mind may appear to some like acting out the law of love, which I am so anxious to advocate; but how is it, if their dearest friends are in error, and if they err in such a way as to endanger their temporal and eternal interests? Is it not a higher and nobler effort of love, to see and rectify such error, than to endeavour to imbibe the same, for the sake of being companions in folly, or in sin?
One of the greatest faults in the system of education pursued in the present day, is that of considering youth as the season for reading short and easy books. Although the ablest of female writers—I had almost said the wisest of women—has left on record her testimony against this practice, it continues to be the fashion, to place in the hands of young persons, all kinds of abstracts, summaries, and short means of arriving at facts; as if the only use of knowledge was to be able to repeat by rote a list of the dates of public events.
Now, if ever an entire history or a complete work is worth reading, it must be at an early period of life, when attention and leisure are both at our command. By the early and studious reading of books of this description, those important events which it is of so much consequence to impress upon the mind, become interwoven in the memory, with the spirit and style of the author; so that instead of the youthful reader becoming possessed of nothing more than a mere table of facts, she is in reality associating herself with a being of the highest order of mind, seeing with the eyes of the author, breathing his atmosphere, thinking his thoughts, and imbibing, through a thousand indirect channels, the very essence of his genius.
This is the only kind of reading which is really worthy of the name. Abstracts and compendiums may very properly be glanced over in after life, for the sake of refreshing the memory as to dates and facts; but unless the works of
