REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST.

BY DAVID MALLOCK, A. M.

How sweet the memory appears
Of other days and other years!
When smiling cheeks and laughing eyes,
Soft as the blue of summer skies,
Sparkled unceasingly, till night,

With balmy sleep, brought dreams of light;
And morn again, with sunny face,
Afresh renew'd the fairy race;
And hour on hour roll'd fast away,
Unnotic'd as the steps of day;

And the wide world was bright and fair,—
For Pain left not her footsteps there!
How sweet the memory appears,
Of these deceased and buried years!—

Oh! 'mid the anguish and the gloom
That herald manhood to the tomb,
And o'er the scenes of coming years
Throw the dark pall of doubts and fears ;-
Like beauteous shapes that seem to rise
From the rich clouds of evening skies,
When the broad sun with circling sweep
Plunges his forehead in the deep,
And flings behind, to gild his tent,
Ethereal hues-magnificent!

Like beauteous shapes-departed years!-
To me your memory appears!

Thronging around me, now ye stand
Unscath'd by sorrow's withering hand;
As fresh and beautiful ye seem
As the bright picturings of a dream;
And num'rous as the stars of even
That stud the radiant roof of heaven;
And richer-brighter do ye blaze,
As sorrow dims these evil days!

ye

Nor were ye void of sighs and tears-
Ye
twice blessed years;
and
gone,
But oh how soon all trace departed
Of anguish from the innocent-hearted!
If tears ere stained the cherub face,
They left behind no furrow'd trace
That other scalding drops might stain
The laughing field of Pleasure's reign;
Like rainbow showers they seemed to fall
A pause in joy's bright festival,

That glow'd the sunnier when the cloud
Had pass'd, that wrapt it in its shroud!

VOL. I.

21

Days of my youth! where are ye now?—
The clouds of grief rest on my brow;
And all the sunny thoughts are fled
That danc'd like light-beams round my head;

And nought but mem'ry-Stay my tears!—
Remains of these departed years!

FRAGMENT IN MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

THE possession of intelligence and the power of exhibiting it is the peculiar glory of man whose intellectual faculties are able not only to produce spiritual creations, but to make them and himself the subject of his contemplation. The other animals seem altogether incapable of any thing analagous to this. Their whole internal nature appears to consist of a few regular impulses to action; or if any of them have been known to afford obvious indications of a considerable degree of mentality, the process was so short and uniform under similar circumstances that we are warranted in saying that brutes are governed more by a law of instinctive feeling than any thing else. No animal except man possesses as the characteristic principle of his constitution, the capacity of forming abstract ratiocinations. To the human soul, this is natural. Indeed the simplest thoughts of the most unfurnished mind may fairly be presumed to be analyzable into a regular series of premises and inference.

One distinguishing feature of mind is its activity. How many thousands of ideas live for a moment, and die, then live again in the mind of a man during the course of a single day! What astonishing speed is displayed in their succession! Nothing can be compared to this inappreciable velocity! Often is this invisible flight of Thought so accelerated as to defy the power of attention to distinguish any element of the combination of ideas, and so lost and enveloped do particular notions become in the general tide that the soul soon finds it impossible to identify its own productions! How rich and fertile, the secret recesses from which such incalculable quantities of intelligence continually flow, and how inexplicably mysterious the capacity of evolving them in such rapid progression! In general, the processes of mind are distinguished by a species of order and are governed by certain laws of association. Sometimes however, the excursion of the mind is trackless, and it is found impossible to trace the remotest tie of connection between two immediately successive ideas. All such phenomena are resolvable into principles of affinity which at the time elude our notice and recollection. Such influence of one idea upon another, as if it were a kind of mutual attraction, is. governed evidently by very subtle laws of connection and dependance. The mental concatenation is so very complicated as to include every variety of species and mode of association within the circumference of possibility. The mind, though unable to summon forward any particular thought, till that thought first solicit our notion, has yet the power of bidding defiance to the restraint of absolute rule in the succession of

;

its ideas; and while abhorring a vacuum, it knows knowing of continued sameness.-This moment, cogitation embraces one particular object or subject. But its direction is often changed in an infinitesimal of time. Variety of conception is one of the prominent features of the mind. Heaven and earth, the affairs of home and of parts abroad, the most important events of historic fact and trifling toys of common-place observation, are brought under the sphere of its contemplation, and, as if by an instantaneous impulse, commingled together in a sort of orderly confusion. Now thought sports in the sallies of imagination and in the fantastic whims of fancy,-then it assumes all the more commanding attributes of a rational nature, exploring the abysses of abstract truth and speculation. Now it imagines, reasons, judges, remembers, apprehends-then it desires, feels, hopes, fears, anticipates, loves and enjoys. Nor does it require much of its inherent energies so to concentrate and sublimate its jarring and unconnected elements as to produce beauty out of apparent ugli ness, order out of wild confusion, peace and harmony out of discord and conflict. Not more beautiful the refraction of light introducing the mild glory of morning, or the process of vegetation from the formation of the bud to the expansion of the blossom, than the reciprocal action and re-action of Thought and Feeling upon each other. All objects without us are in great measure tangible by reflection but man's is also the faculty of penetrating through the recesses of his own mentality, or of employing the mind about itself. In the contemplation of any of the mental operations, the mind is considering the mind. The understanding that would comprehend, is the understanding to be comprehended. The thought we would analyze, is analyzable only by thought. This power is probably a reflection of some inscrutable attribute of the Deity, the possession of which constitutes Him what He is. The human power of reminiscence, in connection with that of anticipation may together form something analagous to the Divine Omniscience. The faculty we have of bringing scenes before our imagination that are not actually before us, and of transporting ourselves, as it were, to points of locality, at which we are not literally or substantially present, may be something analagous to the Divine Omnipresence; or if we conceive of the presence of the Deity, as connected with the manifestation of it in acting wherever He is, or producing effects wherever He wills to produce them; then such virtual ubiquity has, in some measure, been conferred on men who have extended their influence over extensive regions of the earth without being personally present at them. Inquisitive reason in endeavouring to determine the mode of the Divine presence has proposed the question-Where is God?-to which sober philosophy appropriately retorts by demanding an account of the locality of human thought that emanation from the Eternal essence.

The cases are analagous. Every one who has paid any attention to the operations of his own mind must have been struck occasionally with the recurrence to him of any old idea, long absent, long ago forgotten, and now as it were an apparently dead and buried stranger belonging to another sphere. Yet memory fully identifies the resuscitated offspring of its brother faculties. And where has it been and how has it fared since the days of yore when it lodged for a while as a

member of the spiritual family-is a query certainly not more ration al nor less inconsistent than the analagous one respecting the residence or abode of the Divine uncreated essence.

The French philosopher conceived more justly on this subject when he drew the analogy (fancifully figurative as it was) of God's being a circle whose centre is no where and whose circumference is every where. The sublime subject is far removed above the sphere of our capacity and intelligence. But it is equally just and appropriate to say that God is a circle, whose centre is every where and whose circumference is no where. As there may be an analogy between the human constitution and the Divine, and the Deity may be conceived of, as united to the universe of matter as a human soul is united to a human body; so the power we have of moving our bodies by the mere volition to move, may be similar to the omnipotent energy of the will of God in nature. And man rises yet into a higher emblem of Deity in respect of authority, when he exercises moral, intellectual, political domination when his fellow-creatures by millions receive his commands-when he sways bodies, minds and hearts, and thus appears invested with something of the grandeur of Divine prerogative. As all parts of material Nature are bound together by laws of mutual adhesion, so there is a system of reciprocation through the world of mind. We communicate and interchange ideas, and impart to and receive from one another spiritual influence on the volitions of action and the springs of passion. In this there seems an analogy to the operation of God upon the human soul, and to the corresponding effect of human volition upon the mind of the Deity. Our faculty of consciousness, or of considering ourselves as ourselves, is necessarily similar to the personality of God. The monarchy of man among the tribes of his fellow animals is attributable to his possession of reason. Notwithstanding the smallness of the human stature and the comparative feebleness of man's frame, he grasps firmly and wields irresistibly the sceptre of universal domina tion. The howling savage, the winding serpent, the gaping alligator, with all the untameable and rebellious offspring of the earth are destroyed in the contest with him, or driven to a distance from his habitation. As the arrangements on the surface of the globe were evidently made with especial reference to human accommodation and comfort; so we are able to turn to our advantage even the vast extent of ocean. By forcing it into our service, it becomes our own. The tempestuous waters, instead of limiting and dividing man's empire, only assist his industry and enlarge the sphere of his enjoyment. Its billows and monsters instead of intimidating his efforts serve only to excite his courage. The naked savage, standing on the brink of the ocean as if looking at an angry God and trembling at his tumults, is indeed incapable of converting its terrors into benefits, or of asserting his dominion over the stupendous abyss. But the acquisition of science renders him as strong as he had been weak-and gives him command over the unintelligent forces of the wind and the waves. Knowledge is power. Of the laws of nature, reason can avail itself, and to a certain extent renders man master of the elements, because capable of guarding against the danger of their conflict, and of modifying or preventing their action on his frame. Thus he rises superior to the laws of nature by means at the same time in accordance with those

laws. To the possession of reason we owe that internal sense of rational dignity which arises from knowledge. Man's capacious intellect has explored the recesses of glorious nature-has elicited its properties and called into action its powers-has extended his acquaintance with the more remote parts of the universe-has opened up to his imagination an unlimited range through the immensity of space and of time. Indeed Philosophy has dared even to venture into the presence of God, the Eternal Cause of all causes; and though at every such attempt it has uniformly felt itself overwhelmed and confounded, by the glory and grandeur of the peerless monarch of the universe, the inaccessible height of his throne, and the mysteriousness of the insignia engraven on its impregnable pillars; yet has it gained much and lost nothing by its bold and sublime excursion into the empyreal sphere. If in some measure it has ascertained its incompetency to soar so high, it has at least derived satisfaction from concentrating its strength on the subject most worthy of its exertion. Man by reason is related to the Creator as the subject of his moral government. And though Divine Revelation is the chain that hangs, as it were, immediately from the throne of God by which his authority is definitely connected or indissolubly linked with the immutably moral obligations and duties of intelligent creation; yet may unassisted reason fit one for the homage and admiration of the sublime Architect of the universe; for the understanding that ascertains and determines scientific truth, or the power and wisdom and goodness of God as exhibited in the works of nature, is able to connect them with the devout acknowledgment and praise of the divine agency and government in the system of the world. And under a pious impulse, the view of benevolent plan and design and operation may suggest to and enforce on a man the fitness of conforming his actions in society to such an excellent demonstra tion; while the indications of Divine Wisdom within us and around us may be regarded as teaching him the duty of endeavouring to become intellectually wise and to possess knowledge, in imitation (faint as it must be) of Him who planned the stupendous whole according to the sublime conceptions of Infinite and Eternal Skill.

The Poet has said, 'O what a miracle to man is man!' to which we may respond-What a wonder is Thought! We are struck with amazement in considering the magnitude and distances of the heavenly bodies! The idea of worlds bounding forward along with us round a central sun, a million of times bigger than our globe, is a most astonishing idea. Admiration rises higher still by the reflection that our sun itself and his surrounding planets constitute but one of an innumerable multitude of systems that pervade and brighten the heavens! The thought of possible magnitude and distance is altogether overwhelming. That the point of space occupied by any single globe, or that world itself, is only as it were the centre to an infinite circumference, is a theme fit only for an archangel's capacity. But these subjects in sublime magnificence are not comparable to the mind which can grasp them! Hence the creation even of a single soul was a more admirable display of Divinity than the formation of material worlds, in which we see nothing more than organized masses of matter-nothing but magnitude and form-which have nothing kindred to mind, and no affinity with the intelligence of their Creator, so