ideas are multiform and perplexed. If in his power, he would bottle up the sunshine, rain, and dew of Heaven, to keep them from others. Uncharitable as it may be, he becomes an object of contempt, rather than pity. His disease is malum in se, and as difficult of cure as the leprosy, and quite as loathsome. The best remedy is religion; the surest, to have every body dead and he keep tavern. There is hope in the first; the patient would soon become weary of the last, and die of ennui.

Reader, if envy is rankling in your bosom, declare war against it at once; a war of extermination; no truce, no treaty, no compromise. Like the pirate on the high seas, it is an outlaw, an enemy to all mankind, and should be hung up at the yard arm, until it is dead, DEAD, DEAD.

EXAMINATION.

KNOW THYSELF.”

IT has been said this precept descended from Heaven-but, if we are close observers of mankind, and can realize how little we are acquainted with all that relates to ourselves, we may doubt whether it has reached the human family, and may yet be on its journey-or, at all events, has not yet commenced the successful discharge of its important mission to our planet. So keen is the vision of most men, when looking at those around them, that, with a beam in their own, they can see a mote in the eyes of their neighbors. Few there are, who know their own powers of intel

lect-the strength of their propensities for weal or wo -the good they can perform, or the evils they can perpetrate. At one period of life, a man may shudder at the relation of a vile act committed by his fellow man, and subsequently, go beyond him in the commission of crime-plainly showing, as did Peter, the Apostle, he did not know himself.

But few men analyze their own natures-and fewer, still, follow the lessons they learn in the school of self examination. We are prone to act from impulses not chastened by reason, and yield to circumstances, without tracing causes, or discerning effects. Too many there are, who tax all their powers to accomplish their ends, regardless of the means employed. This is the grand lever of the political demagogues and office seekers in our country, and is sometimes used in logrolling legislation. The principle is base in its conception, pernicious in its consequences. It is often predicated upon falsehood-always fraught with dishonor -and is never practised by the pure in heart.

If strangers to our own evil propensities, we are liable to be led captive at their will, and to be hurried on to the abyss of ruin-an end that no man aims at, when he spreads his sails to the breeze of time, and embarks on the ocean of life. Had he paused—become acquainted with himself, and weighed results-he might have seen the end, and avoided destruction. Charity for human nature, frail as it is, forbids the idea, that any man, at the commencement of his career upon the great theatre of life-intended to fill a drunkard's grave-spend a portion of his life in the penitentiary, or expiate his crimes upon the gallows.

In prosperity, many, who deservedly sustain a high

reputation for honesty, pure morality, and even of piety; and who are pained when they see a weak brother leave the paths of virtue, and are liberal in their censures upon him; when adversity overtakes them, they are left, as some say, to dissimulation-deceit, and sometimes, have their names enrolled on the calendar of crime-proving, by melancholy demonstration, that they did not know themselves. He that knows himself, knows others, and he alone is competent to speak and write of others.

Of all ignorance, that of ourselves is most lamentable. It engenders self conceit-makes us the dupes of knaves-enslaves us to the most cruel of all masters

-our evil passions; renders us blind to our own interests-deprives us of happiness here, and endangers our future bliss. Many seem to be affected with a kind of delirium, like a person reduced to extreme weakness by disease-imagine they are strong, when they cannot sustain their own weight-hence, they are sure to fall when they attempt to go forward; not being supported by their friends-reason, discretion, prudence, and virtue. If they knew themselves-realized their own weakness-the dangers of temptation-the proneness of human nature to turn from the highway that leads to pure happiness, and would make themselves acquainted with the inevitable results produced by familiar causes-common sense, aside from Revelation, would warn them to avoid the quick-sands of error and the rocks of destruction, on which many a splendid craft has made shipwreck. Let all who desire a peaceful life and a happy end, obey the Heavenly preceptKNOW THYSELF.

EXPERIENCE.

EXPERIENCE has been called the mother of science, but, like most other mothers, has many disobedient, and some very unruly children. More lessons are learned in the school of this thorough matron, than are practised. They are of the most salutary kind, and usually so expensive, that it is passing strange they should be discarded. But so it often is. The grosser passions of human nature wage a perpetual war upon the citadel of our true happiness, and too often take it by storm. Self conceit blinds us-self confidence betrays us; our fancy, taste, and appetite lead us; we heed not the warning voice of experience, and are hurried on by folly and vice, fully apprized of consequences.

The ambitious man is enraptured with the history of Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, and Bonaparte; and burns to tread in their footsteps. It is vain that experience informs him, that the former became disgusted with power, and killed himself with alcoholthat the other was stabbed in the Roman senate—and that the latter expired, a prisoner, on a desolate rock in the ocean. His thirst for power cannot be quenched by experience-he tempts fate.

The inebriate commences his career in full view of the wrecks of intemperance strewed thick around him— has seen the desolations produced by rum-has followed the drunkard to the grave—perhaps to the gallows; yet he turns a deaf ear to the warning voice of experience, and plunges into the dark abyss of destruction.

The victims of lotteries, cards, dice, and all the de

mon arts of the blackleg, are reduced to the keenest penury among us; yet thousands of others, like the infatuated devotees of Juggernaut, throw themselves before the wheels of this car of hell, and are crushed to poverty.

The calendar of crime, the penalties of the criminal code, the various punishments that are so certain and frequent, from the small fine up to the gallows; are sufficiently familiar to all to be avoided; yet the voice of experience is unheeded by thousands, and their career of crime is only arrested by death.

The whirlpool of wild and precarious speculation has often been gorged with ruined adventurers; yet other multitudes follow in their wakes, regardless of the lessons of experience, posted up in hand bills by the constable, sheriff, and auctioneer; at every corner, in glaring capitals. A thirst for gain inspires a blind confidence; they make a desperate leap after fortune-jump over low-water mark into the maelstrom, and sink to rise no more. The fatal consequences of crime and error, gleaming beacons thickly placed along the shores of time to warn against peril, are unheeded by millions; and many who survive one shipwreck, in despite of experience, again rush into the same danger, and are lost.

Through all the multiform concerns of life, the human family is constantly taking lessons in the school of experience, and paying dearly for them; but obstinately refusing to profit by them. This fond mother may warn, reason plead, wisdom woo, common sense demonstrate; but all to no purpose. Self conceit, blind confidence, carnal desires, pampered appetite, tyrannical habit; all combine and bind the captive with