Year: 1859

received currency, and a permanent record il

 the world but here and there among the ig noble paste shine noble gems, and these, as they may seem worthy, l propose to use as l textual titles for these new "Preachings" o

 mine. choose them because they are the offspring of xperience-because they are in stnct with blood and breath and vitality.- They have no likeness to the unveriied deduc- tons of reason. They are not propositions, conceived in the understanding and addressed to life, but propositions born of life itself and addressed to the heart They were not con ceive0 in the minds of the great few, but they sprang from the life of the people. give the people their own.

 Precisely what these essays of mine are to be, canuot tell, because l do not know. l only know there is an inexhaustible realm of practical truth around me waiting fer revela- tion. There are multitudinous thoughts, now trailing upon the ground, that point their ten drills tipped with instinct, towards this pen of mine, striving to reach aud twine themselves around it that they may be lifted into the sun- light of popular recognition. l have got my spindle aid my distaff ready-my pen and mind --never doubting for an instant that God will send me flax. Toward the soul which places itself in the attitude of reception all things fow For such soul are all good gifts fashioned in heaven. The sun shines for it the birds sing for it up toward it the flowers swing their censers aud wait their odors Into it in gold CT streams flows the beauty of star-sprinkled rivers The roar of waters and the plash of waterfalls give healthful pulse to it's atmos- phere. Into its open windows come the notes of human joy and human woe ill the trun phs and the struggles of the passing time. Past it's open door Memory leads the long process sion of it's precious dead, who look in with sweet faces and whispers of peace. In front of it, Imagination marshals the forces of the fu- ture, and it thrills with the bugle-biast aud trembles with the drum beat of the laundering host. For perception were all things made, and to the door of perception all things tend l; so that the soul that throws itself wide open to all that is made for it shall find itself full.

 When soul thus receptive places itself in the attitude of expression, it has but to move its lips and the words will flow. The mind that has become treasure house of truth and beauty speaks world into existence with ey- cry inference. Expression is its intinct and it's necessity. This expression may not always seek the shape of language, but it will assert itself in some form. The patriot reveals the secret of his soul when he gladly dies for his country, and sacrifices his life upon the altar of his inspiration. The Sister of Mercy tells the story of her love and her devotio ion, unseen aud unheard by the world, in midnight ninstrations to the comfort of the sick and the dying. The E:odest mother expresses the love and life she has received from God and the things of God ill the tutelage of the young spirits born of her, and the creation of bright and graceful home for them. We give what we have received - that which is within us will out of us. Ex- precision is the necessity of possession.

 The form which expression takes depends upon natural tendencies and apttudes, and habits imposed by circumstances and opportu- mites. l suppose that to every man who writes book, or is in the habit of writing books, there comes at the conclusion of each effort sense of exhaustion. Then, through days, and weeks ard months, he walks con- tentedly, taking in new food-without method, without Ges:gn- any thing ne---ev.ry thing,

 -regaling hs sensiblties, ministerng to his appetite for knowledge, exercising his sym pathies, absorbing greedily all the influences evolved by the life around him, till there steals upon him insensibly, the desire for another n- staIment of expression in the habitual way He finds himself organizing the truth he has received, into harmonious aud striking forms. He is arrested in fits Of abstraction into which he has fallen unawares. He finds chill on his knee without knowing how it came there He passes friend in the street without seeing him. He will not be content until the pen is in his hand, and his mind has applied itself to the work demanded by it's condition.

 But about that flax that God sends to such man this would all seem to be pulled from the earth softened by sun and rain and bro ken and hacked by natural processes True :: aud, yet, imagine there are few thinking minds in the world that are not aware of double process by which expression is arrived atone entirely involuntary. lying deep down in the consciousness, and operating independently of volition and another, voluntary, lying upon the surface, and mostly engaged in the inven- tion of forms-dependent for materials upon the process beneath it. This is the reason why millions of men undertake to do what they never can do. The interchangeable di. vine working profoundly in their na- lures, throws up materials which they have no power to clothe in language, or present ill forms of art which the mind will recognize as appropriate. Such men are mised. They strive to write essays, and fail. They strug- gle to produce poems, but cannot. They have abundant materials for essays and epics in them, but they are incapable of combining and expressing them. Many men and women spend their lives in unsuccessful efforts to spin the flax God sends them upon wheel that l they can never use. The trouble with these people is, that they have made mistake in their spindle. It is with the human mind as with the plant. Deep under ground there is a process of selection going on, by which salts and juices are drawn by Q million roots and rootlets into the stem drawn from masses ol

 mould and sand and gravel -and sent upward