ould be avoided, and the mind fortified by
strengthening the higher powers.

Novel-reading strengthens the passions, weakens the virtues, and
diminishes the power of self-control. Multitudes may date their ruin
from the commencement of this kind of reading; and many more, who have
been rescued from the snare, will regret, to the end of their days, its
influence in the early formation of their character.

It is, too, a great waste of time. Few will pretend that they read
novels with any higher end in view than _mere amusement_; while, by the
strong excitement they produce, they impose a heavier tax on both mind
and body than any other species of mental effort. If any thing valuable
is to be derived from them, it can be obtained with far less expense of
time, and with safety to the morals, from other sources. No Christian,
who feels the obligation of "redeeming the time, because the days are
evil," will fail to feel the force of this remark. We have no more right
to squander our time and waste our energies in frivolous pursuits, than
we have to waste our money in extravagant expenditures. We are as much
the stewards of God in respect to the one as the other.

FEMALE ROMANCE.

Most women are inclined to be romantic. This tendency is not confined to
the young or to the beautiful, to the intellectual or to the refined.
Every woman, capable of strong feeling, is susceptible of romance; and,
though its degree may depend on external circumstances, or education, or
station, or excitement, it generally exists, and requires only a
stimulus for its development.

Romance indeed contributes much to the charm of the female character.
Without some degree of it, no woman can be interesting; and, though its
excess is a weakness, and one which receives but little indulgence,
there is nothing truly generous and disinterested which does not imply
its existence. It is that poetry of sentiment which imparts to character
or incident something of the beautiful or the sublime; which elevates us
to a higher sphere; which gives an ardor to affection, a life to
thought, a glow to imagination; and which lends so warm and sunny a hue
to the portraiture of life, that it ceases to appear the vulgar, and
cold, and dull, and monotonous reality, which common sense alone would
make it.

But it is this opposition, between romance and sobriety, that excites
so strong a prejudice against the former: it is associated, in the minds
of many, with