"You'll excuse my asking again if it has any thing to do with a picture,

ma'am," observes Mr. Guppy, "because I do assure you that the more I

think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know

it!"

The story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can

guarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information; and is

moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided down

another staircase by the young gardener; and presently is heard to drive

away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her

two young hearers, and may tell _them_ how the terrace came to have that

ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening

window, and tells them:

"In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First--I mean, of

course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against

that excellent King--Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold.

Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those

days, I can't say. I should think it very likely indeed."

Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion, because she considers that a family

of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a

ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes; a genteel

distinction to which the common people have no claim.

"Sir Morbury Dedlock," says Mrs. Rouncewell, "was, I have no occasion to

say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it _is_ supposed that his

lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favored the bad

cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's enemies;

that she was in correspondence with them; and that she gave them

information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed His

Majesty's cause met here, it is said that my lady was always nearer to

the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound

like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?"

Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper.

"I hear the rain-drip on the stones," replies the young man, "and I hear

a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting step."

The housekeeper gravely nods and continues.

"Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other

accounts, Sir Morbury and his lady led a troubled life. She was a lady

of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or

character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her

favorite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by

Sir Morbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated

the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to

ride out from Chesney Wold in the King's cause, she is supposed to have

more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night, and

lamed their horses; and the story is, that once, at such an hour, her

husband saw her gliding down the stairs, and followed her into the stall

where his own favorite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist;

and in a struggle or in a fall, or through the horse being frightened

and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip, and from that hour began to

pine away."

The housekeeper has dropped her voice to little more than a whisper.

"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She

never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being

crippled, or of being in pain; but, day by day, she tried to walk upon

the terrace; and, with the help of a stick, and with the help of the

stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and

shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon, her

husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since

that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the

pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent

over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here,

where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I

will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when

calamity, or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for

my step!'"

Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa, in the deepening gloom, looks down upon the

ground, half frightened, and half shy.

"There and then she died. And from those days," says Mrs. Rouncewell,

"the name has come down--The Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo, it

is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a

long while together. But it comes back, from time to time; and so sure

as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then."

"--And disgrace, grandmother--" says Watt.

"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold," returns the housekeeper.

Her grandson apologizes, with "True. True."

"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound," says

Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair, "and what is to be noticed

in it is, that it _must be heard_. My lady, who is afraid of nothing,

admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You can not shut it out.

Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, a' purpose)

that has a loud beat when it is in motion, and can play music. You

understand how those things are managed?"

"Pretty well, grandmother, I think."

"Set it a-going."

Watt sets it a-going--music and all.

"Now, come hither," says the housekeeper. "Hither, child, toward my

lady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can

you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat,

and every thing?"

"I certainly can!"

"So my lady says."

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

THE RUSSIAN CZAR AT A PUBLIC BALL.

To provide resources for the invalids of the Russian army, great care is

taken; and in addition to more fixed estimates, the emperor makes

extraordinary exertions, by balls, and lotteries, and masquerades, of a

charitable nature, to augment the ways and means of the veterans who

have been disabled in his service. Sometimes the ball, the lottery, and

the masquerade are all combined in one festive display. Of course, such

displays take place in winter, which is the St. Petersburg season. It is

not two years since I was present on one of these occasions, round which

the emperor threw all the attractions of his gorgeous court. And, as the

festivities were for the especial benefit of the military invalids, I

may be excused for lingering for awhile on the details which I

witnessed. Besides, often as the emperor, who is the real

commander-in-chief of all the Russian forces, has been described, the

subject is far from being picked to the bone; and what I saw of him it

will gratify the curiosity of the reader to learn.

It is the military frequenters, with their prodigious variety of

costumes, who give so much splendor to the celebrated masquerades of

St. Petersburg. These are conducted on the model of the still more

celebrated masquerades of old, in Venice. The approximation is the less

complete, of course, because the climate is so different. Open-air

assemblies, for pleasure's sake, are out of the question, in a northern

winter. The merry-makers would have little else to do but rub each

other's noses with snow, to prevent their falling off gradually after

they had been bleached by the leprous-looking frost-bite. There are

nights when it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, if a person spits

out, it is a pellet of ice which rattles against the ground. The sudden

transition from such a winter to the intense heat of the Petersburg

summer is one among several conditions which render a residence in that

capital so unfriendly to the health of foreigners, unless they come in

the plastic time of childhood, and grow, with many precautions,

acclimatized.

The place of assembly for these great festive or charitable

demonstrations (the only kind of "demonstration," except such as are

military, which can be seen in Russia) is not unworthy of its purposes.

It is probably the finest of its kind in Europe or in the world, and is

called the "Hall of Nobility"--_Salle de Noblesse_--a vast edifice,

capable of receiving seven thousand guests, supported inside by splendid

scagliola columns, richly decorated, skillfully laid out, distributed

into a vast pit for dancing, with circumambient galleries and balconies,

with retiring or withdrawing apartments for the emperor and his court,

and with general refreshment-rooms in the outer circuit. This scene is

lit up by clusters of wax-lights the beams of which are multiplied by

crystal pendants; while the wax-lights themselves are many thousands in

number, more numerous, in fact, than the stars visible to the naked eye

on a bright frosty night.

A great masquerade ball for the benefit of the invalids, in such a

place, with the additional attraction of the promised presence of the

Emperor Nicholas, was irresistible. I determined to go, and my

determination was the more natural inasmuch as I happened to possess a

free ticket. On entering, I was struck by the novel and somewhat

grotesque feature imparted to the scene by the lottery prizes, which had

lain there "on view" for some days previously. I found a crowd which was

afterward estimated at seven thousand; but, I dare say, it numbered five

or six only.

Perfectly lost in the vastness of the place, the multitude assembled,

and the grotesque horror of beautiful forms without human faces, I sat

down for awhile, near the orchestra. The benches, on one of which I was,

rose here in successive tiers, from the vast, pit-like saloon to the

surrounding gallery, which was overhung by another gallery, and abutted

upon several splendid refreshment-rooms. Before and below, the crowd was

particularly dense around a little rostrum, on which a glass wheel and

several officials who plied it, stood together. The press, the throng,

the hustling, the jostling, the redness of faces where they could be

seen, and the activity of elbows where they could be insidiously

inserted, were raging around. A similar apparatus, besieged by similar

votaries, stood at the other three corners of the saloon. In the

ancillary apartments there were more of these shrines of gambling; a

gambling in which only one class was sure to win, a class unvexed by the

excitement of the game, the invalided veterans, the brave old disabled

soldiers of the empire. For their sakes was all this gorgeous commotion;

for their sakes this splendid mob bustled about the "_Ailetpii

Allegri_;" that is, the wheels of fortune, the lottery stands, the

stalls of fate. All round these, and between them, circulated the

pervading immensity of the masquerade.

Tired of this part of the scene, I asked the person next me, in what

part of the room the emperor was. I had already seen Alexander, the

crown prince, or, as he is called, the _Grand Duc Héritier_, walking

about with a lady on his arm, his handsome open countenance radiant with

the smiles that are so easily lit there.

"The emperor," said the person whom I had asked, "passed this way about

a quarter of an hour since, and must be somewhere yonder," and he

pointed to the end of the saloon, opposite the orchestra.

I arose, ascended the flights of stairs that conducted to the

Boulevard-like gallery, and I began to thread my way behind the

scagliola columns. Beyond these, across the width of the corridor, arose

the wall which was the running boundary of the corridor on the other

side; and into this wall were let tall mirrors, which multiplied every

particular of the confused and shifting splendor of the rooms.

When I reached the further end of the gallery, a spectacle was offered

to me, which arrested all my attention. I must premise, that when the

emperor attends these festivities, or others of a like nature, he

evinces certain likings, feelings, tastes. He is not entirely

indifferent as to what his subjects may do. If there be one thing more

than another which he abhors, it is that in these scenes of familiar

relaxation, in which he mingles to unbend his own mind, while

contributing indirectly a new interest to the revels of others, he

should be saluted as emperor, or beset by the unmannerly siege of a

universal stare. It is strictly understood, or, as the fashionable

jargon is, _de rigueur_, that he is present as any other stranger, not

to be noted, not to be quoted, quite incognitus. Here he comes, like any

one else, to amuse himself, to forget imperial cares for a brief moment.

Nothing pleases him more than to let him pass. Can he not be as any

other of the countless visitors, who engage in the intricate tactics of

these grave and sober saturnalia--this game of small mystery--this

strategic maze of hushed frolic--these profound combinations of grown-up

gentlemen and ladies at hide-and-seek?

I had easily figured to myself, that it was easier for the emperor to

let people know that such was his wish, than for others to affect an

unconsciousness which they did not feel, or an indifference which they

felt still less. I had guessed that, in such scenes, his desire to be

allowed to move about unnoticed, was difficult to be reduced to perfect

practice. But I was far indeed from being prepared for what I beheld.

Sauntering idly along, I became conscious, not of a start among the

throng--not of any exclamation--not even of any particular hush, but of

an indefinable _sensation_ around me. Crowds have their general

physiognomies like individuals. This sensation was as perceptible as a

change of countenance, and as silent. I looked up, and in the midst of a

vacant place, from which every one had shrunk back, as from a

plague-stricken spot, or a haunted floor, or a "fairy-ring," about ten

yards onward and facing me, I saw the emperor (his head bare), standing

alone, with his back against the opposite wall. I had often seen him

before in the streets, but never with so good an opportunity of noting

his physiognomy, deportment, figure, and whole appearance.

"Now," said I to myself, "let me realize this with accuracy. It is not

so much the Sovereign of Russia whom you see there, as it is Russia

itself--a power--a sway, in a single person. He is the only surviving

instance or ensample of types, such as loomed before the minds of the

prophets of God aforetime, and have been thought worthy to be the themes

of their awful predictions. This is Cyrus, or the second Cæsar; this a

mystic statue--not that of which the head was of fine gold, but the

breast and the arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass,

and the legs of iron; the feet part of iron, and part of clay."

Not such; yet assuredly such like.

I forgot every thing around me, except that great mighty figure towering

aloft. It were useless to describe very particularly the present Emperor

"of all the Russias." People in England still remember him, as he was

when he visited us in his magnificent youth. Years have indeed made some

change. His hair is thin, which was then so abundant. Public care has

written some lines on a face, far more commanding, though perhaps less

haughty, and certainly less blooming than in those days. But he has

still the same marvelous width of chest and shoulder, the same

royal-looking height, the same large open blue eye, full of authority

and instinct with mind; a forehead which is even broader and loftier

than of old, and which never yet belonged to one whose mental powers

were not extraordinary; and that statuesque set of the head, which, if

it wore no crown, would yet make you know it for the head of some mighty

king.

"They would have proclaimed him," said I to myself, "on their shields,

in the days of Attila, or of Clovis."

On the present occasion, the emperor was standing alone, as I have said;

his back resting against the wall, and a crowd of the most persistent

gazers around. He looked vexed--even melancholy. They would not grant

him this casual moment of amusement untormented. He had the air of one

at bay. He faced the crowd full, and wherever his glance fell, I could

see all eyes sink before it immediately. It rested a moment on myself. I

had often heard, and often read, that it was difficult to return his

look; and why I know not. It is but an eye; yet, whether it was the

involuntary sympathy I felt for a king thus bayed in his moments of

relaxation, or whether it was that in his piercing glance, there is an

expression as if he were about to address you, and thus to make you the

object of universal notice, or whatever else it may be, I too dropped my

looks to the ground.

A couple of masks approached him as if to speak; he turned full upon

them, to give the opportunity; their hearts failed them at once, and

with a low courtesy, they shrank back again.

I saw him again several times during the evening, once walking with a

lady (deeply masked, if I remember). His dress was that of a general

officer, and he wore a lofty hussar's cap, with a single tall feather at

its side. It made his stature seem still more colossal.

As I was defiling through the crowd, I felt shortly afterward a sharp

blow on my elbow. Turning, I saw a mask, who, looking at me for a

moment, retreated. I followed till my guide had sat down in a place

where there was room for two, making me to understand that I was to

occupy the vacant spot. I considered her figure for a moment, and then

feeling perfectly sure that it was not that of an acquaintance, I

declined. Without any answer, I strolled my way. Having seen what a

masquerade was at the "_Nobles' Hall_," I soon afterward left the rooms

altogether, hoping sincerely that the proceeds might be ample, for the

sake of the veteran invalids; and meditating much on the Czar, whom I

had had so good an opportunity of seeing, and whom these veterans

regarded as by right divine their perpetual "Generalissimo."

A SLEEP TO STARTLE US.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

At the top of Farringdon-street in the city of London, once adorned by

the Fleet Prison, and by a diabolical jumble of nuisances in the middle

of the road called Fleet Market, is a broad new thoroughfare in a state

of transition. A few years hence, and we of the present generation will

find it not an easy task to recall, in the thriving street which will

arise upon this spot, the wooden barriers and hoardings--the passages

that lead to nothing--the glimpses of obscene Field-lane and

Saffron-hill--the mounds of earth, old bricks, and oyster-shells--the

arched foundations of unbuilt houses--the backs of miserable tenements

with patched windows--the odds and ends of fever-stricken courts and

alleys--which are the present features of the place. Not less perplexing

do I find it now, to reckon how many years have passed since I traversed

these by-ways one night before they were laid bare, to find out the

first Ragged School.

If I say it is ten years ago, I leave a handsome margin. The discovery

was then newly made, that to talk soundingly in parliament, and cheer

for Church and State, or to consecrate and confirm without end, or to

perorate to any extent in a thousand market-places about all the

ordinary topics of patriotic songs and sentiments, was merely to

embellish England on a great scale with whited sepulchres, while there

was, in every corner of the land where its people were closely

accumulated, profound ignorance and perfect barbarism. It was also newly

discovered, that out of these noxious sinks where they were born to

perish, and where the general ruin was hatching day and night, the

people _would not come_ to be improved. The gulf between them and all

wholesome humanity had swollen to such a depth and breadth, that they

were separated from it as by impassable seas or deserts; and so they

lived, and so they died: an always-increasing band of outlaws in body

and soul, against whom it were to suppose the reversal of all laws,

human and divine, to believe that society could at last prevail.

In this condition of things, a few unaccredited messengers of

Christianity, whom no bishop had ever heard of, and no government-office

porter had ever seen, resolved to go to the miserable wretches who had

lost the way to them; and to set up places of instruction in their own

degraded haunts. I found my first Ragged School, in an obscure place

called West-street, Saffron-hill, pitifully struggling for life, under

every disadvantage. It had no means, it had no suitable rooms, it

derived no power or protection from being recognized by any authority,

it attracted within its wretched walls a fluctuating swarm of

faces--young in years but youthful in nothing else--that scowled Hope

out of countenance. It was held in a low-roofed den, in a sickening

atmosphere, in the midst of taint, and dirt, and pestilence: with all

the deadly sins let loose, howling and shrieking at the doors. Zeal did

not supply the place of method and training; the teachers knew little of

their office; the pupils, with an evil sharpness, found them out, got

the better of them, derided them, made blasphemous answers to scriptural

questions, sang, fought, danced, robbed each other; seemed possessed by

legions of devils. The place was stormed and carried, over and over

again; the lights were blown out, the books strewn in the gutters, and

the female scholars carried off triumphantly to their old wickedness.

With no strength in it but its purpose, the school stood it all out and

made its way. Some two years since, I found it, one of many

such, in a large, convenient loft in this transition part of

Farringdon-street--quiet and orderly, full, lighted with gas, well

white-washed, numerously attended, and thoroughly established.

The number of houseless creatures who resorted to it, and who were

necessarily turned out when it closed, to hide where they could in heaps

of moral and physical pollution, filled the managers with pity. To

relieve some of the more constant and deserving scholars, they rented a

wretched house, where a few common beds--a dozen or a dozen-and-a-half

perhaps--were made upon the floors. This was the Ragged School

Dormitory; and when I found the school in Farringdon-street, I found the

dormitory in a court hard by, which in the time of the cholera had

acquired a dismal fame. The dormitory was, in all respects, save as a

small beginning, a very discouraging institution. The air was bad; the

dark and ruinous building, with its small close rooms, was quite

unsuited to the purpose; and a general supervision of the scattered

sleepers was impossible. I had great doubts at the time whether,

excepting that they found a crazy shelter for their heads, they were

better than in the streets.

Having heard, in the course of last month, that this dormitory (there

are others elsewhere) had grown as the school had grown, I went the

other night to make another visit to it. I found the school in the same

place, still advancing. It was now an Industrial School too; and besides

the men and boys who were learning--some, aptly enough; some, with

painful difficulty; some, sluggishly and wearily; some, not at all--to

read, and write, and cipher; there were two groups, one of shoemakers,

and one (in a gallery) of tailors, working with great industry and

satisfaction, Each was taught and superintended by a regular workman

engaged for the purpose, who delivered out the necessary means and

implements. All were employed in mending, either their own dilapidated

clothes or shoes, or the dilapidated clothes or shoes of some of the

other pupils. They were of all ages, from young boys to old men. They

were quiet, and intent upon their work. Some of them were almost as

unused to it as I should have shown myself to be if I had tried my hand,

but all were deeply interested and profoundly anxious to do it somehow

or other. They presented a very remarkable instance of the general

desire there is, after all, even in the vagabond breast, to know

something useful. One shock-headed man, when he had mended his own scrap

of a coat, drew it on with such an air of satisfaction, and put himself

to so much inconvenience to look at the elbow he had darned, that I

thought a new coat (and the mind could not imagine a period when that

coat of his was new!) would not have pleased him better. In the other

part of the school, where each class was partitioned off by screens

adjusted like the boxes in a coffee-room, was some very good writing,

and some singing of the multiplication-table--the latter, on a principle

much too juvenile and innocent for some of the singers. There was also a

ciphering-class, where a young pupil teacher out of the streets, who

refreshed himself by spitting every half-minute, had written a legible

sum in compound addition, on a broken slate, and was walking backward

and forward before it, as he worked it, for the instruction of his

class, in this way:

Now then! Look here, all on you! Seven and five, how many?

SHARP BOY (in no particular clothes).--Twelve!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twelve--and eight?

DULL YOUNG MAN (with water on the brain).--Forty-five!

SHARP BOY.--Twenty!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twenty. You're right. And nine?

DULL YOUNG MAN (after great consideration).--Twenty-nine!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Twenty-nine it is. And nine!

RECKLESS GUESSER.--Seventy-four!

PUPIL TEACHER (drawing nine strokes).--How can that be? Here's nine on

'em! Look! Twenty-nine, and one's thirty, and one's thirty-one, and

one's thirty-two, and one's thirty-three, and one's thirty-four, and

one's thirty-five, and one's thirty-six, and one's thirty-seven, and

one's what?

RECKLESS GUESSER.--Four-and-two-pence farden!

DULL YOUNG MAN (who had been absorbed in the

demonstration).--Thirty-eight!

PUPIL TEACHER (restraining sharp boy's ardor).--Of course it is!

Thirty-eight pence. There they are! (writing 38 in slate-corner.) Now

what do you make of thirty-eight pence? Thirty-eight pence, how much?

(Dull young man slowly considers and gives it up, under a week.) How

much, you? (to sleepy boy, who stares and says nothing.) How much,

_you_?

SHARP BOY.--Three-and-twopence!

PUPIL TEACHER.--Three-and-twopence. How do I put down

three-and-twopence?

SHARP BOY.--You puts down the two, and you carries the three.

PUPIL TEACHER.--Very good. Where do I carry the three?

RECKLESS GUESSER.--T'other side the slate!

SHARP BOY.--You carries him to the next column on the left hand, and

adds him on!

PUPIL TEACHER.--And adds him on! and eight and three's eleven, and

eight's nineteen, and seven's what?

--And so on.

The best and most spirited teacher was a young man, himself reclaimed

through the agency of this school from the lowest depths of misery and

debasement, whom the committee were about to send out to Australia. He

appeared quite to deserve the interest they took in him, and his

appearance and manner were a strong testimony to the merits of the

establishment.

All this was not the dormitory, but it was the preparation for it. No

man or boy is admitted to the dormitory, unless he is a regular

attendant at the school, and unless he has been in the school two hours

before the time of opening the dormitory. If there be reason to suppose

that he can get any work to do and will not do it, he is admitted no

more, and his place is assigned to some other candidate for the nightly

refuge: of whom there are always plenty. There is very little to tempt

the idle and profligate. A scanty supper and a scanty breakfast, each of

six ounces of bread and nothing else (this quantity is less than the

present penny-loaf), would scarcely be regarded by Mr. Chadwick himself

as a festive or uproarious entertainment.

I found the Dormitory below the School: with its bare walls and rafters,

and bare floor, the building looked rather like an extensive

coach-house, well lighted with gas. A wooden gallery had been recently

erected on three sides of it; and, abutting from the centre of the wall

on the fourth side, was a kind of glazed meat-safe, accessible by a

ladder; in which the presiding officer is posted every night, and all

night. In the centre of the room, which was very cool, and perfectly

sweet, stood a small fixed stove; on two sides, there were windows; on

all sides, simple means of admitting fresh air, and releasing foul air.

The ventilation of the place, devised by DOCTOR ARNOTT, and particularly

the expedient for relieving the sleepers in the galleries from receiving

the breath of the sleepers below, is a wonder of simplicity, cheapness,

efficiency, and practical good sense. If it had cost five or ten

thousand pounds, it would have been famous.

The whole floor of the building, with the exception of a few narrow

pathways, was partitioned off into wooden troughs, or shallow boxes

without lids--not unlike the fittings in the shop of a dealer in corn

and flour, and seeds. The galleries were parceled out in this same way.

Some of these berths were very short--for boys; some, longer--for men.

The largest were of very contracted limits; all were composed of the

bare boards; each was furnished only with one coarse rug, rolled up. In

the brick pathways were iron gratings communicating with trapped drains,

enabling the entire surface of these sleeping-places to be soused and

flooded with water every morning. The floor of the galleries was cased

with zinc, and fitted with gutters and escape-pipes, for the same

reason. A supply of water, both for drinking and for washing, and some

tin vessels for either purpose, were at hand. A little shed, used by one

of the industrial classes, for the chopping up of fire-wood, did not

occupy the whole of the spare space in that corner; and the remainder

was devoted to some excellent baths, available also as washing troughs,

in order that those who have any rags of linen may clean them once a

week. In aid of this object, a drying-closet, charged with hot-air, was

about to be erected in the wood-chopping shed. All these appliances were

constructed in the simplest manner, with the commonest means, in the

narrowest space, at the lowest cost; but were perfectly adapted to their

respective purposes.

I had scarcely made the round of the Dormitory, and looked at all these

things, when a moving of feet overhead announced that the School was

breaking up for the night. It was succeeded by profound silence, and

then by a hymn, sung in a subdued tone, and in very good time and tune,

by the learners we had lately seen. Separated from their miserable

bodies, the effect of their voices, united in this strain, was

infinitely solemn. It was as if their souls were singing--as if the

outward differences that parted us had fallen away, and the time was

come when all the perverted good that was in them, or that ever might

have been in them, arose imploringly to Heaven.

The baker who had brought the bread, and who leaned against a pillar

while the singing was in progress, meditating in his way, whatever his

way was, now shouldered his basket and retired. The two half-starved

attendants (rewarded with a double portion for their pains) heaped the

six-ounce loaves into other baskets, and made ready to distribute them.

The night-officer arrived, mounted to his meat-safe, unlocked it, hung

up his hat, and prepared to spend the evening. I found him to be a very

respectable-looking person in black, with a wife and family; engaged in

an office all day, and passing his spare time here, from half-past nine

every night to six every morning, for a pound a week. He had carried the

post against two hundred competitors.

The door was now opened, and the men and boys who were to pass that

night in the Dormitory, in number one hundred and sixty-seven (including

a man for whom there was no trough, but who was allowed to rest in the

seat by the stove, once occupied by the night-officer before the

meat-safe was), came in. They passed to their different sleeping-places,

quietly and in good order. Every one sat down in his own crib, where he

became presented in a curiously fore-shortened manner; and those who had

shoes took them off, and placed them in the adjoining path. There were,

in the assembly, thieves, cadgers, trampers, vagrants, common outcasts

of all sorts. In casual wards and many other Refuges, they would have

been very difficult to deal with; but they were restrained here by the

law of kindness, and had long since arrived at the knowledge that those

who gave them that shelter could have no possible inducement save to do

them good. Neighbors spoke little together--they were almost as

uncompanionable as mad people--but every body took his small loaf when

the baskets went round, with a thankfulness more or less cheerful, and

immediately ate it up.

There was some excitement in consequence of one man being missing; "the

lame old man." Every body had seen the lame old man up-stairs asleep,

but he had unaccountably disappeared. What he had been doing with

himself was a mystery, but, when the inquiry was at its height, he came

shuffling and tumbling in, with his palsied head hanging on his

breast--an emaciated drunkard, once a compositor, dying of starvation

and decay. He was so near death, that he could not be kept there, lest

he should die in the night; and, while it was under deliberation what to

do with him, and while his dull lips tried to shape out answers to what

was said to him, he was held up by two men. Beside this wreck, but all

unconnected with it and with the whole world, was an orphan boy with

burning cheeks and great gaunt eager eyes, who was in pressing peril of

death too, and who had no possession under the broad sky but a bottle of

physic and a scrap of writing. He brought both from the house-surgeon

of a Hospital that was too full to admit him, and stood, giddily

staggering in one of the little pathways, while the Chief Samaritan

read, in hasty characters underlined, how momentous his necessities

were. He held the bottle of physic in his claw of a hand, and stood,

apparently unconscious of it, staggering, and staring with his bright

glazed eyes; a creature, surely, as forlorn and desolate as Mother Earth

can have supported on her breast that night. He was gently taken away,

along with the dying man, to the workhouse; and he passed into the

darkness with his physic-bottle as if he were going into his grave.

The bread eaten to the last crumb; and some drinking of water and

washing in water having taken place, with very little stir or noise

indeed; preparations were made for passing the night. Some, took off

their rags of smock frocks; some, their rags of coats or jackets, and

spread them out within their narrow bounds for beds; designing to lie

upon them, and use their rugs as a covering. Some, sat up, pondering, on

the edges of their troughs; others, who were very tired, rested their

unkempt heads upon their hands and their elbows on their knees, and

dozed. When there were no more who desired to drink or wash, and all

were in their places, the night officer, standing below the meat-safe,

read a short evening service, including perhaps as inappropriate a

prayer as could possibly be read (as though the Lord's Prayer stood in

need of it by way of Rider), and a portion of a chapter from the New

Testament. Then, they all sang the Evening Hymn, and then they all lay

down to sleep.

It was an awful thing, looking round upon those one hundred and

sixty-seven representatives of many thousands, to reflect that a

Government, unable, with the least regard to truth, to plead ignorance

of the existence of such a place, should proceed as if the sleepers

never were to wake again. I do not hesitate to say--why should I, for I

know it to be true!--that an annual sum of money, contemptible in amount

as compared with any charges upon any list, freely granted in behalf of

these Schools, and shackled with no preposterous Red Tape conditions,

would relieve the prisons, diminish county rates, clear loads of shame

and guilt out of the streets, recruit the army and navy, waft to new

countries fleets full of useful labor, for which their inhabitants would

be thankful and beholden to us. It is no depreciation of the devoted

people whom I found presiding here, to add, that with such assistance as

a trained knowledge of the business of instruction, and a sound system

adjusted to the peculiar difficulties and conditions of this sphere of

action, their usefulness could be increased fifty-fold in a few months.

My Lords and Gentlemen, can you, at the present time, consider this at

last, and agree to do some little easy thing! Dearly beloved brethren

elsewhere, do you know that between Gorham controversies, and Pusey

controversies, and Newman controversies, and twenty other edifying

controversies, a certain large class of minds in the community is

gradually being driven out of all religion? Would it be well, do you

think, to come out of the controversies for a little while, and be

simply Apostolic thus low down?

LOUIS NAPOLEON AND HIS NOSE.

The following passage from a letter is amusing, as well as instructive:

"Trifles are said to amuse weak minds, and probably by a similar process

of reasoning, they may be said to annoy great minds. The extreme

susceptibility of the President respecting any attempt to turn either

his person or policy into ridicule has been frequently noticed, and this

excessive susceptibility has gradually attained an intensity which gives

it the air of absolute monomania. The police have peremptory orders to

ravage any shop in which any work or engraving is to be found in any way

reflecting upon that prominent feature in the Presidental visage which

has secured for him the time-honored title of '_Noscitur a naso_.' Any

semblance of a caricature on the Presidental proboscis exposes the

unfortunate possessor (as George Robins would have said) to the

persecution of the police. A short time past Paris was inundated with a

ludicrous counterfeit portrait of the President's features, which were

fashioned into a crockery tobacco-pot. The resemblance was so striking,

and yet so irresistibly ludicrous withal--for you know there is but one

step from the sublime to the ridiculous--that these tobacco-pots were

eagerly purchased, and the designer made a small fortune in his way. The

police have of late busily occupied themselves in hunting out the

purchasers of these crockery caricatures, which are seized and broken

without mitigation or remorse. The crockery shops have been ransacked,

and whenever any have been found the shopkeepers have been exposed to

considerable annoyance and persecution. Some weeks since two girls were

condemned to fine and imprisonment for having openly declared that they

never could fall in love with Louis Napoleon. But the Prince now appears

disposed to carry the matter still further; for it is alleged that

rather sharp notes have been sent to Belgium by the Minister of Foreign

Affairs with respect to a masquerade which took place at Ghent in the

latter part of the Carnival. Some young men, it appears, promenaded

through the streets, a man on a horse, wearing a dress to represent the

President of the Republic, and with a gigantic false nose. This man

carried in his hand a whip with which he struck from time to time a set

of puppets which he carried in his hand--the puppets, each of which had

a lock on his mouth, being intended to represent the French Senators and

Deputies. The Belgian government is said to have replied that it

disapproved of the parody, and offered to dismiss the commissary of

police who did not fulfill his duty by preventing it. But the French

government not considering this satisfaction sufficient, requires, it is

said, the dismissal of the governor, who was on the balcony when the

masquerade passed."

Monthly Record of Current Events.

THE UNITED STATES.

In Congress, during the past month, debate has turned mainly on topics

connected with the approaching Presidential contest. In the Senate, the

resolutions upon the subject of non-intervention have been still further

discussed, but no vote has been taken upon them. On the 18th of March,

Senator Jones, of Tennessee, replied at length to the speeches of

Senators Cass and Seward upon this subject--seeking to establish, by

copious citation of authorities, that it had never been the policy of

this country to take any part whatever in the affairs of other nations,

and urging the importance of still adhering to this course. He was

opposed to protesting against the violation of international law by

Russia, unless we were prepared to enforce that protest by war. Senator

Cass rejoined, defending his positions from the assault of Senator

Jones. On the 22d, Senator Soulé, of Louisiana, spoke upon the subject.

Whatever might be the fate of the resolutions, he said, their discussion

had given the country a chance of expressing its sympathy with the

oppressed and down-trodden nations of the earth. He then entered upon a

historical argument of some length to show that the neutrality advocated

and enforced by Washington, during the war between England and France,

was simply a matter of necessity--a temporary measure, which the

exigencies of the time demanded; and that it was not regarded by

Washington as a permanent rule for the action of this country. And

further, even if this were not so, and if Washington had really set

forth the doctrine, that this country must always remain indifferent to

the movements of other nations, Senator Soulé urged, our national growth

and progress would render it obsolete. The policy of this nation could

not remain the same from century to century; it must change with

changing circumstances, and keep pace with the rapid increase of our

national population and power. Upon the conclusion of his remarks, the

subject was again postponed. On the 26th, a message from the President

announced that certain papers, connected with the prosecution of Mexican

claims, which had been placed on file in the State Department, had been

abstracted therefrom; and asking for the adoption of measures for the

better protection of public documents and papers. On the 19th, Senator

Cass made a statement of his views on the Wilmot Proviso, in reply to

some remarks in a published letter from Senator Davis, of Mississippi.

He denied the right of Congress to impose upon a territorial government

any restriction in regard to its legislation upon slavery, claiming for

the Legislature the right to establish or prohibit slavery, as it may

see fit. He also justified the first settlers of California in the steps

they took for the establishment of a government, and complained that

many gentlemen at the South did not make a just and proper allowance for

the sentiments of the North concerning slavery. In the _House of

Representatives_, the proceedings have been wholly unimportant. A bill

to supply deficiencies in the appropriations for the last fiscal year,

has been made the occasion for discussing the prospects of political

parties, and the relative claims of various candidates for the

Presidency. On the 10th of March, Mr. Richardson, of Illinois, spoke in

defense of Senator Douglass, from imputations made upon his political

course; and Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, vindicated General Butler

from similar censure. On the 18th, Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, defended

President Fillmore against various assailants, and the discussion was

pursued from day to day.

Political Conventions have been held in several States during the month.

In Louisiana, the Whigs held one at Baton Rouge on the 16th of March, at

which resolutions were adopted in favor of nominating Mr. Fillmore for

President, and Mr. Crittenden for Vice-President--declaring the unabated

devotion of the people of the State to the Union--demanding the

protection of Government for the commerce, agriculture, and manufactures

of the country--affirming the mission of this Republic to be, "not to

propagate our opinions, or impose on other countries our form of

government, by artifice or force, but to teach by example, and show by

our success, moderation, and justice, the blessings of self-government,

and the advantages of free institutions;"--sustaining the Compromise

measures, and pledging the Whigs of the State to support the nominee of

the National Convention. The Democratic State Convention declared its

preference for General Cass, as the Presidential candidate, by a vote of

101, to 72 for Judge Douglass.----In Virginia, a Democratic Convention

assembled at Richmond on the 24th of March: a good deal of difficulty

was experienced in effecting an organization. On the third day of the

session, resolutions were adopted, affirming the resolutions of 1798-9;

denouncing a protective tariff and a division of the public lands among

the States; and re-affirming the Baltimore platform. They also resolved

to appoint four delegates from each Congressional District to the

Baltimore National Convention, who shall in that body sustain the

two-thirds rule, and be untrammeled in their choice of a candidate for

the Presidency, but vote for such a one as can command the greatest

strength with the Democracy, and whose principles are known to conform

most strictly to the cardinal tenets of the Democratic faith.----In

Pennsylvania, a Whig State Convention met at Harrisburgh, on the 24th.

Resolutions were adopted, expressing a desire to act in harmony with the

Whig party throughout the Union, declaring in favor of a protective

tariff, proclaiming devotion to the Constitution and the Union,

commending the administration of President Fillmore, and nominating

General Scott unanimously as the Whig candidate for the Presidency. A

resolution was also adopted, expressing regret at the illness of Mr.

Clay.----The Legislature of Mississippi adjourned on the 16th of March.

No United States Senator was chosen for the full term, to commence at

the close of the present Congress. In both Houses a bill was rejected

which proposed to provide for the payment of the bonds of the State

issued on account of the Planters' Bank, but both Houses passed a bill,

which has become a law, submitting the question of their payment to a

vote of the people. The bill for districting the State, for the election

of five members of Congress, was lost, from disagreement between the two

Houses--both being willing to pass the bill, but they could not agree as

to the composition of the districts.----In Alabama, a Southern Rights

State Convention met on the 4th. Only a small portion of the State was

represented. Resolutions were adopted in favor of maintaining the

separate organization of the Southern Rights party, but acquiescing in

the decision of the Southern States against secession for the

present.----A message from Governor Bigler, of Pennsylvania, in regard

to the debt of that State, states that there is now due and unpaid two

millions four hundred and ninety-one thousand two hundred and fifty-five

dollars of the bonds of the Commonwealth, bearing an interest of six per

cent., and a balance of near one hundred thousand dollars due to

domestic creditors, bearing a like interest, besides one million three

hundred and ninety thousand dollars, at five per cent.; over two

millions will fall due in 1853, and about three millions in 1854. He

recommends that the matured bonds, and such as may fall due during the

year, be canceled by the negotiation of a loan, and that bonds of the

Commonwealth be issued, reimbursable at the expiration of ten or fifteen

years, at a rate of interest not exceeding five per cent., with interest

certificates attached, or in the usual form, as may be deemed proper.

Mr. Webster happening to visit Trenton, N.J., to take part in a legal

argument, was received by the Legislature of the State, on the 26th of

March. He was welcomed in a highly eulogistic speech, to which he

replied briefly, paying a high compliment to the gallant devotion of New

Jersey to the cause of the country during the Revolution, and expressing

his thanks for the distinguished attentions which had been shown to him.

Senator Stockton, who happened to be present, spoke in terms of high

admiration of Mr. Webster, commending his political course, and alluding

incidentally to various topics of public interest.----Hon. JEREMIAH

MORROW, a distinguished citizen of Ohio, died on the 25th of March, at

the advanced age of 73. He was a member of the Territorial Legislature

of Ohio in 1800, a member of the Convention to form a State Constitution

in 1802, the first member of Congress from that State, afterward Senator

and then Governor, serving in the latter capacity two terms, and then

returning to Congress. He was a man of ability, influence, and marked

integrity.----A serious accident happened in the East River, near New

York, on the 26th of March. M. Maillefert, a French scientific

gentleman, had been for some time engaged in blasting under water the

rocks forming the whirlpool known as Hell-gate, by lowering upon the

rock very heavy charges of powder, and exploding them by a galvanic

battery. On this occasion, through some misunderstanding, the wrong wire

was put into his hands, and he exploded a canister lying in a boat and

containing sixty or seventy pounds of gunpowder. Three men were killed,

and two or three others, including M. Maillefert himself, were seriously

injured.----Ninety of the Americans, captured in Cuba and released by

the Queen of Spain, reached New York on the 13th of March.----An extract

of a private letter from Mr. Clay has been published, in which he

declares his preference for Mr. Fillmore as the Whig candidate for the

Presidency, on the ground that he has administered the executive

government with signal success and ability. Either Gen. Scott or Mr.

Webster, he says, "might possibly administer the government as well as

Mr. Fillmore has done. But neither of them has been tried." Mr. Fillmore

has been tried, and Mr. Clay thinks that "prudence and wisdom should

restrain us from making any change without necessity."----Seven vessels

of war are fitting out at New York to join the squadron in the East

India seas. It is stated that in connection with other duties, Commodore

Perry, the commander of this squadron, is to be instructed to make

commercial arrangements with Japan, and for the better treatment of

shipwrecked American sailors, who have been heretofore barbarously

treated by the Japanese in several instances; and possibly may be

required to make reclamations for injuries and losses heretofore

sustained by American citizens. Japan has now no treaty with any

Christian government except Holland.

From CALIFORNIA we have intelligence to the 1st of March. The steamship

North America running from Panama to San Francisco, went ashore on the

28th of February, about seventy miles south of Acapulco. The vessel is a

total loss; she had over 750 passengers, all of whom were saved.----Both

political parties in California had chosen delegates to the National

Conventions. No further injury had been sustained from attacks of the

Indians, and in the southern part of the State every thing was quiet.

Mr. Bartlett, of the Boundary Commission, had reached San Francisco,

after a very severe journey across the desert. A bill was pending in the

Legislature authorizing the call of a State Convention to revise the

Constitution, and the project of dividing the State continued also to be

pressed. Crime had increased considerably in San Francisco, and the

Vigilance Committee had again been organized. The anniversary of

Washington's birthday was celebrated at that city with great spirit.

Col. Berzenczey, who came to the United States in Kossuth's suite had

arrived at San Francisco on his way to Chinese Tartary, which he intends

to explore in order to discover, if possible, the origin of the Magyar

race: it has been stated that a tribe of Magyars still exists in some

part of that vast and unknown region. The United States sloop of war St.

Mary's had reached San Francisco, under orders to take on board and

return to their homes a number of shipwrecked Japanese. From the mines

the news is not important. Owing to lack of rain the labors of the

miners had been less productive than usual. Rich quartz veins continue

to be found, and very extensive preparations are being made for working

them. The whole amount of gold exported from San Francisco during the

year ending December 31, 1851, was $34,492,633. Judge Tefft, with three

other persons, was drowned, while attempting to land from the Ohio at

San Luis Obispo, in a small boat--the surf being high.

MEXICO.

We have news from the City of Mexico to the 28th of February. Both

Houses of Congress had voted the suppression of the justices of the

peace, but the Government had refused its sanction to the act. It is

stated that claims to the amount of twenty or thirty millions of dollars

will be brought against the United States, under the treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo, for outrages committed by Indians and invaders on the frontier.

The administration of Gen. Arista is losing strength, and rumors were

current of new plans of revolution of which Santa Anna is at the head.

Intelligence from the Rio Grande fully confirms the defeat of Caravajal

and the suppression of the insurrectionary movement in that quarter. On

the 21st of February that chief led his forces, consisting of about 300

men to the attack on Camargo, when he was met by about 250 Mexican

cavalry. The latter charged upon him three times, when the force under

his command broke in confusion and fled across the river. His loss is

stated at between thirty and sixty. This ends the revolutionary attempt

in Northern Mexico.----Serious annoyance is experienced from the ravages

of the Indians in that quarter. On the evening of the 21st a party of

sixteen attacked a party of Americans and Mexicans near San Antonio, and

killed several of the latter. About two hundred of them were encamped at

Lake Espantoza, near the junction of the Leona and Nueces rivers. On

the 16th, a party of dragoons attacked a body of Indians near

Belleville, and dispersed them after killing four.

SOUTH AMERICA.

We have at length reliable news of decisive events on the Rio de la

Plata. Rosas has been routed by Urquiza, and has fled to England. The

control of the whole country, therefore, passes into new hands. From

Buenos Ayres our intelligence is to the 3d of February. The passage of

the Parana by the liberating army under Gen. Urquiza, commenced on the

22d of December, and was accomplished on the 8th of January. His force

consisting of 28,000 men, with 50,000 horses, and 50 pieces of

artillery, was brought together on the Diamanté, one of the strongest

points upon the river, and he was at once joined by the citizens of the

whole province of Santa Fé, and by 4000 troops of Rosas. The Governor of

the Province fled toward Buenos Ayres. On the 10th of January the

inhabitants of San Nicolao, the frontier town of the province of Buenos

Ayres, pronounced against Rosas, and repelled an attack made upon them

by a large cavalry force stationed near them. On the 15th Gen. Urquiza

passed the frontier, with his whole army; and in a march of twelve days

obtained possession of the entire northern part of the province, driving

out all the cavalry of Rosas, which had been detached for its defense.

On the 29th of January, his advanced guard reached the Rio Conchas,

within six leagues of Buenos Ayres, having forced General Pacheco to

retreat across that river with the small force remaining of those with

whom he had gone to the defense of the province. Rosas had divided his

force into three parts--one division of 4000 under Echaqué, another of

3500 under Mancilla, and the third of 5800 under Pacheco. This

disposition of them rendered it easy for Urquiza to attack and defeat

them separately. On the 27th of January Rosas set out for Santos

Lugares, where his main force had been collected. A general engagement

at once took place along the whole line of defense, which lasted for

several hours, and resulted in the total defeat of the forces of Rosas,

General Urquiza remaining master of the field. Rosas immediately fled on

board a British vessel in the harbor of Buenos Ayres, with the intention

of proceeding to England at the earliest opportunity. He had been

engaged for some weeks in securing large amounts of treasure, in

apparent preparation for such a flight. General Urquiza immediately

followed up his victory by investing the city of Buenos Ayres. Deprived

of its governor, of course it could make no long defense, and steps had

already been taken to organize a constitutional government under the new

auspices. The intelligence of the fall of Rosas had created the

liveliest satisfaction in England, and was followed by an immediate and

very considerable rise in the market value of Buenos Ayres bonds. This

change in the political prospects of that portion of South America, it

is believed, will lead to a largely increased emigration thither from

the southern parts of Europe. The government of Rosas has been for many

years an object of terror and distrust in Buenos Ayres, and has greatly

retarded the industry and progress of the country. It has at last been

overthrown--not by the intervention of foreign states, but by the

independent exertions of the people themselves. General Urquiza, the

successful soldier, seems disposed to use his power so as to promote the

best interests of the country, and under his guidance a new organization

of the several states may be expected.----The Congress of _Venezuela_

was still in session on the 10th of March. The affairs of the country

were highly prosperous.----The revolted convicts at the Straits of

Magellan had been seized by the British war steamer Virago, and taken

heavily ironed to Valparaiso. There were in all 350, of whom 180 were

taken from the British brig Eliza Cornish, which they had seized:--the

rest had taken the American bark Florida, but were afterward subdued by

a counter-plot on board, and were delivered up. The officers of the

Cornish had been shot in cold blood by the miscreants, who were guilty

of shocking barbarities. They were landed at Valparaiso, February 25,

and delivered over to the authorities.----In _Peru_ an expedition had

been organized by General Flores, against Ecuador. It is said he has

enlisted two or three thousand men, and sent out four or five vessels

loaded with men and munitions, for an attack on the city of Guayaquil.

Great excitement prevailed at the latter place, where preparations had

been made to give the invaders a warm reception.----Panama papers record

the successful result of an expedition to the reputed gold placers on

the coast of Choco, in the southern part of the kingdom of _New

Grenada_, about 150 miles south of Panama. About 1500 ounces of pure

gold dust were exhibited in the latter city, as the first-fruits of the

enterprise. There seems to be no doubt of the existence of the _oro_ in

that vicinity in large quantities.

GREAT BRITAIN.

The political intelligence of the month has little interest. The Derby

Ministry still retains office, but without any definite announcement of

the line of policy it intends to pursue. On the evening of February 27,

the Earl of Derby made a statement of the reasons which had induced him

to take office. With regard to the intentions of the new ministry, he

said he should seek to maintain peace with foreign nations by calm and

conciliatory conduct, and by strict adherence to the obligations of

treaties. He was for rigidly respecting the right of every nation, great

and small, to govern themselves in their own way. So far as the national

defenses were concerned, he thought the preparations wisely made by his

predecessor should be continued, so as to screen the country from the

possibility of invasion. As regarded refugees, while England was the

natural refuge of all political exiles, it was the duty of the latter

not to abuse her hospitality; and the government was bound to keep watch

of them, and warn their governments of any steps they might take hostile

to their peace. With regard to financial measures, although he avowed

his belief that a revision of the existing system was desirable, he was

aware that it could only be effected by reference to the clearly

expressed wish of the people. So large a question could only be dealt

with by a government strong in popular confidence, and not by one called

suddenly to office. He did not know whether he had a majority in that

House; he knew he was in a minority in the other--but he had not felt

that the public interest would be consulted by a dissolution at this

period of the year and in this condition of the world. Government would

have to appeal to the forbearance of its adversaries and to the patience

of its supporters, but he had too much confidence in the good sense of

the House of Commons to believe that it would unnecessarily take up

subjects of controversy while there were legal and social reforms for

which the country was anxious. In reference to the measures introduced

by the late government, he said that he was most desirous to crush

corruption to the utmost of his power, but that, as regarded the

proposed reform bill, he should not follow it up, and he warned his

hearers, especially members of the House of Commons, against the danger

of perpetually unsettling everything, and settling nothing. He did not

contend that the system established in 1831 was perfect, or did not

require amendment, but he wished to be sure that a proposed remedy would

not aggravate the evils complained of. As regarded education, the

feelings of all classes had united in the conviction that the more you

educated the safer was the country; but he was opposed to the mere

acquisition of secular knowledge, dissociated from the culture of the

soul. And although he looked on all engaged in education as his

fellow-laborers, his chief reliance would be on the parochial clergy.

This explanation on the part of the new ministry has not been received

as sufficiently explicit to be satisfactory, and it meets, therefore,

with very warm hostility. Lord John Russell, in announcing his own

retirement, took occasion to say that, for the future, he should think

it his duty to oppose, out of office, as he had opposed in office, any

restoration of the duty on corn, whether under the name of protection or

of revenue;--that he should support an extension of the suffrage to

those who are fit to exercise the franchise for the welfare of the

country; and that he should use the little influence he might possess

for the maintenance of the blessings of peace.--Parliament, after these

explanations, adjourned until the 12th of March.--Mr. Disraeli, the new

Chancellor of the Exchequer, has issued a brief address to his

constituents, stating that on the 12th of March he should ask for a

re-election. The first duty of the new administration, he said, would be

to provide for the ordinary exigencies of the government; but at no

distant period they hoped to establish a policy in conformity with the

principles which in opposition they had felt it their duty to maintain.

"We shall endeavor," he adds, "to terminate that strife of classes which

of late years has exercised so pernicious an influence over the welfare

of this kingdom; to accomplish those remedial measures which great

productive interests, suffering from unequal taxation, have a right to

demand from a just government; to cultivate friendly relations with all

foreign powers, and secure honorable peace; to uphold in their spirit,

as well as in their form, our political institutions; and to increase

the efficiency, as well as maintain the rights, of our national and

Protestant church." Other members of the government had issued similar

addresses to their respective constituencies, and several of them had

already been re-elected.--At a subsequent session, the ministry

intimated that they would no longer resist the demand of the country for

a dissolution.

The advent of the Protective Ministry has called into new life the

Anti-Corn Law League at Manchester. A meeting of the League was held on

the 2d of March, at which resolutions were adopted reorganizing the

association, and taking measures to urge upon their friends throughout

the kingdom, not to return members in favor of restoring the duties on

corn; it was also resolved to petition the Queen for an immediate

dissolution of Parliament in order that the question of Free Trade might

be decided by a prompt appeal to the people. Mr. Cobden was present, and

made a long speech vindicating the operation of the existing system, and

resisting the policy of allowing the Ministry to strengthen themselves

for the restoration of the protective system. He wished the friends of

cheap bread to unite in order to drive the government into one of three

courses--either to recant forever the principle of protection, resign

their seats, or dissolve Parliament. It was within their power to compel

one or the other of these steps to be taken. A very large subscription

was immediately raised to defray the expenses of the projected

agitation.

The Earl of Derby, on taking office, tendered to Mr. Layard a

continuance in office as Under Secretary of State. The offer, however,

was declined.----Ireland lost two of its most celebrated men on the 26th

of February--THOMAS MOORE, the sweetest and best of her poets, and

Archbishop MURRAY, the mildest and best of the prelates of the Roman

Catholic Church in that country. Moore was in his 72d year, the

Archbishop in his 83d year. Moore died at his cottage at Sloperton, near

Devizes. For several years he had been alive only in the body. Like Sir

Walter Scott and Southey, the tenacity of physical existence outlived

the term of the mind. He was buried, according to his long-ago expressed

wish, in the quiet church-yard of the village where he died. Sir HERBERT

JENNER FUST, Dean of Arches, and long connected with law proceedings and

law literature, died on the 20th February, in the 76th year of his age.

FRANCE AND CENTRAL EUROPE.

The elections for members of the Legislative corps were held throughout

France on the 29th of February, and resulted in the success of the

Government candidate in nearly every instance. Gen. Cavaignac and Carnot

are the only Opposition candidates of any prominence who have been

elected. What course they will pursue is still a matter of conjecture.

It is clear, however, that such a thing as an opposition party in the

Legislature will scarcely exist.

The President continues the issue of decrees for the government of

France. They embrace, of course, the entire scope of legislation, as the

country for the present has no other source of law. One of the most

important of these decrees is that authorizing the establishment of

Mortgage Banks, the object of which is to enable owners of real estate

to borrow on mortgage, and repay the loans by means of long annuities;

that is, in addition to the interest the borrower is obliged to pay

annually say one per cent. as a sinking fund, which will extinguish the

debt in forty years. The banks are to loan on double real estate

security. They are allowed to issue notes or bonds. They are not to

require more than five per cent. interest, nor more than two nor less

than one per cent. as a sinking fund. An article in the _Moniteur_

followed the publication of this decree for the purpose of explaining

its provisions, from which it appears that there are $160,000,000 of

mortgaged debts in France, paying, inclusive of various expenses, an

average interest of eight per cent., and that these debts are increasing

at the rate of $12,000,000 yearly. It is claimed that the new law will

remedy this state of things, and Germany is pointed to in proof of the

beneficial effects of mortgage societies.----Another financial decree

directs that the holders of five per cent. government funds will receive

hereafter only four and a half per cent. or the principal at par value,

at their option. The effect of this change will be to reduce the annual

interest on the national debt, by about three and a half millions of

dollars. The holders of these securities of course complain of it as an

unjust reduction of their incomes.----Another decree directs the entire

organization of the College of France to be put under the immediate

control of the President, until the law for its permanent establishment

shall have been prepared. New officers have been appointed throughout--a

number of the most distinguished scholars of France being

superseded.----It has also been decreed that judicial officers shall be

disqualified at seventy years of age. By this means the President

secures the displacement of a large number of judges, whose seats he

will fill with persons more acceptable to himself.----It is decided that

M. Billault is to be President of the Legislative corps.----Several

distinguished Frenchmen have died during the month. Marshal MARMONT,

Duke of Ragusa, the last of the Marshals of Napoleon, died at Venice on

the 2d of March. He received his highest military title on the battle

field of Wagram. He forsook Napoleon's cause when Napoleon was falling,

held high offices under the restoration, and has lived in exile since

1830. Having forsaken Napoleon in 1814, and opposed the revolution of

July, his name was erased from the list of Marshals by Louis Philippe's

Government, and a black vail drawn over his portrait in the Hall of the

Marshals at the Tuileries.----ARMAND MARRAST, who acquired distinction

as editor of the _National_ and by his close connection with the

provisional government of 1848, died March 10.----The President has

offered a prize of fifty thousand francs in favor of the author of the

discovery which shall render the pile of Volta applicable with economy,

whether to industrial operations, as a source of heat, or to

illumination, or to chemistry, or to mechanics, or to practical

medicine. Scientific men of all nations are admitted to compete for the

prize. The competition shall remain open for the space of five

years.----He has also presented to M. Leon Foucault, the young _savant_

of Paris, distinguished for his works on electricity and light, and

especially for the experiment with the _pendulum_ illustrative of the

earth's rotary motion, the sum of ten thousand francs.

On the 21st of March, the President reviewed the troops, and bestowed

upon them the medal, instituted by the confiscation of the Orleans

estates. In the speech which he made to them upon the occasion, he said,

his object in instituting this medal was to make some more adequate

compensation for the services of the army, than they usually received.

It secures to each soldier, who shall have it, an annuity of 100 francs

for life; the sum is small, but the evidence of merit, which the medal

carries with it, adds to its value. He urges them to receive it as an

encouragement to maintain intact their military spirit. "Wear it," he

says, "as a proof of my solicitude for your interest, and my affection

for that great military family of which I am proud to be the head,

because you are its glorious children."

The demands of France upon BELGIUM were mentioned in our last Record. It

is stated that they have been boldly met and repelled. The King of

Belgium at once made an appeal to England and the Continental courts,

and he has received from all the European Powers the most positive

assurance that they will not suffer any aggressive step whatever of

Louis Napoleon against Belgium. The French Cabinet had required the

Belgian Government to remove the Lion which had been placed on the field

of Waterloo; but that demand was refused. It is said, upon reliable

authority, that the "decree" for annexing Belgium to France had been

prepared and even sent to the _Moniteur_ for publication; and was only

withdrawn in consequence of the strenuous opposition of those who have

more prudence than the President, and who fortunately possess some

influence over him.

The Paris correspondence of the London _Morning Chronicle_, furnishes

the details of a diplomatic correspondence between the principal

Continental Powers, which has decided interest and importance. It is

stated that, on the 7th of February, Prince Schwarzenberg addressed a

note to the representatives of Austria at St. Petersburg and Berlin, in

which he urged that the object of the Northern Powers ought now to be to

put down all that remained of constitutional government on the

continent of Europe; and that for this purpose they ought to insist on

the representative form of government being abolished in all the States

where it was still tolerated, and more especially in Piedmont and in

Greece. He further declared that Louis Napoleon, by his _coup d'état_ of

the 2d of December, which, while it put an end to constitutional

government, restored military government in France, had merited the

applause of all the Northern Powers, and he suggested that they ought to

concur in giving him their united and cordial support, even to the

exclusion of both branches of the House of Bourbon, because none of the

members of that illustrious House could reascend the throne without

according representative government in some shape. The representatives

of Austria at Berlin and St. Petersburg having been directed to

communicate this dispatch to the governments to which they were

accredited, did so, but the manner in which the communication was

received by the two Powers was very different. The Prussian government

at once declared that it strongly disapproved of the suggestion of the

Austrian government, and that, as it looked upon a certain degree of

constitutional freedom as necessary in the present state of Europe, it

highly disapproved of the attempt of Louis Napoleon to establish a

military despotism. The Russian Czar, who sets up as the arbiter of all

that is done to Germany, gave a very characteristic answer to both

Powers. He recommended to the Austrian government not to be so

enthusiastic in its admiration of Louis Napoleon, and to the Prussian

government, not to be so determined in its hostility to that personage;

and thus, says the writer, the affair for the present rests.

Concerning the SWISS question, we have more authentic intelligence. The

French diplomatic agent at Berne had delivered to the Federal

Authorities a note, dated January 25th, containing an explicit demand

from Louis Napoleon, "That the formal promise be made to me that all the

expulsions of refugees which I may ask be accorded to me, without any

examination as to what category the French political refugees affected

by this measure belong; and, in addition, that the orders of the central

power be executed according to terms prescribed in advance, without

being mitigated or wholly disregarded by the cantonal authorities, as I

can prove, by examples, has been done in previous instances. The French

embassador only is in a condition to know the individuals whose former

connections and present relations render impossible the prolongation of

their stay in the territory of the Helvetic Confederation; as also those

who can be tolerated provisionally, if their future conduct renders them

worthy of this tolerance. The first should depart from the moment that I

have designated them by name. The others should be told that they can

continue to reside in Switzerland only on condition that they give no

reason for complaint." It seems scarcely possible that so peremptory and

insulting a demand should have been made, even by the French autocrat,

upon any independent power; but the text of the letter is given. Austria

also made a similar requisition; and the _Assemblée Nationale_ says that

the Cabinet of Vienna distinctly announced to the Federal Council its

intention to occupy the canton of Ticino with Austrian troops, unless

the demands for the expulsion of certain refugees were complied with,

and guarantees given for preventing their return, as well as the renewal

of conspiracies against the peace of Lombardy. Prince Schwarzenberg sent

instructions to M. Hubner, the Austrian embassador at Paris, to propose

to the French government a simultaneous action in the same views, and

the occupation of Geneva and the canton of Vaud by the French troops.

The government of Louis Napoleon declined to co-operate with Austria in

invading the Swiss territory; and Austria was also persuaded to desist

from this enterprise. The firm attitude of the cabinets of London and

Berlin, backed perhaps by the counsels of Russia, is supposed to have

procured this result. But no sooner was the project of the joint

violation of the neutral territory baffled, than a new scheme was

adopted by the two conspiring Powers, which threatens to be equally

ruinous to Switzerland. The French and Austrian governments have entered

into a convention for the commercial blockade of that country. In order

to carry this into effect Piedmont must be forced to join the league and

stop her frontier against Swiss commerce. In the way of such a result

stand the government of Sardinia and British influence at the court of

Turin. How much these will avail remains to be seen. Subsequent advices

state that Switzerland had acceded to all the President's

requisitions--they having been repeated in less offensive terms.

From GERMANY there is no news of interest. The Emperor of Austria left

Vienna, February 25th, for Trieste and Venice, to meet the Grand Prince

of Prussia. The Second Chamber of Wurtemberg, in its sitting of the

26th, adopted, by 54 votes to 32, resolutions, declaring that the

fundamental rights proclaimed by the National Assembly of Frankfort

continue to have legal force in the kingdom, and can only be abolished

in the form presented by the Constitution. The Chamber rejected, by 66

votes to 20, a resolution protesting against certain measures of the

Germanic Diet; and it rejected, by 48 votes to 38, a motion relative to

the dissolution of the Chamber in 1850. M. de Plessen, after these

votes, made a declaration, in the name of the Government, that the

Chamber would probably be dissolved.

In SPAIN it is said that the Government is about to reinforce the

garrisons of Cuba and Porto Rico by an addition of three or four

thousand men. General Concha has been recalled from the Governorship of

Cuba; his successor, Gen. Caredo, was to sail from Cadiz on the 20th of

March. Extensive changes were taking place in all departments of the

public service.

THE EAST.

From TURKEY we learn that Reschid Pasha, whose dismissal was noted in

our last, has been received to favor again, and restored to office. The

Sultan has lately shown his magnanimity to rebels against his authority,

by bestowing upon Aziz Bey and his brother Ahmed Bey, rebel Kurdish

chiefs, near Bagdad, conquered by the Sultan, and brought to

Constantinople six months ago, a pension of three thousand piastres a

month. This clemency to political offenders is said to be common with

the Turkish Sovereign. The Turkish Government has recently forbidden the

loan of money to farmers at more than eight per cent. interest: it also

forbids the payment of all engagements hitherto made at higher rates. A

third bridge has just been finished across the Golden Horn. A splendid

ball was given at the close of the Carnival by the British Embassador,

at which about eight hundred persons were present.

In PERSIA the recently dismissed Grand Vizier, Mirza-Taghi-Khan, has

been put to death, by having his veins opened in a bath, and his

treasures have been seized by the Shah.

From INDIA we have news of further difficulties between the English and

the Burmese. Previous advices stated that Commodore Lambert had

complained to the King of Ava of the conduct of the Governor of Rangoon

in refusing compliance with certain demands of reparation for injuries

sustained by the British. The King professed a ready submission to the

Commodore's requisitions, but his sincerity was doubted, and Commodore

Lambert consequently resolved to remain with his squadron, for some days

longer, in order to test the truth of his suspicions. Scarcely had the

new Governor or Viceroy been placed in authority, than he commenced a

series of annoyances against all British subjects, which rendered it

imperative on the part of Commodore Lambert to seek an interview with

him, which was not only refused, but all communication between the shore

and fleet strictly prohibited. In this war-like aspect of affairs many

of the British took refuge on board the English vessels, while those who

remained behind desirous of securing their property, were cast into

prison. The fleet remained at anchor for twenty-four hours on the

opposite side of the river, when intimation was received from the

Viceroy that he would fire on the squadron should the Commodore attempt

to move down the river. On the 10th of January the Fox was towed down,

and anchored within a few hundred yards of the stockade erected by the

Viceroy, when the steamer having returned to bring away with her a

Burmese man-of-war, was fired on, which was immediately returned with

great vigor. The enemy dispersed after some three of them were slain.

The squadron then proceeded on its course, and the river ports of Burmah

were proclaimed to be in a state of blockade. Commodore Lambert then

proceeded to Calcutta for further instructions. Another campaign was

therefore deemed unavoidable, which, it was supposed, could not be

commenced before October.

Editor's Table.

Credulity and skepticism are often, in fact, but different aspects of

one and the same state of mind. No man is more credulous than the

infidel in respect to all that would make against the truth of

Christianity. Hindoo legends, Chinese chronologies, unmeaning Egyptian

hieroglyphics, are suffered at once to outweigh the clearest

declarations of that volume which alone sheds light on history, and

solves the otherwise inexplicable problem of our humanity.

Nowhere is this remark more strikingly exemplified than in the

pretensions of what may be called the pseudo-spiritualism of the day.

Men whose credulity can not digest the supernatural of the Bible are

most remarkably easy of belief in respect to spiritual rappings, and

spiritual table-liftings, and spiritual communications in Hebrew

translated into ungrammatical and false-spelled English. Prophecy and

inspiration are irrational; the belief in a Divine regenerating

influence on the human soul is superstitious and fanatical; but

clairvoyance and _clairvoyant prevision_, and mental alchemy are

embraced without difficulty, by the professors of this more transcendent

faith. They see and feel nothing of that grandeur of conception, that

holy seriousness, that impressive truthfulness of style, that superhuman

elevation above all that associates itself with the absurd, the

grotesque, the low, and the malignant--in a word, those traits which

every where characterize the miraculous of the Scriptures, and have ever

awed the most thoughtful into a recognition of its reality. And yet some

of these lecturers and _professors_ have even the impudence to baptize

their naturalistic jargon with the name of spiritualism, and while

treating the human soul with less reverence than is justly due to the

lowest form even of vegetable life, dare to talk of the _moral_ uses of

their pretended science, as though it had any more place for the word

and the idea than might be found in the jerking automaton of the

toy-shop.

Sometimes the pretense can be characterized by no milder term than

mocking blasphemy. One of these impostors, who has made some noise

lately, is said to have accurately foretold the words and ideas of a

discourse which was to be delivered by another person on a subsequent

day. It was no hypothetical prediction, grounded on a scientific

calculation of assumed causes and effects, but, in fact, a _clairvoyant

prevision_, not from any Divine impression (an idea which this

blasphemous pretender is known wholly to deride), but from a

transcendent subjective state of his natural intelligence. And yet some

who are known to believe only in an ideal Christ, and an ideal

resurrection, are not ashamed to signify a half assent to this monstrous

assertion of one of the highest conceivable attributes of the Almighty.

Every one who thinks at all must see that here there is no possible

middle ground. It is this claim, awfully profane and daring as it is, or

a downright imposture.

There is nothing derogatory to the human mind in the belief of the

_marvelous_. In fact, such belief is an element of its higher life. The

wonder is, that there is not more of it. But no degree of evidence can

justify us in giving credence to the _absurd_. The ridiculous is ever

proof of the presence of falsehood. The higher we rise in the scale of

truth, the more do we find ourselves ascending into a region of

seriousness. An impression of a sterner reality, of a deeper interest,

of more dread importance, of a more solemn consistency, accompanies

every genuine advance. Truth, as it grows purer and clearer, is ever

found to be more and more a fearful thing--joyful, indeed, and

soul-inspiring, yet finding the very fullness and solidity of its joy in

that graver element which gives it its highest and most real interest

for the human soul. A faith that has no awe proves itself a delusion. A

religion that has no fear, or is not deeply solemn, is a contradiction

in terms. For the absurd and the ridiculous even pure falsehood is too

stern a thing. They have their existence only in that grotesque mixture

of truth and error, in which the distortion of the one concealing the

malignity of the other gives birth to all revolting and ludicrous

monstrosities.

We need no better test. Apply it to the supernatural of the Scriptures,

and it furnishes one of the strongest evidences of their truth. So

serious a book can not be a lie. Bring to this criterion the modern

charlatanry, which so wantonly assumes the name of faith, "obtruding

itself with its fleshly mind" into the domain of the true supernatural,

and yet denying the supernatural--bring it to this criterion, we say,

and it is at once shown to be "earthly, sensual, devilish"--a grotesque

reflection of some of the worst things of this world thrown back in

lurid distortion from the darkness visible of the Satanic realms. But

even this may be assigning to it too high a rank. The position can not

be charged with irrationality which assumes that the "mocking fiend" may

sometimes be permitted to practice his jugglings on those rash fools,

who would venture too near to his domain of falsehood. But in most of

the modern cases of this kind, we are beginning to have little doubt

that sheer imposture is the predominant if not the only element.

On the outward evidence, however, we can not at present dwell, since it

is with the reasoning of these charlatans we design that our brief

strictures shall be mainly occupied. In this, too, we find the proof of

falsehood. For we return again to our text--the marvelous may be

believed, the absurd no amount of evidence can prove. And here some

thoughts suggest themselves to which we must give expression. What

amount of solid thinking, what discrimination of ideas, what right

knowledge of words, what degree of logical training, which, although not

the discoverer of truth, is the surest guard against error--in a word,

what amount of general, solid, mental culture must there be in an age

distinguished for the extensive circulation and approbation of such

works as Davis's Revelations of Nature, and Davis's Great Harmonia, and

Dodd's Psychology, &c., &c.? Could it have been so when Butler wrote his

immortal Analogy; or, farther back, when Howe preached his Living Temple

as evening lectures to a country congregation, and Baxter's tracts were

found in every hamlet in England? Could it have been so in our own land,

when Edwards preached his deep theology to plain men in plain New

England villages? The marvelous, we may well suppose, would have had no

lack of believers in those days. But would such absurdities in reasoning

have ever gained currency in those thinking though little scientific

periods? With all our talk of science, and progress, and universities,

and common schools, and the schoolmaster being abroad in the land, there

must be, somewhere, something wrong in our most modern ideas and modern

modes of education. Is not the physical element too predominant, and is

it not to the common smatterings in this department that such a

pretended spiritualism, yet real materialism, is directly to be traced?

A superficial sciolism, extensive enough in its facts, but utterly

hollow in its philosophy, is the food with which the common mind is

every where crammed even to satiety, while there is such a serious lack

of the logical, the theological, the Biblical, the classical, the

historical--in short, of those elements which must furnish the

foundation of all right thinking, and without which other knowledge is

more likely to lead to error than to truth.

But we can at present only hint at this. In respect to the reasonings of

these scientific discoverers (as they claim to be), we may say that

their fallacies get currency from this very cause, namely, the general

want of discrimination in respect to the true bounds of fundamental

ideas, and that abuse of language which is the necessary result. If the

consequences were not so serious, nothing could be more amusing than

their pretensions, or their method. They would have us believe that they

are the martyrs--Galileos--Bacons--Harveys, all of them. Each one is a

suffering Servetus, while all the bigotry of the theological world, with

all its inquisitorial priests and furious Calvins, is ever ready to

crush their new science, and give the crown of martyrdom to its devoted

teachers.

They have, too, the sagacity to perceive that audiences, in general,

love to be addressed in the technics of a scientific style, whether

rightly used or not. The vender of quack medicines has discovered the

same secret; and hence he, too, has his array of causes and effects, and

fluids, and mediums, and counteracting forces, and grand systems of

circulation, and positive and negative states. To be thus addressed

raises the hearer or reader at once in his own estimation, and thus

prepares him, sometimes, for the reception of almost any kind of

nonsense. He acquires, too, an interest in these high matters; and if

not himself an actual martyr to science, becomes at least a sympathizer

with those who are doomed to all this infamous persecution.

The usual course has now become so stereotyped, that one who has

attended a number of lectures of this kind, will be able to predict the

general method of remark quite as well as Davis is said to have foretold

that of Dr. Bushnell. He will be certain of the very places where the

peculiar and most original cant of the school will be sure to come in.

He will know just when and where to look out for Galileo and the

priests, and the Puritans and the Quakers, and Fulton and the

steam-engine. He anticipates precisely the spot where the lecturer will

tell us how Bacon "used up" the Stagyrite, and how wonderfully knowledge

has grown since that remarkable event, and how all previous progress was

preparatory to this new science, which it has been reserved for our bold

martyr not only to discover in its elements, but to present full formed

and full grown to his astonished hearers,--and which, moreover, he

generously offers to teach to private classes (the ladies to be by

themselves) at the exceedingly reasonable rate of ten dollars per

course.

Sometimes the whole of this scientific claptrap will consist of the

dextrous use of some one long new-coined term, very much like those that

are invented for the venders of soaps and perfumes to express the

psychology of their most ingenious and philosophical compounds. The

lecturer has discovered a new word, and it stands to him in place of a

mine of thought. In Martinus Scriblerus we read of a project to banish

metaphysics out of Spain. It was to be done by forbidding the use of the

compounds and decompounds of the substantive verb. "Take away from the

scholastic metaphysician," says this ingenious reformer, "his _ens_, his

_entitas_, his _essentia_, &c., and there is an end of him." So also we

have known lectures, and even books, on some of these new psychologies

from which the abstraction of a single term would cause the whole to

collapse. And yet to the quackish lecturer it is the key to unlock all

his scientific treasures. He has somehow picked up a _word_, and he is

deluding himself, and trying to delude others, into the notion that he

has really caught an _idea_. The connection of soul and body is no

longer a mystery. Science has at length dragged it out of its dark

retreat. Nothing can be simpler than the explanation at length afforded

of the fact which had so long baffled all inquiry. It is wholly owing to

the _nervo-vital_ fluid. But how is this? Is this connecting medium

mind, or matter, or a compound of both, or a tertium quid? If it is

either the first or the second, the mystery is just where it was before.

If it be said that it is the last (the only answer which does not at

once annihilate itself), the further query arises--How is that to be a

medium which needs itself a medium, or rather two other distinct media,

to serve as connecting links between it and the two worlds it would

unite? Or is it a bridge without an abutment on either shore?

But what are all such difficulties to our modern Galileo, or to his

scientific audience? It is the _nervo-vital_ fluid, whether or no. There

is a charming philosophy in the very sound, and it is impossible that so

good a term should not mean something. It is an admirable word--a most

euphonic word--and since the parts are certainly significant, there can

be no reason why the whole compound should not be so likewise.

Another of these magic words is _electricity_. It is getting to be the

_universal solvent_ for all scientific difficulties. It is life, it is

gravitation, it is attraction, it is generation, it is creation, it is

development, it is law, it is sensation, it is thought, it is every

thing. "Give me a place to put my lever," said Archimedes, "and I will

move the world!" Give us electricity and nervo-vital fluids, say our

biologists, and we will explain the mystery of all organizations, from

the animalcule to the universe!

We repeat it, The downright impositions in respect to facts, are not so

insulting to an audience, as the quackish reasoning which is often

presented by way of explanation. To state an example: One of the most

common performances of these mountebanks consists in the pretended

control of one mind or one person over the senses, the actions, the

volitions, and even the moral states of another. The performance is

generally contemptible enough in itself, but it is rendered still more

so when our man of science undertakes, as he generally does, to explain

to his audience the profound rationale of his proceedings. The lecturer

most modestly and reverently disclaims for himself the possession of

supernatural powers. It is all science--all strictly in accordance with

"_natural laws_" and performed on the most rational and scientific

principles. He had broken no law of mind or matter, as he would make

perfectly level to the understandings of his most respectable auditory.

The grand agent in the whole process was electricity, or the nervo-vital

fluid. By means of this, the mind of the operator was transferred to the

soul of the subject, and hence it is perfectly plain that the emotions

and mental exercises of the one become the emotions and mental exercises

of the other. A terrific scene was fancied (in the case which we have

now in mind it was a picture of serpents), and the patient was thrown

into a state of most agitating fright. Now that an impostor, or a

juggler, might deceive the senses of an audience, is nothing incredible,

and implies nothing derogatory to their intelligence. That some physical

effect may have been produced on the nervous system of some peculiarly

sensitive subject, is by no means beyond belief; or that in some way,

explicable or inexplicable, the agitation and convulsion may have had a

real existence. So far it may have been wholly false, or partly false

and partly real. Again, whether there may or may not be unknown fluids

through which one mind or one body affects another, is not the question.

If it were so, it would only be analogous to the ordinary modes of

mediate communication by air, and light, and sound, and would be liable

in kind, if not in degree, to the same imperfections. Still would it be

true, whatever the media, ordinary or extraordinary, that only as mind

is communicated to mind _as it really is_, can one affect the emotions,

and exercises, and states of the other. There may be less, there never

can be more, in the effect than in the cause.

Here, then, is the palpable absurdity, which should bring a blush of

shame upon every audience, and every individual calling himself

rational, who is for a moment affected by it. The mind of the operator,

it is maintained, is, for the time being, the mind of the patient. It

has taken possession of his thinking and feeling province. This is the

philosophy that Aristotle never knew, and of which even Bacon hardly had

a glimpse. Let us test it. As the lecturer is a very frank and fearless

man, he invites the fullest examination, not only of his facts, but of

his reasoning. Some one may, therefore, be supposed to present the

following or similar questions: You _willed_, did you, the scene and the

state of mind which produced these alarming results? Exactly so. Was it,

then, a simple volition of the _effect_, as an effect (if such a thing

were possible), or accompanied in your own mind, by a conception of the

scene presented? Certainly, replies the triumphant lecturer, the whole

rationale, as you have been told, consisted in throwing my mind into

that of the subject. He thought what I thought--he felt what I felt.

Very well. But were you frightened at the snakes? Did terror constitute

any part of the exercises of your own mind? This is a puzzler, but there

is an apparent way of surmounting the difficulty. The patient, it may be

said, _believes_ in the reality of the scene presented, while the

operator does not. But this only suggests a still greater absurdity.

This belief, or non-belief, is certainly a very important part of the

mental and emotional state. How comes one of the most essential

ingredients to be left behind in the psychological transfer? Does the

operator _will_ it thus to be? We have never heard any such thing

alleged; but if it were so, it would only be the crowning folly of this

superlatively foolish process--this very lunacy of nonsense. Such

volition itself would then become a part of the mental state, and must

pass over to the patient along with the other thoughts and emotions, and

with all the absurdity involved in it, or require another volition to

keep it back, and still another volition for this, and so on, _ad

infinitum_. Have any of our readers ever seen a foolish dog running

round and round after his own tail, and ever jerking it away just when

he seemed to himself to be on the point of catching it? Nothing can

furnish a better illustration of the exceeding folly that has often in

this way been presented as profound and scientific reasoning to what

have been styled enlightened and respectable audiences.

There is another fallacy running through all these pretended

sciences--from phrenology and phreno-mesmerism to the most stupid

exhibitions that have been ever given, under the names of "electrical

psychology" and "mental alchemy." It is that view which, in effect,

wholly denies any thing like a spiritual unity to the human soul, making

it a series of separate impulses, or, like the keys of a piano, each

when struck from without giving an isolated sound. Let one be touched,

the machine lifts up its hand, and is supposed to pray. Strike another,

and it blasphemes. And so, by turns, it hates and loves, and fears and

trusts--not different objects, which would be perfectly consistent with

a spiritual unity, in which the whole moral and intellectual state is

represented in every exercise, but the same objects, and with

transitions so sudden as to be almost simultaneous. We might, in a

similar way, expose the absurd reasoning contained in all this, but we

would rather dwell at present on the moral aspect of the case--the

shocking irreverence it manifests toward the human soul, making its

faith, its reason, its love, its conscience, as worthless as the lowest

bodily appetites--sinking it, indeed, below the dignity of respectable

organic or inorganic matter, with which such tricks can not be played,

and reducing all that have heretofore been regarded as the highest moral

truths to the rank of physical phenomena.

In some former remarks of our Editorial Table, there was an allusion to

the revolting claim clairvoyance makes to meddle with the soul's sacred

individuality. The thought is applicable to all those kindred

pretensions which are now so rife. Their tendency is to destroy all

reverence for our own spirituality, and with it all reverence for the

truly spiritual every-where. If this be true of what is called biology

and mental alchemy, in a still more impressive sense may it be charged

upon that other compound of blasphemy and Satanic mummery, which has

grown directly out of them. We allude to the pretense of holding

intercourse with departed spirits through mesmerized mediums, or what

are usually called _spiritual rappings_. The first class of performances

are an insult to the human intelligence; this is a moral outrage upon

the most tender, the most solemn, the most religious feelings of our

nature. The one is a profane trifling with all that is most sacred in

life--the other is a violation of the grave, and of all beyond, of which

it is the appointed vail. It is hard to write or speak with calmness

here. The mischief done and doing in this direction, defies all proper

estimate. These proceedings are sending lunatics to our asylums, but

this is by no means the sorest evil that may be laid to their charge. It

is the soul-hardening familiarity they are every where producing with

the most awful subjects that can be offered for human contemplation.

Such an effect, too, in relation to the spirit of man must soon be

followed by a similar one in respect to the still more tremendous idea

of Deity. To use a strange but most expressive term, first employed by

De Quincey (although applied to a different subject) we know

of nothing in human experience that threatens to be so utterly

_de-religionizing_--in other words, so fatally destructive of all that

reverence for the spiritual, that awe of the unseen, that tender

emotion, as well as solemn interest, which connect themselves with the

idea of the other life, and without which religion itself, in any form,

can have no deep or permanent hold upon the mind. We find it difficult

to conceive how any man possessed of the smallest share of these holy

sympathies, can bring himself to give any countenance whatever to such

practices. We appeal to those who have lost the nearest relatives--a

parent, a brother, a sister, a dear departed child--how should every

right feeling of the soul revolt against the thought of holding

intercourse with them, even though it were possible, through such means?

Who that has a Christian heart would not prefer the silence of the grave

to the thought of the dear departed one in the midst of such imaginings,

and such scenic associations as are connected with the usual

performances of this kind? Through that silence of the grave the voice

of faith may be heard speaking to us in the language of revelation--_He

is not dead but sleepeth_. Blessed word,--so utterly unknown to all

previous philosophy--never heard in any other revelation than that of

the gospel! They are not dead but _sleep_. "They enter into _peace_,"

says the prophet. And then the precious and consoling addition--They

sleep _in Jesus_. Surely the term thus employed can imply no cessation

of consciousness, no torpor of the higher and better faculties of the

soul; but it does denote, beyond all doubt, a state of rest, of

calmness, of security, of undisturbed and beatific vision--a state far

removed from all resemblance to this bustling life--a state in all

respects the opposite of that which fancy pictures as belonging to the

scenes presented in the manifestations of spiritual rappings, and

spiritual table-liftings, and, in a word, those spiritual pantomimes,

which seem to be becoming more and more extravagant and grotesque in

proportion to the infidel credulity with which they are received.

Such are every where the scriptural ideas in respect to the condition of

the pious dead, and from the other class we seek not to draw that vail

which it has thrown over them. Nothing shows more strikingly the extreme

secularity of the age in which we live than the disposition, even among

many who are professedly religious, to look upon the other world as only

a continuation of the activities of the present; but we affirm with all

boldness, that such a view receives no support from the Bible. Rest,

security, calmness, peace, removal from all agitation, from all

excitement, from all commingling in the scenes of this busy, restless,

probationary life--these are the thoughts which are suggested by its

parables, its metaphors, its visions, its direct and positive

assertions. Especially clear and prominent is the idea of entire

separation from the present world. They have "entered into rest"--they

are in "Abraham's bosom"--they are "with Christ in Paradise." To the

same effect would the spiritually-minded reader interpret certain

phrases employed in the Older Scriptures. They are in "the secret of his

pavilion," in the "hiding-place of his tabernacle"--they abide "under

the shadow of the Almighty." Such expressions may have a meaning in

connection with this life; but their fullest import is only brought out

when their consoling assurances are referred to the state of the

departed in the spirit-world.

And here the thought most naturally suggests itself--How striking the

difference between the sensual obtrusiveness, the impious pretensions,

the profane curiosity exhibited in connection with this modern

charlatanry, and what may be called the _solemn reserve_ of the Holy

Scriptures. The Bible never condescends to gratify our curiosity

respecting what may be called the physiology, or _physical_ theory of

the other life. On the other hand, the _moral_ effect is ever kept in

view, and to this, in all its communications, it ever aims at giving the

deepest intensity. In the light of this thought let any one contrast the

sublime vision of Eliphaz (Job iv.) with any of these modern spiritual

manifestations. The vail is for a moment withdrawn. A light just gleams

upon us from the spirit-world, not to show us things within, but to cast

its moral irradiation upon things without. The formless form, the

silence, and the voice leave all things physical, or psychological as

much unknown as before; but how deep the moral impression! There are no

disclosures of the scenery or topography of the unseen state; no

announcement of "great truths about to break forth;" nothing said of

"throwing down barriers between the two worlds." But instead of this, a

most solemn declaration of a Divine moral government, and a moral

retribution, to which all that is physical, or physiological, or

psychological even, is intended ever to be kept subservient.

Thus it is throughout the Bible. Paul had visions of the third Heavens.

Christ descended into Hades, and rose again; but he has told us nothing

of the state or doings of departed spirits. Where the sacred penmen draw

back, and scarce afford a hint, except as to the certainty of

retribution in another world, modern mystics, modern impostors have

given us volumes.

Fools rashly venture in

Where angels dare not tread.

And so, too, in respect to death itself. The impostor Davis profanely

assumes to describe the process of the elimination of the spirit from

the struggling body, and some have pronounced the unfeeling caricature

worthy of the genius of Dante or of Milton. But with what solemn reserve

does the Scripture cast a vail over this dread event, and reveal to us

only its moral consequences. It is a going down into a "Valley of

Shadows," and all that the believer is allowed to know of it is, that in

that Valley there is one to take him by the hand, one who will walk with

him through its darkness, and "whose rod and staff shall comfort him"

through all that dreary way. To this correspond the terms expressive of

the idea in primitive languages. It is a going into _Hades_, the

_Invisible_, the _Unknown_, not in the sense of any doubt, implied as to

the real existence of a spirit world (for men have never been without a

distinct belief in this, as matter of fact), but unknown as to its

physical states and modes of being. In the Hebrew it is _Beth Olam_, the

_Hidden House_ (imperfectly rendered _the long home_, Eccles. xii.),

where "the souls of the dead take no part in things that are done beneath

the sun." The living go to them, but they come not back any more to us.

And what right-feeling heart would have it otherwise. They are

Not dead, but parted from their house of clay.

They still dwell, too, in our memories; they are enshrined in our

hearts. Who would not trust them to the Scripture promises of rest and

peace, rather than imagine them as subject to the unrest, and sharing in

the agitating and tumultuous scenes of this pseudo-spiritualism. The

believer in rappings charges his opponent with a Sadducean lack of

faith. But we would take issue with him on the term. The naturalistic

spirit-hunter is a stranger to the idea. With him it is only the

sensualism and sensual scenes of this earth carried into a supposed

spiritual world. It is a faith which has no trust, no patient waiting.

It is not "the evidence of things unseen." It is not "the substance of

things hoped for." It is rank materialism, after all. It is, moreover,

_essentially_ irreligious. As far as it extends, it threatens, to an

awful degree, to de-religionize the human soul--not only to take away

all true spirituality of view, but to render men incapable of those

ideas, on which alone a right religious belief can be founded.

We hope our readers will not think that we have indulged in a train of

thought too serious or sombre for the pages of a literary Monthly

Magazine. It is directly forced upon us by our subject, if we would

treat it as it deserves to be treated; and our only apology for choosing

such a theme, is found in the fact that it is connected with one of the

most wide-spread and mischievous delusions of the day. We should indeed

think that we had discharged a most important editorial duty, could we

only convey to the many thousands of our readers our deep impression,

not only of the falsehood and wickedness of these "_lying wonders_," but

also of the immense moral evil of which they threaten to be the cause.

Editor's Easy Chair.

The Spring hangs fire, like a rusty match-lock; and even as we

write--though the almanac tells stories of "pleasant showers about this

time"--the snow-flakes are dappling the distant roofs, and shivering

under a northern wind. The early-trout fishers upon the south-shore of

the Island, are bandaged in pea-coats, and the song-making blue-birds

twitter most scattered and sorry orisons.

It is a singular circumstance--and one of which the meteorologic men

must give us the resolution--that the seasons of the Eastern and Western

Continents balance themselves so accurately as they do. Thus, the severe

winter which, leaning from the Arctic Circle, has touched our Continent

with an icy _right_ hand, has kindled with a warm _left_, the north of

Europe into a premature Spring. The journalists tell us of flowers

blooming in Norway, through all the latter half of February; and the

winter in Paris has proved as sham a winter, as their Republic is sham

republic.

Is there any tide of atmosphere which makes flux and reflux of

cold--kindred to the sweep of the ocean? And may not that Northern

Centre, which geographers call the POLE, have such influence on the

atmospheric currents, as the moon is said to have upon the sea?

* * * * *

Poor Sir John, meantime, shivering in the Northern Regions, or--what is

far more probable--sealed up in some icy shroud, that keeps his body

whole, and that will not break or burst until the mountains melt--is not

forgotten. Even now the British Admiralty are fitting out another

expedition, to flounder for a season among the icebergs, and bring back

its story of Polar nights, and harsh Arctic music.

A little bit of early romance, associated with the great navigator, has

latterly found its way into the journals, and added new zest to the talk

of his unknown fate. Lady Franklin was, it appears, in her youthful

days, endowed with the same poet-soul--which now inspires her courage,

and which then inspired her muse. Among other rhymed thoughts which she

put in print, were some wild, weird verses about the Northern realms,

and the bold navigators who periled life and fortune among the Polar

mountains. The verses caught the eye and the sympathies of Sir John

Franklin. He traced them to their source, and finding the heart of the

lady as true and brave, as her verse was clear and sound, he challenged

her love, and won such wife as became the solace of his quieter days,

and the world-known mourner of his fate.

* * * * *

Domestic talk plays around the topic of the coming Presidential

campaign, and not a dinner of the whole Lenten season but has turned its

chat upon this hinge. And it is not a little curious to observe how the

names of the prospective Presidents narrow down, as the time approaches,

to some two or three focal ones, toward which converge all the rays of

calumny and of laudation. Yet in this free speech--thanks to our

privilege--we offer a most happy contrast to that poor shadow of a

Republic, which is now thriving in embroidered Paris coats, and whose

history is written under the ban of Censors. It is amusing to recall now

the speeches of those earnest French Republicans, who, in the debates of

1848, objected so strongly to any scheme of representation which should

bear that strong federal taint that belonged to our system. "It is an

off-shoot," said they, "of British and lordly birth, and can not agree

with the nobler freedom which we have established, and which has crowned

our Revolution."

May God, in his own good time, help the French--if they will not help

themselves--and give them no worse a ruler, than the poorest of our

present candidates!

* * * * *

Some little time ago we indulged in a pleasant strain of

self-gratulation, that the extraordinary woman, Lola Montes--_danseuse_,

_diplomate_, widow, wife, _femme entretenue_--should have met with the

humblest welcome upon American shores, and by such welcome given a lift

to our sense of propriety. It would seem, however, that the welcome was

only stayed, and not abandoned. The cordial reception which our national

representatives have given the Bavarian Countess, was indeed a matter to

be looked for. Proprieties of life do not rule high under the

Congressional atmosphere; nor is Washington the moving centre of much

Christian enterprise--either missionary or other. But that Boston, our

staid rival, should have shown the _danseuse_ the honor of Educational

Committees, and given her speech in French and Latin of the blooming

Boston girls, is a thing as strange as it was unexpected. We observe,

however, that the officer in attendance upon Lola, pleads simple

courtesy as a warrant for his introduction, and regrets that newspaper

inquiry and comment should make known to his pupil-_protégées_ the real

character of the lady introduced. It certainly is unfortunate--but still

more unfortunate, that the character of any visitor should not be proof

against inquiry.

Lola, it seems, resents highly any imputation upon her good name, and

demands proof of her losses.

Her indignation is adroit, and reminds us of a certain old "nut for the

lawyers," which once went the round of the almanacs:

"Will Brown, a noted toper, being out of funds, and put to his wits,

entered the beer-shop, and called for four two-penny loaves of bread.

After ruminating awhile, with the loaves under his arm, he proposed to

exchange a couple of the loaves for a mug of ale. Bruin of the bar

assented to the bargain. Will quietly disposed of his ale, and again

proposed a further exchange of the remaining loaves, for a second mug of

the malt liquor.

"Will quietly discharged his duty toward the second tankard, and as

quietly moved toward the door. Bruin claimed pay. Will alleged that he

had paid in two-penny loaves. Bruin demanded pay for the bread; but

Will, very imperturbably swore that he did not keep the bread, and

challenged poor Bruin to prove his indebtedness."

* * * * *

Jenny Lind has latterly slipped from the public eye into the shades of

her newly-found domestic life. Rumor, however, tells the story of one

last appearance, during the Spring, when all the world will be curious

to see how she wears her bridal state, and to take fuller glimpse of the

man, who has won her benevolent heart. Can the married world explain to

us, how it is that matrimony seems to dull the edge of triumph, and to

round a grave over maiden glory? Why is Madame Goldschmidt so much less

than Jenny Lind? Simply in this way: she who has conquered the world by

song and goodness, has herself been conquered; and the conqueror, if

rumor tells a fair story, is no better, or worthier, or stronger than

the average of men. The conclusion, then, is inevitable, that she,

having yielded, is, in some qualities of head or heart--even less than

he; and so reduced to the standard of our dull every-day mortality.

Rumor says again, that the songstress, after a visit only to her own

shores, is to return to the pleasant town of Northampton for a home. The

decision, if real, does credit to our lady's love of the picturesque;

for surely a more sightly town lies no where in our western world, than

that mass of meadow and sweeping hill which lies grouped under the

shoulder of Holyoke.

* * * * *