A FEW weeks ago I was visiting the Library in the British Museum. Two gentlemen, who stood near me, appeared very earnest in the pursuit of something which they wanted. Presently, by an exclamation of delight, I understood that their search had been successful; they had found what they had sought. And what had they found? A very old book, so badly printed as to be read with difficulty, and containing information of what must have taken place at least two thousand years ago—information very interesting and important to the old Romans, no doubt; and which would have been still more so, if they could have foreseen what delight it would have imparted, centuries later, to two inhabitants of a remote island in the north, who could not possibly be affected by it. But so it is: some minds prefer to dwell on the past; others live in the present; and some seem of opinion that “man never is, but always _to be_, blest.” This diversity is no doubt necessary; all do some good: the antiquarian adds to the interest of our libraries, if not of our lives; and we owe much to those who teach us to look forward, if they will only at the same time help us to look upward: but to such as wish to _do_ something, who desire to have an influence on the great living history which every day is writing afresh, the passing events of the time have the greatest charm, because they not only present food for reflection, but opportunity for exertion. We not unfrequently hear people speak of life in such a way as would lead us to suppose that there had been some mistake as to the date of their birth. Had they come a little earlier or a little later, it would have been different; but the present seems to afford them no object of interest. They complain of intolerable dulness, the weariness of life; and in watching the cheerless, the objectless existence of such people, we wonder that it is recorded of only a single individual, that one morning he shot himself, for the reason assigned on a slip of paper which he had left on the dressing-table—“I am tired of living only to breakfast, dine, and sup.” I have often thought, when listening to such complaints, of the prayer of Elisha for his unbelieving servant, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see;” and if the Lord would do for them as He did for this servant, and open their eyes—not to see “mountains full of horses and chariots of fire” waiting to deliver them—but alleys, and lanes, and villages, full of the needy and the sick, waiting for loving hearts and kind hands to come and help them to rise from their degradation, wretchedness, and filth,—the strain would be changed; and, in the contemplation of such a vast amount of labour, followed by such rich reward, we should rather expect to hear, if it must still be the language of complaint:—