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Thus does grief soften the heart, and teach us not only to sympathise with others, but how to bear our own ills more calmly. But for its humanising influence, how hardhearted would men become-how wrapt up each in his own self-sufficiency! Nay, even if the present economy of nature were altered but in a single respect-if the destiny of death were still allotted to all, but were postponed in each individual of our species to a certain period of time, how materially would the aspect of society be altered, and how callous would all the world remain, when one by one they saw their fellow-men removed from this earthly scene! Then with truth might people say, "Why mourn for him?-his time was come." It is because of the uncertainty that prevails-because some are cut off in the bud, and some in the prime-some by severity of disease, some by violence-and because we had hopes of enjoying their society longer, or that death might have come in some way less painful to themselves-because we are convinced that the government of affairs is completely beyond our own control and calculation-that we feel and acknowledge our own weakness, how closely we are concerned to possess each other's sympathies, how entirely we are dependent on a higher power! Thus has kind heaven made our sorest griefs the best blessings, even if we look no farther than to the condition of man in the present world.

INTENTIONS.

THERE is an old Spanish saying, that hell is paved with good intentions. For the extent of the commodity, the earth might be paved with them too; and then they would be very much in their proper place with respect to mankind, for there is nothing we are so perpetually trampling under our feet. What a great and glorious world this would be, if it were to be estimated by intentions! Even

amongst the humblest of us, and in the humblest details of our humble lives, what fine intentions we are always forming! We might all be gods for our intentions. The very thief, the day before his being finally captured and put on the road for the gibbet, had excellent intentions. The old abandoned sinner, the hour before he was struck by the mortal illness which carried him off, had the noblest intentions. The most virtuous and devout man in the country never had better, if so good. Oh that we could all be judged by our intentions!

In plain positive truth, these same intentions are the most pernicious things in the world, and men ought rather to be condemned, than excused, for entertaining them. If a man has no good intentions, he knows that he is decidedly wicked, and has the chance of being some day roused to a sense of his unrighteous state, and thereafter becoming reformed. But the man of good intentions goes dreaming on all his life, in reality a wicked and erring creature, but constantly absolving himself from his sins through the efficacy of this pretended virtue, which only permits and urges him to sin more. Far honester and far safer is he who does not pretend to conceal either from himself or others that he is a wretch, than the mean dastard who sneaks into a good character with himself, and at the same time deceives the world, by an assumed and fallacious merit. In fact, every

good intention, not in proper time carried into effect, is a palpable offence; for, but for it, we might have felt the necessity of doing some lesser good: it only tends to supplant the performance that might have otherwise taken place. Good intentions tickle the conscience till it sleeps, and then carry their victim forward, in blind and fatal security, to destruction.

As all men think all men mortal but themselves, so also do all men think all men liable to moral rebuke but themselves. When we hear some fervent pulpit admonition, accompanied by a justly severe view of the deceitfulness of human nature, we think that all this is very proper for peo

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ple in general, but never once suppose that we, in particular, are in the way of needing it. In the same way, it is by no means unlikely that many individuals who read this little essay will say either in words or thoughts, How just the writer is upon thousands whom we know! But not one in ten, perhaps, will bring the moral home to himself, and inquire to what extent he may have been guilty of only meaning well. This, however, is what every one should do. We would indulge the hope that many might thus receive a shock sufficient to awake them from the dream of good intentions, and henceforward endeavour to do what they have hitherto contented themselves with only designing to do. Let every one be on the watch for the least symptom of an intention which is excluding a performance. Let him open his eyes to the injury likely to result from such a habit. Let him reflect, when he sees another die without performing something which ought to have been done, that probably that individual had just as good intentions as any one ever has-only, as usual, he was cut off while in a state of dalliance with the performance. So blind are men, that we have heard an individual rail in no very measured terms at a neighbour who had died without doing a certain thing which he seemed to consider necessary; and when the railer was asked if he, who was in exactly the same circumstances with the deceased, had taken care to do that duty, he confessed that he had not. Oh no, but he intended to do it. He did not reflect that his neighbour was probably as much alive as he was to the propriety of doing the duty in question, but had always, like himself, been content with the intention. The uncertainty of life might have shown to our friend that he was liable, in one moment, if it so pleased God, to be in the same liability to blame as his deceased neighbour; but then how few ever reflect on this tritest of all truths!

Thus it is that men go on-doing many things which they ought not to do, but, as for the good which they ought to do, contenting themselves, in a great measure, with inten

tions. Intentions serve mankind instead of positive good; but we have heard wonderfully little of any similar or corresponding thing for preventing evil. Wrong is a reality -good, it would appear, little better than a fancy. The question, however, arises, Will this please the Being whom we serve, and who is at last to judge of our earthly merits? Assuredly it will not. Before the seat of that Being, we will be interrogated respecting our deeds; and how will the gauze of intentions, when we hold it up, appear in that mighty Eye, if deeds be wanting to prove the reality of those good principles which we have professed?

Even considered as a matter of worldly wisdom, the necessity of substituting performance for intention is obvious. No one ever gets rich upon intentions. It is only in so far as a man acts that he acquires any thing. He may entertain the most earnest intention to do something, and spend a whole day in fixing it in his mind. But, in the words of the English proverb, it will butter no parsnips. No, nothing but the actual work gains the money. Even in those numerous details of life which are not connected with the winning of our bread, but only tend to conveniency and courtesy between man and man, intentions serve to as little purpose. If we sincerely want to accommodate or befriend our neighbours, we must really bestir ourselves for the purpose, and actually write the letter, or go the errand, or pay the visit, which may be necessary. Nothing tells but the performance. In reality, the action often costs less trouble than the contemplation of it. We often voluntarily triple the sacrifice, by encumbering our minds with a load of intention, and keeping it there for hours or for days, when we might have at once relieved ourselves by doing what we always knew we could not avoid doing. We do not tell our young friends never to intend doing any good or useful deed; but we are most anxious that the action should follow the intention almost as rapidly as the report of a musket follows the ignition of the powder. Delay is the canker of human life. There is nothing done well that

is not done at once with promptitude and decision, and, if necessary, pursued with diligence. Let us hear no more, then, of this wretched cant about intentions.

Do not let us hear people who are burnt out talk of the hardship of losing all, when they had intended in a day or two to effect an insurance on their property. Do not let us see families launching out into expenses they are unable to support, and reconciling it with their conscience by saying they intend to be more saving next winter. Away with such deceptions! Let us see men go at once to the point, and do that which it is their duty to do, and not fritter away their time with those meaningless make-believes, which are as discreditable to their intellect as they are injurious to their interests.

UMBRELLAS.

THERE is one piece of property, which is nobody's property, or every body's property, or is not property at all— and that is, Umbrellas. "'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands," was not more truly said of the circulating medium, than it might be said of this curious branch of the floating capital of the nation, which fructifies in the hands of no one, but is continually going or flying about in the hands of this person and that person, and is always getting worse and worse. Umbrellas, I must confess, are to me a puzzle. Some people, certainly, do buy them new, for there are shops in every considerable town of the realm, where they are sold. But I wonder what kind of people they can be who do so; for one might just as well buy two acres of the wind, in the hope of handing them down as a patrimony to one's descendants. Alas! for the instability of all earthly things, and umbrellas in particular! Who can say that he ever actually owned an umbrella? Umbrellas are things of no power of adherence

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