reason's quiet intimacy with spiritual truths. Such morality is like mill-work, which goes on steadily, because formed to work when set in motion. Man, however, has a soul; and it requires exercise as well as his muscles; but without leisure for thought, and for the use of brain and nerves, for other purposes than those of toil, toil, toil, he grows wild at heart, like a savage driven, by his inhuman position, to grub roots for his life all day long. Exhaustion is a perfect sedative, and wisely is it so ordered by our Maker; for our wills, as regards the body, had better be suspended when the body is unfit for exercise. When there is no enjoyment in thinking, there is no motive for thought; and therefore we may be sure to find ignorance, vice, and misery connected with excess of labor, whether in town or in country, because sufficient food is not more needful than sufficient rest for the maintenance of good feeling. As a starved body can not be called into exercise without madness, so neither can a starved soul; and it requires something more than philosophy to enable a man contentedly to suffer any want. The practical end of the matter is this. we should show charity and forbearance toward each other up to the full extent of the Christian law, if we would improve others or enjoy ourselves. Every one, moreover, who loves life truly, and wishes to keep his soul fresh and fair for departure, should maintain an intimacy between his heart and all nature, and by all means avoid excessive labor, monotony, and fixedness. Let him dwell among the hills, with trees, and flowers, and streams, and singing birds, that if dark thoughts come over him in the twilight, he may quietly turn to the stars and to his Bible. Should any trouble disturb the heavenward will, go forth into the freedom of light and air, and feel the Infinite about you, my reader! Or if disease or decrepitude, or painful necessity of any kind afflict you, at least, get the freshest thoughts you can from the minds of those who describe what they feel in natural imagery, so that your soul may be with them, as if abroad in the wide world of sights and sounds; above all, keep your mind busy with the realities of good to come. Whatever vexations rack your heart, go out mentally, and bodily, too, if possible. But do not fancy that sauntering in the sunshine alone is not solitude. If you are peculiarly burdened with care, you will need a companion in your walks, and the best you can have then is a young child, for from such a one you may learn how you ought to livenamely, by faith, and thus enjoy the goodness of God to the utmost, by casting all your cares upon the Parent. In short, always take with you some object of love, or look for one. Be free. Those whom Providence or Mammon has shut up in smoky towns ought to seize all proper opportunities to reach the region of green fields, or otherwise they will surely degenerate into gossipers. The spirit of a man loses nothing by a wise use of holydays, and business gains much from the greater aptitude of a refreshed soul. To restore the affections and faculties to a healthy state is the end of religion, and every kind of exercise that will conduce to this consummation is, therefore, a religious duty. CHAPTER XXII. SLEEP, DISEASE, DEATH.-CONCLUSION. As both the intellect and the will are called into exercise by our affections, so mental energy grows amid difficulties, and our moral being is trained to perfection by many trials. But yet the present constitution of man demands rest as well as action, and, therefore, whenever exertion has impaired the organic functions of life, or the nervous system is exhausted, a tendency to sleep occurs. In a country where the days and nights are pretty equally divided, the alternations of activity and repose partake of the regular return of daylight and of darkness, because the excitability of the organism for the most part requires daily restoration; but in countries, such as Lapland, where days and nights are prolonged into months, the inhabitants seek repose according to the degree of their labor, or the demands made by their minds on the energies of their bodies. Sleep, then, does not depend on the recurrence of night, but on some internal cause, as, indeed, is demonstrated by facts presented in several preceding chapters. Czermack, Berthold, and others, have, however, proved, that periodic rest is necessary for the reproduction of that power in the nerves by which the will is enabled to act on the muscles; and hence we learn that a due proportion of repose is essential to the proper manifestation of mind, in the orderly use of the body. But this is more especially and evidently the case in children; for as growth and invigoration are mainly promoted during sleep, of course, if they be not allowed a sufficiency of it, they are sure to become both mentally and physically feeble and dwarfish, memory and volition becoming alike confused by bodily inaptitude and debility. The experience of every one who is in the habit of thinking must have taught him, that the mind acts with most deliberate power in the morning, and also that the thoughts become associated with ideas of exertion whenever the body is refreshed; so that we feel that the time for planning is after the body has been duly rested, and before it is again called into exercise. The memory is clearer in the morning, or at least soon after awaking from healthy sleep, because the thinking power is then free from those impressions which crowd on the senses during the activity of the day; for new thoughts arise, together with remembered ideas, in the renewal of nervous power, and the associations of the past are more perfectly perceived and interpreted by the understanding; while the senses, being refreshed, but not strongly excited, our self-consciousness is at the highest, so that our affections, whether good or bad, joyous or grievous, hopeful or despondent, are then most potently experienced. The vivacity of thought and expression is, however, most remarkable in the excitement of society, because our intellects are called into play by our sympathies; hence the evening is the favorable time for wit, the flashes of which often partake somewhat of the nature of delirium, in consequence of the readiness with which the mind yields to suggestive impressions, since imagination is of course most active when the body is so far wearied as to render entire rest of the muscles agreeable, while the brain is yet not so far fatigued as to require sleep, and while the mind is still faintly busy with some present object of affection. The dimness of evening is also favorable to meditation, because much light stimulates the optic nerve to a degree that distracts the attention from remembered ideas, and impresses realities too forcibly to permit imagination free exercise. The soul, if sensible of its capacity and worth, looks into its own history, when not engaged in using the senses on outward objects; hence the man of genius withdraws himself from things for the sake of thoughts, and catches the images of creation, to arrange them in new order in his mind, according to the habit of his desires. Thus the poet most glowingly conceives his ideas, and composes his stanzas with greatest facility, when the heavens are calm and the vesper-star is seen above the clouds, and "all the landscape glimmers on the sight;" but in the morning which is the historic time, he sees that the winged words and burning thoughts which carried his soul captive need the corrections of sober memory and the schoolmaster, almost as much as the wild reasoning of an ordinary dream would need the severer logic of wakeful experience to reduce it to consistency. When considering the necessity of sleep and bodily repose to the vigorous employment of the mind, we are apt to draw a conclusion somewhat unfavorable to our estimate of the spiritual powers of man; but this arises from our not duly weighing the evidence before us, or from our overlooking the fact that we learn more concerning the faculties of the soul from sleep than we could do without it. Did you ever reflect on the remarkable circumstance, that the wish to accomplish any thing in a dream is immediately followed by the impression that the thing desired is actually done? The soul takes her wishes for granted, and the train of her thoughts is directed to event after event, one springing out of the other, like the figures of kaleidoscope, in an infinite series, or at least interminable in their variety and continuance, except by the exchange of waking ideas for |