upon ideal beings, rather than feed upon itself. But there can be
no solitude to him who knows there is a God, nor who possesses any
religion; for religion is love to God. And even where the society of
men is shunned, and solitude fled to by the weary, this is often,
after all, but an unconscious protest in favour of brotherhood; the
bitterness of one who, having sought it from men in vain, feels as if
robbed of his brother's affections, which he had a right to possess as
a portion of his inheritance.

But while God has planted in every breast this passion for congenial
society, and has supplied to so great an extent its want by the family
institution into which we are born in our early years, and by the
"troops of friends" who accompany us during our pilgrimage, and by the
fellowship of the Christian Church, in proportion as that fellowship
is not a mere name, but expresses the intention of Christ in gathering
His people into a society,--there are, nevertheless, innumerable
drawbacks here to anything like its full gratification. Take away the
time consumed in the necessary and often absorbing labour of life, and
during the unavoidable separations and partings from those we know
and love, how little is left for the cultivation here of the truest
friendships. We are, moreover, severed as yet by death from all
congenial minds among past generations, and from those who are yet to
come. Of the many now alive whose hearts would beat to ours, could we
only meet and know them, how few can stand together on the small space
allotted to us on the earth's surface. Then, again, of those whom we
know best and love best on earth, and who know and love us best too,
oh, what mutual ignorance must necessarily exist of innumerable
thoughts and feelings lying deep clown in our inner man, half hidden,
half revealed, even to ourselves, but altogether incommunicable and
unutterable by word or sign to others! We may at times be conscious