officer, who commanded a considerable detachment at some distance, to join him without fail on the morning of conflict. He trifled, however, with the occasion, and did not arrive on the field till the hard fought battle was won. "There, sir," said the general, "we have fought the battle and gained the victory without you-and now you may share the honours if you please!" The reproach went to his heart-he never lifted up his head again—but pined and died.

And will you, think you, lift up your head with joy in that day—that great day of the Lord-if you shall be conscious of having done nothing to advance its triumphs? Oh, give yourself to it-wholly to it-by perfect and persevering devotedness. Pray-labour-sacrifice—bleed for it. Let your prayers be full of hope, and your labour full of joy. He who gives most is the richest—he who suffers most, the happiest. The Lord is at hand; and, if you are faithful, He shall count you worthy to share his triumphs, to sit on his throne, and to reign in his kingdom-His glorious, illimitable, and everlasting kingdom!— Dr. Reed.

HINTS ON MENTAL IMPROVEMENT.

There never was a period when the rising generation were called upon by more solemn considerations to give diligence to the cultivation of their minds than the present day. We desire again to set before our young friends the importance of this duty. Remember that your minds are formed for improvement, and the materials for cultivation are before you. Let those who are unconscious of the excellency of our intellectual nature, and the pleasantness of knowledge to the soul, despise your pursuit; it is enough for you that God, who has bestowed upon you these high and noble faculties, has given the plainest intimations in his word, that it is his will that these faculties should be cultivated with all diligence, and rise to higher and higher degrees of vigour, expansion, and excellence.

In the prosecution of this object you will find the advantage of laying down rules for your guidance. It is not needful for us here to suggest rules; we would simply urge the importance of acting upon settled principles. We are what our habits are. With the divine blessing we may be almost what we wish to be,

When you have laid down rules for your government, adhere to them with patient energy and perseverance. One of the most important qualifications for an individual who has entered upon a career of mental improvement is patience. Franklin began by making an almanac, and then rose by patient, well-directed efforts through the successive gradations of his wonderful career. We cannot all be Franklins, you say. It is not necessary we should; but as Todd has well remarked in his Student's Guide: “If Franklin had been discouraged by the thought, we cannot all be Newtons, he would never have reached his high station. "I don't know," said Sir Isaac Newton, "that I have any quality in my mind that distinguishes me from the rest of mankind, unless it is that I have more patience." It is at the same time important never to be in haste in these duties; haste does harm; it is well to have the mind fixed in an admirable ancient proverb, that—“Truth is the daughter of time.”

Accustom your intellectual powers to constant exercise. Never imagine yourselves to be persons of genius, and plead this as an excuse for mental indolence. Nothing has a greater tendency to enervate the best intellectual powers. The mind must act of itself, or it can never go forward in a course of improvement. We cannot proceed passively. Nothing can produce any influence upon the mind, without its own choice and consent. It is not, therefore, so much the creature as the lord of circumstances. It is the very principle of life to be self-active. Look at the living plant, or the living body, how do they grow and increase? By the workings of their own life; so the mind must put forth its own native energies, and expand and improve by the operations of its own peculiar life, if it expand and improve at all.

Avail yourselves of every help in the acquisition of knowledge. Turn every thing to account. Cultivate the habit of making all that passes before you tell upon your intellectual improvement. A cultivated mind ever moves amidst a world of wonders, finding, as our great poet says→→

"Tongues in trees; books in the running brooks;

Sermons in stones; good in every thing."

Regard not this subject as one of mere speculation, but as of deep practical importance. Despise the notion of becoming mere book-worms; studying only to entertain your minds, or to enable you occasionally to shine in society. Seek that higher

motives than these may animate you, and that you may have nobler objects in view. It is right, we allow, to prize the exalted pleasure afforded by the exercise of the mind, and its increase in knowledge. As the animal life derives enjoyment from the nourishment that is needed to sustain it; so the intellectual life tastes a nobler happiness in imbibing the nourishment it requires. But far above the mere pleasure of acquiring knowledge, be cheered with the thought of the enlarged capacity which it affords for usefulness in the church and in the world.

How strange that the thought should ever have entered the mind of man, that learning is unfriendly to piety! The Bible teaches not so. The Bible holds out every inducement to stimulate us in the pursuit of knowledge, and without considerable knowledge, it is impossible thoroughly to understand that blessed book. Learning has properly been termed "the spouse of reason, the delight of our rational nature;" neither is there any incongruity, but the sweetest harmony, between the highest mental excellence, and the highest spiritual-mindedness. Let improvement, then, be your motto till death, and whilst you feast on knowledge here below, may you be training for that happy state of being where your powers shall expand and improve through eternal ages, and where all the mists of prejudice and error, and every thing that here obstructs us in the pursuit of truth, shall have passed away.

LAURA BRIDGMAN.

I sat down before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so, of taste: before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense the sense of touch. There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an immortal soul might be awakened.

Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was radiant with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual

capacity and development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside her; her writing-book was on the desk she leaned upon. From the mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being.

I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an account, written by that one man who has made her what she is-Doctor Howe. It is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could present it entire.

Her name is Laura Bridgman. "She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her power of endurance; and life was held by the feeblest tenure: but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was perfectly well.

"Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly developed themselves; and during the four months of health which she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.

"But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were not ended. The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day. It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted. It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily health seem restored, and she was able to enter upon her apprenticeship of life and the world.

"But what a situation was hers! silence of the tomb were around her:

The darkness and the

no mother's smile called

forth her answering smile, no father's voice taught her to imitate his sounds-they, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion; and not even in these respects from the dog and the cat. "But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the others. As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the room, and then the house; she became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her disposition to imitate, led her to repeat everything herself. She even learned to sew a little, and to knit.

"At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and I immediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head; and the whole system in healthy action. The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, they brought her to the Institution. For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others.

"The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them labels with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines s po o n, differed as much from the crooked lines ke y, as the spoon differed from the key in form.

"Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on the articles. She showed her perception of this similarity by laying the label key upon the key, and the label s p o on upon the spoon. She was encouraged here by the natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.