and feel as
men, framed by nature's urgent law to the lovely and to hate the vile.
Oh, that the advocates for Him, the Good One, would oftener plead His
cause by the human affections--by generosity, by sympathy, by gentleness
and patience, by self-denying love, and soul absolving beauty; for these
are of the essence of God, and their spiritual influence on reason. A
child writes upon his heart that warmer code of morals, which the iron
tool of threatening availeth not to grave upon the rock, while the voice
of love can change that rock into a spring of water.

But we must descend from our altitudes, and speak of lower things; for
the time and space forbid much longer intrusion on your courtesy. A few
ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up,
as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web
I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is
nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in
turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to
have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the
scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not
often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands
in need of them? Directly a middle-aged heir succeeds to his
long-expected heritage, half-a-dozen aunts and second cousins are sure
to die off and leave him super-abounding legacies, any one of which
would have helped his poverty stricken youth, and made him of
independent mind throughout his servile manhood. The other day (the idea
remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord
in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth,
simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were
not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends
a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly
have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too
few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their
descriptions, than where ample wealth falls upon the hero just in the
nick of time. Providence intends to teach by penury: yes, and by
prosperity too: and we almost never see the reward given, or the no less
reward withheld, just as the scholar has begun to spell his lesson, and
before he has had the chance of getting it by heart.

That another death should occ