objects upon which exercise expends itself are our own limbs and the muscles of our own body. Hence the games and sports which make this physical indulgence so agreeable to men as well as youth are sources of harmless and healthful pleasure always within our grasp, and hence the very exercise of labor itself, when quickened by the excitement of will or purpose, or transformed into a propensity by long habit-of labor, which is not only necessary to our independence, and even continued existence in the world-is a faculty that lies literally at our fingers' ends, and which may be made to contribute at once to our well-being and to our happiness. Finally, I should impress upon you, my boy, that with the undue indulgence in any mere physical delight there is always some peculiar bodily evil connected. Overindulgence of the palate brings gout, dyspepsia, apoplexy, and the utter ruin of bodily health; overdrinking causes delirium tremens, softening of the brain, and the soddening, even to fatuity, of the mind. Overwork, on the other hand, produces premature old age and decay; and overease, in its turn, begets indolence, corpulency, and positive helplessness. These, my lad, are the worldly punishments instituted by the Great Judge over all-the brands which the Almighty prints on the brows of the fools and human beasts of the world, and that are intended to whisper 'Beware' in the ears of the more wise and prudent."

"Well, then," said the little fellow, "I think sensual pleasures are but sorry pleasures after all, uncle."

"They are, as I said, lad, designed to render the business of life agreeable in the end, and hence were never intended to be made the primary pursuit of man's existence; and those who wrest

them from their true purpose, and seek to transform them into amusements, must suffer for their folly. If men have no want of food, and will yet eat for the mere pleasure of eating some savory dish, they not only lack the natural relish of food, but they break a natural commandment, which ordained that hunger should stir men to seek food, and that the pleasure of eating it should be the reward of getting it. And the breach of this natural commandment brings, sooner or later, its own peculiar natural punishment-bodily enfeeblement instead of strength and vigor-injury rather than well-being-suffering and disease in the place of happiness and health."

The words were barely uttered when Uncle Benjamin started as he cried "Hush! what o'clock's that?" and the sound of the big bell of the State House clock was heard booming in the silence of the night resonantly across the water.

"One! two! three! four!" counted the old man, following each stroke as it burst upon the air.

“It's nine, I'm sure, uncle," interjected little Ben.

"Five! six! seven!" continued the other.

"It must be nine," added the boy," for we can't have been here more than two hours, and it wasn't quite seven, you know, when we started."

"Eight! nine!" Uncle Benjamin kept counting as the other talked, and then, holding up his finger as he reckoned the ninth stroke, he waited for a moment or two, and at last shouted out, as he rose hastily from his seat, "Ten! as I'm a living sinner. Come along, Ben, come along; we shall have them all in bed before we get home, I declare."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE NEXT TURNING.

THE following night the same couple were seated on the same lump of rock, looking at the same bright moon and stars, and engaged in solving the same subtle problem, "Which is the right road through life ?"

"Now, then, Master Benjamin," began the good-natured old tutor, as freshly as if he were never tired of counseling his little godson as to how to live a righteous and sober life, "we have seen where one of the roads leads to; we have learned that if we follow the path of mere sensual pleasure we must expect to pay heavy tolls and taxes by the way, and shall come to only disease and anguish at the end. So let us take a peep down the next turning, and see what looms in the distance there."

"The next turning, as you call it, uncle, looks like a nice, quiet, shady lane to me," remarked the pupil, only too pleased to carry out the figure. "It's the path of intellectual pleasure, isn't it?”

"It is, my son," the other answered; "and as the main object of the business of life is to stay the cravings and relieve the uneasinesses, as well as to contribute to the natural delights of the senses, so, with the amusements of life, intellectual pleasure is, or should be, more directly connected. The physical word for amusement, Ben, is recreation; and a fine term it is, as expressing that re-enlivenment and reinvigoration of the jaded powers of body and mind which come from mental diversion. Enlightened amusement is

really mental refreshment-a cooling draught from a shady spring, that sobers and revives the soul after the heat of the work-day world far more than any of the fiery stimulants which the senses delight in. I told you, lad, you remember, when treating of the sense of effort, that it was always irksome, occasionally painful, and, if longcontinued, fatiguing, and ultimately overpowering, for us to take any severe exertion. Now the natural means of removing fatigue is by rest; for the sense of weariness, which oppresses the limbs after protracted labor, is merely the Almighty's voice whispering 'Hold! enough!' and warning us not to overtax the powers He has conferred upon us; and when this weariness sets in, the craving for rest which he has implanted in us tells us that mere repose alone is sufficient for the recruitment of the spent animal strength and spirits. But the change that rest produces in the frame passively, amusement, or mere diversion of the mind from the laborious pursuits, brings about actively. The action of diversion recreates and reinvigorates as much as positive inaction or repose, and hence amusement after the day's business and labor have been done is as healthful as rest itself-ay, and as necessary too, for the restoration of that elasticity of energy-that spring of body and mind—which is requisite for the doing of the business and labor of to-morrow."

Little Ben was delighted to learn the philosophy of amusement, for, boy-like, he was quite sufficiently in love with recreation to be glad to hear that there was not only an excuse, but really a reason for indulging in the pleasant pastimes of life; so he chimed in, "Yes, uncle, I've often heard you tell father that 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' and now I know the truth of the saying."

"Ah! lad, but always bear in mind the converse of the proverb," was the rejoinder, "that all play and no work makes Jack a beggar-boy.""

THE PLEASURES OF THE INTELLECT.

66

"Well, Ben, with this little preface," the uncle resumed, we now pass on to consider the several intellectual pleasures themselves. To each intellectual faculty of our nature, then," he began, "there is, of course, some special associate mental delight attached, in the same manner as there is some peculiar kind of animal pleasure connected with the various organs of sense; and I might proceed with this part of our subject by explaining to you, in due order, all the particular pleasures of the memory-the pleasures of the imagination-the pleasures of the judgment-the pleasures of reason-the pleasures of art-the pleasures of abstraction, and so on. But this mode of procedure would convey to you, comparatively speaking, but little knowledge as to the mainsprings or sources of such pleasures, and I want to give you a deeper insight into your own nature, my child, than comes of mere classification or orderly arrangement. I want to let you see that the general capacities for enjoyment in man are really the same in the intellect as in the senses themselves, and that the only difference is, that with the various forms of mental delight the pleasure comes in through the operation of the thoughts, while in the various kinds of animal delight the gratification enters through the action of some organ of sensation. Now, lad, let me hear whether you can enumerate the different kinds of sensuous pleasure of which human nature is susceptible, over and beyond those which belong to what are called the five senses, and also that of heat and cold, for these we have done with."