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rity, are by law entitled to pursue tion was sincere, and the character of

their own happiness in their own way. the speaker such as to warrant the It is quite lamentable to observe the belief that he would act upon it, if his humble, the debasing course they education had been such as to have almost always adopt. Rational views shown him how to do so, or rather, as of themselves, of human nature, and the previous point, what to do. Το of the institutions of society, would keep a pack of hounds, to be followed be invaluable to such individuals; over fields and enclosures by the elite but they have no adequate means of of the county, does not stand very obtaining them, while positively false high in the scale of good to engage views have been implanted in their keenly in party politics is not good, minds by a perverted education. I for these are generally incompatible grant the case to be an extreme one, with the general weal: to dispense a young gentleman of large fortune, costly and luxurious hospitality innot destitute of talents and good feel- discriminately, is to do wide-spreading, and regularly subjected to all the ing mischief: to pursue or encourage appliances of dead language edu- idleness or frivolous occupations, is cation at school and college, who on not good: to strengthen, by influence the day of his majority was declared and example, the pride of rank and a free man, with power to choose the its correlative sycophancy, to uphold most likely road to real happiness. the heartless, icy, withering barriers What did he do? He established, of of fashion, and, by external pomp, course, a stud of hunters, a pack of circumstance, and equipage, to shut hounds, and a whole armory of out knowledge of, and sympathy with, fowling pieces-galloping and blazing the general mass of society, cultivated and slaughtering being universally and uncultivated, are all severally held inseparable from wealth and bad, and, although much the practice rank, in the present state of civiliza- of our nobility, injurious in a degree tion. Coach-driving, either of pri- to which their education shuts their vate four-in-hand vehicles, or the eyes, to themselves and to society. public conveyances, is no longer Education, rendered what it ought to sanctioned by general approbation, as be, will point out" what is good" suiting the age; nevertheless, our both in its temporal and spiritual hopeful had a trial of coach-driving. sense, to the wealth-loaded favourites From this he was diverted by matri- of fortune. To do good and to mony, and post nuptially took to communicate," is eminently in their another gratification of his faculties of power, if they will first, "with all rather an original kind; he placed their gettings, get knowledge," and cats upon a float in the middle of a apply it to useful purposes; if they pond, and sent dogs to swim in and will learn and value the acts and maattack them! This last occupation nifestations of high intellectual and would have been disdained by a young moral endowments, more than phynobleman of immense possessions, sical comforts, sensual enjoyments, who, at a feast in honour of his majo- and external pomp; if they will rity, manifested the best natural dis- seek the society of enlightened and positions, by acknowledging that he benevolent men, whose intellects are had always been taught, and had replenished with knowledge of the always felt, that the great duty im- Creator's works and ways, whose posed upon him by his rank and for- hearts swell with wonder, adoration, tune was to do good. The declara- and love, whose whole minds are in

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stinct with sympathy, and ardent grain of sand that we can gather on desire for human happiness. With the sea-shore forms of the whole their aid they would know how to globe of our earth. convert their wealth into a powerful engine of social benefit; and from this the legitimate gratification of the higher faculties of their nature, they would enjoy as well as confer real good.

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In respect of the space which it occupies, this system is absolutely beyond our comprehension. We are accustomed, indeed, to pronounce the names of very large numbers with the same fluency as we do those of The very proposition of such a small ones; but the understanding course for a rich, splendid, elegant, which we have of them is a very difand spirited" young nobleman, ferent matter. We speak of thouwould of course, at present, raise in sands and of millions; and yet it is himself and the whole table he pre- doubtful whether we have any very sides at, a roar of incredulous and clear and distinct notion of that which scornful laughter, the natural expres- we call a hundred. Our ordinary sion of the very barbarism so much to arithmetical notion of it is, that it is be deplored. But with more en- ten tens; and as it is too great for lightened views, it will come to be acknowledged that the waste of life, fortune, and happiness, by the affluent, which characterizes the present, as it has marked the past, ages of the world, is owing, in no small degree, to ignorance of human nature, its wants and capacities-in other words, to imperfect education.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

THE Sun, which is to us the measurer of days and of years, the discloser of all the beauty which we see in nature, and the principal agent in the activity of the spring, the beauty of summer, and the abundance of autumn, the sun, with our earth, and the other planets, primary and secondary, which revolve round the sun, and the " comets which run their devious career," more insubstantial in their natures, and more unstable in their paths, taken altogether, form a theme of more sublimity and elevation, and expansion of thought, than any other in material nature, excepting one-the whole of that universe, of which they form a part, and certainly a smaller part than the least

the instantaneous perception of any of our senses, it seems very doubtful whether we can get any other more clear than this, or even as clear. We speak with wonder of those rude nations, which could not count beyond "three;" but it is doubtful whether, without that arithmetic, which is the result of so much thinking, and a matter of thought after all, our counting would have gone farther.

The mean extent of the system of the solar planets, measured across the sun, from side to side of the most distant orbit, is about three thousand six hundred millions of miles; and we do not know how far beyond this, other bodies of which we have yet no knowledge, may extend. shall best form a notion of this, by taking it in terms of some measure which we can better understand, and call on time to assist in our understanding of it.

We

Fifty miles a day is a very ample rate at which a human being would continue walking. Now, at this rate, it would take a man just about two millions of years to travel from side to side of the orbit. This is immense and yet it is nothing to thought, which can career round the

orbit, before the tongue or the finger axle that pulls the wheel along, and can count one!

not the wheel that impels the axle.

sometimes nearer to the central sun, and sometimes more remote from it. But if it advances in one part of its circuit, it retreats as much in another; and if it approaches the sun, it again recedes.

These give rise to variations in the motion of both, and, especially, in that of the satellite, which being the smaller body, is of course the more easily disturbed; but still, notwithstanding all these variations, the orbital motion of the satellite is the same as that of the planet.

Within this vast space, there are Applying this to the case of the eleven primary planets revolving satellite, which is only like a nail in round the sun, as their centre of mo- the circumference of a large wheel, tion; and some of them have moons the planet corresponding to the axle, or satellites which have a double mo- it is easy to see that the satellite tion in space, one motion around has no more orbital than the planet the primary which they attend, and which it accompanies. As is the another around the sun, along with case with the nail in the wheel, it that primary. One of the simplest is in all positions with regard to its illustrations that we can have of this planet, being sometimes in advance of compound motion of the satellite, the planet, sometimes in the rear, is that of a nail in a carriage wheel, when the carriage draws round an oval course. The end of the axle has only one motion round the course; but the nail has two,-one round the course, and another round the axle. But there is something more in this very simple motion, with which we must be careful not to mislead ourselves. The axle moves steadily on at the same elevation, if on level and firm ground, while the nail is in all directions, before, behind, above, and below the axle, in succession. If the nail is in a large wheel it appears to move slowly; and if in a small one, it appears to trundle along more rapidly. Every one may have heard of the countryman, who, when first seeing a coach in motion, exclaimed, "Well done, little wheel!-the big one cannot overtake you!" But the countryman did not see the reason, which is simply this: that both wheels go at the same rate; all parts in both of them make equal progress forwards, and no point moves one jot faster than the end of the axle. The extremity of the axle arrives at the end of the journey at the very same instant as the head of the nail in the wheel; and in the motion which the bush, or bore of the wheel, has upon the axle, All the motions of the secondary the axle slides forward on the wheel, planet have thus reference to the and the wheel backward upon the primary, and to that only; and as it axle. And we can easily see that thus wants what may be regarded as this must be the case; for it is the the elements of day and night, and

The satellite is thus, as it were, not an independent member of the solar system, having a year of its own; and it is also probable (though the fact is beyond the limits of our knowledge) that no satellite has a regular alternation of day and night, in consequence of rotation on an axis, like a planet. The only satellite of which we have any thing like even a tolerable knowledge, is our own moon; and we know that it has no day and night, in consequence of its own rotation. It keeps the same side to the earth, in the same manner as the nail in the wheel keeps the point always to the axle; but though this makes it point always in the course of the revolution, there is no real relation.

we can see no reason why they should. They are all very small bodies, as compared with the primary planets. The moon, for instance, is only about a fortieth part as heavy as the earth; and all the satellites of Jupiter, four in number, are not a five-thousandth part of that

TEMPTATIONS OF THE METROPOLIS.

seasons, it is probably without these, the satellite of our earth appears to and also without any of their produc- answer no other purpose than this, tions, growing or living, which we observe to be so dependent on the seasons in the economy of our globe. Appealing again to the moon, in illustration, we find that there is little there upon which any occasional action could produce any effect. There is no more appearance of snow upon any part of the moon at one season planet. The masses and motions of of the year than at another; and yet the primary planets will be our next we can see traces of snow around the subject. poles of the planet Mars, though that planet cannot come nearer to the earth than a hundred and sixty times the distance of the moon; and is, generally speaking, very much farther off than this. Besides, all the appearances tend to show that there is no air, no water, and no fluid of any kind in the moon, or immediately surrounding it; and this being the case, it cannot be the habitat of any plant, or the abode of any animal at all resembling those of the earth. But the distance of the moon from the sun is the same on the average as that of the earth; and, therefore, if the one had plants and animals, the analogy would lead us to infer that they also would be the same on the average. The fact is, we know the moon only as an attendant upon the earth, in its journey round the sun; and other use of it in the system we know none. This, it must be confessed, is a very limited extent of knowledge, but we have no more; and that should, at all events, keep us from falling into idle theories, and extravagant absurdities.

We cannot of course, know more about the satellites of the other planets, than we do about the moon ; for the very nearest of them cannot come within eighteen hundred times the distance of the moon. Thus, we can know them only as satellites attendant on their primaries; and as

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THE peculiar temptations and dangers of young men in the metropolis of this country, nearly 200 years ago, attracted the benevolent regard of Richard Baxter, the eminent nonconformist divine; who, toward the close of his active life, wrote a treatise, entitled, Compassionate Counsel to all Young Men; especially London apprentices, students of divinity, physic and law, &c." The general views which induced Baxter to undertake this labour, he thus briefly states in the commencement of his tractate : "There is no man that ever understood the interest of mankind, of families, of cities, of kingdoms, of churches, and of Jesus Christ the King and Saviour, but he must needs know that the right instruction, education, and sanctification of youth, is of unspeakable importance to them all." And a little after he adds, "By much experience I have been made much more sensible of the necessity of warning and instructing youth than I was before. The sad reports of fame have taught it me; the sad complaints of mournful parents have taught it me; the sad observation of the wilful impenitence of some of my acquaintances tells it me; the many scores (if not hundreds) of bills that have been publicly

put up to me to pray for wicked and posure so few, that multitudes fall the obstinate children, have told it me; victims of a moral destruction, to and, by the grace of God, the peni- say the least, who in other circumtent confessions, lamentations, and stances might have been preserved. restitutions of many converts have In London there is a vast concourse more particularly acquainted me with of young men assembled from every their case." The reasons which in- part of the country; and almost from duced Baxter (who was as deeply every part of the world. Some of read in the study of human nature as them bring with them a respectable he was versed in the school of divi- character and correct moral princinity,) to compassionate the condition ples; others come to give a loose to of the young men of the metropolis, evil propensities, which, in the counand to address to them, especially, try, and under the restraints of home, his "compassionate counsels," re- were kept in some degree of subordimain in their full force at the present nation. When these characters minday. Indeed it is greatly to be feared gle in a large city, the moral and resthat all the moral evils of the metro-pectable must of necessity be exposed polis, which existed 200 years ago, to the seductions and evil example of continue still to operate with una- the vicious. Nor are those who are bated vigour; and, that the stream of themselves initiated in the debauchetime, from that period to the present, ries and excesses of an unbridled has been steadily depositing the seeds sensuality slow in their attempts to of new species of temptations, by undermine the principles, and to effect which London is rendered, to the the moral debasement of those whom young especially, the hot-bed of pro- they suspect to be less guilty and less fligacy and vice. The vast increase vicious than themselves. The wicked of the population, and the extended and successful efforts of these pioneers commerce of our capital have steadily in the ways of sin, could be mournand almost in a definable ratio, gone fully attested by many a youth, who on augmenting the moral dangers of with unsullied character and buoyant its youthful inhabitants, and giving a hopes quitted the fond endearments tenfold energy to every natural pro-and quietude of home, to mingle in pensity to evil. Incitements to sin, the busy scenes of a London life; and occasions favourable to the gratification of unholy passions are every where to be found:-in town and country the temptations of Satan are sufficiently rife; but in London every temptation of the country exists, and exists with innumerable most dangerous adjuncts, together with a numerous train of evils peculiar to itself, and which only large cities can present. Wherever circumstances throw a large company of young men into each other's society, incentives to evil are exceedingly powerful; and the facilities for the indulgence of unlaw ful passions in this city are so great, and the chances of discovery and ex

but, who falling into the hands of one of these debauched and gay seducers, has found, that on crossing his father's threshold, he left all the innocence and all the happiness which, without a miracle of mercy, he can ever hope to enjoy.

How often have I seen the eye that should have flashed with pleasure become dim in its socket; and how often, in every line of a countenance that once beamed with ingenuousness, have I traced the wreck of every moral principle! And, alas! how often has the death-like pallor, which I have seen displace the glow of health, and the form emaciated by

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