neglect, disesteem, and dislike, before the meridian of life is passed; for it takes all the charms that youth, sprightliness, and high animal spirits can furnish, to make an idle tongue fascinating or even endurable.

Let me ask you now to consider for a moment the influence which we exert in conversation upon the happiness or misery of others. It is not too much to say, that most of us do more good or harm in this way than in all other forms beside. Look around you,—take a survey of whatever there is of social or domestic unhappiness in the families to which you belong, or among your kindred and acquaintance. Nine tenths of it can be traced to no other cause than untrue, unkind, or ungoverned speech. A mere harsh word, repented of the next moment,—how great a fire can it kindle! The carrying back and forth of an idle tale, not worth an hour's thought, will often break up the closest intimacies. From every slanderous tongue you may trace numerous rills of bitterness, winding round from house to house, and separating those who ought to be united in the closest friendship. Could persons, who, with kind hearts, are yet hasty in speech, number up, at the close of a day, the feelings that they had wounded, and the uncomfortable sensations that they had caused, they would need no other motive to study suavity of manner, and to seek for their words the rich unction of a truly charitable spirit. Then, too, how many are the traits of suspicion, jealousy, and heart-burning, which go forth from every day's merely idle words, vain and vague surmises, uncharitable inferences and conjectures!

These thoughts point to the necessity of religion as the guiding, controlling element in conversation. All conversation ought to be religious. Not that I would have persons always talking on what are commonly called religious subjects. Let these be talked of at fitting times and places, but never obtrusively brought forward or thrust in. But cannot common subjects be talked of religiously? Cannot we converse about our plans, our amusements, our reading, nay, and our neighbors too, and no sacred name be introduced, and yet the conversation be strictly religious? Yes,—if throughout the conversation we own the laws of honesty, frankness, kind construction, and sincere benevolence,—if our speech be pure, true, gentle, dignified,—if it seek or impart information that either party needs,—if it cherish friendly feeling,—if it give us kinder affections towards others,—if it bring our minds into vigorous exercise,—nay, if it barely amuse us, but not too long, and if the wit be free from coarseness and at no one's expense. But we should ever bear it in mind, that our words are all uttered in the hearing of an unseen Listener and Judge. Could we keep this in remembrance, there would be little in our speech that need give us shame or pain. But that half hour spent in holding up to ridicule one who has done you no harm,—that breathless haste to tell the last piece of slander,—you would not want to remember in your evening prayer. From the flippant, irresponsible, wasteful gossip, in which so much time is daily lost, you could not with a safe conscience look up and own an Almighty presence.

Young ladies, my subject is a large one, and branches out into so many heads, that, were I to say all that I should be glad to say, the setting sun would stop me midway. But it is time for me to relieve your patience. Accept, with these fragmentary hints, my cordial congratulations and good wishes. Life now smiles before you, and beckons you onward. Heaven grant that your coming days may be even happier than you hope! To make them so is within your own power. They will not be cloudless. If you live long, disappointments and sorrows must come. There will be steep and rough passages in the way of life. But there is a Guide, in whose footprints you may climb the steep places without weariness, and tread the rough ground without stumbling. Add to your mental culture faith in Him, and the self-consecration of the Christian heart. Then even trials will make you happier. When clouds are over your way, rays from Heaven will struggle through their fissures, and fringe their edges. Your path will be onward and upward, ever easier, ever brighter. On that path may your early footsteps be planted, that the beautiful bloom of your youth may not wither and perish, but may ripen for a heavenly harvest!

PART II.

A LECTURE

We are all of us more or less apt to overlook that which is continually going on around us. We omit to make it a matter of inquiry, and reserve our attention for that which is more rare, although of far less importance. What is it, for instance, which, after a course of long, sultry heat,—when the sun, day by day, has blazed in the sky above,—what is it, I ask, which has still preserved the verdure and freshness of all vegetable life? Surely it has been nothing else than the dew of heaven, gently, regularly, plenteously falling, as each evening closed in. Nevertheless, how little is it thought of,—how little are its benefits acknowledged! But when the clouds gather speedily and darkly, and perhaps unexpectedly, when the sense of coolness spreads once more through the parched atmosphere, when abundance of rain all at once descends, then all observe the change, all notice the beneficial results; yet perhaps they are trifling indeed compared with those of the nightly and forgotten dew, which has never ceased to fall, week by week, or even month by month, during the course of the drought. I feel no doubt that it will be acknowledged how it is the same, the very same, in all things calling for our observation. So, therefore, it is regarding conversation, as a thing of every day. We flock to hear and admire some mighty orator's address, but we think little of and little appreciate that daily, hourly thing which is our subject now,—I mean conversation. But I leave you to judge which has the most effect on our general interest, as social creatures,—which, in the long run, has most to do with the pleasure and the profit of all human intercourse.

Having made this claim on your attention, I would now observe that the subject is one of so wide a scope that I can do little more than present you with a few thoughts, which I have noted down as they have risen to my own mind, upon it. And I trust that they will prove not entirely unacceptable, though well indeed aware that the topic is one to which it must be very difficult indeed to do any justice.

But I must first try to meet one objection, for which I am quite prepared, namely, that conversation is not a fit subject for a lecture at all, but should be considered as too independent and free to have any rules, principles, or guidance applied to it. This, however, is indeed a fallacy, and may briefly be exposed by a few such questions as those I am about to ask. What should be more free than the sword of the soldier in the battle-day?—than the pencil of the artist at the mountain side?—or than the poet's song in its upward flight? Yet who would condemn the use of the drill, or the study of perspective, or the rules of poetic art? No less untenable is it to maintain that conversation can be subject to no principle, rule, or review, without checking its free and unfettered range. Cowper has simply summed up the whole truth:—