everywhere presenting us with, a profound trait and exact transcript of human nature. 66 - I have read somewhere (is it not in one of our Essayists? the Tatler perhaps, but I am not sure), - of one who was so delighted to bring about reconciliations, that he used to make no scruple of robbing Truth to enrich Charity. If he found two neighbours estranged, and, as usual, sulky, he would go to them separately, and expatiate with mendacious unction on all the kind things which each had said of the other; how profoundly each yearned for reconciliation, if he could but think the other would accept his advances! "I am so grieved," he would say to one, "to hear that you and Mr. - have quarrelled. I should never have thought it to hear what he was saying of you the other day; what respect he felt for you, and how much he loved you!" "If I thought so of course would be the reply to this flattery; "I am sure it was a very foolish misunderstanding; I dare say it was more my own fault than his - I wish you would tell him so." Back, of course, the loving liar goes to the first, and declares how much his enemy mourns over the quarrel, and what very handsome things he has said. Their reconciliation, after such reciprocal compliments, becomes an easy task. Truly may it be said in this case that charity 66 never faileth." Your little niece is quite well, and thanks you for the pretty book. She is now six, and often amuses me by her naïve remarks. I was endeavouring, the other day, like a wise moral instructor, to inculcate, from the sage cat who sat on a chair washing herself with utmost diligence, a lesson of cleanliness ; not that Mary particularly needs it, but out of the superfluity of superior wisdom, anxious to employ any incident as a handle for a little moral prosing. "Look at the cat, Mary," said I ; see how diligent she is to make herself look clean and handsome this morning." But the little puss-the human puss, I mean-taught me that parabolical instruction sometimes halts, and that everything may be laid hold of by "two handles." "I don't think it is so very clean of her," said she "to lick her own feet and then rub them over her face!" 66 She has already decided to her perfect satisfaction the subtle question of an immaterial principle in animals,-which has divided so many philosophers; for when I asked her whether the cat had a "soul," she replied with great gravity" The cat has a mind, but she has not got a soul." So that, you see, she promises to be a great philosopher by the time she is out of her teens. Enclosed, I send young Tom a few lines, as you wished. Be pleased to expand a little those last hints about the use of "Yes," and "No ; - for, credit me, I fear the lad's gentleness of disposition and bashfulness of tongue more than anything else. Now these are in themselves, and rightly managed, admirable things; and it is dismal beyond expression that they should be used as "handles" whereby the devil may the better catch hold of the soul. It is to arrest a bird by his wings; to imprison him by the very things that should enable him to soar upwards toward heaven. The litigious gentleman you inquire after, has lost his cause after a long trial. The costs are considerable. He will not carry the matter further. He is something like the Jew in the reign of King John, from whom that tyrant demanded ten thousand marks, and for refusing to pay, condemned him to lose a tooth a day till he complied. The usurer held out till he had lost seven teeth, and then gave in. As an old author remarks, if he had given in at once, he would have had his money bags empty, but his jaws full, and if he had persevered, he might have had his money bags full, though his jaws were empty. As it was, both jaws and money bags were empty alike. It is much the same with Mr. S. You are now fifteen have been inducted into a tail coat and are about to "enter on life," as your father expresses it; and so he wants me to give you a little advice. He evidently feels in a great fright about you, as most fathers do when their sons arrive at your age. And I fear I must add, that the generality of them seldom feel any fright till then. They seem to think that their lads, till they summon them into the countinghouse, or determine on their profession, are exclusively the mother's care; and provided she looks after them in childhood. keeps their pinafores clean sends for the doctor if they are ailing— teaches them their catechism on Sunday, and despatches them with a correct inventory of their linen to school, the generality of fathers trouble themselves but little about the matter. When their son's character is really formed to all intents and purposes nay, often so set that nothing can alter it, then these wise fathers begin to think what they are to do towards forming it, and, for the first time in their life, awake to their responsibility. But, I find I am beginning to lecture fathers rather than children; and, to speak truth, I should be guilty of a double error if I were to go on in this strain: for your father is not one of these fathers, and if he were, it is you, not he, whom I am called upon to address. Yes, my boy, he has done his duty, no less than your mother. Your nurture has been careful throughout. Still he is evidently in no little perturbation about you; not that he has observed anything wrong, or that gives him cause to doubt you, - he assures me of the contrary; but because he knows, my dear youth, what you know not — the dangers which meet every one who for the first time leaves the nest, the father's eye, the mother's wing; because he knows all the perils of a flight into this wide bleak the hawks in the air and the nets and the gins on the world earth. Well, I can but repeat what you have already been taught, till experience gives it a deeper meaning, and impresses it as no other teaching can,- that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and the "love of the Lord" is the consummation of it. And if you have but these, as taught and exemplified to us by that gracious Saviour who came to make known to us the Father, and to lead us to Him, you are safe enough. Let the love and the fear of God be as wings to your soul; and then, to recur to the image which I used just now, you are safe from each " snare of the fowler," and from all the "powers of the air." And remember where the secret of all spiritual force to cope with the world and its temptations lies; "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength-mount up as on eagles' wings." They shall dwell rather above the earth than upon it - alight rather than abide here soar, when they please, into mid heaven, and at last take their flight into heaven itself. How happy for you, if you early make choice of the "better part which will not be taken from you!" To think that at fifteen you will have secured the felicity of the two worlds! Yes, the felicity even of this, as to all that most essentially constitutes it; for "with a conscience void of offence towards God and man," and in the hope of a better world when this has passed away, you will have within, however the tempest may bluster, and however dark may be the night without, the elements of a perpetual content; you will only have to step within yourself, to find the fire bright, and the hearth swept, and all the peaceful enjoyments of an inviolable home. On the other hand, if you go wrong, it will be a tremendous aggravation of all your sorrows, that from childhood you knew the "better way," and would not walk in it; that you set out with your face to the "heavenly city," yet turned your back on its golden pinnacles, and marched obstinately into the land of shadows. The tears of repentance are ever bitter;-yours, if they ever come when an evil heart has perverted knowledge and seared conscience, will be tears of molten lead! But I will "hope better things" of you. May you never spend youth in that worst of speculations laying up sorrows for age. As to practical rules of life, in your intercourse with the world, you know, like all the rest of us, more than enough to keep you straight, if you do but practise them. But if I may venture to drop a hint or two, I should, from what I have perceived of a certain tendency to bashful irresolution, lecture you against that. Believe me, it is a most dangerous quality in youth, for the devil is an impudent fellow, and he wins a thousand more by false shame than he does by finding them shameless. It has been said, and well said, that the great lesson to be taught youth is how to say "No;" it is equally important to know how to say "Yes." If when some tempter says of something he ridicules, but which you hold sacred or serious, Surely you do not believe in that "Yes, I do ;" and if, 66 nonsense," you have the boldness to say, -- when he says in the equally cajoling way, "Come, you will go with us now, I know,” you can answer firmly, "No," when conscience bids; in short, if you learn when and how to say "Yes" and "No," you will not only have learned one of the most important lessons of life, but will have set up about you such a sturdy prickly quickset hedge against temptations that hardly one of the devil's imps will think it worth while to scratch himself by trying to scramble through. Ever your affectionate uncle, |