He is not such, by

i. "MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." birth. Human, he is; and, so, potentially, a man. But, that is all. Look at it, this way; and, then, that way; and, then, this way, again: as often, as you please. It, still, is true. A wise man has been, oftentimes, the father of a fool. A good man, of a knave. A brave man, of a coward. The blood came down: but, not the man, in it. He bore his father's name: but, that was all. Just as he took the name of man, by being born of human parents. I do not say, that it is often so. I do not think it is. That it is, ever, meets the whole case. It will be of little use, to know the exception, when too late to cure it. It is enough to know, birth does not make the man. It is of the first importance,

that it be known, in time.

ii. "MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." He is not such, by intellectual gifts. Devils have these, in larger store, than men. Yet, they are devils, still. And men, with nat ural endowments, "but a little lower than the angels," have let them waste, and rust, and rot; or, even worse have turned them to such awful uses, that they seemed to be incarnate devils. And, so, in their degree, through all the lower ranges of worthlessness and wickedness. Nor does the improvement of his intellectual gifts, yet, make the man. When Bacon uttered that celebrated aphorism, "Knowledge is power," he obviously meant to leave it, as it were, in blank: that, so, the nature of the knowledge might decide the uses of the power. For, so, in fact, it is. There is a knowledge, which is a curse; as truly as a knowledge, which is a blessing. A

"knowledge, which causeth to err;

" and a knowledge,

"which maketh wise unto salvation." The knowledge, of no account; but, in that to which it leads. And, yet, the medium, to us, through which, evil comes. As the fruit of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" was that," whose taste brought death into the world, and all our woe."

iii. "MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." He is not such, by circumstances. Tacitus finely says, "Res, stultorum magister." It is over fools, that circumstances get the mastery. A truth, too fine, for common minds to catch. Yet, if it be not so, there is an end of human freedom. For circumstances is but a longer word, for fate; and, one less invidious, for necessity. We are but atoms in the atmosphere of space. And Plato, Dante, Shakspeare, have but to whirl, in vortices, forever. Who will believe it, that looks practically, upon life? Who will believe that Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, under the force of circumstances? Or Napoleon marshalled the field of Waterloo? Or Wellington won it, without Blucher? Or Washington achieved that midnight ferry, through the freezing Delaware? Or Jackson piled the cotton bags, that saved New Orleans? Or Clay conceived the Compromise, that has secured the Union? Men, that are men, make their own circumstances. In all, we reverently own an over-ruling God. A God, Who made us, and Who owns us, free. Whom we dethrone, when we imply, that circumstances make a man. They cannot even make a circumstance.

"MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." It might be freely ren

dered, a man is, as he behaves. It is not, who his father was. It is not, what his talents and attainments are. It is not, what he is, in circumstances. These are all accidents: not, of the essence. It is the way he has himself. It is his behaviour. "MANNERS MAKYTH

MAN."

1. He is a man, that bears himself with gentleness. The vulgar notion is not so. Noise is, with some, an argument for greatness. As when the English troops first landed, the Chinese thought to frighten them, by hideous roarings, as they rolled down hill. But greatest things are stillest. The sun illuminates the world, in silence. The planetary orbs revolve, in silence. The giant oak grows up, in silence. The thoughts, that kindle nations, glow in silence. The equipoise of real greatness holds itself, in perfect silence The truest man will be the most a woman; in serenity, in gentleness, in tenderness, in lovingness. No violence. No roughness. No severity. So ready to forgive. So willing to forbear. So able to endure. As the Apostle, in that speaking picture of a man: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you."

2. He is a man, that bears himself with cordialness. It is a world in a word. And that world, the heart. As if it were heartliness, or heartfulness. A little more, even, than the good old, heartiness, which has come down to us from our whole-hearted forefathers. A man

of reserves. A man of affectations. An artificial man. A superficial man. These have but to be heard of, to be hated. And, yet, in the world, they have a place. Nay, in the world, they have had sway. The Chesterfields, the Buckinghams, the Richelieus, the Cromwells. But, not with men. With fanatics, perhaps. Certainly, with courtiers. Sycophants, in either case. But, not with men. Men ask a heart. And they must feel it. And, when they do, their own beats, with it. And, when the heart-swell rises, in a nation, or a people, that are wronged, or that see wrong, or that forecast wrong; it were easier to stand against the deepest ground-swell that was ever moved, in the blue deepness of the multitudinous sea. There is but one born ruler, whom all men love to own. It is the heart-man. And his sway is boundless as the atmosphere: for it is felt as little; and extends as far.

3. He is a man, that bears himself with manliness. There are words, that cannot be explained. As there are acts and ways, which speak to every heart. It is because the race sprung from one Hand; and took the imprint of its Prototype. And, so, there linger, in it, instincts of the true and real and eternal, which are never false, and never fail. The rudest tribes quail, at the presence of a man; as no ferocious beast can stand the human eye. And they who have unmade themselves, in the unworthy tamperings of the political arena, or, in the heartless round of fashionable folly and frivolity, still recognize and feel and own a man.

"Is there, for honest poverty,

That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by;
We dare be poor, for a' that."
"The rank is but the guinea-stamp:
The man's the gowd, for a' that."

"A king can mak' a belted knight,
A Marquis, Duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might:
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that."

"The pith of sense and pride o' worth
Are higher ranks, than a' that."

"Then, let us pray, that come it may,
As come it will, for a' that;

That sense and worth, o'er all the earth,

May bear the 'gree, for a' that.

For a' that, and a' that,

Its coming yet, for a' that,

That man to man, the world a' o'er,
Shall brothers be, for a' that."*

Beloved children of my house and of my heart, I send you out, to-day, in God's name, to your parts and duties, in the world, with the inestimable patrimony of these indomitable principles. You have been nurtured in them, here. You have lived and grown, upon them. You are men, by them. "MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." Year after year have I pursued you, with love's keenest eye. They know not love, who tell us, she is blind. A fond, false, faithless love, that fawns and flatters, to deceive and to betray, may fein a blindness, which it does not feel.

* Burns.