are put together with other materials, the whole resembles nothing so much as a modern Mahomedan structure in Greece, where a fine piece of antique sculpture is found in the wall turned up side down, and a Corinthian pillar is found supporting a wretched hovel.

I say not this to disparage Mr. M'C.'s talents; for I know, and very willingly say, that he possesses very respectable talents; and talents which, if rightly used, are well calculated to render him a very useful man, in the latitude and longitude, in the soil and climate, where Divine Providence has placed him. But whether they are the talents. of an Investigator of Truth, it is hard to say. The present specimen is unfavourable; but it is not decisive of the question, by any means. The advocate of truth, however, has his own glory, as well as the investigator. Neither are the two characters quite incompatible. The Advocate may grow into an Investigator. But it is to be feared that there is some immutable law of our nature, which has decreed that no man shall, at the same period of his days, excel in both. To this law there are, to say the least, few exceptions. And Dr. Goldsmith spoke truth, when he said of Edmund Burke, that Proteus of genius, that his trade was to cut blocks with a razor. Of one of the characters spoken of, the world needs but few; of the other it can never have too many.

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THE ADVOCATE of Truth, is a man of masculine

port and nervous arm: his open brow and sparkling eye, indicate the honesty of his intentions: quick of perception, irritable of feeling, in fancy versatile, enthusiastic in all things. He fears nothing: and why should he fear. He mounts the Pulpit: he pours on his audience the direct ray of plain Gospel truth: he appeals to their understanding, and they know ithe appeals to their heart, and they feel it; he brings forward—not the objections of a drivelling logiciancreated only to be damned-but the objections which the true orator reads in the eyes and in the hearts of his audience. He states these objections in more tremendous form than ever they appeared in before. The audience is terrified-they tremble for themselves-they tremble even for the preacher. He touches the spectres with the wand of truth, they are gone! His soul takes fire, his audience are on fire. They see more than they see, they know more than they know, they are more than themselves. He spreads his pinions, and spurns the earth, and away they are all gone together in the whirlwind.

Such a man is worth-but his Master will estimate his worth. He has always this singular felicity, that he is the immediate instrument of good to mankind. He sees himself surrounded by his children, and his children's children. He sits under the trees which his own hand has planted, and plucks and eats their fruit. He enjoys his honours in his own days: and, provided God receives supreme glory as the author of all, I protest I cannot see why it should be a sin, to exult in the consciousness of having merited well of one's kind; and delighting in the thought, that God has given mankind grace enough to acknowledge their obligations.

For such men, in this country, and at this day, there is a great demand: and they are the only class of the intellectual breed for whom there is any demand.

THE INVESTIGATOR of truth is a very different character. Occasionally pale, occasionally hectic; always thoughtful, pensive, absent, lost, absorbed, fond of solitude. His ardour has nothing to do with the blood or the passions; it is kindled entirely by the will, by a deliberate, stubborn determination that he will know the truth. His courage is of a singular character it consists in an awful terror of being defeated. Having formed his determination, he buckles on his knapsack, with a few mathematical instruments in it, takes his staff in his hand, and bidding adieu to the whole human race, places himself in the very middle of the highway, and steps off, with the earth beneath his feet, the heavens over his head, and the God, who made both the heavens and the earth, his sole companion, and his only trust. He proceeds slowly, marking every thing, till coming to a place, where the road has been strewed with trees torn up by a hurricane, and greatly injured by torrents, and looking to one side, he sees a fine open way, and reads on the finger board this is the road-and hastily taking it he proceeds. He comes to a lofty structure, and reads a name in LARGE CAPITALS. I am right, he cries. This is a triumphal pile, erected, to the glory of some mighty chief, who on this spot reaped the laurels of victory in the cause of truth. On he On he goes, and passes many such monuments; but at last he finds himself between two mountains, towering perpendicularly to the heavens, and a dark, noisome gulf before him, he can advance no further!

Reader, he went out in search of truth, and he has

Not lost his labour-He has discovered, that the truth which he is in quest of, is not to be found in that road, and that no man ever will find it there. He has solved one problem, he knows he is wrong; but how did he get wrong? This is his next problem. He retraces his steps, and now he reads, as he returns, the whole of the inscriptions on the monuments; and to his utter amazement, finds that these are all of them, the tombs of mighty chiefs, who in times of old had encamped with their armies on these spots; and had perished during the night, by some pestilential vapours peculiar to the soil. He hastens on to the finger-post, and finds the whole inscription to be this, The road to destruction.

Placing himself once more in the very middle of the high way, he moves right forward, and after infinite toil, at last surmounts every obstacle, and finds himself in the right road. Willingly would he repair the breach, and remove all the obstructions, but he is unable; and his duty calls him to go forward. But before he proceeds, he notes accurately the longitude and latitude of the spot ; and then commits himself once more to his journey. And thus he proceeds, night and day, through winter's cold and summer's heat; in all winds and all weathers, some times lost in wrong roads, often in the right; and sometimes in the dismal darkness of the night, under the pitiless pelting of the storm, he begins to doubt whether there be any road at all, till he recollects that he is sure he once was in it; sometimes in the desperate agonies of his heart, he is tempted to wish he never had heard there was a road, till at last he is relieved from his doubts, and catches a momentary glance of the path by the flashes of the lightning of heaven.

Reader, the number of men who set out on this jour ney is probably greater than we imagine; but many of them are lost in the false ways, and many of them breathe out their souls in the true way, solitary and unknown. Like Houghton and Parke, they perish in the noble attempt to trace a path by which civilization may travel into the abodes of horrid cruelty; but unlike Houghton and Parke-etiam periere ruince— their very names have perished.

Should one of these travellers live to return home after his circumambulation, he finds himself a stranger in his own land. When his neighbours see him seated in his own plain cottage, drinking only the water of the same well, and feeding on the fruit of the same tree, as in his youth; they are apt to consider him as a weak and visionary man, who gave himself a great deal of trouble to little purpose. But the censure is not entirely well-founded. For he sits more securely in his cottage than formerly, knowing that it is the only one on earth, that is thunder proof; he drinks of his spring more copiously, because he knows that its waters alone know no poisonous mixture, no impure sediment; and eats his fruits with greater delight, because he is sure that they grew on the tree of life. And though the aged may have grown too wise to need his instruction, he may have an opportunity of warning their children to stay at home in their own native land; which is the glory of all lands. But if any one of them should determine to see the world for himself, the old traveller hands him his map, bids him God speed, and prays earnestly for his safe return.

But reader, lest thou shouldst think that I carry thee too far out of thy road; I shall carry thee right into the middle of the Calvinistic churches.