Yea, it were well if much of our reading and learning did us no harm, and more than good. I fear lest books are to some but a more honourable kind of temptation than cards and dice; lest many a precious hour be lost in them, that should be employed on much higher matters, and lest many make such knowledge but an unholy, natural, yea, carnal pleasure, as worldlings do the thoughts of their lands and honours; and lest they be the more dangerous, by how much the less suspected; but the best is, it is a pleasure so fenced from the slothful with thorny labour of hard and long studies, that laziness saveth more from it than grace and holy wisdom doth. But doubtless fancy and the natural intellect may with as little sanctity live in the pleasure of reading, knowing, disputing, and writing, as others spend their time at a game at chess, or other ingenious sport.

For my own part, I know that the knowledge of natural things is valuable, and may be sanctified, much more theological theory; and when it is so, it is of good use: and I have little knowledge which I find not some way useful to my highest ends. And if wishing or money would procure more, I would wish and empty my purse for it; but yet, if many score or hundred books which I have read had been all unread, and I had that time now to lay out upon higher things, I should think myself much richer than now I am. And I must earnestly pray, the Lord forgive me the hours that I have spent in reading things less profitable, for the pleasing of a mind that would fain know all, which I should have spent for the increase of holiness in myself and others; and yet I must thankfully acknowledge to God, that from my youth he taught me to begin with things of greatest weight, and to refer most of my other studies thereto, and to spend my days under the motives of necessity and profit to myself, and those with whom I had to do. And I now think better of the course of Paul, that determined to know nothing but a crucified Christ among the Corinthians; that is, so to converse with them as to use and glorying, as if he knew nothing else; and so of the rest of the Apostles and primitive ages. And though I still love and honour the fullest knowledge, (and am not of Dr. Collet's mind, who, as Erasmus saith, most slighted Augustine,) yet I less censure even that Carthage council, which forbade the reading of the heathen's books of learning and arts, than formerly I have done. And I would have men savour most that learning in their health, which they will or should savour most in sickness, and near to death.

But the chief answer is yet behind. No knowledge is lost, but perfected, and changed for much nobler, sweeter, greater knowledge. Let men be never so uncertain in particular de modo, whether acquired habits of intellect and memory die with us, as being dependent on the body; yet, by what manner soever, that a far clearer knowledge we

shall have than is here attainable, is not to be doubted of. And the cessation of our present mode of knowing is but the cessation of our ignorance and imperfection; as our wakening endeth a dreaming knowledge, and our maturity endeth the trifling knowledge of a child; for so saith the Holy Ghost, "Love never faileth," (and we can love no more than we know ;) "but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, (that (is, cease;) whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge (notional and abstractive, such as we have now), it shall vanish away;" "when I was a child, I spake as a child, understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things, for now we see through a glass," per species, "darkly," as men understand a thing by a metaphor, parable, or riddle, “but then face to face," even creatures intuitively, as in themselves, naked and open to our sight: "now I know in part," not rem, sed, aliquid rei, (not the reality itself, but something of the reality,) in which sense Sanchez truly saith, nihil scitur, "but then shall I know even as I am known;" not as God knoweth us, for our knowledge and his must not be so comparatively likened, but as holy spirits know us both now and for ever, we shall both know and be known by immediate intuition.

If a physician be to describe the parts of man, and the latent diseases of his patient, he is fain to search hard, and bestow many thoughts of it, besides his long reading and converse, to make him capable of knowing; and when all is done, he goeth much upon conjectures, and his knowledge is mixed with many uncertainties, yea, and mistakes; but when he openeth the corpse, he seeth all, and his knowledge is more full, more true, and more certain, besides that it is easily and quickly attained, even by a present look. A countryman knoweth the town, the fields, and rivers where he dwelleth, yea, and the plants and animals, with ease and certain clearness; when he that must know the same things by the study of geographical writings and tables, must know them but with a general, an unsatisfactory, and oft a much mistaking kind of knowledge. Alas, when our present knowledge hath cost a man the study of forty, or fifty, or sixty years, how lean and poor, how doubtful and unsatisfactory, is it after all! But when God will show us himself and all things, and when heaven is known, as the sun by its own light, this will be the clear, sure, and satisfactory knowledge. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God;" and without holiness none can see him. This sight will be worthy the name of wisdom, when our present glimpse is but philosophy, a love and desire of wisdom. So far should we be from fearing death, through the fear of losing our knowledge, or any of the means of knowledge, that it should make us rather long for the world of glorious light, that we might get out of this darkness, and know all that with an easy look, to our joy and satisfaction, which here we know with

another that he is daily fretted and indisposed by the little cross accidents and the rugged conversation which he is necessarily obliged to bear with; one complains of too much business, another of too little; the hurry and multitude of things distracts the one, infidel fears and anxious despondencies the other; one complains that his acquaintance and friends are too numerous, and intrench too far upon his precious hours; another is querulous, melancholy, and peevish, because he looks upon himself either for his meanness neglected, or for his misfortune deserted and forsaken; company is burdensome to the one, and solitude to the other. Thus all conditions are full of complaints, from him that trudges on his clouted shoe, to him who can scarce mention the manners or the fortunes of the multitude without some expressions of contumely and disdain. Thou fool! dost thou not see that all these complaints are idle contradictions? for shame, correct the wantonness of thy humour, and thou wilt soon correct thy fortune: learn to be happy in every state, and every place: learn to enjoy thyself, to know and value the wealth that is in thine own power, I mean wisdom and goodness: learn to assert the sovereignty and dignity of thy soul. Methinks that, if philosophy could not, pride and indignation might, conquer fortune. It is beneath the dignity of a soul, that has but a grain of sense, to make chance, and winds, and waves, the arbitrary disposers of his happiness; or, what is worse, to depend upon some mushroom upstart, which a chance smile raised out of his turf and rottenness, to a condition of which his mean soul is so unequal that he himself fears and wonders at his own height. Oh, how I hug the memory of those honest heathens, who, in a ragged gown and homely cottage, bade defiance to fortune, and laughed at those pains and hazards, the vanity and pride of men, not their misfortune, drove them to! Men may call this pride or spite in them; as the beggarly rabble doth usually envy the fortune it doth despair of: but there were a great many of these who laid by envied greatness, to enjoy this quiet though generally despicable meanness: but let the contempt of the world be what it will in a heathen; let it be pride or peevishness, vain-glory, or any thing, rather than a reproach to Christians; what say you to the followers of our Lord and Master? "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none," Acts iii. None? what hast thou then, thou poor disciple of a poor master? A true faith, a godlike charity, and unshaken hope: blessed art thou amongst men; nothing can make thee greater, nothing richer, nothing happier, but heaven. You see plainly, then, a man may be virtuous, though not wealthy; and that fortune, which prevents his being rich, cannot prevent his being happy.

This discourse will never down; this is not calculated for this age: philosophy must be a little more mannerly, and religion a little more genteel and complaisant than formerly, ere it can be adapted and ac

commodated to the present state of things. Go on then, let us try how far it will be necessary to condescend. You cannot be happy; why? because you are not rich; go then to God, and beg you may be rich; I have not the face to put up such arrogant and intemperate requests to God: it is plain, then, it is not necessary to be rich in order to be happy; for whatever is necessary to this thou mayst with good assurance beg of God. But thy desires are more humble and modest; thou aimest at nothing but what is very necessary; a fairer house, another servant, a dish or two of meat more for thy friends, a coach for thy convenience or ease, and a few hundred pounds apiece more for thy children: O heavenly ingredients of a rational pleasure! O divine instruments of human happiness! O the humble and mortified requests of modest souls! Well, if these things be so necessary, and these desires be so decent and virtuous, if thou canst not be happy, and consequently must be miserable, without them, put up a bill, represent thy condition in it-Such a one wants a more commodious house, more servants, more dishes, &c., and desires the prayers of the congregation for support under this affliction. You are profane: far be it from me; I would only let thee see the wantonness of thy desires. If thou thinkest this would expose thee to public laughter, go to thy minister, unfold thy case to him, let him pray for thee; he is a good man, and his prayers will go far; you rally and ridicule me. Enter then into thy closet, shut thy door; thou mayst trust God, he pities and considers even human infirmities; I could even almost in my mind desire it of him; but I am ashamed to do it in a set and solemn prayer. I could almost make the petition in the gross, but I blush to think of descending to particulars. Well, then, I see plainly that wealth in any degree of it is so far from being necessary to our happiness, that it has so little of usefulness or conveniency in it, that, in thy conscience between God and thee, thou canst not think fit to complain of the want of it.

But this answer will never satisfy him who complains of want, or of being engaged in continual troubles, and tossed by the daily changes and revolutions of the world. I confess it will not: but I must tell such a one, if Solomon's observation be true, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich," Prov. x.; and that other, "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men," Prov. xxii.

Then his poverty is his crime as well as his calamity; he must redeem himself from this his punishment by industry and prayer. As to calamities, this must be acknowledged, that the mind of a good and great man, which stands firm upon its own basis, a good God, a good Saviour, and a good conscience, may remain unmoved, when the earth trembles, and the sea roars round about him.

[ONE of the most splendid works of Natural History ever produced is the 'American Ornithology,' of Alexander Wilson, in nine folio volumes, full of coloured engravings. This work was published in the United States from 1808 to 1813. No learned society gave it encouragement; no distinguished name in the world of science was its author. A poor Scotch pedlar, who had left his native country in the hope of bettering his fortune, was the writer and the artist who, unaided except by the general public support, produced the most superb book of its class that the world had then seen. Alexander Wilson was born at Paisley, in 1766. He was apprenticed to a weaver, and afterwards worked as a journeyman at his trade. Subsequently he became a pedlar, and wrote verses whilst he rambled about the country, selling his wares, and endeavouring to procure subscriptions for a volume of his poems. He was thus unconsciously laying the foundation for his great work. His early habits of poetical composition gave him a command of language; his wandering habits fitted him for the laborious journeys which he took through the great American continent. In the United States he was weaver, pedlar, land-measurer, and schoolmaster. His taste for natural history was developed by Mr. Bartram, a celebrated botanist, and he was taught to draw by Mr. Lawson, an engraver. At length, in 1808, he published the first volume of his 'Ornithology.' With this volume under his arm he wandered from town to town, endeavouring to obtain subscribers with small success; but he per

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