Year: 1861

is an outgo, there, must be an equal
income, or exhaustion will be the inevitable
consequence.


The principle which these familiar facts
so forcibly illustrate is very important one,
in its connection with human life. We can-
not get any more out Of human life han
we put into it. All civilization is an illus
tration Of what can be accomplished by feed,
ing the human mind All barbaric ana
savage life is an illustration Of mental ana
moral starvation. The differences among
mankind are the results Of differences IN the
nourishment upon which their minds are ieu'
Eunice Williams, who was taken captive by
the savages Of Canada n hundred aud hity
years ago, was the daughter OF o most
godly minister, of the old Puritan stamp
but very few years of savage feeding made
her a savage. Her mind was cut off from
oil other varieties Of nourishment, and could
only tend to savage issues. She kept a
knowledge of her history, aud many years
after her capture, revisited her home, ac'
companied by her tawny husband but no
persuasions could call her from her savage
life and companionship. The conversion OF
men from heatheniSm TO Christianity
and Christian civilization. is accomplished
by introducing new food into their
moral and mental diet. "A change of pas
lures makes fat calves" We arc told aud
any one who has noticed the effect up
on an active mind of its translation from
enc variety of social and moral influences 10
another will recognize the truth of the
proverO.


If man will call up his acqnautanccs,
one by one and mentally measure the results
of their lives, he will bc atonished
to see how small those results are. lie will
also seei that they are, under ordinary cir
custanceS, in the exact proportion to the
amount, and in correspondence with the va
riety of the food they take in. 1t is aston
shing to see how little it takes to keep
some people, and how very little such peo-
pie become on their diet. A man who
shuts himself away from all social life, and
lays 10y his reading, and declines all food
that addresses itself to bis sensational and
emotional nature, and refuses that bread OF
life which comes down from heaven, and
feeds himself only with relation to the ac-
complshmtnt of some petty work, will be-
come as thin and scrawny, mentally and
morally, as tie body of a half-Starved Hot
tentot. 1t is the one curse Of rural life that
it does not have a sufficiency and a sufficient
variety of food The same scenes, the same
faces, the same limited range of books, the
same dull friends, long ago exhausted-no
new nourishment for powers cloyed with
their never-varying food-these are what
make rural life, ns it is usually lived, unat.
tractive and most unfruitful. The fruits
he SsueS-of this life cannot be greater
than the food it gets, and the food is very
scanty. 1t is not necessary that it should
be so, and sometimes it is not SO but the
rule of common rHral life is insufficeucy
of mental food, and consequent poverty o.
manifestation.


originating in necessity, and far outliving
The circumstances in which they had theil
birth, have tended more than any Other
cause to make New England character un
loveable. The saving of haf.pence 10 ado
to ones store, and the denial to ones sci
and children of that which will delight the
furnished senses and stir the thin emotions
and enlarge the range Of experience, is the
direct way of arriving at meanness of life
There are those who will not allow thcil
| families to cultivate flowers, because flow
ers are not useful, aud they involve waste
of time and land They will not have az
instrument Of music in their houses, because
music is not useful, and il involves an eX
pendture of money, aud the throwing away
of great deal Of time. They will not buy
pictures, because pictures are not useful
and because they cost money so that many
rich mans paror is as bare of ornament
as tomb would be. They will not atteuC
a lecture, because, though it might furnish
them with mental food for mouth, it wonlC
not bring their shillings back to them
They will not attend concert, because g
concert is not useful. They will not hire @
minister who possess fine gifts
gifts that would enrich them mentally, NOR
ally and socially-becauSe they canno! af
ford it. So they take up with ministerial
dry nursing, and one another's dry expert
ences, as spiritual food, in order to save a
few more dollars.


There are few of the severer virtues
that will live upon a diet ofthis kind. En-
durance, industry, negative purity, thrift
integrity-these can live, and do live, aftel
sort, on plain and Scanty diet, anC
these, as we know, abound in New England
But generosity, hospitality, charity, liberali
ty-all those qualities that enrich the char
ncter, and all those virtues that enlarge i
and give it fullness aud beauty and atttac
tiveness, are always wanting among lh,
class that sacrifices everything for use
More cannot be got out of any life than i
put into it. Modern chemistry analy2e
soils, aud ascertains exactly what they neet


to make them produce bOuntifuly of on,
kind of grains and fruits Wheat cannot b


grown on land that does not contain tn
constituents Of wheat, and if it be desirabl


to grow wheat, those constituents must b


added to the soil. If Ony mental soil doe


not produce those vital manifestations an


results which characterize large, rich al


attractive life, then the constituent
of that life must be introduced as nutr


ment.


One of the common experiences in til


world of authorship is the writing of a siI


gle successful book, and the failure of a
that follow it from the same pen. The e,