From “The Lay Preacher.”

=_150._= REFLECTION’S ON THE SEASONS.

“Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.”

The sensitive Gray, in a frank letter to his friend West, assures him that, when the sun grows warm enough to tempt him from the fireside, he will, like all other things, be the better for his influence; for the sun is an old friend, and an excellent nurse, &c.  This is an opinion which will be easily entertained by every one who has been cramped by the icy hand of Winter, and who feels the gay and renovating influence of Spring.  In those mournful months when vegetables and animals are alike coerced by cold, man is tributary to the howling storm and the sullen sky, and is, in the phrase of Johnson, a “slave to gloom;” but when the earth is disencumbered of her load of snows, and warmth is felt, and twittering swallows are heard, he is again jocund and free.  Nature renews her charter to her sons....  Hence is enjoyed, in the highest luxury,—­

  “Day, and the sweet approach of even and morn,
  And sight of vernal bloom and summer’s rose,
  And flocks, and herds, and human face divine.”

It is nearly impossible for me to convey to my readers an idea of the “vernal delight” felt at this period by the Lay Preacher, far declined in the vale of years.  My spectral figure, pinched by the rude gripe of January, becomes as thin as that “dagger of lath” employed by the vaunting Falstaff, and my mind, affected by the universal desolation of winter, is nearly as vacant of joy and bright ideas as the forest is of leaves and the grove is of song.  Fortunately for my happiness, this is only periodical spleen.  Though in the bitter months, surveying my attenuated body, I exclaim with the melancholy prophet, “My leanness, my leanness! woe is me!” and though, adverting to the state of my mind, I behold it “all in a robe of darkest grain,” yet when April and May reign in sweet vicissitude, I give, like Horace, care to the winds, and perceive the whole system excited by the potent stimulus of sunshine....  I have myself in winter felt hostile to those whom I could smile upon in May, and clasp to my bosom in June.

* * * * *

=_William Gaston,[46] 1778-1844._=

From “Essays and Addresses.”

=_151._= THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY.

The first great maxim of human conduct—­that which it is all-important to impress on the understandings of young men, and recommend to their hearty adoption—­is, above all things, in all circumstances, and under every emergency, to preserve a clean heart and an honest purpose....  Without it, neither genius nor learning, neither the gifts of God, nor human exertions, can avail aught for the accomplishment of the great objects of human existence.  Integrity is the crowning virtue,—­integrity is the pervading principle which ought to regulate, guide, control, and vivify