most beautiful features of the human mind are developed in suffering; the ordeal through which we pass, however repugnant and abhorrent it may be to our feelings, produces a moral regeneration in the character. We come out of the “fiery furnace,” like gold and silver, deprived of much of our dross; and life, youthful and innocent life, again dawns upon us and gladdens our hearts. Suicide is an injury to our neighbour and to society. As long as life lasts,—no matter what amount of misery a person may suffer,—he has it in his power to contribute to the happiness of others. By mitigating the distresses of others, his own will be subdued. Let a man writhing under the torture of the gout be brought into contact with a person suffering from the intense agony of tic doloureux, and he will have a practical illustration of the fact, that there are others in the world worse off than himself. Suicide has been defended as an act of courage. Courage, forsooth! If ever there is an act of cowardice, it is that exhibited by the person who, to escape from the disappointments and vexations of the world, wantonly puts an end to his existence. The man of courage will defy the opinions and scorns of the world, when he knows himself to be in the right; will be above sinking under the petty misfortunes that assail him; will make circumstances bow to him; will court difficulties and dangers, in order to shew that he is able to master them. It was a noble sentiment which Q. Curtius put into the mouth of Darius, after every ray of hope had abandoned him:—“I will wait,” cried the king, addressing his attendants, “the issue of my fate. You wonder, perhaps, that I do not terminate my own life; but I choose rather to die by another’s crime than by my own.” The sentiments of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, expressed when his fortunes appeared most desperate, are equally noble and magnanimous. Being much urged by a friend to dispatch himself, he replied—“By seeking this easy and ready kind of death, you think to appear brave and courageous; but better men than you and I have been oppressed by fortune, and borne down by multitudes. He that sinks under toil, or yields to affliction, or is overcome by the opinions and reproaches of men, gives way, in fact, to his own effeminacy and cowardice. A voluntary death is never to be chosen as a relief from action, but as exemplary in itself, it being base to live or die only for ourselves. The death to which you now invite us is only proposed as a release from present misery, but conveys with it no signs of bravery or prospects of advantage.” Euripides put the following words in the mouth of Hercules: “I have considered, and, though oppressed with misfortunes, I have determined thus: Let no one depart out of life through fear of what may happen to him; for he who is not able to resist evils will fly, like a coward, from the darts of the enemy.”