INFANT SCHOOLS.

It was a remark of Newton, at the height of his philosophical attainments, that he felt like a youth picking up pebbles on the shore of the great ocean of truth. This impressive remark was, no doubt, elicited by two considerations-one, that the farther the human mind progresses in the knowledge of natural science, the more boundless appears the field of inquiry-and the other consideration alludes to the manner of acquiring knowledge. The babe and the philosopher have but one way to acquire knowledge. Fact after fact must be learned by both-pebble after pebble must be picked up—until the governing principle is discovered and an entire class of subjects comprehended within its influence.

There appears to be a single maxim at the foundation of infant school instruction which should never be disregarded by those who stand so near the fountain head of thought to direct its earliest currents-which is to teach truth.

This maxim should include a limitation called for by the philosophy of mind-which is to teach the infant no truth without giving some reasons, or leading the learner's mind towards the causes from whence the effects are supposed to emanate, or the facts to be derived.

This mode of instruction, in its earliest stages, presents the mind with the truth in its simplest forms-self evident, or palpable facts. The great secret of interesting the mind of an infant in the natural sciences and the usual routine of infant school instruction consists in the appeal made to his curiosity, his social feelings, love of amusement, and that satisfied state of mind induced by

learning and understanding any subject. It is, indeed, rather a late discovery that similar feelings pervade the infant school and the university. The acquisition of knowledge carries its own reward with it to the bosom of the philosopher and the nursing babe—and, now, that the way is discovered to make philosophers of our babes, it is harldly within the range of speculation to determine before hand what effects this new era of instruction will produce on the rising generation as they shall succeed to the duties of public and private life.

THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRIZE.

SINCE the pen of the eloquent Wayland has portrayed the dignity of the missionary enterprize, no one will attempt to retouch a picture which has been presented to admiring Europe and America, as one of those rare productions of genius, so much like angel visits on our earth, 'few and far between.' In Wayland's moral painting the coloring is lighted up by the purified fires of the sanctuary; every tint is expressive of mental grandeur, and the shadowings involve the elements of sublimity. But the emotions of the morally sublime are not the deepest that are called out by the spirit of missions. There is an emotion, yet more touching and distinctive, which belongs to this enterprize-it is tenderness.

Tenderness becomes humanity. It is better to weep

than laugh. The modern Cæsar, when he wore the iron. crown of France, never appeared more truly great than when, under the trembling light of the moon, he wept on the field of battle over the affectionate dog, keeping his death-watch beside the remains of a master whose voice should never salute him more. In days more distant from ours, Xerxes, whose command had enough of potency to burden the earth with the living masses of his army destined for the invasion of Greece, has left but one line in his history able to withstand the pelting storms of time-it is the record of the fact that he wept at the thought of death's wide harvest, spread out, like a map, in the plains below him. These tears of tender melancholy remain, while every thing else the monarch may have done is lost, or losing itself, in the whirlpool of years. The King of kings, Jesus, the Judge of the earth, when on his earthly mission, left no pledges of his divine humanity more precious than his tears. He wept at the tomb of his friend-he wept over the snow-white towers of Jerusalem, destined by the righteous judgments of heaven to sudden ruin--and the Roman plough, passing over Moriah, could not, when it tore up the lowest foundations of the temple, obliterate the traces of a Saviour's tears.

The soul goes out with the tears. Sublimity may fill the eye with fire, thrill through the frame, and give new intensity to the consciousness of existence; tenderness carries a man from himself, and gives up his poured out affections into another's bosom. The one enlarges; the other diffuses and distributes through the wide range of

humanity its own forgotten being. The one may be excited by the voice of the thunder speaking solemnly to the dark clouds, by the beetling brow of the mountain, by the sound of many waters; the other claims no affinities to inanimate bulk or brutal force-its gushing affections flow only at the touch of soul, or when the spirit of God breathes on the heart, disposing it to immense goodness and the overflowings of benevolence.

Just before the missionary enterprize commenced, the earth presented one of its darkest historical pictures. War-war-with brazen throat bellowed from continent to continent, and howled over every sea. The truce was asked only to renew the stores of national venom and the preparations for national extermination. The remote shores of this western world were stained with fatricidal blood, and shaded with Gallic and British standards. Side by side, quiet at last in death, on the gory fields of the American revolution, lay the soldier of England, the soldier of France, of Hesse, of Prussia, of Poland and yet the American struggle was only as a few drops before a horrible cataract of waters precipitated by whirlwinds from the rent clouds to the earth, when compared with the gigantic water-spouts, that, at the commencement of the French revolution, walked terribly from the Champ de Mars to the Pyramids of the Nile, and from the Eternal City to the embers of Moscow, hurling ancient dynasties to the howling winds, and forming bubble kingdoms of imposing, though transient, magnificence, where the beast of the iron foot had trodden down the concentrations of the feudal ages.

The world was full of widows and orphans. There was no comforter. Infidelity would not stand by its followers, either in life or death. None but the messengers of the Most High could impart consolation. They came; angels, having the everlasting gospel to preach, brushed away the sulphur clouds of battle, and taught that the nations should love each other and learn war no more. As far as their silver trumpets have sounded and the ravishing music of their song been heard by the kingdoms of the earth, so far has sweet peace succeeded, and the milk of human kindness been poured out to the sorrowful and the afflicted.

Examples speak a more impressive language than words. If the missionary spirit is that of tenderness, the lives, the sacrifices, self denials and labors of the missionary will be imbued with the dew of human kindness. Did the tenderness of the illustrious Coke acknowledge the common boundary of earthly affection? Geographical limits were nothing to him. The wide earth he strode the wide seas he sailed, in calm, in tempest, in shipwreck, carrying up with him, from the dripping wave, his only freight-the immortal love of the gospel for perishing souls. England, Ireland, France, the West Indian Islands and America, saw him again and again on his tender errands, more heavenly each time. And when his waning years prophesied of his coming rest, he conceived the immense and almost boundless design of adding India to the fields inclosed by a Saviour's love. Hail, first missionary to India! Proudly rides thy bark before the fragrant land breeze