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Let them if they dare! We are all of one mind; are we not Doys?" This speech was followed with loud shouts of approDation. "Well said, BARTON! Well said, AINSLEY! Hear hem dear master! hear them! We're all of one mind. O, come, Sir-come and help us! We will defend you to the ast!" were reiterated from fifty voices. I was affected with this proof of attachment almost to tears, but suppresing my feelings, "Children," said I, "you distress me exremely, and if you persist you will do me a material injury. My friends here, and I, are on the point of settling our misunderstanding on amicable terms, and your interference is ikely to spoil all. Go, and believe me, when I tell you once more, that I am quite safe. Can you really suppose that my own neighbours, with whom I have been acquainted for so many years, from whom I have received so much civility, and who have always, till this occasion, given me credit, I am sure not without reason, for good intentions, should all at once so cruelly change their opinion of me, that my personal safety should be in danger from them? How can you be so silly and childish? Some designing people have misrepresented my motives, and I am glad of an opportunity to explain them. Away with these foolish weapons," added I, smiling. 66 You have got the heart of heroes; but you must not mistake friends for enemies again."

I spoke this with a chearful and unconstrained voice, and it produced on all parties the effect I wished. The boys returned to their play. Some of the most violent of my accusers went home with their children, half ashamed of themselves, but for the sake of consistency, muttering something about never again entering the school-door, and the rest accompanied me to the schoolhouse, where I fully detailed to them my plan and object, and convinced them that the experiment had already been tried in various places with suc

cess.

I assured them, at the same time, that if, on trial, the scheme did not appear to succeed, I should certainly not persist in it, my only motive being the advantage of my scholars. The greater part of those who were present confessed themselves satisfied with the explanation I gave them, and all of them were pleased, I believe, with the desire I discovered and really felt to conciliate their favour. Besides, as I shewed no disposition to temporize, but, though not tenacious of lesser matters on any subject which I thought of importance, maintained my opinion with a mild yet steady firmness, they were convinced that I had no wish to deceive, and that I acted on principles which I was not ashamed to avow. I have always thought that an open, candid, and intrepid adherence to the truth, under all circumstances, is, even in a

worldly

worldly point of view, the soundest policy; and in the present instance I was not mistaken. By the exercise of this principle, accompanied with a cautious guard over my temper, and the unwearied exertion of prudence and forbearance, I suc ceeded in quelling a formidable opposition, which threatened to put a stop, at their very commencement, to improvements that have since been of such essential benefit to the children under my care. The system I have, on mature deliberation, adopted, is, in many respects, different from that recommended by Mr. BELL or Mr. LANCASTER, as it was necessary to accommodate it to the circumstances of a parochial school; I am happy to say, however, that it has fully answered my expectations, and that there is scarcely a single individual in the parish, JOHN WILSON excepted, who does not now acknow. ledge its superiority to my former method. I do not enter into particulars, as I have already detailed, at some length, the plan put in practice by my wife before our marriage, on which mine was founded; a plan which she has since followed with great success in her new female school. In what I have said on the subject, I shall probably be accused of egotism and vanity, and I am certainly not the proper judge to decide how far I may or may not be free from these failings; but as my chief object has really been not to exhibit myself, but to afford useful hints to persons in my situation, I shall rest satisfied with the consciousness of good intentions, leaving to others to determine the difference between an ostentatious display of selfcomplacency, and an honest unreserved avowal of virtuous principles and feelings.

The Book of Nature laid Open.

(Concluded from p. 563.)

"WHAT THEN AM I—amidst applauding worlds 2"

REFLECTIONS ON MYSELF.

I CONCLUDED the subject of my last paper with the exclamation of the Psalmist-"What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?" and I would begin the present by answering for myself, in the same devout and inspired language: "I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE." Yes, notwithstanding the great disparity that sinks him into nothing and littleness itself, whe put in comparison with those amazing orbs, and worlds be yond worlds, which I have just been considering, the body of

an is a most curious piece of mechanism; and were it not at my limits are more exhausted than my subject, I could ere enter upon the delightful theme, and long expatiate on the Vonders of the little World-MAN. Circumstanced as I now m, I must, however, forbear this gratification, by briefly stat g, that

THE WONDERS OF THE HUMAN BODY

re such, whether we consider the composition of its parts, eir suitable structure, their convenient situation, the various ses to which they are adopted and may be applied, or, the eautiful symmetry and harmony of the whole, that we cannot eflect upon them for a moment without a mixture of astonishent, admiration, and the most heartfelt gratitude. To intance only what we discover of the wisdom and goodness of he Deity in the vertebræ of the human neck and back-bone: I challenge any man," says Dr. PALEY, “to produce in the ints and pivots of the most complicated, or the most flexible achine that ever was contrived, a construction more artifi ial, or more evidently artificial, than that which is seen in the ertebræ of the human neck;" and again, "Bespeak of a workan a piece of mechanism, which shall comprise all these urposes, (i. e. the various difficult, and almost inconsistent ffices which are executed by the back-bone or spine,) and let im set about to contrive it: let him try his skill upon it: et him feel the difficulty of accomplishing the task, before he be told how the same thing is done in the animal frame. Nohing will enable him to judge so well of the wisdom which as been employed; nothing will dispose him to think of it so ruly." In the structure and conformation of his material rame, no more, however, can be said of the body of man, than may be advanced respecting the different ramifications of nimated nature. The bodies of all the individual species are visely formed, and wonderfully adapted to their respective habits and pursuits;-the wisdom of the Almighty is not nore conspicuous in the spine of the human body than it is in the vertebræ of the serpent; and the legs of a man are not better accommodated to his motion, than are the vermicular rings of a worm, to enable it to draw itself forward.

THE SOUL

8 the great enobling principle that chiefly distinguishes man from the beasts that perish. Man has a SOUL as well as a body, and it is this immaterial and thinking part, which is possessed with the powers of judging, invention, and memory, and capable of knowing, obeying, imitating, and praising its great Creator, that chiefly distinguishes him from the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea.-It is

this

this spark of Divinity that unites the earthly to the heavenly na ture, and constitutes MAN the lord of the inferior creation, the connecting link that unites it to superior intelligences.

But what, above all things, renders the Soul of man infinitely valuable and deserving of his most serious concern, is that IMMORTALITY, which, although it has been more clearly brought to light by the preaching of the gospel, is nevertheless deducible, to a certain degree, from some of the sublime pages of the Book of Nature.

We all know that we are to DIE, and the many vexations and crosses, troubles and losses, pains, afflictions and diseases, which we here experience, we have reason to believe, are wisely and benevolently sent by an indulgent providence to prepare us for the change. But when death arrives,-sensation fails, and the stiff inactive body is stretched on the silent bier,

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Dream we "that lustre of the moral world,"

that thinking, immaterial part in the composition of man, goes out in darkness."-Is it possible to conceive, that, while not an atom of the earthly tabernacle can possibly be lost in suffering its decomposition in the grave, or in any other situa tion undergoing the process which reduces it to its first principles-the light of the soul shall be utterly annihilated, and that lamp of the Lord be forever extinguished.

To reason from analogy, and what we have seen of the works of the Creator, have we not rather reason to conclude, that the soul here, is, as it were, in a state of embryo, or preparation for another and a future world, where its feeble powers shall be ripened into action, and the glorious studies of its Maker's works here begun, shall be perfected and com pleted. "How," says the pious and judicious ADDISON, "can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new im provements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing al most as soon as it is created? Are such abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of: and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her facul ties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a think ing being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a fer

discoveri

discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries? The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full neasure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, esablish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of is nature before he is hurried off the stage. Would an ininitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive ntelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? Capacities that are not to be gratified? How CAN WE FIND THAT WISDOM,

WHICH SHINES THROUGH ALL HIS WORKS IN THE FORMATION OF MAN, WITHOUT LOOKING ON THIS WORLD AS ONLY A NURSERY FOR THE NEXT, and believing, that the several generations of rational creatures which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive their first rudiments of ex◄ istence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity?”

It is true, that if nature is left to herself, doubts and fears will sometimes spring up in the mind of man, and those transporting views that arise from a belief of the immortality of the soul be at times darkened and overclouded; but what else can be expected in an imperfect state like this, where we see but darkly as through a glass.

From what we do see we have reason to conclude, that all things are ordered in the best manner possible; and it is no doubt equally necessary, that the more substantial joys of a future life should be veiled from our eyes in this world, as it is that the glory of the sun should be concealed below the horizon, and the atmosphere enveloped in the shades of night, in those intervening seasons, when deep sleep falleth upon mankind, because man stands in need of repose. "I remember, (says St. PIERRE,) that when I arrived in France, in a ship which was returning from the Indies, as soon as the sailors' perfectly distinguished the land of their native country, they became almost entirely incapable of attending to the ship. Some fixed their eyes upon it, incapable of turning them away; others put on their best clothes as if they were immediately to disembark: there were some who stood talking to themselves; and others wept. As we approached, the confusion of their senses increased. Having been absent during several years they admired incessantly the verdure of the hills, the foliage of the trees, and even the rocks of the shore, covered with sea-weeds and mosses; as if every object was new to them. The spires of the villages in which they were

VOL. II.

DDD

born,

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