What truth is here, O man!

Hath hope been smitten in its early dawn?
Have clouds o'ercast thy purpose, trust, or plan?
Have FAITH, and struggle on.

LESSON LX.

All's for the Best. TUPPER.

ALL'S for the best; be sanguine and cheerful:
Trouble and sorrow are friends in disguise;
Nothing but Folly goes faithless and fearful;
Courage forever is happy and wise :

All for the best,·

if a man would but know it,

Providence wishes us all to be blest;

This is no dream of the pundit or poet;

Heaven is gracious, and

all's for the best!

All for the best set this on your standard,
Soldier of sadness, or pilgrim of love,

Who to the shores of Despair may have wandered,
A way-wearied swallow or heart-stricken dove:
All for the best, — be a man but confiding,

Providence tenderly governs the rest,
And the frail bark of his creature is guiding,
Wisely and warily, all for the best.

All for the best; then fling away terrors,
Meet all your fears and your foes in the van,
And in the midst of your dangers or errors

Trust like a child, while you strive like a man ;

Providence reigns from the east to the west. And by both wisdom and mercy surrounded, Hope and be happy that All's for the best.

LESSON LXI.

Maternal Hope. CAMPBELL.

Lo! at the couch, where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps.
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy

"Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy;
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh, that rends thy father's heart and mine.
Bright as his manly sire the son shall be

In form and soul; but ah! more blest than he !
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past,-
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.
And

say, when summoned from this world and thee
I lay my head beneath the willow-tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner, at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near?
O, wilt thou come at evening hour, to shed
The tears of memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclined,
Muse on the last farewell I leave behind,

Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low,
And think on all my love and all my woe?"
So speaks affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply;
But, when the cherub lip hath learnt to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name, -
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity or a smile of love,

Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care,
Or lisps, with holy look, his evening prayer,
Or gazing, mutely pensive, sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear,
How fondly looks admiring Hope the while
At every artless tear and every smile!
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom true to sympathy!

LESSON LXII.

Spectral Illusions.

CHAMBERS'S MISCELLANY.

In a state of ignorance persons are liable to numerous impositions; they are easily imposed on by rumors and reports which they have not the power of investigating, and still more easily imposed on by their own impressions or notions. Of all the impositions which have vexed the ignorant, a belief in the reality of spectral appearances has been one of the most ridiculous, yet one of the longest and most zealously supported. This belief was once current among even men reputed for their learning—that is, a kind of learning not founded on a correct knowledge of nature; but, by the prog ress of inquiry, it has gradually been abandoned by persons

of education, and now only is maintained by those whose minds have not been instructed on the subject.

To obtain right ideas of this curious, and, to many, mysterious subject, it is necessary to understand, in the first place, what kind of a thing the human mind is, and how it operates in connection with the senses, or at least two of them-seeing and hearing. The seat of the mind is in the brain; in other words, the brain is the organ, or mass of organs, by which the thinking faculties act. Like an instrument finely tuned, the brain, when in a sound state of health, performs its part in our economy with fidelity. Shut up in the skull, however, it has no communication with external nature except through the medium of the senses. The senses are the channels of intelligence to the brain. When the eye receives the impression or picture of a thing presented to it, that impression is carried by a nerve to the brain, where the consciousness or mind recognizes it; and the same thing occurs with the ear in the transmission of sound. The ordinary notion, therefore, that the eye sees, is scarcely correct.

It is the mind, through the operation of the brain, the optic nerve, and the eye, which sees. The eye is only an instrument of vision and recognition. Such is the ordinary process of seeing, and of having a consciousness of what is presented to the eye; and we perceive that the outer organ of vision performs but an inferior part in the operation. There is, indeed, a consciousness of seeing objects, without using the eyes. With these organs shut, we can exert our imagination so far as to recall the image of objects which we formerly have seen. Thus, when in an imperfect state of sleep, with the imagination more or less active, we think that we see objects, and mingle in strange scenes; and this is called dreaming. Dreams, therefore, arise principally from a condition of partial wakefulness, in which the unregulated imagination leads to all kinds of visionary conceptions. In a state of entire wakefulness, and with the eyes open, unreal conceptions of

objects seemingly present may also be formed; but this occurs only when the system is disordered by disease.

We are now brought to an understanding of the cause of those illusions which, under the name of ghosts, apparitions, or spectres, have in all ages disturbed the minds of the credulous. The disorder which leads to the formation of these baseless visions may be organic or functional, or a combination of both. Organic disorder of the body is that condition in which one or more organs are altered in structure by disease. Functional disorder is less serious in character: it is that condition of things where the healthy action of the organ or organs, in part or whole, is impeded, without the existence of any disease of structure. Lunacy, if not arising from organic disorder, hovers between it and functional derangement, in either case producing unreal conceptions in the mind. All these disorders, and kinds of disorders, may appear in a complicated form; and, what is of most importance to our present argument, the nervous system, on which depend the action of the senses, the powers of the will, and the operation of all the involuntary functions, (such as the circulation of the blood, and digestion,) is, and must necessarily be, involved more or less deeply in all cases of constitutional disorder, organic or functional. These powers of the nerves, which form, as we have seen, the sole medium by which mind and body act and react on each other, are clearly, then, connected with the production of every kind of illusory impression.

In lunacy from organic derangement, these impressions are usually the most vivid. Every lunatic tells you he sees spectres, or unreal persons; and no doubt they are seemingly present to his diseased perceptions. The same cause, simple insanity, partial or otherwise, and existing either with or without structural brain disease, has been, we truly believe, at the foundation of many more apparition-cases than any other cause. The eye, in such instances, may take in a correct impression of external objects; but this is not all that is wanting.