sure, and eagerness, which the northern nations display in skating, unknown to the inhabitants of warmer climates, points out the subtlety and refined elaborate pleasure which selfish and worldly wise men feel and evince, in these dangerous arts of deceit, cunning, and fraud, which are unknown to inexperienced, generous minds; and which, when first beheld by such, are viewed with deep amazement, mingled with fear and dislike.

In proportion as we approach towards the pole, the symbols of natural and moral death, all the characteristics of old age and selfishness, increase in the same degree; in the earth, in its waters, in its productions, and its inhabitants, whether human, or merely animal, until, as Thomson says, failing gradual, life at length goes out." Yet even here there appear to be exceptions to the general course of visible, as there are in old age to the course of unregenerate moral nature, for he says

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"Not such the sons of Lapland; wisely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple nature gives,
They love their mountains, and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time;
And through the restless, ever tortur'd maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it range."

If the Laplanders are true Christians, the

above description will delineate the wise and peaceful resignation of such, on the verge of eternity; but as such a state nationally is not in the course of corrupt nature, which the poet is describing, therefore we must suppose that the moderation of the natural Laplanders proceeds from this cause, that nature has denied to them the objects of the ardent passions, which are found in our temperate, polished, and refined climes and states of society; and has therefore given them such cool affections, and such a corresponding feeble heart, with frozen intellect, that it requires no great exertion to regulate them. We find such moral Laplanders in every climate, who slumber quietly as it were through life, in almost perfect indifference about good and evil, heaven and hell. But such persons are not justified by an ignorance nearly wilful and voluntary, for it is said to the Laodiceans, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot! So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

Thomson thus describes the last of the natural human race.

"Hard by these shores where scarce his freezing stream

Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men,

And half enlightened by the distant sun,
That rears and ripens men, as well as plants;

Here human nature wears its rudest form.
Deep from the piercing season, sunk in caves,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song,
Nor tenderness they know, nor ought of life
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
'Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,
Sheds a long twilight bright'ning o'er their fields,
And calls the quivered savage to the chase."

This is a lively description, both of extreme old age, and of extreme selfishness and misanthrophy. In the latter case, such misers are only half enlivened by the far distant, and averted (to speak popularly) sun of benevolence and righteousness. They exist indeed, but deep sunk in caves, or dark and sordid depths of depraved humanity, warmed only by the gross central fire of self-love, pleased only with the cruel pursuits of avarice, and immersed in bearish, brutish manners, well symbolized by the furs of those savage beasts. To such miserable wretches as these, the sun of natural, moral, and divine love and truth, is only as a dim twilight which has no vital saving influence, but only light them to fulfil the sordid, ruthless tasks of the dunghill of the animal nature; and never raises their understandings or their hearts towards heaven. They never see him truly and distinctly as he is, because to do this they must be like Him, whereas they are the very reverse. Their twilight calls them, not to true social life, but like their brother savages of the pole

to the cruel and remorseless chase of avarice; from which, and all the moral and intellectual rigours of this inclement season of the year of human life, verging to the grave, (of souls as well as bodies,) nothing can deliver us, but that vital and practical faith in JESUS CHRIST Our LORD and SAVIOUR, which being the principle of eternal life, can never be extinguished.