ter in through its everlasting doors. Those, also, who wait at its altars will, as its ministers, be held in respect, and, as announcers of its decrees, be listened to: they will, so to speak, stand out before the people, as Law in visible presence.

With this character of Permanency and Majesty before our eyes, submission to Law, and to those who represent it, will not beget servility, but, rather, that “proud humility" of which Burke speaks; for submission is servility or right respect, as that to which we yield it is mean or venerable. And if we venerate

the permanent and the majestic, something of the spirit of these will be reflected upon our own souls.

To produce this sense of authority, permanency and majestyto give us a feeling of something which, though meant for us, is above us, it must not be a mere abstract principle, having form to us only as we ourselves give it form by administering it ourselves, or, at our own will, setting up, from time to time, those who shall administer it for us: but it must have self-life; and in some parts of it, must be seen those who shall seem to have come out from its invisible self: it must have, as it were, a creating power, producing offspring from itself, to take care that it be respected and obeyed-men who shall be impersonations of Law, having their birth and power, not from us, but from Lawmen who, though dying individually, shall, as Orders, through an ordained succession, possess life as permanent as Law itself. These hereditary Orders, call them by what name we will, present something definite to the mind, and help us to realize our Idea of Law; while that Power, which we call Law, unseen by us in itself, yet acting upon our spirits, throws around these orders of men a mysterious authority, which our natures must forever witness to, talk of it as we may, and even hate it as we may. That the mind does recognize such an influence, is shown in the involuntary respect felt for an individual, when standing in this relation to Law, and the diminishing of this respect, when considered apart from this relation, and regarded only in his character of a fellow-man. Let any one be honest with himself, and he will acknowledge this difference. He may call it the remnant of an old superstition, which the mind has not yet quite shaken off. France called it so, and overturned her throne, and drove her nobles from the land. But human nature soon felt the want of something, she knew not what. She tried to smooth down the surface of society to a level, but there were elements beneath, more restless than the centre fires, perpetually

heaving it up into mountains and hills, and the earth tossed like the sea. Man, in his pride, had been trying after equality, which should leave nothing higher than himself; he would fain form his own Law, and himself appoint those who should administer it for him. Poor, finite, dependent creature! That which should have governed him, was of his own making, and might at any moment be by him unmade; and, therefore, he could not reverence it. Conscious of his insignificance, yet with nothing visible around him greater than himself-nothing to look up to, and looking up to, from it to gather strength, no wonder that the unquieted craving of his soul made him throw himself headlong, and set the oppressor's foot upon his neck:-he thought to destroy the principle of obedience in his soul, and he became a slave-he rose up against that eternal Law which God had given to regulate his being, and which, I doubt not, is now visibly carried out through the ranks of heaven, and will ever be a living Law-a Law without which on earth, man, who is linked in with eternity, can never be well with himself, nor with his fellow-men. Instead, therefore, of vainly striving against a principle inherent in our natures and in the order of things-instead of blinding our minds by a mere name-calling it superstition-it would be better to look calmly into ourselves a little, and to see, whether in these outward, distinctive forms and orders, there be not a kindly adaptation to our inward needswhether were we in our true state, we should not feel that there was something in us congenial with them-something to elevate thought, and warm and make quick the affections. Law!What is it but an infinite abstraction, till it bodies itself forth in orders of men? Then it is as if the infinite, after which the mind had vainly stretched itself, gathered itself in, presenting some point at which we might come in contact with it-something where we might begin-something to which we might return. We have been looking over the day-sky; and all throughout its clear expanse, the eye has found no resting-place. Presently from out it, a feathery little cloud puts forth; it enlarges, unrolling itself, fold over fold; and there it lies, steady as the land, a mighty pile of dazzling splendour! Now, the eye is fixed, the soul filled, and our thoughts go up to it, like incense, to mingle with its glory. Yet a little before, this cloud had been an infinitely rare, invisible vapour: our eyes saw nothing, our souls felt nothing. So Law, pervading as it does, the universe of God, comes not upon us in its power, till it VOL. V. No. 17.

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takes hold upon our senses, and sits robed on its seat in human form. But suppose that, by some chemical process, we ourselves had gathered that cloud together, and set it in the sky, would there have awaked in us an humble adoration, as we gazed? As its piled heights flashed down splendour upon us, would not the spirit of self-complacency, rather, have moved in us? Then, it had been our cloud!-Alas! alas! there has been more than one mad Dennis, who has cried, That's my thunder! This land of liberty, this land of all sovereigns,' is filled with the cry! Nothing but thunder!'

So, where all the representatives of Law are of our own election, they keep not our reverence, and through our want of this, Law itself becomes a mere thing of convenience, a somewhat upon which to make experiments, a caterer to the selfconceit of man, and, thus, Obedience in time dies, and Order, which holds all in place, is broken up. But if we learn to look upon these ministers as creations of the Law, and not as from ourselves, as servants of the Law, and not servants of the people,-a sanctity is thrown around them as its ministers, and Law itself is the more revered. The effect of this, is a more willing Obedience, a feeling of fitness in gradations, a kindly relationship in Orders, a natural connexion from the head to the foot.

Let this sense of patient and wise subjection to authority, this spirit of right Obedience, once possess a man, and its influence may be easily traced through his internal state, and his character, as it appears in its outward relations. It was Pride that rebelled against God; it is Humility that restores man to Obedience; and as the same spirit that prepares a man for heaven, fits him for his duties and relations here, so humility, shown forth through obedience, brings out all his good affections, and imparts a beauty and sentiment, and a wise calmness to every station and relation of his life.

Gradations in society, formed by Law and made permanent by it, and not, as where all is thrown open to every man, being shifting and chance distinctions, rising and sinking like the waves, impress the mind with the sense of all-pervading, allarranging, authoritative Law. Its invisible spirit is through Orders, made manifest every where in the connexions of life; each one stands in his place, and there fulfils his duty in obedience to the command of the awful Power; man lives and acts under a wholesome reverence, whose cause and mode of

working upon himself, he may not comprehend, while yet it spiritualizes him, and acts in him for good. The consciousness is thus kept up in him, that he is living under a power which he cannot over-master, or change at will, and that he stands in certain relations not to be broken through for his mere pleasure and ease; and this makes him better comprehend the finite nature, and the dependence of created man.

There being something of permanency and distinctness in his condition, the mind adapts itself to it, and apprehends its connexions with clearness. Habit begets contentedness; and contentedness and a ready apprehension of such things as are immediately around him, though they be few and simple, impart a wise discernment to the general character, not easily to be deceived. The affections are also strengthened; for, where habituated to it, we come to love even that which, in itself considered, is indifferent, and to be unconscious of that which would otherwise give pain. Thus attachments grow around the occupations, the cares, the pleasures, and all the intercourses of daily life; and where quiet attachments grow, there will sentiment, to refine the character, spring up.

I care not how humble this station may be; the fact that it is an inherited one endears it to a man. His father, and his father's father lived here before him; the tools of trade and husbandry which he uses, they had handled; his homeliest labours are sanctified to him, and refining affections mingle with his daily toil. I am aware that this is an age in which such a condition of mind and heart is little set by,-that sharp, and alert, and pushing spirits, look upon such a meek and contented soul, with something like contempt, and that taking delight in such views of human nature is set down for romance.

Did it never occur to those who speak thus floutingly, that the conditions and characters in life to which the romantic mind turns oftenest, must, from this very fact, have something in them peculiarly connected with and congenial to the finer parts of our nature? That which we call romance, although it may be an excess in us, stands in close relation to the highest attributes of man. There must be something well in that to which we unconsciously go in our moments of quickened imagination and softened sentiment; and on the other hand, something radically defective in that from which, in such moments, we as instinctively turn away: There is a beauty and a wisdom in a contented spirit, of which the world knows little now.