makes the most preposterous projects, and will hear no counsel. It is wiser in its own conceit than seven men that can render a reason; and though led like a child at times, is wholly intractable at others. Its confidence is largely another name for conceit, and so is its rashness, for it takes time and the rubs of life to make a man know his level, and modestly keep to it. A great many young men are top-heavy, and only get trimmed as they go on. They bring one in mind of the Earl of Buchan, whose manuscript John Ballantyne would not print because he had not capital I's enough in his office; and they only get modesty and becoming diffidence slowly. Self-command, humility, sound judgment, and firmness for good, are hardly spring flowers, though the whole may be found here and there in some, and one or others in many, in the "primrose days" of their life.

Splendid in gifts and capabilities and yet imperilled by manifold weakness, our early life needs a completeness from outside itself. Its defects must be corrected and its endowments hallowed; the one by a perfect exemplar, the other by a high consecration, and for both we have nowhere to look but to God. What the sun is to the flower, sight to the eye, or sound to the ear, God is to man; we find our complement only in Him. Youth, to be all intended by God, must ally itself with Him: change its own weakness into His strength; its blindness into the wisdom that comes from above; its ambition, from things earthly to those beyond. The tree lives in the air and light,

and would wither if they were gone, and the soul, like a tree, must spread itself out in the surrounding grace and presence of God.

We are all made by God for Himself, because living for Him is at once His due and the supremest bliss of the creature. He gives nothing in fee simple;

He only lends on prescribed conditions. Even in nature there must be a return; nothing is made only to receive. The winds and the waves, the clouds and the rain are only His servants doing His will: not a leaf or a flower; not a wing in the air, nor a worm, but is God's steward, with measured power for allotted ends. The whole universe stands before Him and ministers to Him. All things living and dead hold from Him. The highest angel and the moth are alike dependent. Around us, over us, in all things, we see only His embodied will,―sailing in the clouds; rolling through the storm; shining in calm skies; waving in field or forest, or glancing in streams and oceans. The seasons as they roll are but the varied God. universe is full of Him as the sky with day; it is only the veil behind which He sits dimly visible; the garment which at once hides and reveals His glory.

The

But if nature be thus a servant; much more such as we. Our higher gifts are only so much more responsibility, for the measure of obligation is the only limit of power. We are put in trust with all that we have and are-youth, manhood, age; body, intellect, soul; our words, thoughts, and acts; our influence and our substance; our time, and all that faithful

diligence and ability can make of it.

Nature teaches

our duty. The uttermost leaf repays the gifts of the sun, no less than the root those of the soil. The air and light and rain are owned in green branches and sheets of blossom. Not a bud refuses its tribute ; and what are our moments but buds which must break into leaves and fruit, and make all our life beautiful!

But, of all life those early years which are its opening pride must be most sacred. Our crown ;—we can do nothing less than cast it at His feet who gives it, that He may give it us back bright with His favour. If nature return all expected from her, we can be put no lower. The flower is fragrant from its bud to its last leaves; light burns from its kindling to its last moment; and our stewardship must be no less comprehensive. To answer our end we must be God's from the dawn of our days to their close. Life finds its completeness in being devoted to Him; it secures its own glory by being, like nature, but in a sense far higher and nobler, filled with His spirit, as a jewel with light.

How great the glory of youth thus related to God is beyond the putting in words. There is nothing so grand among men. A young life freely given to its God in the dew of its early hours, with its strength. and unbroken vigour, its energy, its hope and enthusiasm, and with its generous and untarnished affections, is a spectacle equally touching and elevating. Earth giving its best to heaven; the child passing to manhood true to his unseen Father; the snowy lamb

of our years, the best of the flock, vowed on the altar of Love and Duty-nothing is more commanding. A godly youth, in its promise, and its performance, is the true first-fruits of the world. Early piety is the giving to God what we delight to give, in our early warmth, even to the object of earthly Love-an entire dedication which forgets self, and finds its supremest joy in the thought that it may be accepted. Youth, beautiful always, never looks so divine as when it beams with the favour of God.

NOTE A.

"But for the moral part, perhaps Youth will have the preeminence, as Age hath for the Politic. A certain Rabbin, upon the text, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old; because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream."

BACON'S Essay "Of Youth and Age."

CHARACTER.

HEN a Greek used the word Characterfor it is a Greek word-he might mean either the letters of any writing or inscrip

tion, or the impression of a die or seal on a coin or wax, or he might apply it metaphorically to the qualities shown in our words and actions-the stamp and image of our minds or principles. It is with this use of it I have to do.

We are all busy, each moment, in this self-revelation. Not a word or act, nor even a look, escapes us but has our signet on it; and our lives, as a whole, are the counterpart of our thoughts, as the image is of the mould. In the aggregate, they make up our Character or Simulacrum-our true Ghost, which walks the earth, living, visible, and potential, both during our lives and long after. Men's spirits are embodied not in flesh and blood only, but in their daily words and doings, as well.

This double life begins with our own beginning, but it becomes a power for good or evil only as our intelligence gives us responsibility. We mould it by our free choice, but we express it often unconsciously.