ppiness dependent on a person or persons. But in health
the mind is presently seen again,--its overarching vault, bright with
galaxies of immutable lights, and the warm loves and fears that swept
over us as clouds must lose their finite character and blend with God,
to attain their own perfection. But we need not fear that we can lose
any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the
end. That which is so beautiful and attractive as these relations, must
be succeeded and supplanted only by what is more beautiful, and so on
for ever.

*****

FRIENDSHIP.

A RUDDY drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again,--
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form
And look beyond the earth,
The mill-round of our fate appears
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

VI. FRIENDSHIP.

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all
the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human
family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many
persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor,
and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church,
whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language
of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.

The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain
cordial exhilaration. In poetry and in common speech, the emotions of
benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to
the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active,
more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations. From the highest
degree of passionate love to the lowest degree of good-will, they make
the sweetness of life.

Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The
scholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not
furnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is
necessary to write a