be an unworthy temporizing, or a strange mode of reasoning which could allow us to hold back, and leave the bold few alone. For our own poor part, we hope we shall always have the heart and mind to say in behalf of those who now or at any time are boldly and lawfully advancing any real, generous reform, here or elsewhere, we hope we shall always have the heart and mind to say, in public and private, in the pulpit and in the closet, for our own sake and for our children's sake, "God speed them, and God bless them!"

But we must be prudent, considerate, rational, and careful, surely, as well as courageous. If we are not, indeed, our courage will probably be of small avail. We have already said, that abuses, customs, fashions, and prevalent notions must be examined; and we can hardly do this without acquiring thoughtfulness, and a habit of looking at things on all sides. A restless, meddlesome, prying temper, never at ease, and never suffering others to be at ease, is not the best calculated for changing circumstances and effecting improvement. There are some who are fond of busying themselves with the private and domestic concerns of their neighbours; who intrude their advice, and perhaps their embarrassing help, where they are not asked, and are not wanted; who like to get up an excitement, if it is only to have something to do, to show themselves, or to get their names printed. This petty, meddlesome disposition, ought to be discountenanced, as it commonly is. It is very different from the judicious, energetic, brave spirit, which arrays itself against evil circumstances, and alone can resist them with any permanent success.

And finally, the very best rule, as a universally applicable one, for the resistance of evil circumstances, is, the silent and steady opposition to them which each one who pleases may manifest in his own behaviour and life. There are those, singular as it may seem, who are exceedingly sensitive to the extravagances and follies of the times, and declaim much against false notions and absurd fashions, and yet go along with them all, in their own practice, exactly the same as if they were entirely pleased with them. Such conduct as this, is not only no help, but a great hindrance to improvement. We must be reformers and puritans at home. Let a man take care of himself in the first place, and of those over whom he has a natural and just influence in the second

place, and his and their life will of itself be of incalculable benefit to the good cause. If a fashion or custom appears to you a bad one, follow it not, adopt it not, keep it away from your own doors, let it not take a seat by your own hearthstone, and then your own resistance, your own simplicity, your own prudence, must have some influence, and if they should have none, you and yours will be blameless of the great offence, and that surely is something, is everything, to creatures holding themselves accountable to God, and looking for a righteous judgment.

[For the Christian Examiner.]

ART. II. A Chapter of Intellectual Philosophy.

The

Final Cause of the Inequality between our Powers of
Conception and Execution.

THAT discontents and inquietudes make an inseparable part of our present lot, is proverbial. That these discontents and inquietudes are expressly designed to accomplish results magnificently good, and are, therefore, to be regarded as blessings instead of curses, is quite generally overlooked.

One source of disquiet has not, I apprehend, attracted its due share of attention, namely, the disproportion existing between our intelligent and our active nature.

This disproportion is very striking. It fixes a great gulf between our reason, which sees, and our will, which exe

cutes.

It is, too, a universal disproportion. In the wisest and best of men, the power of performance lingers far behind the faculty of perception. Fast and far as they may climb the heights of excellence, not the less above them may they behold

"Alps on Alps, on mountains mountains rise."

The principle holds as well in small things as in great. How earnestly soever we strive to execute our purpose, to clothe our conception in visible form, when it stands up completed before us, we are smitten with disappointment. We do not own the work of our hands to be a fair represen

The philosopher and

tative of the creature of our minds. the poet, the artist and the handicraftsman are alike vexed with their continual failure to give adequate expression to the images their minds had shaped. Nor less has the Christian cause to lament his perpetually coming short of his ideas of duty. "The law of his members wars," and prevails "against the law of his mind, so that the thing, that he would, that he does not."

This peculiarity in our structure, merely in a speculative view, is an interesting fact. But it is, I apprehend, a peculiarity of no small practical consequence.

Let us inquire, then, why, and to what end it is, that we thus know better than we do, - that we conceive better than we execute, that we see better than we accomplish?

The solution of this inquiry is to be sought in a consideration of our nature and destiny. And what are these? Immortal in our nature, our destiny is perpetual growth. But we, on whom presses the weight of a destiny so magnificent, and yet awful, we are, at the outset, simple existences; hardly so much persons, as things. We e see not, we conceive not, we feel not; but we possess the germs of these functions, the capability of seeing, and conceiving, and feeling. The unfolding of these germs, and the developement of this capability, the enlargement of our intelligence and the expansion of our sensibilities, in one word, growth without measure or end, is the one thing, for which our nature was created; the one thing, for which it lives; the one thing, for whose accomplishment all things beside the soul were created as auxiliaries.

The soul's life, then, being perpetual advancement, it demands a perpetually active moving force. In the composition of this moving force many and various elements meet. One of these elements is that peculiarity in our spiritual structure, of which we are speaking. We are so constructed, that our intelligent nature precedes, by a wide interval, our active nature. We conceive better than we execute; we see better than we accomplish.

But this inequality between the two departments of our nature is a spring of disquiet. For our nature, by one of its strongest instincts, covets wholeness, or inward unanimity. No disturbance of this unanimity, no internal dissension can occur, without generating some degree of pain.

There is no stimulant to action more potent than pain. The uneasiness produced by the want of symmetry between our intelligent and our active nature immediately prompts the endeavour to diminish this want, to effect a correspondence between our powers of conception and of execution. And in this process, ever going on, but never to be completed, is found the working out of our destiny, which is progress, growth.

We have a cause, then, and it is a cause most wise and good, why the perceiving reason so towers above the executing will. It is for an end the highest and holiest, and not for pastime to a vacant fancy, that from their birthplace and home, the creative presence of God, ideas of yet unrealized perfection descend to visit the minds of men.

Fixed and radiant before the artist's inward sight there lies an image of unearthly beauty; and laboriously and painfully does he strive to give it, on the canvass or in the marble, an outward existence.

Over the soul of the orator there broods what the prince of orators calls a "something immeasurable and infinite"; and his bosom heaves and his eye kindles with its inspiriting presence.

Coming and going before the poet's eye are visions of ethereal loveliness and grandeur; and with an earnest and sleepless perseverance does he strive to disclose them to others through the magic-glass of "words fitly spoken."

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And before the eye of the aspirant after moral excellence, the genuine desciple of Christ, there float evermore ideas of spotless purity, and self-forgetting benevolence, — of love unshadowed, and uncomplaining patience, of piety that never chills, and holiness without a stain. Turn whithersoever he may, they are still before him, frowning on his unfaithfulness or indolence, smiling approval on each well-aimed endeavour, and beckoning him onward and yet onward.

These are but illustrations of a universal principle. To every thing there is a perfection after its kind, which may continually be approached, but is never fully attained. Whatsoever thing our minds may devise, or our hands find to do, there lies before us, either clearly or dimly, an idea of the perfection of that thing. To bring this idea within the sphere of our will, as well as within the sphere of our vision, -in other words, to effect a closer correspondence between

the acts of our voluntary power of execution, and our halfinvoluntary power of conception; or, in other words still, to lay hold on with the hands as well as with the eye; — this is the secret, and the whole secret, of what we call improvement, or progress.

The thought of the nature and origin of the ideas of which we are speaking, is, to the reflecting, a solemn and yet kindling thought. What are they but rays from the one great central Sun?-gleams visiting the human soul from the one indivisible, far-shining Orb of Perfection? For all light and truth, all beauty and goodness, are but reflections of the divine nature. It is the destination, while it is the sole happiness and glory of the created spirit, to attain a resemblance to its author. Therefore is it planted in a universe, where it is entirely compassed about with God. On this side and that, turn whithersoever it may, there break on its perception glimpses of Him, within whose circling presence it lives. In these glimpses we behold the ideas of which we speak. These ideas proclaim their own design; which is, by degrees, and in separate portions, as befits our nature, to reveal to us the nature and character of our great Original.

In all this, we are, to a great degree, passive. For much of the Divine Being, what He is and what He requires, — we cannot choose but see.

But it is not enough that we see. It remains that we act. To transfer these ideas, from an insulated, barren existence in the understanding, to a station, where they shall overlook, and command, and move, as one, the whole various nature; to plant them in the midst of the affections, and permit the affections to wind round, and be moulded by them, to assign to them the place and dignity of a law, according to which the will shall decide, this is the task given us to do.

The materials, and the implements to be employed in the execution of this task, are the world in which we are, and the life which we live. The innumerable acts, small and great, which we gather up and class under the names of conduct, character, and the like, the whole circle of the arts, including even the lowest of the manual arts, wherein a whole is constructed by the putting together of parts, all these are but different modes of giving outward expression to ideas. They constitute the element in which,