mirth, wit and humor, which require occasional exercise and gratification. He has an intellect to be improved and expanded, as well as a heart to be purified and made better, by intercourse with his fellows away from the narrow walks and cares of traffic. He needs to learn that trade is not the sole end and aim of human existence, however useful and necessary it may be, but to regard it as a means rather than as an end to interest and engage our faculties, but not to absorb and finally destroy them.

We are sometimes led to inquire if we are not becoming every year a mere selfish and unsocial people, more and more absorbed in ourselves and our moneygetting pursuits; more eager in pursuit of wealth and more ambitious to outshine our neighbors; less given to hospitality, and losing our relish for amusements in the engrossing cares of business. How does it happen that we have abolished our Election holidays, our Commencements, and almost our Fourth of July, which is given up for the most part to fire-crackers and the boys. Thanksgiving is going out of date, and Fast day becoming almost our only day of amusement. Our holiday sports, games and greetings are gone by. We become citizen soldiers or run with a machine, but have lost taste for the old fashioned holidays and festivals, when we used to forget the shop and enjoy ourselves and our neighbors. The world grows utilitarian. We have all prose and no poetry.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; it also makes John a dull, sour, morose and selfish man. Men are but children of a larger growth, and require amusement and relaxation from the corroding cares of life. Instead of giving up our holidays, we should multiply them and learn to enjoy them. We should have more Election days, more Thanksgivings, more Commencements, and with as many Fast days as we can improve in the true meaning and spirit of the day.

Dr. Bellows of New York has made a noble and manly appeal for the theatre, as a place where the mind is improved and instructed, the imagination pleased and excited, the love of beauty gratified, and the heart made better by witnessing the triumphs of virtue and the punishment of vice. The attractions of the stage are various and legitimate. It has held its place from the earliest ages, and from its peculiar adaptation to the wants of our nature must ever continue to instruct, and, what is of even more importance, to amuse our leisure hours. The stage reflects the tastes and manners of the people. If it is given up to those of low and depraved tastes, it will be itself depraved and corrupting. If it is patronized by the moral and religious part of the community, it loses its grossness and adapts itself to the standard of those from whom it derives its support. Dr. Bellows observes, in his admirable "address to the players,"

that (as he is informed,) there is nothing heard at the Boston theatre that would give offence in a private drawing room. This is saying much for Boston and for the worthy conductor of that establishment. The theatre is to be encouraged as our best, because most attractive, place of amusement. No inducement is needed with us to labor; our great danger is, that we shall labor too much. Innocent amusement is what we most need, and best preserves us from the excitement of vicious pleasures. Nature asserts her rights and seeks relaxation in sensualism and vice, when denied the opportunity of pure and innocent amusement. To purify our public amusements, to increase the number of our holidays, to loosen the hold of selfish pursuits, and to multiply the means of social intercourse and social enjoyment, is the duty of those who would best promote the welfare and happiness of this hard-working and money-getting age.

THE SAILOR.

THE Sailor is but a child of larger growth. To him alone, as if to compensate him for his hard and dangerous life, it is given to flourish in perpetual youth. Nature is full of compensations, and she never fails to make amends for all the seeming hardships of our earthly lot.

"Ye gentlemen of England, who sit at home at ease,

How little do you think upon the dangers of the seas!"

But the gentlemen of England grow old and careworn, while the sailor is allowed to remain in that golden state of boyhood to which we look back with so much longing and regret. Could we but renew think, be happy; but

our youth, we should, as we the sailor is always young. He has drank of those fabled waters that have power to renovate and renew; to throw off the old man with his deeds and bring back the laughing and happy days of childhood. Though many years have passed over his head, he has not grown old, but remains in a happy state of ignorance, free from all the follies and unhappiness of wisdom. He has follies enough, to be sure, of his