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THE RIPE CORN IN THE EAR.

languages. It is certain that at the University of Bologna, which he entered at the age of fourteen, he greatly distinguished himself by his extraordinary capacity, and by habits of industrious application almost equally extraordinary.

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In accordance with this early promise was the fruition of his maturer years. At the age of twenty-three he wrote to a friend: "I have, by assiduous and intense application, attained to the knowledge of the Hebrew and Chaldaic languages, and am at present struggling with the difficulties of the Arabic." To his nephew says: 'This was the reason why I have not yet answered your letter. Certain Hebrew books have fallen into my hands, on which I have spent the whole week, day and night, with such diligence that they have almost made me blind. For the person who brought them to me, a Jew from Sicily, is to leave this in twenty days." To the hour of his death his passion for knowledge remained unabated. In him, as in others, the Boy made the Man; and the lettered manhood of Mirandola appropriately followed his studious youth. First, the blade; then the ear; and last, the ripe corn in the ear. What more need I say? Apply thy youth to study, and let thy study be so directed as to

VALUE OF METHOD.

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secure the end of a noble life. It matters not if thy labour obtain no immediate results, for whether growing richer or not, thou wilt be growing a wiser man, which I take to be far better.

While dwelling upon the advantages of studious application in youth, let me impress upon my young readers the value of method. The difference between the man of capacity and of no capacity is mainly a question of methodof orderly and systematic arrangement of the information gained by intelligent labour. Coleridge remarks that the peculiar distinction of a man of education consists in this: the unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement of his words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he then intends to communicate. This method in his words springs from the method and orderliness of his thoughts; and the man of methodical thought will also be a man of methodical life.

I speak here, however, of method as employed in the formation of the understanding and in the construction of science and literature. It would indeed be unnecessary to attempt any proof of its importance in our domestic or busi

ness relations. In the peasant's cottage or the artisan's workshop, as in the palace or the chemist's laboratory, the first merit, and one which admits neither substitute nor equivalent, is, that everything should be in its place. 'When this charm is wanting," says Coleridge, "every other merit either loses its name or becomes an additional

ground of accusation and regret. Of one by whom it is eminently possessed we say, proverbially, he is like clockwork. The resemblance extends beyond the point of regularity, and yet falls short of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide and announce the silent and otherwise indistinguishable lapse of time. But the man of methodical industry and honourable pursuits does more; he realizes its ideal divisions, and gives a character and individuality to its moments. If the idle are described as killing time, he may be justly said to call it into life. and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul; and that, the very essence of which is to fleet away, and evermore to have been, he takes up into his own permanence, and communicates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful

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servant whose energies, thus directed, are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he lives in time than that time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops and punctual marks in the records of duties performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when Time itself shall be no more.'

With one more quotation I close this desultory chapter. It is from Archbishop Tillotson, and designed to enforce upon each of us the need and advantage of being diligent in our calling, of striving with resolute persistence after the ends of life. "It is a great mistake," he says, "to think any man is without a calling, and that God does not expect that every one of us should employ himself in doing good in one kind or other. Those who are in a low and private condition can only shine to a few, but they that are advanced a great height above others may, like the heavenly bodies, dispense a general light and influence, and scatter happiness and blessings among all that are below them. Bnt let no man, of what birth, rank, or quality soever, think it beneath him to serve God, and to be useful to the benefit and advantage of men."

Examples of Courage, Enterprise, and the Manly Virtues.

OURAGE is a term of very general application, and yet, in common use, it is too often restricted to that contempt of physical danger which animates the soldier to seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. I shall understand it in a wider sense, and mean by it that high moral virtue which inspires us to dare all and suffer all when conscious that we are in the right.

This is sometimes called moral courage, and I confess that I know of no quality that more