They who have well cultivated the heart’s true sensibilities, find the means and sources of enjoyment spread lavishly around them. The fickle and whimsical pursuits after momentary pleasure, which vex and perplex so many, never disturb their quiet nor encumber their repose. The happiness that attends them is unalloyed, not subject to the regrets of disappointment, nor the frequent remorse which preys upon the mind of him who had haunted the glittering pleasures of animal life and its enticing enjoyments. They feel the full gratification of the inward sense, which is sincere, penetrating, and permanent. The store upon which they draw is exhaustless. Other elements of nature may perish by too frequent use, but the sensibilities of the heart only increase in strength and vigor through every occasion that calls them forth, and expand the more the more they are exercised. It is use that preserves them: slothfulness is their great and formidable enemy. “All virtues,” says an ancient Grecian philosopher, “depend upon exercise and use; to preserve them, we must practice them.” The career of man often presents melancholy illustrations of the want of this true sensibility. The aims of life, too frequently governed by the arbitrary decrees of society, lead him into paths that rather blunt than encourage it; and he finds little substantial pleasure in fulfilling a destiny which circumstances have forced upon him against the better qualities of his nature. Fortune may have smiled upon him, enriching him with her bounties, yet these, if simply depending upon themselves, soon sicken and lose their interest. The riches of the soul can only be enjoyed through the sensibilities of the heart, which lead us to the performance of deeds of truth and charity. They alone can enable us to discharge the mission of sympathy and love towards the unfortunate and distressed; they alone can qualify us for generous and magnanimous intercourse with those whose evil destiny deserves our kind indulgence, and fit us for more exalted association with equals and superiors; they alone can develope the good germs in our nature into exceeding excellencies, and lead us to true virtue and its exhaustless treasures; and they alone can make the journey of life resemble a smooth and even surface, and surround us with pleasures and comforts which the insensible may never know. How much, then, is it our duty to cultivate the heart through the exercise of its sensibilities, and thus obtain the full gratification of every virtuous faculty in our nature! How much, then, does it behoove each of us to conquer the sordid and selfish motives too frequently engendered by surrounding influences, and bring into more healthful existence those noble affections with which we are endowed! Thus alone can we truly live in mind and heart, and effect a happy harmony between soul and body--no longer verifying the saying of Theophrastus, that the former pays large rent to the latter for its dwelling.