4. Our recreations must not be allowed to interfere with more important duties. This is a kindred rule to the one last considered; and yet it is sufficiently distinct to require a separate consideration. Recreation, we have already said, is a duty; and yet it is not one of the more important and indispensable duties. At least, it is not so in all circumstances, and at all times. What we mean to say, therefore, is, that we are so to regulate our recreations, both as to their nature, their amount, and the times in which to indulge them, as not to interfere with more important duties. If we find, at any time, that our recreations are encroaching upon the more necessary duties of life, or go to make these duties irksome; or if we find that they interfere with our religious duties-the devotions of the family, the closet, or the social circle, giving us a disrelish for such duties, or crowding them out of place; if such is the result of our recreations we may know that they have passed the prescribed limit somewhere. The great object and end of recreation is to make our duties more pleasant, not less so; to prepare us to engage in them with a greater zest, and to better account, and not the more to trifle with and neglect them. Hence, when we find that our recreations are having this latter effect upon us, we may know that they are out of place or proportion somewhere, and that they require to be examined and regulated anew.

5. In choosing our recreations, we are to avoid such as are peculiarly liable to abuse; and more especially such as have been abused to such a degree as to become scandalous. We hold this to be a very important rule, and one which cannot be safely disregarded. Some kinds of recreation are so captivating, so engrossing, that if indulged in at all, they are very likely to be indulged to a ruinous excess. They will be pursued beyond what the purposes of recreation require-pursued for the mere pleasure of it; and then they change their character, and become sinful amusements. Now such recreations should either be avoided altogether, or should be indulged in with great caution, and with a vigorous and prayerful self-control.

There are also recreations which are not only liable to abuse, but which actually have been and are abused, to such a degree as to become scandalous. The devil and his agents are in full possession of them, and will not give them up. Sober people cannot engage in them without disgrace, and without countenancing their multiform abuses and evils. We need not stop to name these dangerous recreations. A moment's thought will enable any intelligent person to fix upon them, or at least upon some of them, and less than a moment's thought will satisfy every serious Christian, that all such indulgences are to be scrupulously

avoided. If we would not be identified with their guilty votaries; if we would not be accessory to their ruinous results; if we would not be partakers of other men's sins; they are to be scrupulously avoided.

6. Our recreations, as a general thing, ought not to involve any very considerable expense. In these times, when there are so many ways in which property can be turned to good account, not only for the relief of poverty and suffering, but for advancing the interests of Christ's Kingdom in the world, no considerate person, and certainly no Christian, will think of expending large sums for the mere purpose of recreation. He will contrive to recreate himself in some cheaper way.

Finally, our recreations should all be pursued for the proper end, or which is the same, from the right motive. This rule is important on more accounts than one. A due observance of it will aid us in choosing our recreations. There are some courses of pleasure which cannot be indulged in from proper motives. We might as well think of stealing or lying for the glory of God. Of course, all such are to be avoided. The rule is also important, because every thing, in a moral view, depends upon its observance. In judging of our actions, God looks primarily at the end, the motive; and where this is wrong, nothing merely external can be right.

The proper end of recreation we have stated more than once. It is not self-gratification, but increased health, vigor, and usefulness. It is to rest and refresh the tired spirit, or the weary body, and thus prepare for renewed and increased exertion in that work of life which God has given us to do. In all our recreations, then, let this great end and aim of them be kept constantly in view; let them be selected and pursued with reference to this end; let them be pursued so far as they really conduce to this end, and no further; let this be the guiding, controlling motive in them all; and God will approve of them; our own consciences will approve; and the results, it may be hoped, will be continually happy. There is no danger in recreations, when pursued from the motives, and under the limitations, here prescribed. But if these rules are transcended or neglected, and we venture upon courses of self-indulgence for the mere pleasure of it, our pleasures then become sordid and selfish, offensive in the sight of God, and destructive to the best interests of the soul.

* We do not mean that, in their seasons of relaxation and diversion, persons should be constantly watching and scrutinizing their motives. This might defeat the very object of diversion. But let the end and aim of life be habitually, consciously, such as has been indicated; so consciously, that any considerable deviation from it shall be instantly noticed.

We close this discussion with two remarks.

1. In cutting off sinful amusements, let no one charge us with indifference to the happiness of our fellow men. So far from being indifferent, we seek and prize their happiness; and it is because we prize it, that we have made the distinctions, and engaged in the discussion which has been presented. What source of enjoyment has our heavenly Father opened to us, in his works, or in his word, which we have not left open? What sources of enjoyment, but such as he has prohibited, have we closed up? In the enjoyment of friends and of social intercourse; in the enjoyment of all that variety of good which is set before us in the outer world; in the enjoyment of appetite and sense even, so far as they can be indulged in to the glory of God; in the possession of those higher enjoyments, resulting from the pursuit and the acquisition of knowledge, and the right performance of dutypeace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost; indulged, also, with the multiform diversions and recreations of life-all that the necessities of nature and our own best good require; with such sources of happiness spread out before us, and urged upon us; what ought we, as rational beings, to desire, or to ask for, more? And why should we complain of religion, or its ministers, because they interdict to us a class of pleasures, which are in their nature sinful, and whose influence can only be to degrade and injure us? What do those who rely so much on their amusements expect to do with themselves in heaven? Cut off from all their favorite sources of happiness; having no pleasures but such as are social, intellectual, and spiritual; will not heaven be to them a dull and gloomy place, where they will find little to enjoy, and from which they will desire, if possible, to escape?

2. Let our readers, one and all, remember, that we were sent into this world, not for sport and amusement, but for labor; not to enjoy and please ourselves, but to serve and glorify God, and be useful to our fellow men. This is the great object and end of life. This is that for which life was given us. In pursuing this end, God has indeed permitted us all needful diversion and recreation. He has consulted our happiness in a thousand ways. He has so connected our duty with our happiness, that there is no such thing as being solidly, permanently happy, but in obedience to his will. But the great end of life after all is work-work, for God-work for the advancement of his kingdom, and the best good of our fellow men. The Christian fathers have a tradition that John Baptist, when a boy-being_requested by some other boys to join them in play-replied, "I came into this world, not for sport." Whether the Baptist ever said this, we are unable to decide. But whether he did or not, it is a remarkable saying.

It is a true saying-however cutting may be the reproof which it carries to not a few of our fellow men. It is a saying which we may all with propriety adopt: "We came into this world, not for sport." We were sent here for a higher and nobler object. Let us not, then, forget this object. Let us live and act in accordance with it. Thus, when summoned to meet our final Judge, we may hope to hear him say: "Well done, good and faithful servants; ye have been faithful over a few things, I will make you rulers over many things: enter ye into the joy of your Lord."

ART. III.-JAMES H. PERKINS.

The Memoir and Writings of James Handasyd Perkins. Edited by WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING. In two volumes. Boston: Wm. Crosby & H. P. Nichols. Cincinnati: Trueman & Spofford, 1851. 12mo., pp. 527 and 502.

A FEW weeks since, we took up these volumes in a book-store, from mere curiosity, having been previously ignorant of the name and the history of Mr. Perkins. We had not turned over many pages before we discovered that the subject of the memoir had what is so rare to find, a character of his own, and that he was indeed a living and earnest man. After reading still further, we were constrained to present to our readers some account of a character so peculiar, and a history so full of interest. We regret that our limits are so narrow, for such a character can best speak for itself, by extended quotations from its own written records. We shall do the utmost in our power, within the limits which we can command.

Mr. Perkins was born at Boston, July 31, 1810, of a family of wealth and influence. The scenes and history of his boyhood are depicted at length, and with great interest by his biographer, his cousin and most intimate associate from the first, between whom and himself there was, from the beginning to the end, the most confiding friendship and earnest sympathy. His education was carefully attended to, and his mind and character were developed early. It would seem that from the first he was a boy of high spirit, of enthusiastic feelings, stern integrity, and chivalrous regard to truth, and high sense of personal honor. He must have been singularly free from that animalism and selfishness which break out so often in the "boy-nature," and

cross the purposes and mortify the pride of teachers and friends. At the same time, he was alive to the active sports of boyhood, particularly to all those adventures for which a country life only furnishes the opportunity. Such a life he largely enjoyed. His early summers were spent in liberty at Brookline and Nahant, his winters only at Boston, while entire years of his boyhood and youth were passed at Lancaster, Exeter and Northampton, at the best schools of the time. The school studies which he preferred, and in which he made great proficiency, were the modern languages and certain branches of natural history. Above all, he early learned to appreciate and delight in the best English writers, in prose and poetry. His reading of, and his delight in, these writers were far before his years. His own powers of composition, both in prose and poetry, at and before the age of eighteen, evince an early development in correct and manly thought, in delicacy of feeling, and in a command of easy and pure English, which is rarely attained at school, and rarely even by men who have received what is called a liberal education. Latin he never liked, and he confesses that it was disgust with Latin which prevented him from receiving a college education.

An extract from a confidential letter, written at the age of seventeen, shows that he had already a character of his own. He had been speaking of the loss of favor among the boys, which he had incurred by his fondness for his master, and adds, "Then I apparently left the master and took to my playmates, for you cannot serve God and mammon,' you know. I made friends with those who persecuted me, and became in turn head of the persecutors. I gained my revenge, but I was feared. Before, when I was hated, I was weak; now I was strong, and the strong were on my side. Still I was unhappy. Then I let all persecution drop; treated everybody well, and appeared to love all. But by this time I had become disgusted. I could gain peace only by deceit, and deceit I loathed. So now I grew desirous of living alone. I could trust none, did trust none, and ceased to show that I had any affection at all. Thus, unsociability is my nature, my habit, my fancy, and I fear I shall never be cured."

At the age of eighteen, he entered the counting-house of his uncle, where he remained for two years, punctually discharging the duties of a clerk; but the profession, though opening to him the most flattering prospects, did not suit his temperament and his tastes, which were averse to the formal ways of moneyed men, and offended by the absorbing passion for money making. It would seem also that his moral nature was displeased at much