When may the will be taken for the deed?--Then when the will is the obedience of the whole man;--when the will is in fact the deed, that is, all the deed in our power. In every other case, it is bending the bow without shooting the arrow. The bird of Paradise gleams on the lofty branch, and the man takes aim, and draws the tough yew into a crescent with might and main,--and lo! there is never an arrow on the string. SINCERITY. The first great requisite is absolute sincerity. Falsehood and disguise are miseries and misery-makers, under whatever strength of sympathy, or desire to prolong happy thoughts in others for their sake or your own only as sympathizing with theirs, it may originate. All sympathy, not consistent with acknowledged virtue, is but disguised selfishness. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD. The pre-eminence of truth over falsehood, even when occasioned by that truth, is as a gentle fountain breathing from forth its air-let into the snow piled over and around it, which it turns into its own substance, and flows with greater murmur; and though it be again arrested, still it is but for a time,--it awaits only the change of the wind to awake and roll onwards its ever increasing stream:-- I semplici pastori Sul Vesolo nevoso, Fatti curvi e canuti, D'alto stupor son muti, Mirando al fonte ombroso Il Po con pochi umori; Poscia udendo gl' onori Dell'urna angusta e stretta, Che'l Adda, che'l Tesino Soverchia il suo cammino, Che ampio al mar s'affretta, Che si spuma, e si suona, Che gli si dà corona! (Chiabrera, Rime, xxviii.) But falsehood is fire in stubble;--it likewise turns all the light stuff around it into its own substance for a moment, one crackling blazing moment,--and then dies; and all its converts are scattered in the wind, without place or evidence of their existence, as viewless as the wind which scatters them. RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES. A man may look at glass, or through it, or both. Let all earthly things be unto thee as glass to see heaven through! Religious ceremonies should be pure glass, not dyed in the gorgeous crimsons and purple blues and greens of the drapery of saints and saintesses. ASSOCIATION.