were so read the better they repaid perusal; but this not being the point of view from which ordinary humanity is apt to regard a lecture, it was with prompt and genuine relief that the audience hailed a personal appeal to that cheerful, healthy hopefulness of disposition which we like to be told we possess in common with greater men. It is always pleasant to hear that happiness is "the due and eternal result of labor, righteousness, and veracity," and to have it hinted to us that we have sane and wholesome minds because we think so; it is pleasanter still to be assured that the disparaging tone which religion assumes in relation to this earthly happiness arises from a well-intentioned desire to wean us from it, and not at all from a clear-sighted conviction of its feeble worth. When Mr. Arnold recited for our benefit a cheerless little scrap of would-be pious verse which he had heard read in a London schoolroom, all about the advantages of dying,—
"For the world at best is a dreary place,
And my life is getting low,"—
we were glad to laugh over such dismal philosophy, and to feel within ourselves an exhilarating superiority of soul.
