226 IIEXRY KIRKE WHITe's REMAINS. 



state, and which, perhaps, only regard our personal ease 

 and prosperity. Make me an outcast — a beggar ; place 

 me a bare-footed pilgrim on the top of the Alps or the 

 Pyrenees, and I should have wherewithal to sustain the 

 spirit within me, in the reflection that all this wa« but 

 as for a moment, and that a period would come, when 

 wrong, and injury, and trouble, should be no more. Are 

 we to be so utterly enslaved by habit and association, 

 that we shall spend our lives in anxiety and bitter care, 

 only that we may find a covering for our bodies, or the 

 means of assuaging hunger ? for what else is an anxiety 

 after the world ? Or are even the followers of Christ 

 themselves to be infected with the insane, the childish 

 desire of heaping together wealth ? Were a man, iq 

 the way of making a large fortune, to take up his hat 

 and stick, and say, " I am useless here, and unhappy ; 

 I will go and abide with the Gentoo or the Paraguay, 

 where I shall be happy and useful," he would be laughed 

 at ; but I say he would prove himself a more reasonable 

 and virtuous man, than him who binds himself down to 

 a business which he dislikes, because it would be 

 accounted strange or foolish to abandon so good a con- 

 cern, and who heaps up wealth, for which he has little 

 relish, because the world accounts it policy. 



I will refrain from pursuing this tone of reasoning ; 

 I know the weakness of human nature, and I know that 

 we may argue with a deal of force, to show the folly of 

 grief, when we ourselves are its passive victims. But 

 whether strength of mind prevail with you, or whether 

 you still indulge in melancholy bodings and repinings, 

 I am still your friend, nay, your si/mpathizing friend. 

 Hard and callous and " unfeeling" as I may seem, I 

 have a heart for my ever dear Benjamin. 



Henry Kirke White. 



