tion materially on the understanding; it will not be doubted, however, that there is a voice within the soul which exclaims loudly, "Be Right! be Right!"* The understanding arrives at its conclusions, much as a jury arrive at their verdict; what difficulties have to be cleared away before the decision is given; what webs of sophistry removed in the pursuit of truth; how often is the truth obscured by the veiling mists of our own local atmosphere. Resolutely the mind must dare to advance to the Truth. Let its Motto be, "LET ME BE RIGHT.” We know very well that this word has itself become a sort of clap-trap; and it may be pronounced until its meaning and its importance in the life are forgotten; but let this be the perpetual idea, not lovers of a creed; not adherents to a dogma; let the Intellect and the affections sympa... thize together in the prayer to the Father of Lights, "Let me be Right." Let this wish inspire earnest, hearty endeavour; if the torch of truth is held out to us, yet let us recollect that we must lift our hand to grasp the torch; let us accept the sacred injunction to prove all things, and fearless of personal risk or sacrifice, let us urge on our way, with humble fervour, the prayer translated into our "LET ME BE RIGHT."

life,

* See Sylvester Graham's, Science of Life.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EDUCATION OF THE TASTE.

EVERY education is imperfect which does not only refine the mind, and give to it an immortal thirst for knowledge, but which does not give the power of a refined sensibility to the mind, so that it instantly becomes penetrated with beauty, and roused by sublimity, and also acknowledges the repelling influence of deformity. It is not proposed to write an essay on taste, but simply to scatter over the next two or three pages some hints by which the faculties of taste may be quickened and improved. What, then, is taste? A question, in answer to which, volumes have been written; a question which, it is desirable to answer now, in the most Catholic and universal manner. Simply, then, it is the capacity to admire the admirable, to love the lovely-and therefore, by necessity, to shudder at the terrible, and to thrill with profound emotion at the vast and the awful. It does not matter for our present purpose whether this emotion results from

some inherent sense of beauty in the mind, some perception of fitness or propriety, or whether from some inherent indwelling property in the objects themselves which excite the emotion,-or whether from the principle of suggestion or association, and from the perception of moral resemblances to material forms. Man greatly enlarges the domain of his happiness by eliciting these emotions, and without them we do not understand the meaning of any of the great works of Poetry, Painting, Statuary, or Architecture-the Fine Arts, as they have been called, but which are, in fact, only the attempt of Man to imitate Nature, from his exceeding sympathy with her works.

In fact the great lesson, "follow Nature," is especially to be borne in mind here. ART, of whatever department, is only a painful toiling after Nature; where she works with freedom and ease, Art labours hampered with difficulty. A love of Nature is the great refiner of the soul; to know her intimately, and to be well acquainted with all her methods of working, is the surest way to be saved from the falsities and the impositions of

man.

The contracted space now lying before us quite precludes the possibility of more than remote allusions.

I. In the first place, however, it should be remembered that a refined taste gives a liberality to

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the mind, a generosity to the conception. The narrowness of soul which characterises the mass of mankind results, indeed, from ignorance, we may say generally; but we should, perhaps, be more correct if we were to say it results from those sensuous impulses which it is the very office of taste to curb and restrain. A sensuous impulse is always a selfish one-is ever contracted in its impressions. Taste removes the legislative and judicial court from the local to the universal. That a mind should have been touched and impressed with the great principles of divine beauty, and should continue to pronounce its sanctions, and deliver its dicta after the low and common fashion of the unintelligent crowd, is impossible. True taste takes the soul out of its leading strings, and gives to it wings and capacities to ascend to the heights of imagination and wisdom.

II. It will be seen from this that taste exercises a considerable influence upon the moral conduct and disposition. All that is intended by this, indeed, is, that taste can favour moral conduct, not that taste is ever the foundation of morality. Taste demands moderation and decency; it abhors the violent, the rugged, and the harsh; and it may be said, perhaps, that it produces a state of mind favourable and friendly to virtuous action. Morality, indeed, produced by taste, is ever of a suspicious character, but taste aids morality by

checking those sensuous impulses which are the direct contraveners of her laws.

III. Taste, it will be perceived, sits in judgment on human performances, and correct taste is as possible to the person in humble life as to the most exalted and fashionable; and it is in the formation of a correct taste in the mind of the people generally, that we find the hope of the world. Let such a taste be formed, and the demagogue's trade will be at an end. Much of the success of falsehood results from the feigning an enthusiasm which cannot stand for a moment of time in the light of a correct and refined sensibility. In reference to Oratory, especially, how woefully diseased is the popular opinion in this!The charlatan and the mountebank are most successful. The calm, quiet dignity, the flowing, classical precision of speech, are frequently unappreciated and unfelt, while the trickster who plays off his spasms and his hysterics for "thunders of applause" in the building, and guineas out of it, is the popular idol. Now this cannot continue when the sensibilities are really awakened and educated, for taste everywhere tramples upon the meretricious: she does not despise artshe honours art, and loves the artist; but the shallow and pretending thing, travestying Nature, she indeed despises. Our modern style of pulpit and platform oratory is simply ridiculous; in Eng

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