fountain of the element of which minds are made. From morning til evening he has the dominion of all that is grand and beautiful over the face of nature, and seems at once to make it his own, and to make it ours. His glories are augmented in his decline, as he passes down the sky amid a wilderness of beautiful clouds, the incense of the world, collected to honor him as he retires; till at last he seems to descend into a calm sea with amber shores—leaving, however, above the horizon a mellow lustre, soft and sweet, as the memory of a departed friend. How important and dignified should that course of action be, which is lighted by such a lamp! How magnificent that system which required so great a luminary-and to what a stupendous elevation will that thought rise, which must vault over such an orb of glory, in its way to contemplate a Being still infinitely greater!

When the night is come, we may look up to the sublime tranquillity of the heavens, where the stars are seen, like nightly fires of so many companies of spirits, pursuing their inquiries over the superior realms. We know not how far the reign of disorder extends, but the stars appear to be beyond its limits; and, shining from their remote stations, give us information that the universe is wide enough for us to prosecute the experiment of existence, through thousands of stages, perhaps in far happier climes than this. Science is the rival of imagination here, and by teaching that these stars are suns, has given a new interest to the anticipation of eternity, which can supply such inexhaustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet these stars seem to confess that there must be still sublimer regions for the reception of spirits refined beyond the intercourse of all material lights; and even leave us to imagine that the whole material universe itself is only a place where beings are appointed to originate, and to be educated through successive scenes, till passing over its utmost bounds into the immensity beyond, they there at length find themselves in the immediate presence of the Divinity.

EXTRACTS FROM MR. FOSTER'S JOURNAL.

Many of these passages will serve to illustrate the biography; as they record expressions of personal feeling, incidents, and conversational remarks, relating to the period through which the narrative in this chapter extends.

41. I aspire to be an intellectual painter, and I review nature's scenery so often, to possess myself of colors.

54. I wish a character as decisive as that of a lion or a tiger, and an impetus towards the important objects of my choice as forcible as theirs towards prey and hostility;-wish to have an extensive atmosphere of consciousness; a soul which can mingle with every element in every

form; which, like an Æolian harp, arrests even the vagrant winds, and makes them music.

120. The equanimity which a few persons preserve through the diversities of prosperous and adverse life, reminds me of certain aquatic plants which spread their tops on the surface of the water, and with wonderful elasticity keep the surface still, if the water swells or if it falls.

123. Adversity! thou thistle of life, thou too art crowned; first with a flower, then with down.

205. A man of genius may sometimes suffer a miserable sterility; but at other times he will feel himself the magician of thought. Luminous ideas will dart from the intellectual firmament, just as if the stars were falling around him; sometimes he must think by mental moonlight, but sometimes his ideas reflect the solar splendors.

207. Casual thoughts are sometimes of great value. One of these may prove the key to open for us a yet unknown apartment in the palace of truth, or a yet unexplored tract in the paradise of sentiment that environs it.

209. When the majestic form of Truth approaches, it is easier for a disingenuous mind to start aside into a thicket till she is past, and then re-appearing say, " It was not Truth," than to meet her, and bow, and obey.

210. When we withdraw from human intercourse into solitude, we are more peculiarly committed in the presence of the Divinity; yet some men retire into solitude to devise or perpetrate crimes. This is like a man going to meet and brave a lion in his own gloomy desert, in the very precincts of his dread abode.

212. Time is the greatest of tyrants. As we go on towards age, he taxes our health, our limbs, our faculties, our strength, and our features. 213. Youth is not like a new garment, which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youth, while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast wear away.

214. The retrospect on youth is too often like looking back on what was a fair and promising country; but is now desolated by an overwhelming torrent, from which we have just escaped.

215. Or it is like visiting the grave of a friend whom we had injured, and are precluded by his death from the possibility of making him an atonement.

218. I am not observing, I am only seeing: for the beam of my eye is not charged with thought.

235. Characters formed in the routine of a court, like pebbles in a brook, are rounded into a smooth uniformity, in which the points and angles of virtuous singularity are lost.

262. Sweet bird! it is a tender and entrancing note, as if breathed by the angel of love; rather the infinite spirit of love inspires thy bosom, and thou art right while thou singest to raise those innocent little eyes

to heaven!

263. Large masses of black cloud, following one another like a train of giants, in sullen silence, answering the azure smiles of heaven that gleam between, with a Vulcanian frown.

264. Why was the Jewish dispensation so strange, so exterior, so inadequate? Why? Would that the end of the world were come to explain the proceedings of Providence during its continuance! But I perceive multitudes around me, who know nothing of these doubts and wonderings.

267. I have seen a man, a religious man, press his foot down repeatedly on a small ant-hill, while a great number of the poor animals have been busy on it. I never did such a thing, never. Oh Providence! how many poor insects of thine are exposed to be trodden to death in each path are not all beings within thy care?

274. How many of these minds are there to whom scarcely any good can be done? They have no excitability. You are attempting to kindle a fire of stones. You must leave them as you find them, in permanent mediocrity. You waste your time if you do not employ it on materials which you can actually modify, while such can be found. I find that most people are made only for the common uses of life.

278. I do not long for this powerful excitation as an instrument of vain-glory. It is not a thing which, ambition out of the way, would give me no disturbance. No; it is essential to my enjoyment. It is the native impulse of my soul, and it must be gratified, or I shall be either extremely degraded, or extremely unhappy; for I am unhappy in as far as I do not feel myself advancing toward true greatness. I feel myself like a large and powerful engine which has not sufficient water or fire to put it completely in motion.

279. Perhaps you may think that vanity betrays me into a flattering estimate of my capacity; and perhaps it does; but after having speculated on myself so long, I doubt whether speculation will now be able to detect the fallacy. It must be left to experiment.

280. Here I am now, in health, in a field near C——, musing on plans for futurity. What a question it is, "How-when--where-shall I die ?" 285. (To the Deity.) Give me all that is necessary to make me, in the greatest practicable degree, happy and useful. I feel myself so remote from thee, thou grand Centre, and so torpid! It is as if those qualities were extinct in my soul which could make it susceptible of thy divine attraction. But oh! thine energy can reach me even here. Attract me, thou great being, within the sphere of thy glorious light; attract me within the view of thy throne; attract me into the full emanation of thy mercies; attract me within the sphere of thy sacred Spirit's most potent influences.

I thank thee for the promise and the prospect of an endless life; I hope to enjoy it amid the "eternal splendors" of thy presence, O Jehovah ! I thank thee for this introductory stage, so remarkably separated by that thick-shaded frontier of death, which I see yonder, from the amplitude

of existence. But oh! how shall I occupy the space of this stage, so as most absolutely to achieve its capital purpose,—so as to take possession of what in Heaven's judgment is its utmost value. Oh do thou seize my existence at its present point, and henceforward guide and model it thyself! Images of excellence, of happiness, of real greatness, often appear to me, and look at me with an aspect inexpressibly ardent and emphatic. Monitors! why do you accuse me? whither would you lead me? Yes, I will follow them, and try what is that scene to which they invite me. Oh my Father! give me thy strength; inspire, conduct, and crown, one of the unworthiest of all thy sons!

286. My life has been a stream spread into listless diffusion, but ere long it must assume a defined channel, and a quickened motion. I wait to see the valley through which it is to flow; will it be gentle, or rugged and tremendous ?

291. I have been reading some of Milton's amazing descriptions of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit or traverse; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. I almost wished for death; and wondered with great admiration what that life, and what those strange regions really are, into which death will turn the spirit free! I cannot wonder, and I can easily pardon, that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes demolished the corporeal prison, by flinging it from a precipice, or into the sea. Milton's description of Uriel and the Sun revived the idea which I have before indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury, of committing myself to the liquid element (supposing some part of the sun a liquid fire), of rising on its swells, flashing amidst its surges, darting upwards a thousand leagues on the spiry point of a flame, and then falling again fearless into the fervent ocean. O! what is it to be dead; what is it to shoot into the expansion, and kindle into the ardors of eternity; what is it to associate with resplendent angels!

292. This soul either shall govern this body, or shall quit it.

293. How much I regret to see so generally abandoned to the weeds of vanity that fertile and vigorous space of life, in which might be planted the oaks and fruit-trees of enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which growing up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, and a shade!

297. I hold myself a sacrifice, a victim, consecrated and offered up on the great altar of the kingdom of Christ, as one of the human fruits of his kingdom, offered by him, the great High Priest, to the God of all.

300. All pleasure must be bought at the price of pain: the difference between false pleasure and true is just this-for the true, the price is paid before you enjoy it—for the false, after you enjoy it.

301. Ego. There is a want of continuity in your social character. You seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in fragments. Ego. But how much better to shine whole, like a mirror?

302. Infidels assume, in subjects which from their magnitude neces

sarily stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can, or cannot be. They seem to say, "We stand on an eminence sufficient to command a vision of all things; therefore whatever we cannot see does not exist."

303. (Power of bad habit.) I know from experience that habit can, in direct opposition to every conviction of the mind, and but little aided by the elements of temptation (such as present pleasure, &c.), induce a repetition of the most unworthy actions. The mind is weak where it has once given way. It is long before a principle restored can become as firm as one that has never been moved. It is as in the case of a mound of a reservoir; if this mound has in one place been broken, whatever care has been taken to make the repaired part as strong as possible, the probability is that if it give way again, it will be in that place.

304. (Spoken of a remarkable instance of moral insensibility in the approach of death.) "It is an occultation of mind which nothing but death can illuminate."

307. One has sometimes continued in a foolish company, for the sake of maintaining a virtuous hostility in favor of wisdom; as the Jordan is said to force a current quite through the Dead Sea.

308. There is not on earth a more capricious, accommodating, or abused thing than CONSCIENCE. It would be very possible to exhibit a curious classification of consciences in genera and species. What copious matter for speculation among the varieties of-lawyer's conscience -cleric conscience-lay conscience-lord's conscience-peasant's conscience-hermit's conscience-tradesman's conscience-philosopher's conscience-Christian's conscience-conscience of reason-conscience of faith-healthy man's conscience—sick man's conscience-ingenious conscience-simple conscience, &c., &c., &c., &c.

309. (Suggested by that passage, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”)

There was once an age, when it had been most unfortunate to be a bad man; the good ones were so formidably active and courageous. There were a class of men whose profession was martial benevolence. They lived but for the annihilation of wrongs; to defend innocence; to dwell in tempests, that goodness might dwell in peace; to deliver the oppressed and captives, and to dash the tyrant down. Woe then to the castles of proud wickedness, to magicians, robbers, giants, dragons; for the wandering heroes vowed their destruction. This famous age is gone! But in every age it has been deemed honorable to wage war against the mischievous things and mischievous beings that have infested the earth. "Gallant and heroic world," we are inclined to exclaim, while we contemplate the mighty resistance made to invading armies, elements, or plagues; or the spirited persecution that has been carried on against robbers, pirates, monsters, serpents, and wild beasts. Yes, tigers, wolves, hyænas, have been pursued to death. The avenging spirit has hunted the timid thief, and even condescended to crush each poor reptile