THERE is no hope that it should ever change. The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth, to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not to be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruins could he feel the BODY of the DEATH, out of which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered; it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth, in all the pride of its mantling temptation.

CHARLES LAMB.

I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three female figures are ministering to a man, who sits fast bound to the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him, Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repugnance at the same instant of time is applying a snake to his side. In his face is feeble delight, the recollection of past, rather than perception of present pleasures, languid enjoyment of evil with utter imbecility to good, a Sybaritic effeminacy, a submission to bondage. the springs of the will gone down like a broken clock, the sin and the suffering so instantaneous, or the latter forerunning the former, remorse preceding action; all this represented in one point of time! When I saw this, I admired the wonderBut when I went away, I wept,

ful skill of the painter.

because I thought of my own condition.

CHARLES LAMB'S Elia.

CHAPTER XIX.

Voices of the Summer continued-Evil Habit and Remorse-The fearful consequences of making the germinating and growing period, the spending period—Habits of youthful piety the insurance of a happy old age.

THE springs of the will gone down like a broken clock! How affecting, how desolate, how dreadful the condition of the mind presented in this image! And yet, in reality, that is but half the picture; for, on the other side, the will is still strong in a perpetual and terrible bondage to Evil Habit, the permitted Spring and Summer growth of life, into every step of which, with its clanking and remorseful chains, the will enters, though, perhaps, with a languid and listless, yet indomitable energy. That is the fearful result in our being, if the habit of the will be not, in all the germination and abounding growth of Spring and Summer, set from the roots upward, consentaneous with good principles.

The idea of Remorse preceding action, where Evil Habit has become confirmed, is deeper and more dreadful still. Nevertheless, it is probably true, even in the very first beginning of an Evil Habit. The very first act of sinful self-indulgence is preceded, as well as followed, by Remorse. The very remon

strances of Conscience, if Conscience be not heeded, are attended by Remorse, although at first the eagerness of anticipated pleasure prevents the soul from any startling sensibility to the bite of the recoiling snake (remordeo), striking back even while the will is yet pushing forward. But at length the Remorse becomes not only the attendant on the sinful habit, but itself the preceding, prevailing, strongest habit; not, however, expulsive of the other, but linked with it, both as forerunner and companion.

Oh, then, that men could be taught to begin with selfrestraint, self-denial, self-rebuke, in the foundation-period of human character! For one period cannot be changed for another. Nothing can take the place of the forming, germinating, growing period. It cannot, because, whatever takes its place, that will be the formation of the character. If bare neglect takes its place, that will form the character, and form it fatally and fearfully. But where there is neglect, there is more. The spending period is entered on, even before the sowing period is past, and out of this there can proceed nothing but misery. It is out of the power of language to tell the intensity of evil that ensues, if you put the spending period, or the period of results, in place of the suggestive or the seed period. Nothing can be possible, but entire, absolute ruin.

And yet, alas! this is the bitter, disastrous, awful experiment, which many young persons are making with their own being, their own endowments and opportunities. They do not wait till their passions are fully formed, before they begin to exasperate and indulge them. Sometimes they attain to a precocity in self-indulgence, even before they have reached the ability of

enjoyment; before they have attained the capacity essential to a commanding and noble nature, the restraint, right discipline, husbanding and use of which, will form a blissful nature, an everlasting, inexhaustible capital of enjoyment and of happiness. But the abuse of that development is perdition; it makes even the child the father of the man's ruin.

There are many persons who begin the spending period almost before the germinating period; just as if, having seed given you to sow a field for your future subsistence, you should eat the seed for present indulgence. What could come of such a course as that, but speedy ruin? In the history of the sufferings, the trials and the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, there is an account given of a company of miserable, unprincipled, spendthrift vagabonds, who desired to live without labor. In the seed time and growing time of the Pilgrim year, too indolent and reckless to cultivate the ground themselves, these worthless adventurers were wicked enough, in the time of great scarcity of food, to steal and eat the ears of green and growing corn, on the ripening and harvest of which the Pilgrims were depending, not only for their winter's food, but for the seed of the next Springtime. Very much such a course as this are those young men pursuing, who are stealing from God, from society, and from themselves, green and crude, before it has ripened, the product of the passionate activity of their own being.

Multitudes, having passions given them for restraint from evil and for application to good, and for activity in the pursuit of pure happiness, and having seed sown, suggestions poured in, and influences lavished from God, for discipline and growth, for nurture and wise training towards a period of useful and blissful