"DIFFICULTY is a severe instructor, set over us by the Supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as He loves us better, too. _Pater ipse colendi, haud facilem esse viam voluit._ He that wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill; our antagonist is our helper. This amicable contest with difficulty, obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations; it will not suffer us to be superficial." The man, moreover, whose disposition is one of sterling excellence, despite the few foibles which it may have contracted in comparative solitude and inactivity, when he is compelled to mix indiscriminately with the great family of man, oh, how patient and tolerant becomes he of the weakness and errors of others, when thus constantly reminded of, and made to feel his own! Oh, how pitiful! how very pitiful is he!--How his heart yearns and overflows with love, and mercy, and charity towards his species, _individually_--whose eye looks oft on their grievous privations, their often incurable distress and misery!--and who in the spirit of a heavenly philanthropy penetrates even to those deserted quarters-- "Where hopeless anguish pours her moan, And lonely want retires to die!" It may be that some of the preceding observations are applicable to many individuals of the purest and most amiable characters, and powerful and cultivated intellects, in the higher classes of society, whose affluence exempts them from the necessity of actively intermingling with the concerns of life, and feeling the consciousness of individual responsibility,--of having a personal necessity for anxious care and exertion. They are assured that a position of real precariousness and danger, is that which is requisite for developing the energies of a man of high moral and intellectual character; as it will expose to destruction one of a contrary description.