be confessed, that there was unreasonableness enough in this reason to satisfy the most zealous irrationalist.

RECREATION—(says Bishop Hall) is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, never mowing; his grass may grow and his steed may starve; as, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever mowing, never whetting; laboring much to little purpose.

REFORM-An adaptation of institutions to circumstances and knowledge, or a restoration to the original purposes, from which they have been perverted, demanded as a right by those who are suffering wrongs, and only denied and abused by those who have been fattening upon abuse. The real Conservatives are the Reformers, the real revolutionists are the corruptionists, who, by opposing quiet, will compel violent change. When the ultras, and men of this class, whose long misrule and denial of justice have inflamed the public mind, charge the Reformers with having thrown the whole country into a blaze, thus accusing the extinguisher of being the firebrand, one is reminded of the incendiary, who, in order to avoid detection, turned round and collared the foreman of the engines, exclaiming, "Ha, fellow! have I caught you? This is the rascal who is first and foremost at every fire-seize him! seize him!" There is no Reform Bill in Turkey,-no factious opposition,no free press,— -no twopenny trash,—yet in no country are revolutions so frequent.

Reform, however, to be useful and durable, must be gradual and cautious. To those radical gentry of the movement party, who would be always at work, without calculating the mischief or the cost of their vaunted improvements, I recommend the consideration of the following anecdote:-' The celebrated orator Henley advertised, that, in a single lecture, he would teach any artisan of ordinary skill how to make six pair of good shoes in one day;-nay, six-and-twenty pair, provided there was a sufficiency of materials. The sons of Crispin

flocked in crowds, willingly paying a shilling at the door, to be initiated in such a lucrative art, when they beheld the orator seated at a table, on which were placed six pair of new boots. "Gentlemen!" he exclaimed, "nothing is so simple and easy as the art which I have undertaken to teach you. Here are a new pair of boots,-here a large pair of scissors;behold! I cut off the legs of the boots, and you have a new pair of shoes, without the smallest trouble; and thus may they be multiplied, ad infinitum, supposing always that you have a sufficiency of materials."

RELIGION has been called an insurance against fire in the next world, whereof honesty is the best policy. Sydney Smith says that people often imagine themselves pious when they are only bilious; by which he meant that they do not properly appreciate the difference between a serious disposition and a serious indisposition. It has been well said that some men's religious opinion is only a stake driven in the ground— does not grow-shoots out no green-remains just there, and just 80.

RELIGION-FASHIONABLE — Going to church; making devotion a matter of public form and observance between man and man, instead of a governing principle, or silent communion between the heart and its Creator;-converting the accessory into the principal, and mistaking the symbol and stimulant of pious inspiration for the inspirer; - worshipping the type, instead of the archetype;-being visibly devout, that is to say, when anybody sees you.

RELIGION - GENERAL - An accidental inheritance, for which, whether it be good or bad, we deserve neither praise nor censure, provided that we are sincere and virtuous.

Let us not, however, be mistaken. Far be it from us to assert, that men should be indifferent to the choice of religion, still less that all are alike. We maintain only, that in the great majority of instances, little or no choice is allowed; and it is our object to inculcate that humility as to our own

opinions, and that toleration for others, in which the most devout are very apt to be the most deficient.

"Religion is the mind's complexion,
Govern'd by birth, not self-election,
And the great mass of us adore
Just as our fathers did before.

Why should we, then, ourselves exalt
For what we casually inherit,

Or view, in others, as a fault,

What, in ourselves, we deem a merit?"

The religion that renders good men gloomy and unhappy, can scarcely be a true one. Dr. Blair says, in his Sermon on Devotion, "He who does not feel joy in religion, is far from the kingdom of heaven." Never can a slavish and cowering fear afford a proper basis for the religion of so dignified a creature as man, who, in paying honor, must feel that he keeps his honor, and is not disunited from himself, even in his communion with God. Reverence of ourselves is, in fact, the highest of all reverences; for, in the image of the Deity, we recognize the prototype; and thus elevated in soul, we may humbly strive to imitate the divine virtues, without pride or presumption. Religion has been designated as the love of the good and the fair, wherever it exists, but chiefly when absolute and boundless excellence is contemplated in "the first good, first perfect, and first fair." With this feeling in their hearts, the virtues could never wander from the right faith; and yet, how many good men seek it amid the dry spinosities and tortuous labyrinths of theology! It was a homely saying of Selden, "that men look after religion, as the butcher did after his knife, when he had it in his mouth."

Even a sincere religion may be unconsciously mixed up with carnal impulses; for when we cannot bring heaven down to earth, we are very apt to take earth up to heaven. That ardent adoration of the Virgin Mary, which has procured for Catholicism the not inappropriate designation of the Marian Religion, was derived probably from the days of chivalry, when a sexual feeling impassioned the worship paid to the celestial idol, and a devout enthusiasm sanctified the homage

offered to the earthly one. These spiritual lovers would have done well to perpend the fine saying of the philosopher, Marcus Antoninus-“Thou wilt never do any thing purely human in a right manner, unless thou knowest the relation it bears to things divine; or any thing divine, unless thou knowest all the relations it has to things human."

RELIGION-PURE AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD AND THE FATHER-We have placed this last, because it is the last that enters into the contemplation of the numerous classes of Christians, most of whom are too busy in fashioning some fantastical religion of their own, to seek for it in the Scriptures. The devout and rational reader is referred to the twenty-seventh verse of the first chapter of James. And if he still harbor a doubt which be the works of the flesh, and which of the Spirit, let him peruse St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, chap. v. vers. 19-26.

REPARTEE-A smart rejoinder, which, when given impromptu, even though it should be so hard a hit as to merit the name of a knock-down blow, will still stand excused, partly from the ready wit it implies, and partly from its always bearing the semblance of self-defence. When time, however, has been taken to concoct a retort, and an opportunity sought for launching it, not only does it lose all the praise of extemporaneous quickness, but it assumes a character of revenge rather than of repartee.

Those repartees are the best which turn your adversary's weapons against himself, as David killed Goliath with his own sword. Abernethy, the celebrated surgeon, finding a large pile of paving stones opposite to his door, on his returning home one afternoon in his carriage, swore hastily at the pavior, and desired him to remove them. "Where will I take them to?" asked the Hibernian. "To hell!" cried the choleric surgeon. Paddy leant upon his rammer, and then looking up in his face, said with an arch smile, "Hadn't I better take them to heaven?-sure they'd be more out of your honor's way."

The Earl of Rutland (Manners) said to Sir Thomas More,

It

when the latter was knighted, "Honores mutant Mores.” will do better in English," was the retort: "Honors change Manners."

REPLY-a ready one. "Carnivorous animals," said a collegian to the Rev. S. S———, “are always provided with claws and talons to seize their prey; hoofed animals are invariably graminivorous. Is it, therefore, consistent with the analogies of nature to describe the devil when he goes about seeking whom he may devour, as having a cloven foot?" "Yes," replied the divine; “for we are assured, on scriptural authority, that all flesh is grass." Few better replies are upon record than that of the young polemic, to whom a bishop once said, "If you will tell me where God is, I will give you an orange?" "If you will tell me where He is not, I will give you two," was the child's answer.

REQUEST-a modest one. When the Duke of Ormonde was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in Queen Anne's reign, one of his friends applied to him for some preferment, adding that he was by no means particular, and was willing to accept either a bishopric, or a regiment of horse-or to be made Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This, however, is surpassed by Horace Walpole's anecdote of a humane jailer in Oxfordshire, who made the following application to one of his condemned prisoners: "My good friend! I have a little favor to ask of you, which, from your obliging disposition,. I doubt not you will grant. You are ordered for execution on Friday week. I have a particular engagement on that day : if it makes no difference to you, would you say next Friday instead?"

RESOLUTION—He who sets out by considering all obstacles well-non obstantibus quibuscunque, has half-accomplished his purpose, for the difficulty in human affairs is more often in the mind of the undertaker, than in the nature of the undertaking. With this feeling, and the nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum,-nothing is impossible.