"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling, the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions produced by light reading, or to make them understand the different effect produced by the highest order of works of imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the 'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to." The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God, the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer observes--