believe it true. I shall choose to think of Ossian as the ancient and veritable bard, and Macpherson as the fortunate fellow, who found his scattered lays, and who perhaps added links and amendments of his own.

LESSON LXXXVI.

The Pleasures of Science.-BROUGHAM.

To pass our time in the study of the sciences has, in all ages, been reckoned one of the most dignified and happy of human occupations; and the name of Philosopher, or Lover of Wisdom, is given to those who lead such a life. But it is by no means necessary that a man should do nothing else than study known truths, and explore new, in order to earn this high title.

Some of the greatest philosophers, in all ages, have been engaged in the pursuits of active life; and he who, in whatever station his lot may be cast, prefers the refined and elevating pleasures of knowledge to the low gratification of the senses, richly deserves the name of a Philosopher.

It is easy to show, that there is a positive gratification resulting from the study of the sciences. If it be a pleasure to gratify curiosity—to know what we were ignorant of-to have our feelings of wonder called forth, how pure a delight of this very kind does natural science hold out to its students! Recollect some of the extraordinary discoveries of mechanical philosophy.

Is there any thing in all the idle books of tales and horrors, with which youthful readers are so much delighted, more truly astonishing than the fact, that a few pounds of water may, without any machinery, by merely being placed in a particular way, produce an irresistible force? can be more strange, than that an ounce weight should balance hundreds of pounds, by the intervention of a few bars of thin iron?

What

Observe the extraordinary truths which optical science discloses! Can any thing surprise us more, than to find that the color of white is a mixture of all others; that red, and blue, and green, and all the rest, merely by being blended in certain proportions, form what we had fancied rather to be no color at all than all colors together?

Chemistry is not behind in its wonders. That the diamond should be made of the same material with coal; that water should be chiefly composed of an inflammable substance; that acids should be almost all formed of different kinds of air; and that one of those acids, whose strength can dissolve almost any of the metals, should be made of the self-same ingredients with the common air we breathe: these, surely, are things to excite the wonder of any reflecting mind-nay, of any one but little accustomed to reflect. -And yet these are trifling, when compared to the prodigies which astronomy opens to our view: the enormous masses of the heavenly bodies; their immense distances; their countless numbers and their motions, whose swiftness mocks the uttermost efforts of the imagination.

Akin to this pleasure of contemplating new and extraordinary truths, is the gratification of a more learned curiosity, by tracing resemblances and relations between things which, to common apprehension, seem widely different. It is surely a satisfaction, for instance, to know that the same thing, which causes the sensation of heat, causes also fluidity; that electricity, the light, which is seen on the back of a cat when slightly rubbed on a frosty evening, is the very same matter with the lightning of the clouds; that plants breathe like ourselves, but differently, by day and by night; that the air, which burns in our lamps, enables a balloon to mount.

Nothing can at first sight appear less like, or less likely to be caused by the same thing, than the processes of burning and of breathing,-the rust of metals and burning,-the influence of a plant on the air it grows in by night, and of an animal on the same air at any time, nay, and of a body burning in that air; and yet all these operátions, so unlike to common eyes, when examined by the light of science, are the same.

Nothing can be less like than the working of a vast steamengine and the crawling of a fly upon the window; yet we find, that these two operations are performed by the same means the weight of the atmosphere; and that a sea-horse climbs the ice-hills by no other power. Can any thing be more strange to contemplate? Is there, in all the fairytales that ever were fancied, any thing more calculated to arrest the attention, and to occupy and to gratify the mind, than this most unexpected resemblance between things so unlike to the eyes of ordinary beholders?

Then, if we raise our views to the structure of the heavens,

we are again gratified with tracing accurate but most unexpected resemblances. Is it not in the highest degree interesting to find, that the power which keeps the earth in its shape and in its path, wheeling round the sun, extends over all the other worlds that compose the universe, and gives to each its proper place and motion; that the same power keeps the moon in her path round the earth; that the same power causes the tides upon our earth, and the peculiar form of the earth itself; and that, after all, it is the same power which makes a stone fall to the ground? To learn these things, and to reflect upon them, fills the mind, and produces certain as well as pure gratification.

The highest of all our gratifications in the study of science remains. We are raised by science to an understanding of the infinite wisdom and goodness which the Creator has displayed in all his works. Not a step can we take, in any direction, without perceiving the most extraordinary traces of design; and the skill, every where conspicuous, is calculated in so vast a proportion of instances, to promote the happiness of living creatures, and especially of ourselves, that we can feel no hesitation in concluding, that if we knew the whole scheme of Providence, every part would appear to be in harmony with a plan of absolute benevolence. Independently, however, of this most consoling inference, the delight is inexpressible, of being able to follow, as it were with our eyes, the marvellous works of the great Architect of Nature, and to trace the unbounded power and exquisite skill, which are exhibited in the most minute, as well as in the mightiest parts of his system.

LESSON LXXXVII.

Female Influence.—GANNETT.

WITHOUT touching the question of the relative superiority of the sexes, we cannot doubt that their powers are various. The sensibilities and affections are the strength of woman's nature. Feeling is the favorite element of her soul. She has an instinctive sympathy with the tender, the generous, and the pure. We expect from her examples of goodness. Vice appears more unnatural in her than in the other sex; it

certainly is more odious. Vulgarity seems coarser, immorality more inexcusable, impiety more shocking.

A wicked woman expresses the climax of depravity. By the law of her nature, moreover, woman is determined towards reliance and confidence, rather than towards an independence of foreign support. She is willing to rest on another's arm, she seeks protection, she covets affection. We describe hers as the gentler and the feebler sex; and these are not the epithets of poetry, so much as of fact and nature.

The influence of the female sex is not confined to their homes. No; it is felt through society, felt where they are never seen, felt by man in his busiest and his most stormy hours. It would not be easy to exaggerate the amount or the importance of the influence, which they hold over manners, opinions, and customs. I am speaking of a state of society, where that place is given to the sex, of which they have in so many countries and for so many ages been defrauded.

The tone of moral sentiment through the land, depends upon the women of the land. It will bear the character which they consent to have it bear. Neither irreligion nor hypocrisy, neither coarse nor polished vice, neither a false standard of truth, nor a false standard of honor, can prevail, if they discountenance it. Pertness and foppery would be driven by their contempt into the darkness, from which they should never have issued. Arrogant skepticism and lighttongued faith would be rebuked by their frown, while purity of taste, lofty sentiment, intellectual improvement, moral feeling, and a simple but steadfast piety, would flourish under their patronage, like the flowers under the mild sunshine of spring.

And let every one, be she in humble or conspicuous place, be wealth or toil her portion, have she many or few friends, be she admired or passed by in the crowd, let her remember that the whole is made up of its parts, that the influence of the sex results from the character and deportment of each one whom it includes, and that an exception to the general practice might be injurious, though conformity to it might as a single force be productive of little good.

Every woman is as accountable for whatever influence she may exert, as if it would be felt over a continent. Catharine of Russia, even among that rude people, owed a service to society as much in her youthful obscurity, as when she was the sole occupant of the throne. The daughter of

Necker wielded an influence, which she ought to have more respected, long before her writings were the admiration of Europe. It is not authors nor queens, the gifted with talent nor with wealth, who determine the spirit and character of the age. It is the many, of whom each individual is an important one.

If through female encouragement and example, the spirit of this age is to be purified of folly, if it is to be elevated and adorned by excellence, women must be sincerely and practically religious. Their regard for religion must not be superficial; their reverence and love for it must appear to be seated in the heart. Let it be known that they are the advocates of a piety which they cherish in their own souls, and that they are opposed, in principle and habit, to every practice inconsistent with the morality of the gospel, and however great a change must be made in the sentiments or usages of the other sex, it will be made.

For when the alternative is amendment or exclusion from their favor, hesitation will not long precede choice. Here is a suitable and noble field for their patriotism. Here they may render better service to the State, than if their votes were given for its rulers, or their voices were heard in its deliberative assemblies. They may send to exercise the prerogatives of freemen and magistrates those, who, never swerving from the line of duty, will fear God and work righteousness.

The situation of woman is very different now, from her condition before Christianity had enlightened the world; very different now in Christian Europe and America, and in Mohammedan or Pagan Asia and Africa. The sex owe a debt of gratitude to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which they can never discharge; and in this circumstance, I find a reason for urging upon them the culture of religious character.

It was Christianity, which raised woman from degradation and servitude, which placed her by the side of man, and taught him to treat her as an equal and a friend. It was Christianity, which revived in her the consciousness of a nature which the blind tyranny of the other sex had doomed to inaction and oblivion. It was Christianity, which opened to her treasures of happiness, from which she had been debarred on earth, and joys celestial, to which she had never dared to lift an eye of hope. It is Christianity, which has made her what she is in every civilized nation on the globe, and may ultimately redeem every one of her sex from an unjust bondage to ignorance and human will.