opinions during whose prevalence it has flourished, I will continue to deck it with all my care, till its last day—if it shall please Providence to permit me so long to inhabit it-and when it falls, it shall not be permitted to any observer to say, that after having stood in beauty and in quiet through many bright and happy years, it was permitted at last to crumble into the dust like a neglected and worthless thing, and with no testimonies of the veneration and love of those who had been honoured to be its latest occupants."

I naturally recurred to the same, or a similar train of thought, during those quiet moments by which dinner is succeeded-when, beside the newly gathered embers, the mind resigns itself, for a time, to its own wayward fancies—or when, bringing before it the events that have most recently and strongly occupied it,-it seeks to draw from them those lessons, and to render them productive of those emotions, which they are naturally fitted to suggest. "It is indeed, an old house this,' said I to myself," and there are many persons in situation who would not rest satisfied till they had seen its fall-and felt themselves the occupants of another more suited to the times-more showy in its appurtenances-and affording the means of more splendid gratification. But this is

my

not my way of thinking-I have lived through many happy years in this room—and the house altogether suits me better, perhaps, than any other that could be put in its place. Indeed, is it not likely, or perhaps certain, that, with my habits, and my recollections, and my partialities, I should find, not my happiness, but my discomfort, promoted by any change which it is possible for me to conceive-and I know, that in many things besides what concerns a new house, men are every day guilty of similar mistakes. I will, therefore, keep my old house as long as I can-I will adorn it by every art which I can command-and my pride shall be, not that I have seen the old dwelling taken down-and that I am better lodged than those who have preceded me—but that I have felt, as I ought, what was due to a place which their names and their characters have consecrated-and whose silent apartments still seem to my thoughtful eye to be tenanted by forms who here enjoyed the chief solace and comfort of their earthly existence."

No doubt, I have had my own share of suffering and of sorrow, as well as of happiness and of enjoyment, during the years that, in this house, have passed over my head; and, perhaps, like most of those who have experienced the trials of this mor

tal life, I might be tempted, in some reflective and depressed moments, to say, that few have had greater or more continued afflictions than mine ;and far be it from me to treat lightly, or to seek to remove from my remembrance-these solemn dispensations of Divine Wisdom and love ;-for I cannot shut my eyes to the fact,-that they were intended for purposes of mercy—and that I may yet, by serious consideration of them, make them the sources of far more important benefits than I have yet been able or disposed to draw from them. But it is a beautiful part of the ordinations of Providence, that even great sorrows do not lessen-at least in well-conditioned minds,— their interest in the scenes where such sufferings have been endured, and which are endeared to them by the remembrance of happier and more pleasant events. Perhaps it is even true, that the warmest and most heartfelt interest we ever take in any scenes, is that which is awakened by the remembrance of places in which the mingled lot of human life has been most strongly felt by us-and to which, therefore, we return with the consciousness of a thousand emotions which prosperity alone could not have generated. And this is the case, not merely because time softens the remembrance of the deepest distresses, or takes much away from

the unpleasant pressure with which they once assailed us--but still more, because, in looking back

on the past, we never fail to perceive that good was inseparably blended with all evil-and that our severest trials either bore with them at the time, or produced as their consequences, results that we did not anticipate, but for which we now have reason to be thankful-as, on the other hand, evil was commonly mingled with the most perfect happiness we have enjoyed-and that it is thus only the blended scene of good and of evil, that is suited to our remembrances-as it is only the mingled feeling of joy and of sorrow, that is, at any time, the most interesting and the most natural to the human heart.

It is thus, indeed, over the entire scene of human life; and, as in individual, so in social existence, there are no times, and no institutions, of which it can either be said, that they were so disastrous as to have involved the seeds of no blessings -or that they were so perfect, as not to have carried along with them some causes, either more obvious or more latent, which ultimately manifested themselves by unpleasant consequences. The plan of Providence consists not of detached parts-but is one continuous and ever-evolving whole;-and good and evil will in all future, as in

all past times, be found to have been blended with every form, both of private, of social, and of political life, that shall ever have a place among the things of time. Men, however, often lose sight of this; and because, in their past institutions, or systems of opinion, they have at length discovered that there was something of error or of evilthey pour only unmingled scorn on the days that are gone—and forget that every thing has an adaptation to its time, and that good and evil will for ever be mingled with all the dispensations of Divine Wisdom, both to the individuals and the communities of men.

My affection, therefore, for my old house is not diminished, but augmented by the thought, that within its walls, and through no inconsiderable series of years, I have experienced much that was adapted to try and to make sad-as well as to soothe and rejoice the heart. Indeed, with the former, as well as the latter series of events—or rather, I should say, without their constant intermingling, my remembrances of the days that have elapsed, would have wanted much of the interest which they now awaken ;—and though folly or sin never can be a subject of pleasant remembrance, yet the healing lessons of Providence may be reverted to with interest-and good may be seen