What the books call pride of opinion, is, nine cases in ten, simple perverseness. I know a most venerable public teacher of physiology, whose early theory of the production of animal heat-- very ridiculous in itself--is still yearly announced from his desk, notwithstanding the fact that the whole world has received another, whose soundness is demonstrated beyond all question. As he, year after year, declares his belief that animal heat is produced by corpuscular friction in the circulating blood, there is a twinkle of the eyes among his amused auditors which says very plainly--"the old gentleman does not believe this, himself." The youngest student before him knows better than to give his theory a moment's consideration. Well, the old Doctor is not alone. The world is full of this kind of thing. Men adhere to old opinions and old policies long after they have learned that they are shallow or untenable, not from a genuine pride of opinion, (I doubt very much whether there really is any thing that should be called pride of opinion,) but from genuine perverseness of disposition. Men will give, in some heated moment, an opinion touching some one's character or powers, and, though that opinion be proved to be wrong a thousand times, they will never acknowledge that they have made a mistake. This is simple perverseness, of the meanest variety. There are some kinds of perverseness which impress one not altogether unpleasantly, but this affects a man with equal anger and disgust. Perverseness is a sign of weakness--nay, an element of weakness-- in man or woman. It is no legitimate part of a true character. The generous, outspoken man, who is not afraid to show himself, and what there is in him, who cares more about the right way than his way, who throws away an opinion as he would throw away an old hat, the moment he finds it is worthless, and who good-naturedly allows the frictions of society to straighten out all the kinks there are in him, is the strong man always, and always the one whom men love. Perverseness is really moral strabismus, and I am shocked to think what a multitude of squint-eyed souls there will be, when we come to look into one another's faces in the "undress of immortality." LESSON X. UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES. "The world is God's seed-bed. He has planted deep and multitudinously, and many things there are which have not yet come up."--BEECHER.