unfortunate HENRY KIRKE WHITE. He was unwisely ambitious, and attempted tasks with a constitutionally feeble body, which, with the most robust health, he could scarcely have performed. Such a fact teaches that we must proportion our labors to our capacities, not that we are to sink into supine indulgence, lest we should be sick. Nay, it is not unrelaxing industry, systematically pursued, that pales the face and shortens life. The fact is, that the most industrious men are among the longest livers; and except where hereditary diseases enfeeble them, are usually healthy. Indeed, industry is favorable to health. There is great meaning in the remark of an eastern missionary who was laboring incessantly on the translation of the Scriptures into the Hindostan tongue. His friends him, and begged him to relax. expostulated with 'Nay," said he; "the man who would live in India must have plenty of work. If not, he will yield to the enervating influence of the climate, and lounge away his days upon the sofa, and consequently be tossing all night on his sleepless couch, for want of the requisite fatigue. Then comes dejection of spirits, and prostration of the whole man." The missionary was right. Indolence destroys more than industry; and many a drone who has perished prematurely, had his friends been equally honest with Sir Horace Vere, would have had it said of him, as that nobleman said of his brother, when the Marquis of Spinola asked, "Pray, Sir Horace, of what did your brother die ?" "He died of having nothing to do!" was the bluff knight's reply. When I am told, of a sickly student, that he is "studying himself to death," or of a feeble young mechanic, or clerk, that his hard work is destroying him, I study his countenance, and there, too often, read the real, melancholy truth in his dull, averted, sunken eye, discolored skin, pimpled forehead, and timid manner. These signs proclaim that the young man is in some way violating the laws of his physical nature. He is secretly destroying himself! By sinning against his own body, he is preparing himself for the insane asylum, or for an early grave. Yet, say his unconscious and admiring friends, " He is falling a victim to his own diligence!" Most lame and impotent conclusion! He is sapping the source of life with his own guilty hands, and ere long will be a mind in ruins or a heap of dust. Young man, beware of his example! "Keep thyself pure;" observe the laws of your physical nature, and the most unrelaxing industry will never rob you of a moment's health, nor in the smallest measure shorten the thread of your life; for industry and health are companions, and long life is the heritage of diligence. Behold a cottage at the foot of yonder mountain! On its broken gate sits a lifeless-looking man, with an unstrung bow lying across his knees, and a quiver of arrows strung across his shoulders. A deer, with its delicate young fawn, comes lightly tripping from among the foliage which adorns the mountain slope. Lifting up his heavy eyes, the hunter perceives his prey, and, for a moment, kindles into something like an earnest man. Leaping from the gate, he strains his bow, fixes an arrow on its string, and gliding from tree to bush and from bush to tree, approaches the unwatchful deer; then drawing his bow, he lodges an arrow in the heart of the fawn. Seating himself beside it, he triumphs a while in his success; and then, seeking the shadow of an adjacent tree, slumbers away the day, and permits the burning sun to spoil his vension ! Such is the picture of an idle man, as sketched by Solomon, in these words: "The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting." I have filled up his slender outline, that the young man may study it to better advantage; for in this instance, at least, the poetic sentiment is literally true, that the monstrous spectacle of vice is sufficient to excite disgust. I greatly misjudge the reader, if he does not heartily despise the idle hunter in the above etching: if he will transfer his scorn to the vice the hunter personates, my end will be accomplished. To be above the necessity of labor,—to spend life in doing nothing,-is the fancied paradise of many youthful minds. Yielding to these illusive dreams, they cultivate a hatred for labor; they view the necessity which binds them to the counting-room or the workshop as the galley-slave regards his chain. They envy every gay son of pleasure whose empty laugh is heard ringing through the street. Hence their labor is irksome — their temper sour and repul sive. Their manners become insulting and vexatious to their employers; their incessant complainings annoy their parents, and misery spreads throughout the entire circle of their influence. Thousands of parental hearts are aching at this moment, and thousands of employers are unhappy with their apprentices, solely from this foolish, guilty aspiration after nothing to do which haunts the imaginations of so many young men. But why do young men pant after an idle life? It is because they are wilfully ignorant of the important practical truth, that THE CREATOR COULD HARDLY INFLICT A GREATER CURSE UPON A YOUNG MAN THAN TO DOOM HIM TO A LIFE OF IDLENESS! It would destroy him, soul and body. What is a mind when controlled by idleness? Let the admired Tennyson reply. Personating an idle mind, he says: |