There is, indeed, much in nature that we do not yet half enjoy, because we shut our avenues of sensation and of feeling.  We are satisfied with the matter of fact, and look not for the spirit of fact, which is above all.  If we would open our minds to enjoyment, we should find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side.  We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.  We want some loving knowledge to enable us truly to enjoy life, and we require to cultivate a little more than we do the art of making the most of the common means and appliances for enjoyment, which lie about us on every side.  There are, we doubt not, many who may read these pages, who can enter into and appreciate the spirit of all that we have now said; and, to those who may still hesitate, we would say—­begin and experiment forthwith; and first of all, when the next flower-girl comes along your street, at once hail her, and “Have a flower for your room!”

WEALTH.

THE error of life into which man most readily falls, is the pursuit of wealth as the highest good of existence.  While riches command respect, win position, and secure comfort, it is expected that they will be regarded by all classes only with a strong and unsatisfied desire.  But the undue reverence which is everywhere manifested for wealth, the rank which is conceded it, the homage which is paid it, the perpetual worship which is offered it, all tend to magnify its desirableness, and awaken longings for its possession in the minds of those born without inheritance.  In society, as at present observed, the acquisition of money would seem to be the height of human aim—­the great object of living, to which all other purposes are made subordinate.  Money, which exalts the lowly, and sheds honour upon the exalted—­money, which makes sin appear goodness, and gives to viciousness the seeming of chastity—­money, which silences evil report, and opens wide the mouth of praise—­money, which constitutes its possessor an oracle, to whom men listen with deference—­money, which makes deformity beautiful, and sanctifies crime—­money, which lets the guilty go unpunished, and wins forgiveness for wrong—­money, which makes manhood and age respectable, and is commendation, surety, and good name for the young,—­how shall it be gained? by what schemes gathered in? by what sacrifice secured?  These are the questions which absorb the mind, the practical answerings of which engross the life of men.  The schemes are too often those of fraud, and outrage upon the sacred obligations of being; the sacrifice, loss of the highest moral sense, the destruction of the purest susceptibilities of nature, the neglect of internal life and development, the utter and sad perversion of the true purposes of existence.  Money is valued beyond its worth—­it has gained a power vastly above its deserving.  Wealth is courted so obsequiously, is flattered so