er sleeps--not even when its
wearied body is heard snoring by people living in the next street. All
the souls now in this world are for ever awake; and this life, believe
us, though in moral sadness it has often been rightly called so, is no
dream. In a dream we have no will of our own, no power over ourselves;
ourselves are not felt to be ourselves; our familiar friends seem
strangers from some far-off country; the dead are alive, yet we wonder
not; the laws of the physical world are suspended, or changed, or
confused by our phantasy; Intellect, Imagination, the Moral Sense,
Affection, Passion, are not possessed by us in the same way we possess
them out of that mystery: were Life a Dream, or like a Dream, it would
never lead to Heaven.

Again, then, we say to you, look into life and watch the growth of
character. In a world where the ear cannot listen without hearing the
clank of chains, the soul may yet be free as if it already inhabited the
skies. For its Maker gave it LIBERTY OF CHOICE OF GOOD OR OF EVIL; and
if it has chosen the good it is a King. All its faculties are then fed
on their appropriate food provided for them in nature. It then knows
where the necessaries and the luxuries of its life grow, and how they
may be gathered--in a still sunny region inaccessible to blight--"no
mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother." In the beautiful language
of our friend Aird,--

"And thou shalt summer high in bliss upon the Hills of God."

Go, read the EXCURSION then--venerate the PEDLAR--pity the
SOLITARY--respect the PRIEST, and love the POET.

So charmed have we been with the sound of our own voice--of all sounds
on earth the sweetest surely to our ears--and, therefore, we so dearly
love the monologue, and from the dialogue turn averse, impatient of him
ycleped the interlocutor, who, like a shallow brook, will keep prattling
and babbling on between the still deep pools of our discourse, which
nature feeds with frequent waterfalls--so charmed have we been with the
sound of our own voice, that, scarcely conscious the while of more than
a gentle ascent along the sloping sward of a rural Sabbath-day's
journey, we perceive now that we must have achieved a Highland
league--five miles--of rough uphill work, and are standing tiptoe on the
Mountain-top. True that his altitude is not very great--somewhere, we
should suppose, between two and three thousand feet--much higher than
the Pentlands--somewhat higher than the