and unfolds for us the laws and reasons of that obedience which we are constrained to yield to the established economy wherewith our existence and essential welfare are connected. The highest and most binding obligation for us to know anything at all, is our natural need of intellectual enlightenment--the soul's unquestionable necessity for an intimacy with Truth, and the joy and satisfaction which it finds in its contemplation. And thus it is that all knowledge is eminently sacred, as being the stream through which a human mind draws insight from the central source of all intelligence; as being that which informs us of self-subsistent Law and Power, and consciously connects us with their reality and operations. That baneful divorce between intelligence and holiness which a sceptical and frivolous age has so disastrously effected, will need to be set aside as altogether founded on a serious mistake; and indeed men are already beginning to apprehend that no pure faith can be sustained, no sound or abiding virtue inculcated and established, which is not deeply grounded in that mental certainty and assurance which clear, indisputable knowledge alone can furnish. Let knowledge, then, be recognised as a primary indispensability for the mind, the natural and appropriate inheritance of every human soul; and let us esteem it as a sufficient and authentic plea for its universal dissemination, that it is ever needful for the soul's health and welfare; and condescend not to demand it on any inferior pretext. If there is one right of man more essentially sacred than another, it is his right to as complete and perfect an education as his own capacity, and the attainments and adaptations of the age he lives in, are adequate to supply him with; and again, if there is one human duty more paramount and obligatory than the rest, it is that which enjoins upon a man the use of his best energies and efforts to advance himself in intellectual and moral vigour, and to turn every talent and capability most honestly to account; since upon the depth and extent of his own inward force will depend the essential worth of his subsequent performances. The rational enlargement of the individual is indeed the one great end of life. Nothing has so high a claim on us as the cultivation of ourselves. 'It is most true,' as a vigorous and thoughtful modern writer has remarked--'it is most true, and most fitting to be said to many in our day, that a man has no business to cut himself off from communion with so rich and manifold a world as ours, or arbitrarily to harden and narrow his life on any of the sides on which it is open and sensitive. But it is also no less necessary, and perhaps in this time more required to urge, that a man's first vocation is to be a man--a practical, personal being, with a reasonable and moral existence, which must be kept strong, and in working order, at all expense of pleasure, talent, brilliancy, and success. It is easy