or that his mother was too self-indulgent to exert herself in any such way for his religious entertainment, as to respite and soften the strictness of the Sunday observance. Perhaps the requirement was really too restrictive, or perhaps it was so little and so unevenly restrictive, as to make it only, the more annoying. Be it as it may, in this or any particular example, a true Sunday observance needs. to be restrictive in a certain degree, and needs to be felt in that way, in order to its real benefit. What is wanted is to have God's will felt in it, and then to have it reverently and willingly accepted. A Sunday turned into a holiday, to avoid the supposed evil of restrictiveness, would be destitute of religious value for just that reason.

The true principle of Sunday observance, then, appears to be this that the child is to feel the day as a restriction, and is to have so much done to excite interest, and mitigate the severities of re striction, that he will also feel the true benignity of God in the day, and learn to have it as one of his enjoyments. When the child is very young, or just passing out of infancy, it will be enough that, with some simple teaching about God and his day, a part of his more noisy playthings are taken away; or, what is better than this, that he have a distinct Sunday set of playthings; such as may rep resent points of religious history, or associate religions ideas, abund ance of which can be selected from any variety store without diffi culty; then, as the child advances in age, so as to take the full meaning of language, or so as to be able to read, the playthings of the hands and eyes will be substituted by the playthings of the mind; which also will be such as connect some kind of religious interest-books and pictures relating to scripture subjects, a practice in the learning and beginning to sing Christian hymns, conversations about God and Christ, such as bring out the beauty of God's feeling and character, and present him, not so much as a frightful, but more as a friendly and attractive being; for the child who is only scared by God's terrors and severities, will very soon lose out all proportional conceptions of him, and will want to hear of him no more. Even the Sunday itself that only brings him to mind. will, for just that reason, become a burden. The endeavor should be to excite a welcome interest in the day and the subjects it recalls. Under such a practice, religion, or faith, will be woven into the whole texture of the family life, and the house will become a truly Christian home. Nothing will be remembered so fondly, or steal upon the soul with such a gladsome, yet sacred, feeling afterward, as the recollection of these dear Sundays, when God's light shone so brightly into the house, and made a holiday for childhood so nearly divine.

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e'b. Di nad step! BACON'S ESSAY L. OF STUDIES.}.

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief... use for delight is in privateness, and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for, expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned, To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them, for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts mado of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like.com mon distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, confer, ence a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave logic and rhetoric, able to contend: Abeunt studia in mores " nay, there is no stond' or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought

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3 Curiously.

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it more curiously, I saw within it several spots which appeared darker

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influenced by studies”... 11', # 7 Stond. Hindrances. to zlot? 28Wrought. Worked!" Who, through faith, wrought righteousness."-Heb. xi 33.

"How great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee!"Psalm xxxi. 19.

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out by fit studies, like as diseases, of the body may have appropriate exercises bowling is good for the stone and reins,' shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like; so, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics, for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are 'cymini sectores;" if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt,

2

This contempt, whether of crafty men or narrow-minded men, often finds its expression in the word "smattering;" and the couplet is become almost a proverb

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

T

But the poet's remedies for the dangers of a little learning are both of them impossible. None can "drink deep" enough to be, in truth, anything more than very superficial; and every human being, that is not a downright idiot, must taste.

1

1

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It is plainly impossible that any man should acquire a knowledge of all that is to be known, on all subjects. But is it then meant that, on each particular subject on which he does learn anything at all, he should be perfectly well informed ? Here it may fairly be asked, what is the "well?"-how much knowledge is to bo called "little" or "much?" For, in many departments, the very utmost that had been acquired by the greatest proficients, a century and a half back, falls short of what is familiar to many a boarding-school miss now. And it is likely; that our posterity, a century and a half hence, will in many things be just as much

1 Reins. Kidneys; inward parts. "Whom I shall see for myself, though my reins be consumed within me."-Job xix. 27.

2 Differences. Distinctions.

3" Splitters of cummin." Vid. A. L. I. vii 7.

in advance of us. And, in most subjects, the utmost knowledge that any man can attain to, is but "a little learning" in comparison of what he remains ignorant of The view resembles that of an American forest, in which, the more trees a man cuts down, the greater is the expanse of wood he sees around him. 02

But supposing you define the "much" and the "little" with reference to the existing state of knowledge in the present age and country, would any one seriously advise that those who are not proficients in astronomy should remain ignorant whether the earth moves or the sun?-that unless you are complete master of agriculture, as far as it is at present understood, there is no good in your knowing wheat from barley?-that unless you are such a Grecian as Porson, you had better not learn to construe the Greek Testament?

The other recommendation of the poet, "taste not "—that is to say, have no learning is equally impossible. The truth is, every body has, and every body ought to have, a slight and superficial knowledge—a “ smattering," if you will— of more subjects than it is possible for the most diligent student to acquire thoroughly. It is very possible, and also very useful, to have that slight smattering of chemistry which will enable one to distinguish from the salts used in medicine, the oxalic acid, with which, through mistake, several persons have been poisoned: Again, without being an eminent botanist, a person may know what it is most important to know the difference between cherries and the berries of the deadly nightshade; the want of which knowledge has cost many lives.

Again, there is no one, even of those who are not profound politicians, who is not aware that we have Rulers; and is it not proper that he should understand that government is necessary to preserve our lives and property? Is he likely to be a worse subject for knowing that? That depends very much on the kind of government you wish to establish. If you wish to establish an unjust and despotic government—or, if you wish to set up a false religion-then it would be advisable to avoid the danger of enlightening the people. But if you wish to maintain a good government, the more the people understand the advantages of such a government, the more they will respect it; and the more they know of true religion, the more they will value it.

There is nothing more general among uneducated people than a disposition to socialism, and yet nothing more injurious to their own welfare. An equalization of wages would be most injurious to themselves, for it would, at once, destroy all emulation. All motives for the acquisition of skill, and for superior industry, would be removed. Now, it is but a little knowledge of political economy that is needed for the removal of this error; but that little is highly useful.

Again, every one knows, no matter how ignorant of medicine, that there is such a thing as disease. But as an instance of the impossibility of the "taste not" recommendation of the poet, a fact may be mentioned, which perhaps is known to most. When the cholera broke out in Poland, the peasantry of that country took it into their heads that the nobles were poisoning them in order to clear the country of them; they believed the rich to be the authors of that terrible disease; and the conséquence was that the peasantry rose in masses, broke into the houses of the nobility, and finding some chloride of lime, which had been used for the purpose of disinfecting, they took it for the poison which had caused the disease; and they murdered them. Now, that was the sort of "little learning" which was very dangerous.

Again we can not prevent people from believing that there is some superhuman

Being who has regard to human affairs. Some clowns in the Weald of Kent, who had been kept as much as possible on the " taste not" system,--left in a state of gross ignorance, yet believed that the Deity did impart special powers to certain men; and that belief, coupled with excessive stupidity, led them to take an insane fanatie for a prophet. In this case, this little learning" actually caused an insurrection in his favor, in order to make him king, priest and prophet of the British empire; and many lives were sacrificed before this insane insurrection was put down. If a "little learning" is a "dangerous thing," you will have to keep people in a perfect state of idiotcy in order to avoid that danger, would, therefore, say that both the recommendations of the poet are impracticable. O

The question arises, what are we to do? Simply to impress upon ourselves and upon all people the importance of laboring in that much neglected branch of human knowledge—the knowledge of our own ignorance ;—and of remembering that it is by a confession of real ignorance that real knowledge must be gained. But even when that further knowledge is not attained, still even the knowledge, of the ignorance is a great thing in itself; so great, it seems, as to constitute Socrates the wisest of his time,

Some of the chief sources of unknown ignorance, may be worth noticing here. They are to be found in our not being aware: 1. How inadequate a medium lapguage is for conveying thought. 2. How inadequate our very minds are for the comprehension of many things. 3. How little we need understand a word which may yet be familiar to us, and which we may use in reasoning. This piece of ignorance is closely connected with the two foregoing. (Hence, frequently, men will accept as an explanation of a phenomenon, a mere statement of the difficulty in other words.) 4. How utterly ignorant we are of efficient causes; and how the philosopher who refers to the law of gravitation the falling of a stone to the earth, no further explains the phenomenon than the peasant, who would say it is the nature of it. The philosopher knows that the stone obeys the same law to which all other bodies are subject, and to which, for convenience, he gives the name of gravitation. His knowledge is only more general than the peasant's; which, however, is a vast advantage. 5. How many words there are that express, not the nature of the thing they are applied to, but the manner in which they affect us; and which, therefore, give about as correct a notion of those things, as the word "crooked" would, if applied to a stick half immersed in water. (Such is the word Chance, with all its family.) 6. How many causes may, and usually do, conduce to the same effect. 7. How liable the faculties, even of the ablest, are to occasional failure; so that they shall overlook mistakes (and those often the most at variance with their own established notions) which, when once exposed, seem quite gross even to inferior men, 8. How much all are biassed, in all their moral reasonings, by self-love, or perhaps, rather, partially to human nature, and other passions, 9. Dugald Stewart would add very justly, How little we know of matter; no more indeed than of mind; though all are prone to attempt explaining the phenomena of mind by those of matter; for, what is familiar men generally consider as well known, though the fact is oftener otherwise.

A.

M

The errors arising from these causes, and from not calculating on them,-that is, in short, from ignorance of our own ignorance, have probably impeded philosophy more than all other obstacles put together.

Certain it is, that only by this ignorance of our ignorance can 3 little learning

.J

3