention of imagery. He has ability to follow out a train of associations, and intellectually discern what are conformable to the truth of nature. A book of poetry should furnish substantial nourishment. It ought to enlighten us in our duty, and stimulate us to walk firmly in the path of virtue. Harmonious versification and true taste may please us, but permanent benefit is the legitimate aim of poetry.

Such being the theory of Wordsworth, it is interesting to inquire what he has accomplished. Do his volumes give decided and clear testimony to the worth of his principles?

Without going into any thing like an analysis of his poetry, it is evident, that he has secured an im

portant advantage, by excluding every thing wild and improbable. There is the charm of novelty thrown over his conceptions. There is the impress of original and unfettered power. But it is not a charm gathered from the fields of fiction, or the regions of possibility. It is not an originality breaking loose from the authoritative laws of the human mind. From the real world, material and moral, he has gathered a vast number of facts and illustrations, and submitted them to the processes of a powerful mind, and they have come out, clothed in new and beautiful forms. He had thus no need to go back and reembody any of the marvellous doings of the middle ages; or to select from the extravagant records of an Indian Mythology; or to paint some mysterious being, half demon, half man-employing his knowledge of human nature to wage a merciless warfare against its best affections, and his diabolical strength to tear down the mounds between earth and the prison of despair.

Scott, and Southey, and Byron, were able to invest their poems with an overwhelming interest. For a time, edition after edition was almost literally devoured! They addressed the reader's most awakened curiosity. They seized and occupied his whole being with the exclusiveness of a powerfully written novel. But the interest is passed away. Their popularity is altogether on the wane. Their poems were made to amuse, not to instruct. They did not appeal to the understanding. Wordsworth, on the contrary, wishes for no unnatural excitement. He addresses the entire human soul, as made up of intellect and desire and moral feeling. He throws around him no fictitious interest. He furnishes bone and muscle as well as elegant form, and ruddy cheeks, and auburn locks.

Again, Wordsworth understands well our social nature. On no

theme does he pour forth more delicious melodies. The thousand forms of love and tenderness in maternal assiduity, in delicate sisterly affection, in the confidence of smiling infancy, and all the blest scenes of family happiness seem intimately present to his mind. The poet also feels in his heart what flows from his pen. Some of his most touching descriptions have manifestly their originals in his own house. The sweet smiles of his own daughter just waking up on the shores of being, the mysterious lines on the countenance of her who is the same to him in joy and grief, the crushing of hopes, the wasting sickness of the heart, when fatal disease has entered his window, give to his poetry a reality better than the charm of versification, than the roving of the sweetest fancy. This is another circumstance, which stamps utility on his poetry. It is something more than amusement to see embodied in language, what one has felt, and will feel every day of his earthly existence. Most minds, too little disciplined to catch their own evanescent thoughts can thus leisurely survey what is spread out before them as on bright canvass. Moreover, these feelings are the common property of all who live and breathe. In the joys of literary acquisition, or scientific discovery, a vast majority of mankind cannot at all participate. But let a poet draw from the deep wells of human sympathy,

and multitudes, the degraded and the noble, the tottering with age and the glad youth, will come with their urns and drink and be refreshed. The story of Poor Margaret in the first book of the "Excursion," might be selected as poetry. that speaks to the hearts of all. Is confined to no language. It can be appreciated in all varieties of conditions. Its influence is permanently beneficial, for it is the poetry of truth and nature.

With equal pleasure, does Words

worth dwell upon the supreme God as he has written his name and his glory upon the works of his hands. Every where does this Great Being reign for the happiness of his creation. The path of life is covered over with evidences of his paternal kindness. Even the seeming visitations of his wrath in the devouring tempest, in the blank desolation of winter, and the unpitying ravage of death and the grave, are still the works of Him whose mercy knows no limit. And here it is matter of regret, that this gifted poet, did not enter more fully, than he has, into the ample fields of revelation. If, in standing in these outer courts, he looks with wonder at the majestic temple, which God has reared in his creation, and listens with joy to the sweet music, which now and then steals upon his ear, how must his heart have expanded, if he had ventured into the inner sanctuary, and heard the full chorus of happy voices. This power to describe the facts of natural Theology is derived in a great degree from the Christian Scriptures. These exert a powerful indirect effect upon those poets who are opposed to a careful and thorough perusal of them. It has long been a maxim with very respectable naturalists and poets that the contemplation of nature leads the mind intuitively to God. But why not reverse the process? Why not let the full light from eternity first pour upon the mind-before it fastens upon the wonders of the material creation? In this way the obscurities of nature would be explained, the fact that God has one grand system where ever he has displayed his energy or his grace would be clearly illustrated. The poet's views would enlarge themselves into the illimitable tract of eternity. A freshness and beauty would descend on this earth's landscapes, like those with which the human soul is arrayed, when it first wakes

up from its guilt and danger, and admits Christ into its bosom the hope of glory. God is present almost to its natural vision. Every earthly thing is pervaded by the great Spirit. Such would be the poet's experience, if he would admit the God of the Bible into his imaginations.

But where Wordsworth does employ the facts of revelation, he is guilty of a species of unfairness. The doctrines of salvation ought to be viewed in all their bearings. It is very easy indeed to separate what may be termed intellectual from what is purely religious. To a person of vigorous imagination, the doctrine of the resurrection for instance lays open themes for wide and glorious thoughts. Illustrations and imagery can be gathered up unspoiled by any heathen poet. But view the sublime doctrines of the Bible in all their scriptural connexions and the poet shrinks away. He cannot bear to illustrate the fact, that some shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt. He cannot bear to stand on the heaving ground and behold millions rising from the dust of death" filthy still." He reads not on the doors of the new heavens-there shall enter in nothing that defileth. But what right has a poet to take a partial view of this great subject? What right has Wordsworth to divest it of its unwelcome features? In his "Churchyard among the mountains," the grave is made a quiet resting place for too many who descend into its bosom. Some mysterious refining process is assigned to the tomb, by which those shall be made pure, who on earth are "remembered with deep awe." The immortality, which is brought to light in his poetry is too often a distinct thing from what Paul described the Christian's immortality to be. There are funeral associations embodied in delicious verses. But he has not engraved on them

the deep straight lines of truth. He has not come up to the breadth and spirituality of the themes.

Nevertheless, his poetry will be read. There is thought on every page. No where is there a string of common-place fancies, or stale personifications. The purity and delicacy of all his associations are worthy of the highest commendation, and afford a delightful contrast to several of the distinguished poets of this age. Were his views of man's present duties and coming destinies the same with those of Milton and Cowper, we should find no difficulty in assigning to his works the same certain immortality. A. S. E.

FROM THE COMMON PLACE BOOK OF A DECEASED FRIEND

"We honor God most, when we are most like him in the temper and disposition of mind."-Pythagoras.

This sentiment of the sage of Samos, deserves to be recorded in letters of gold. It proves that he was worthy of the title, the wise man, which he disclaimed for the more modest one, a lover of wisdom. He speaks like a Christian, who all his life time had visited the oracles of truth. Before as well as since the time of Balak, the great inquiry among thinking men has been, wherewith shall I come before the Lord? and there have been almost as many different answers as there have been questions. Yet this heathen gives an answer, which ought to shame many a one, who bears the name of Christian. To be like God is to honour him. There is an accuracy in the account given. It is not required that we should be like him, in what are called his natural attributes, but in his moral perfections. We can be like him in the temper and disposition of our minds. We can love what he loves. How elevated is the character of the good man. He

seems to rise nearly to a level with angels who are eminently like God. "How near he presses on the seraph's wing!

Which is the seraph? which the child of day?

Nothing is more common than to hear persons, and those too of very good character, complain of the state of the weather, and express the wish that it might be otherwise than it is. At one time you will hear them say, 'I wish we might have some rain, or snow ;' at another, I wish it might clear off,' &c. In short there is scarcely any topic so frequently in the mouths of men when they meet, as the state of the weather; and you will generally hear something from them concerning it, which either expresses their positive dissatisfaction with it, or manifests a deplorable insensibility to the goodness exhibited in those great arrangements of providence, which are constantly sustaining us in being, and pouring around us the blessings of life. All this I consider as directly opposed to the great duty of resignation. Every wind that blows, every storm that rages, every cold that freezes, and every warmth that melts and oppresses, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant, is such as necessarily results from the great arrangements of Providence; and it is obviously our duty to be resigned to such dispensations as it is to be resigned, to any thing whatever, which we may consider as a calamity. The general laws which regulate the weather, are on the whole, wonderfully adapted to the wants of the animate creation; and whatever unpleasant irregularity there may be attending the operation of these laws, they ought all to be considered as necessarily attending it, and to be submitted to as an inevitable result of a vast beneficent arrangement for our good. Should it be replied, perhaps some other mode of governing the world, would have

been preferable and more conducive to our good, I reply that this cannot be shown, but on the contrary there are many very important reasons for prefering the mode of administration by general laws, such as the fact that without them, there would be no such thing as a connexion between cause and effect, means and ends; and were this connexion to be suspended, the business of human life would instantly stop, and the whole race become extinct. Besides it should be remembered that this world is a state of moral discipline, and it is fit and important that we should have to contend with trouble and calamity. A person entirely resigned to all the ordinances of heaven, however adverse in appearance, has I may venture to say, advanced far in the duty of self-command, and the duty of noticing in all the phenomena around us, the hand of a great beneficent parent.

"Many things are to be done and abstained from, solely for the sake of habit." -Dr. Paley.

very

If an act is in itself morally wrong, it ought to be abstained from of course, aside from the consideration, that should it become habitual, it would contaminate much the purity of our character. But an act ought to be abstained from, which has an unhappy tendency although it may not in itself be sinful that is, if it tends to prepare the way for forming a bad habit-which leaves an unsalutary moral impression or unhealthy tone of feeling-which looks downwards instead of upwards in the path of virtue-which cherishes a propensity of itself sufficiently liable to gain strength and take deep root.

It has sometimes appeared to me, that one great reason why we are not influenced more by the example of Christ is that we are apt to

exalt him in imagination above the ordinary occurrences and the ten thousand little acts which fill up by far the greater part of every day's account. When engaged in things which seem to be rather trivial matters, we forget to ask ourselves, how would Jesus Christ act if he were now in our situation? and perhaps some would regard it as a profanation of his sacred name, to suffer such an inquiry to obtrude on such occasions, upon our thoughts. But is it so? Is not his religion designed to spread itself over all our conduct-to give colour to our minutest acts, and even to our ordinary thoughts, feelings, and purposes; and is not the example of Christ to be constantly contributing a powerful share towards making up this great moral influence towards transforming us anew, so that we bear the image-of whom? of Christ himself. We are too prone to regard this part, and indeed every part of his religion as designed to operate only while we are passing through the process of conversion, and afterwards only on occasions of importance. Instead of giving an even, beautiful color to the whole web of life, we surround it only with a gaudy fringe and pass here and there across it, some conHow different spicuous streak. from this the character of our Saviour! "His doctrines," says Mrs. More, "were so digested into his life, his instructions were so melted into his practice, that it rendered goodness visible as well as perfect."

Yes, visible throughout-not a speck left to obscure the pure and beautiful brilliancy of his character. His religion was the glow of life and health which animates the countenance and shows an all-pervading vivifying principle within. There is no unequal action here. The fever does not rage in one part of the system, while a chill, cold as death is shivering another part. All is one grand and perfect piece.