OTHING has a greater tendency to depress the energies of the mind and to disqualify persons from arduous or useful undertakings, than physical infirmities. We invariably excuse persons labouring under personal affliction from all active exertion; feeling that they are claimants on our sympathies, rather than contributors to our welfare. And yet the world has been greatly benefited, in various ages, by the fine examples of fortitude and pious resignation given by those on whom Almighty wisdom has laid the rod of chastise

ment. Often the couch of pain has been the hallowed shrine of every Christian Grace, and the chamber of death the holy vestibule of heaven.

And not only by the admirable way in which they have borne affliction have the great and good taught a lesson to the world, but their exertions, their activity, when enduring physical privations, have conferred actual and positive benefits on society. The ardour of their genius, and the nobility of their principles, have enabled them to triumph over the weakness and diseases of their mortal frame, and to give to the world testimonies that the soul may be active, vigilant, and unsubdued, even while clogged with a

body bearing all the infirmities of sin, and dwelling in the valley of the shadow of death.

John Milton, the deservedly celebrated author of "Paradise Lost," was one of those who thus exhibited the noblest qualities of Christian beroism, under the pressure of the most severe infirmity that can afflict a human being that of blindness.

Milton was born in Bread Street, in the City of London, December the 9th, 1608, and received his education at St. Paul's School, and Christ's College, Cambridge. From his earliest youth he was distinguished for a studious, thoughtful turn of mind, and great delicacy and purity of manners and conversation. After quitting the University, he passed five years in studious retirement in his father's house at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, where he composed his "Comus" and other poems, especially those entitled "Allegro," or the mirthful man, and "Penseroso," or the melancholy man. These two poems became at once favourites with the discerning and cultivated portion of the public. They contain imagery the most appropriate, expressed in language the most elegant and verse the most harmonious. The mirth is without levity, the melancholy without gloom; transcripts of a mind that, even in early youth, was imbued with a calm and gentle dignity in his happiest moments, a sweet and innocent serenity, "the dignity of mirth," as a distinguished critic has happily called it; and also of an elevated contemplative spirit, investing melancholy, not with sternness or complaint, but with a noble meditative grandeur.

After this he went to France and Italy. On his return great changes were taking place in society. Milton engaged in the education of youth, and was for many years a schoolmaster in the city of London. At length, however, politics took up much of his time and attention. We must believe that this interest in public affairs, at that momentous time when monarchy was subverted in England, and Oliver Cromwell governed as Lord Protector, was rather a conscientious matter of duty with Milton than of choice. His habits were contemplative, his tastes pure and gentle; doubtless, therefore, it was a

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violence done to the nobler qualities of his nature when he was engaged in the stern contests and fierce struggles of that eventful time. On the restoration of Charles the Second, it is said that a report was very generally circulated of Milton's death, and that he had to keep carefully concealed, in order to escape the vengeance of those in authority.

At this time, when poverty and obscurity were his lot, his trials were greatly increased by his blindness. Milton was upwards of fifty when this affliction befell him. He bore his infirmity with Christian resignation and heroism. His beautiful sonnet, written to his friend Cyriac Skinner, shows that his energy of mind was not subdued by the loss of sight, but that he was consoled by the firm belief that he had become blind through his diligence in defending, by his pen, what he believed to be truth and freedom.

To CYRIAC SKINNER.

Cyriac, this three years day, these eyes, though clear

To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of sight, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs does day appear,
Or sun, or moon, or stars throughout the year;
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven's hand, or will; nor bate one jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onwards. What supports me, dost thou
ask?

The conscience, friend, t' have lost them overply'd

In liberty's defence, my noble task."

From his youth, Milton had earnestly desired, as he himself says, "to leave something so written as that my countrymen would not, willingly let it die;" but he adds his conviction that this was not to be done in "the heat of youth," but only by "fervent and devout prayer to Him who can illumine with all wisdom and knowledge, and send out His cherubim with a live coal from off His altar, to touch the lips of whom He pleases."

When, in age and sorrow and blindness, he recalled this earnest desire, instead of bewailing his great affliction, he directed his thoughts heavenward, and though all around was dark and mournful, he enjoyed a divine sunshine of the soul, and by his glorious epic poem,

"PARADISE LOST," poured a flood of light over all time.

Poetry was his occupation, and music his recreation-two sublime arts, worthy to alternate with each other as his pursuits and pleasures. It may be said that, admirable as was his skill in these, they are both more suited than any other intellectual pursuits to be the solace of such an affliction. But it must be remembered, Milton's noble strains would never have come down to us if he had composed them solely for the delight of his own contemplative mind. He might have enjoyed the visions his splendid imagination presented to him with equal delight, and spared himself the labour of careful and studied composition. Had he been either an impatient, an indolent, or a selfish man, he would have refrained from the task of pouring forth his harmonious utterances for the instruction and delight of others. But he knew himself to be a steward of his great gift, and bound, even under his affliction, to use it for the honour of the Giver and the benefit of man.

Milton had three daughters; the youngest of these, Deborah, was his most diligent amanuensis, and transcribed from his dictation his noble poem. And surely it must be a cold, unsympathizing nature, that can read Milton's pages, and not think gratefully of the filial piety that thus became eyes to the blind.

Another evidence of the Christian heroism with which Milton bore his affliction is to be gathered from the fact that he seldom alludes to his personal sorrows throughout his long poem. The fine invocation to Light, at the commencement of the third book, naturally and affectingly leads him to speak of his deprivation, and serves to show that his state of mind under it is equally removed from querulous discontent and from stoical pride or indifference. He feels his affliction as a man, but it is sanctified to him as a Christian.

"Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine:
But cloud instead and ever-during dark
Surrounds me. From the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out:
So much the rather thou, celestial light!
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes: all mist from thence
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight."

The "Paradise Lost" was not the only poem that Milton gave to the world after his blindness. "Paradise Regained," "Samson Agonistes," and some very elaborate treatises on languages were the not unworthy "successors of his grander song." Had he possessed his faculties all unimpaired, he could not possibly have done more.

But

Milton's great work is usually thought, from its length, the elevation of its style, and the sublimity of its subject, to be above the comprehension of the young. There may be some truth in this remark. Those young persons who only read poetry for amusement, to while away an idle hour, and to have the ear gratified with sweet, smooth rhyme, had better not attempt reading Milton. those who love to meet with noble thoughts, who wish to understand the power and the riches of their own language, who desire to obtain an elegant style of reading aloud, would do well to study select portions, if not the whole, of Milton's great poem. The difficulties of the verse will gradually disappear before persevering study, while the exceeding harmony and flowing grandeur of the measure, with the length of the periods, renders it truly admirable as an exercise for those who wish to possess a graceful and correct elocution.

"Give to the world one-half of Sunday, and you will find that religion has no strong hold of the other half."-Sir Walter Scott.

"The Sabbath, as a political institution, is of inestimable value, independently of its claims to Divine authority."—Adam Smith.