It is in view of the want now under consideration, that the establishment of Associations for literary purposes, and for procuring popular lectures open to all, is not only a new, but a most promising feature in the history of our cities. Man needs, and must have, excitement and mental exhilaration, and our Creator, if we would but see it, has not been inattentive to this want of our frame. No; to supply it, we have the pleasures of rational social converse, the play of the affections, the duties of kindness and benevolence--does a man feel depressed, let him do a good action--and last, but not least, the gratifications of taste: all the pleasure to be derived from the concord of sweet sounds, from the charms of literature, from the forms and colors and groupings of nature, from her sunrisings and sunsettings, from her landscapes of mountain and valley and lake and river, from the stars that roll in their courses, and the flowers that nod to each other by the way-side.--These are the sources of mental exhilaration which God has provided; and they are, to the artificial stimulants of theatrical exhibitions and of gambling, what the cold water that was drank in Eden is to brandy and gin. May I not here venture to say to young men, 'Beware how you spend your _leisure_ hours! your character and destiny in life will probably turn upon it.' Among the means, as I have already said, of spending these hours at least innocently, the gratifications of taste are conspicuous. They seem for this very purpose to have been had distinctly in view in the fitting up of this world; and so far as they lure the mind from the lower gratifications of sense, they must be favorable to morals.