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tinue to affirm, are those who, either from choice or from necessity, have no home. Perhaps, out of a thousand families gathered after a week's work, there is not one gathered for vicious indulgence. Where youth are vicious, they commonly hate the hearthstone. Saturday evening is a good criterion of the attachment which a young man bears to the virtuous attractions of home. As the guardian angel of the fireside, woman has here a great and hopeful work. I wish I could impress on the wife, the mother, and the sister, the value of their influence in this particular. Make home delightful, and you will work wonders. That wayward youth may, perhaps, be won by sisterly invitation. Spare nothing that is fairly within your power to make it worth his while to spend his Saturday evening with the family. So long as you have this hold upon him, you may almost bid defiance to the attempts of evil companions.

Let it never be forgotten, that we owe all these good influences to religion. There would be no Saturday evening, if there were no Christian Sabbath. In countries where man and beast work seven days in the week, there is nothing which resembles the pleasant scenes to which I have alluded. In such countries there is little of what we mean by home. Who would undertake to explain to a French labourer the Cotter's Saturday Night?

And since I have been led to name that exqui

site production, I cannot leave it without commending it to the attention of every working-man who sets a value on family quiet and contentment. This single effusion would not be bought too dearly at the price of all the other productions of Robert Burns. Though written with special reference to an agricultural population, it presents a scene which might be realized in the household of any good man of whatever calling. The return of the cottager, after his labours, is described with the feeling of one who knew what it was to come home weary from the plough. The return of the sons, and of the daughter, is described in the very dialect of nature; and the entrance of the lover is as arch as it is accurate.

The chat, the joke, the supper, are all admirably told; the crowning grace of the poem is the account of the family worship:

"The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet reverently is laid aside,

His lyart haffets* wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;

And, Let us worship God! he says, with solemn air."

The psalm is sung, the chapter is read; the family, led by the priest-like father," bows in

Temples covered with gray locks.

prayer; they separate with affectionate salutations. Well says Burns, whom none will suspect of being a fanatic:

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God:'
And, certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind."

XL.

THE UNSTABLE WORKING-MAN.

"A man so various that he seem'd to be
but all mankind's epitome:

Not one,
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was every thing by turns, and nothing long.
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fidler, statesman, and buffoon."

DRYDEN,

THE character which Dryden gives of the witty and wicked Duke of Buckingham, may, with some little change, be applied to many of us who have no titles of nobility. There is no more common character among our young men, than that of Reuben: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.* Nor do I know any class of persons in whom it is more unfortunate than in those who earn their living by industry; because it is the very nature of their employment to require patient continuance in one course. No trade can be either learned or practised without regularity and constancy. As I write with a principal reference to the young, I think it right to say here, that if the disease of instability is ever

* Gen, xlix. 4.

cured, it must be in youth; and the effort is one of the most important which could be suggested.

HARRY VANE is a young man of my neighbour hood. He has good talents and good prospects, and has begun life with a pretty little sum of money from his father's estate. But though he is not yet twenty-three, he has already lived in three houses, and set up two trades. He has very decided opinions to-day, but no one can insure their lasting till to-morrow. When he hears arguments on one side, he leans one way; when on the other side, he leans the other way. Hence, he is quite at the mercy of his companions; and being somewhat sensible of this, he tries to make up for strength of belief, by energy of asseveration. Nevertheless, he betrays himself at every step; for this is one of those things which annot be hidden. Vane takes up his opinions on trade, politics, and religion, at second-hand. The task of reasoning, he resigns to BRIGGS, the postmaster, and BRAG, the apothecary, who are his cronies. He never sits down to think any thing out, and, therefore, he is never long of one mind. For when opinions come lightly, they will go lightly. They are trees without roots, easily transplanted or blown down; reeds shaken with the wind; weathercocks turning with every breath. There is scarcely one of Vane's opinions which his neighbours could not alter. His mind takes hold of truth with a paralytic grasp. True, this is sometimes amiable; but for the purpose of life,

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