made matters worse. Next day, the lecturer took out the epistle from his pocket, and read it aloud to his pupils, commenting upon it, as he proceeded, in terms of severe and cutting irony. He had scarcely reached home, when a young man waited upon him, as Mr. Black's friend, with a demand either of a public apology, or of what was then, as now, termed the satisfaction of a gentleman! The physician treated both alternatives with scorn; adding, that whatever were Mr. Black's prospects, the difference between their present respective ranks in life sufficiently entitled him to refuse any meeting of a hostile nature. The young man then requested a few lines, stating the latter view of the matter for the satisfaction of his principal, which the physician readily gave him, and he returned to Black, expecting a renewed scene of passion and violence. But the result was very different. For some time after reading the physician's note, Henry Black appeared so stunned and overwhelmed that his friend began to fear for his reason; but he gradually recovered himself, and seemed to be forming some internal resolution. He at last calmly took the physician's note, wrote something on the back of it, and enclosed it in an envelope, which he sealed and delivered to his friend.

Keep this, my friend,' said he. This affair shall go no farther at present, I promise you; and I beg you will endeavor to forget all the circumstances connected with it, until I again ask this packet from you.'

The other stared with surprise, but undertook the charge requested him; mentioning, at the same time, another place of deposing it, in case of his own death, or his leaving the country.

From that hour Henry Black was a changed man. From notorious idleness and vacancy of mind, he became remarkable for studiousness and assiduity. Nothing could divert him from his studies, which were now principally directed to the science of surgery; and, in due time, he received his diploma, with the most flattering remarks of his instructer's approbation. At this time his relatives strongly urged him to commence practice in his native district; but he resisted all their solicitations, and proceeded to London, where, after prosecuting his studies for some time farther, he obtained an appointment on board a man-of-war, then about to proceed to the concluding scene of the American contest. There the ship was engaged in several actions, and Henry Black discharged his duties with a professional skill, and an anxious humanity, that endeared him both to the officers and crew. Upon the conclusion of the war in 1783, the ship was ordered to a station in one of the West India Islands, and thither the young surgeon also proceeded. He had scarcely arrived, when he received a notification of his uncle's death, who had left him sole heir to all his great wealth. The only reply he made to this communication was a letter, appointing certain individuals trustees upon his propertydirecting the greatest part of his income to be paid over to his parents in the meantime, and the remainder to be invested in the funds. He was determined to remain and practise in the island, and was fortunate enough to be soon afterward appointed surgeon of the naval hospital at the sea port where his ship was stationed. He acquired, by degrees, great celebrity; but it is needless to detail his career during the ten years he remained on the island. Suffice it to say, that, be

tween the emoluments of his situation, and the produce of his general practice, he acquired in that period a fortune much more ample than what had been bequeathed to him. He then embarked for his native land; and, upon his arrival in London, graduated as a physician.

Meanwhile his former instructer had increased in fame and opulence; and at the period at which we have now arrived, had held a professor's chair in the university for several years-which, by the way, he occupied to the extreme limits of a very long life. He was seated in his study one evening, when a gentleman on urgent business was announced; and the stranger without ceremony followed the servant into the apartment.

You are Doctor

'I am.'

-, sir, I believe,' said the stranger.

Then, sir, I am Doctor Black,' observed his visiter, emphatically. Pray, sir,' asked the professor, after a considerable pause of surprise at his tone and manner, is this a professional visit?-forexcuse me- -I am sure—that is, I do not recollect of our having met before, Dr. Black.'

We have met, sir; but it was when we were differently situated toward each other. Do you not remember a Mr. Henry Black, a pupil of yours, some fourteen years ago, whom you wantonly exposed to shame, and treated with insult before your whole class, and afterward refused the slightest satisfaction to his wounded feelings?'

6

Really, sir, such a circumstance has altogether escaped me.' Perhaps, sir,' observed Black, handing him a slip of paper, this document may recall it to your recollection.'

The other took and read the contents, and then replied, musingly, I think I do recollect some of the circumstances connected with this writing; and that the individual who wished to provoke me to fight was an idle young man, who, because he had the prospect of succeeding to the fortune of some rich relation, thought it unnecessary to apply himself to his studies. But may I ask your purpose in recurring to an affair of this nature after such a length of time?"

Because it is only now that he could speak to you upon an equal footing. I am the individual, sir. I have been prosecuting my profession abroad almost ever since the date of that paper, until within the last few months. I have earned a fortune by my own exertions. The difference of our rank is now removed. There, sir, are the certificates of my degrees. And now, sir, I am come to claim that satisfaction as a physician, which you refused to grant me as a student.'

This is most singular,' said the professor, in astonishment. 'Is it possible, sir, that you have brooded over this matter for the space of fourteen years? Excuse me if I say, sir, that such a disposition is but little consistent with the principles of a Christian.'

That is nothing to the purpose now, sir. To obtain my present privilege has been the grand aim of my life; and but for that, I would not have been the independent and professional man I now am.'

In that case,' replied the professor, kindling with a pleased emotion, it would ill become me to refuse such a boon to a man whom I have caused to labour so hard for it. Let me hope, however, that you will agree to pacific terms. I must certainly have been guilty of something unduly and undeservedly severe toward a man capable of

exerting such remarkable determination of purpose. Dr. Black, I beg you will accept of my apology, and along with it-if it seem worth your while-my friendship.'

I accept of both,' returned the visiter, with pleasure and gratitude. And now, allow me to say, that from the bottom of my heart I thank you for the lessons you read me. I knew not myself till then. It is you I have to thank for awakening me to a sense of the sacred duties of existence; and let me add, should you ever again find a pupil surrendering himself, as I did, to habits of idleness and indolence, I hope you will administer a dose that will operate as salutarily as that which has proved my own salvation. In the meantime, however, be pleased to look at the back of that paper, and observe what were the first violent effects of your prescription. That a resolution, formed in the spirit of revenge, should have been blessed with such happy results, is more than I deserve.'

The professor turned over the slip of paper, and there read in words too solemn to be here set down, a vow, that the writer would toil without intermission until he had made an independence by his own exertion, and attained a rank and reputation to entitle him to demand satisfaction for the injury he had received.

Such is a veritable account of the remarkable history of Henry Black. Of the early part of his character, there are at all times but too many prototypes to be found-of his subsequent career, unfortunately too few. But it is not so much of the young and thoughtless that we are at present speaking, as of the great mass of individuals, who, without the necessity of laboring hard for their daily bread, dissipate their leisure time in the most frivolous, and too often in the most pernicious amusements. It is upon these that we would wish to impress, not only the sinfulness, but the positive amount of pure, rational, and satisfactory enjoyment they deny themselves, by suffering their faculties to lie dormant. They neither fulfil the intentions of their Creator, nor do justice to themselves or their fellow creatures; and it is feared, that in this and other respects, the sins of omission, so seldom and so lightly thought of by mankind, would, upon strict investigation, be found even to outweigh those of palpable transgression.

From the Presbyterian.

PHYSICAL TRAINING;

An Essay, read before the Society of Inquiry in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J., Aug. 1834.

A FONDNESS for experiment is one of the characteristics of the present day; and education, as well as other things, has caught the infection of novelty. Some real improvements have undoubtedly been made; but many pretended improvements have been found to be mischievous innovations. Hence men of sense are becoming suspicious of things which are introduced under the imposing garb of a new invention, or a valuable improvement. They have been taught

by many a useful lesson, that all novelties are not improvements, and that all innovations are not blessings to mankind. There seems to be a kind of reaction. For a time, the study of the Grecian and Roman classics was, in many places, almost abandoned. But men soon began to regret that the ignorant or the misguided should have tempted them to forsake the well-tried road to intellectual wealth. We hear less than formerly of becoming learned, without laborious study. The present generation cannot expect to be carried over the broad fields of learning with the accelerated speed of steam boats and railroad cars. Still, however, in the great hurry, which, like an epidemic, seems to have infected the whole mass of society, men need sometimes to pause, and take time for sober reflection. The crying evil is not want of action, but want of patient thought. A thing which cannot be done in a hurry, can hardly be done at all. Books are made in a hurry, read in a hurry, and their contents in a hurry forgotten. I have said, there is no want of action. But if we speak of bodily action, in respect to students, it is not strictly true. So great is the haste to fill the brain with the motley multitude of compends and abstracts, which abound in all the arts and sciences, that little opportunity is afforded for thorough mental discipline-little time is found for the protracted investigation necessary for profound learning in any important branch of knowledge-and little is done to preserve and invigorate those bodily powers, which are so great an aid and comfort to the student, as well as to the man of business. If this last remark be true, it appropriately brings us to the consideration of a subject, which is often unjustly set down among the novelties of the nineteenth century: I mean the subject of manual labor schools, or schools in which manual labor is connected with study.

We shall not here inquire particularly into the excellencies or defects of manual labor schools, as they are at the present time conducted in this country; but shall proceed to consider manual labor in connection with study, in some form or other, as highly necessary and practicable.

1. The necessity of some expedient for preserving the health of students is every year more and more generally and deeply.felt. The question has often been asked, and as often correctly answered, Why are so many young men of promise brought to an untimely grave? Or, if not to an untimely grave, why does the bloom of a healthful countenance so often fade, after a short residence within the walls of a literary institution? Why is the Church so often called to mourn over so many of her noblest sons, who have come into the field, if they have come at all, only to fall in the first conflict in the Christian warfare? Is there any thing in the vigorous pursuit of learning, which of necessity must strip us of the blessing of good health? No one believes in any such necessity.

But why argue a point which no one disputes? All readily trace the evil to the neglect of those habits of diet and exercise, which, in all ages of the world, have been deemed indispensable to the preservation of sound health. And schools furnishing suitable means for bodily exercise will be sufficiently vindicated from the charge of novelty and innovation, by recollecting that manual labor schools, or something equivalent to them, were better understood two thousand

years ago than they are at the present day. The Persians, even before the time of Xenophon, will afford us an example. In some of the ancient republics the systems of mental culture were superior, and of physical education, not inferior to those of the Persians.

Great care was taken in the first six or eight years of life to lay the foundation for sound health; nor was this care afterward remitted during the whole course of education. Many of the schools of Athens,' says Dr. Good, attained a very high degree of reputation, and were crowded with youths from other Grecian states, and even from foreign countries. For the first five or six years, however, not the smallest effort was made to improve the mind; the whole of this period of time being devoted, according to the advice of Plato, and even of many of the earlier sages, to sports and pastimes, for the purpose of giving strength to the body; exercises which were ever afterward continued with the greatest punctuality, under particular regulations, and constituted a very important branch of Athenian education.'

Thus even in those distant times, when men had not learned by the arts and refinements of modern cookery to cloud the mind and torment the body, the importance of connecting manual labor with study was better understood than at the present day; and indeed something equivalent to manual labor was deemed indispensable in all the schools of antiquity. True, one object was, that the youth might have bones of brass and sinews of iron to enable him to endure the toils of war. But does the Christian soldier need no muscular strength? Does not he who is exposed to trials and dangers among the heathen?-nay, does not the minister of Christ in our own country need a sound body? And shall he who is enlisted under the Captain of his salvation be less solicitous to furnish himself, both in body and mind, for the conflict, than the heathen were, who looked forward to a conflict on the field of blood? And if it be true that the ancients have furnished us with some of the most finished productions of the human mind; and if, after having made the experiment of obtaining a good education without these productions, we have returned to them with a higher estimate than ever of their importance to the student-if we thus regard these productions, shall we spurn those principles of physical education by which their authors were guided, and to which they were indebted for the vigor requisite for producing such works as have for centuries been the wonder of mankind?

But, the question is asked, Why the necessity of system in this business? We might as well ask, Why the necessity of a system in any thing else in a public school. But, it is asked again, Is there any reason in compelling a man to exercise every day? Are not a man's muscles his own? With as much, and even more propriety, we might ask, Why compel a man to exercise his mind? His mind, as far as freedom of action is concerned, is even more his own than his body; and yet, in every well-regulated school, the pupil is obliged to perform his daily task of mental exercise. And is it not, then, as reasonable and profitable to compel the body as the mind to work? Indeed, if there must be compulsion at all, it should first of all be in respect to bodily exercise; for whatever can be done to promote sound health, is so much done to remove the obstacles both to mental