ed--to
find in uncorrupted strength all the primary elements of human
character. He will find that his knowledge may be wider than theirs, and
better ordered, but that it rests on the same foundation, and
comprehends the same matter. There will be no want of sympathies between
him and them; and what he knows best, and loves most, will seldom fail
to be that also which they listen to with greatest interest, and
respecting which there is the closest communion between the minds of
stranger and host. He may know the courses of the stars according to the
revelation of science--they may have studied them only as simple
shepherds, "whose hearts were gladdened" walking on the mountain-top.
But they know--as he does--who sowed the stars in heaven, and that their
silent courses are all adjusted by the hand of the Most High.

Oh! blessed, thrice blessed years of youth! would we choose to live over
again all your forgotten and unforgotten nights and days! Blessed,
thrice blessed we call you, although, as we then felt, often darkened
almost into insanity by self-sown sorrows springing out of our restless
soul. No, we would not again face such troubles, not even for the
glorious apparitions that familiarly haunted us in glens and forests, on
mountains and on the great sea. But all, or nearly all, that did once so
grievously disturb, we can lay in the depths of the past, so that
scarcely a ghastly voice is heard, a ghastly face beheld; while all
that so charmed of yore, or nearly all, although no longer the daily
companions of our life, still survive to be recalled at solemn hours,
and with a "beauty still more beauteous" to reinvest the earth, which
neither sin nor sorrow can rob of its enchantments. We can still travel
with the solitary mountain-stream from its source to the sea, and see
new visions at every vista of its winding waters. The waterfall flows
not with its own monotonous voice of a day or an hour, but like a choral
anthem pealing with the hymns of many years. In the heart of the blind
mist on the mountain-ranges we can now sit alone, surrounded by a world
of images, over which time holds no power but to consecrate or
solemnise. Solitude we can deepen by a single volition, and by a single
volition let in upon it the stir and noise of the world and life. Why,
therefore, should we complain, or why lament the inevitable loss or
change that time brings with it to all that breathe? Beneath the shadow
of the tree we can yet re