Chapter VIII (3)

Since the adjournment of the Legislative Assembly, events in FRANCE have had less than usual interest. The President left Paris on the 17th of July, to celebrate the opening of the railway between Paris and Strasbourg, which is now completed. He was received with eclat, reviewed the troops, and went to Baden-Baden, his main object being, according to rumor, to arrange for a matrimonial alliance with a daughter of Prince Gustave de Vasa. He returned to Paris on the 24th, where he had a military reception, generally described as lacking enthusiasm.----A change has been made in the Ministry by the appointment of M. Achille Fould, Minister of State, in place of M. Casabianca. M. de Cormenin, the well known pamphleteer, M. Giraud, and M. Persil have also become Members of the Council of State, in place of Maillard, Cornudet, and Reverchon, resigned.----M. Odillon Barrot, declines to be a candidate for the Assembly, asking, in his letter, what he can have to do with public affairs, "now that on the ruins of the constitutional and Parliamentary Government of his country, the most absolute power that exists in the world is establishing itself, not as a transient or a casual dictatorship but as a permanent Government, when the mendacious forms of universal suffrage and popular election serve only to secure the return of candidates designated by the Administration, and have only been preserved to give a false air of liberty to the sad and humiliating reality of despotism."----A decree has been issued authorizing to return immediately to France the ex-representatives Creton, Duvergier, Thiers, Chambolle, Remusat, Lasteyrie, Laidet, and Thouret. Another decree removes the interdiction of January 10, to reside in France, against Renaud, Signard, Joly, Theodore Bac, Belin, Besse, Milloste, ex-representatives of the Mountain.----The municipal elections that have recently been held are marked by the failure of voters to attend the polls. Upon an average not one-fourth of the legal ballots have been cast; and this proves to be the case in those departments where a second election was ordered expressly to supply the defect in the first. This very general absence from the polls is noted as a significant indication of the little interest felt in the new government by the mass of the people.----The London Chronicle has published the text of a treaty alleged to have been signed on the 20th of May, by the sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, in regard to the present and prospective condition of the French government. The contracting parties declared that, although they would respect the rule of Louis Napoleon as a temporary government, they would not recognize any French dynasty except the House of Bourbon, and that they would reserve to themselves, in case of opportunity, the right to aid the restoration of the representative of the elder branch of that family. The authenticity of the document has been generally discredited, and, indeed, denied by Austrian official journals.----Addresses have been freely circulated throughout France urging the President to restore the Empire. They are issued under the special direction of the authorities of the departments, who are appointed by the President; and yet it is represented that they are by no means numerously signed, and that but a small proportion of them are decidedly and frankly Imperialist.----The 15th of August, Napoleon's birthday, was signalized by _fêtes_ of extraordinary magnitude and splendor. The most elaborate and protracted preparations had been made for it; thousands and tens of thousands came in from all sections of the country to witness the display; and the occasion was one of unwonted brilliancy and splendor. Grand exhibitions of the military, fireworks, scenes and shows skillfully calculated to recall the memory and the glory of Napoleon, and a great ball at St. Cloud signalized the occasion. The people of Paris had been invited by official proclamation to illuminate their houses; but the noticeably sparse compliance with the request is remarked as more truly indicative of the sentiments of the people, than the elaborate exhibitions arranged by the government.----The anniversary of the taking of the Bastile on the 14th of July, an occasion often commemorated by assembled thousands, and with great eclat, was celebrated this year by the deposit of a single crown on the railings of the column, performed by a lady; the symbol was instantly removed, and the lady and her husband were arrested.----Marshal Excelmans, a soldier of the Empire, specially attached to Murat, and a witness of the disaster of Waterloo, was killed in Paris by a fall from his horse, on the 21st of July. His funeral was numerously attended. Count D'Orsay, noted in the circles of fashion, and distinguished also for literary and artistic abilities, died on the 4th of August.

From ITALY there is little intelligence beyond that of a system of wholesale arrests of suspected persons. At Venice, Mantua, and other cities, great numbers of influential persons have been thrown into prison, mainly in the hope, as is believed, that they may be induced or forced to reveal suspected conspiracies. Warm disputes have occurred at Rome between the French and Roman soldiers. The mother of Mazzini died of apoplexy, at Genoa, on the 9th of August; her funeral was attended by a very large concourse of people.----In Piedmont the Government has resolved to resist and punish the abuse of the right of petition against the marriage bill, which, it is alleged, is made the pretext for agitating the country. Several instances of severity toward the press have occurred.----In Naples, Mr. Hamilton, an English Protestant, relying on an article in the treaty of 1845, set up a school in 1848, for the education of Swiss and English children. By degrees, Government influence was used to drive away his pupils. The Police have now forcibly closed the school. Sir William Temple was informed of the act, but it is not known what course the British Government will pursue.

In AUSTRIA the most marked event of the month was the Emperor's return to Vienna, after his tour through Hungary, where he is represented to have been received with the general enthusiasm of the people. The liberal papers allege that much of the cordiality with which he was greeted in the Hungarian portion of his dominions, was prearranged, and that the real sentiments of the people were in no wise indicated by it. He reached Vienna on the 14th of August, and had a magnificent reception. He was to leave on the 16th for Ischl.----The budget for the year shows a deficit of over fifty-five millions of florins.

In SWITZERLAND nothing of special interest has occurred. The National Council, after three days' debate, has rejected a petition presented by conservatives of the Canton of Fribourg, praying for an alteration of the Cantonal Constitution, by a vote of 79 to 18. It was regarded as an attempt to renew the troubles of the Sonderbund, under the guise of reforming the Constitution. At the same sitting, on the 5th of August, the Council decided upon remitting to the Cantons the remainder of the debt created by the troubles of 1847. The money is to be applied to the completion of certain scholastic institutions, or to the extinction of pauperism, or to the construction of railways, common roads and canals, subject to the approbation of the Federal Executive. It is stated that the Prussian Minister at the Helvetic confederation, has formally demanded the re-establishment of the ancient political relations with Prussia in the Canton of Neufchatel. The Grand Council of that Canton, on the 30th of July, decreed the suppression of a society of the partisans of Prussia by 69 votes to 11.

From BELGIUM intelligence has been received that a convention has been concluded between the Belgian and Dutch governments for the amalgamation of the railways of the two countries. The great trunk line beginning at Antwerp will be continued to Rotterdam, and so be put into communication with the whole of the Netherlands. It is stated, upon good authority, that the Bavarian government has engaged to pay 1,400,000 florins to the administration of the Palatinate Railway, on condition that the latter shall undertake to execute the works on the line from Ludwigshafen to Wissemburg speedily. This is the point to which the Strasburg Railway is to be continued beyond the French frontier.----A change has occurred in the Belgian Ministry. The commercial regulations between France and Belgium are placed under the _régime_ of the common law, the treaty of 1845 not having been renewed.

From TURKEY we learn that Mr. MARSH, the American Minister, left Constantinople on the 30th of July for Athens, whither he goes to investigate the circumstances attending the arrest and imprisonment of the American missionary, Dr. KING. Previous to leaving he had an audience with the Sultan.----Numerous and very destructive fires have recently occurred in Constantinople--two or three thousand houses having been burned.----Fresh and interesting discoveries are said to have been made at Nineveh by M. Place, the French Consul at Mosul; he is said to have found a series of paintings upon marble in vermillion and marine blue.----Steam navigation has lately increased greatly at Constantinople. More than twenty steamers now ply daily in the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora. It is said that a Russian company is about to be formed, which will have twenty vessels to run in opposition to these now established.

Editor's Table.

The Sabbath presents the most purely religious, and, at the same time, the least sectarian of all moral questions. It has, however, been generally regarded under two aspects, and defended on two distinct if not opposing grounds. One of these may be called the Scriptural or theological, the other the physical or secular. One class of advocates would lay the greatest stress on its divine appointment, the other upon its worldly advantages. One would magnify its ecclesiastical, the other its political and social importance. Without entering at length upon either of these arguments, in our present editorial musings, it is enough for us to state that those who would defend it as a permanent divine institution, rely mainly on the remarkable passage in Genesis announcing the divine rest from creation, and the sanctification of the seventh period of time, the Fourth Commandment as confirmatory of the same, and the early and continued example of the primitive Christian church, as evidence of a divinely-authorized change from the seventh day of the Jewish calendar to that on which Christ rose from the dead.

The other argument, which may be denominated the physical or secular, is a great favorite with writers and speakers of a certain class, who would be thought to be friends of the observance of the Sabbath, and all moral institutions connected with it, and yet would prefer to advocate them on grounds less strictly religious. These dwell much on the physical advantages of a day of rest. They enter into calculations respecting the maximum time of human and animal exertion, and the minimum period of relaxation required to counterbalance its effects upon the physical system. It is with them mainly a problem of political economy,--a question of production,--of prices,--of the increase or diminution of individual or national wealth. In these respects the value of the Sabbath is carefully measured by statistical tables. Figures "which can not lie" prove it to be a very useful institution, and the divine wisdom is greatly lauded in the contrivance of such an admirable means for preserving a healthful equilibrium in the industrial and business world.

We would, however, by no means speak slightingly of such supposed ends, or of such an argument in support of them. "Does God take care for oxen?" The language of the Apostle is not an ironical negative, as some might suppose, but an _a fortiori_ argument to show his higher care for man, and above all, for man's spiritual well-being. We may rationally suppose that higher purposes are harmoniously conjoined with lower in the divine mind. It is not unworthy of the author of the universe to have established such a harmony between the physical and the spiritual worlds. The Bible plainly speaks of things which "have the promise both of this life and of that which is to come," and among these the right observance of the Sabbath would doubtless hold a distinguished place. It is the great connecting bond between the political and the religious, between social virtue and the individual devoutness, between the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace,--in short, between all secular and all spiritual moralities. We can not well conceive of either squalid poverty or debasing vice in a community distinguished for its intelligent reverence of the Sabbath. Such reverence, however, could not well exist or long be maintained, where the secular utilities, true and valuable as they may be, are the only or even the chief motives appealed to. The temporal loses not only its moral excellence, but its power even for temporal good, when wholly severed from the spiritual.

Neither is there sufficient support for sabbatical institutions in the merely merciful idea of bodily relaxation. We are still in the region of secular benevolence, and without some influence from a higher world of motive and feeling, the sacred idea of _rest_ will inevitably degenerate, and give place to its demoralizing counterfeits--idleness--dissipation--and vice. Thus could it be shown, that even for the best secular ends, a Sabbath divested of the religious element would be far worse that unintermitted labor.

But we would hasten to another and a third view, which may be characterized as being more catholic, or rather less sectarian, than the first, and, at the same time, more spiritual, or less secular, than the second. To firm believers in the positive divine institution of the Sabbath (among whom we have no hesitation in avowing ourselves) the merely worldly argument would appear, sometimes, to betray, rather than support, the very cause it professes to advocate. On the other hand, there are, doubtless, many inquiring minds to whom the Scriptural argument seems more or less defective, but who would, nevertheless, accept a more elevated and more religious view than the one we have denominated the physical or the secular. There are good men, very good men, and honest believers, too, in the written revelation, who have a prejudice against any thing positively outward and ritual in religion, on the ground of its savoring too much of what they deem the obsolete Jewish economy. There are others who do not so accept the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, that they would regard as conclusive any merely exegetical or traditionary argument. There are those, again, who wholly reject the authority of the commonly-received revelation. There are men who go farther than this--pantheists,--scientific theists, who recognize only an impersonal Power and Wisdom--men on the very verge of atheism, and some beyond all limits that the most tender charity can regard as separating us from that doleful region. And yet among them all--may we not say it without giving just offense to the strictest believer--among them all there may be sober men, thinking men, deeply serious men, for whom it is possible, and, if possible, most desirable, to frame an argument for a Sabbath that may steer clear of the apparent difficulties in the one view, and the really lowering and unspiritualizing tendency of the other.

Let those, then, who feel strong in that position, ground their reverence for the Sabbath in a positively revealed divine appointment. Among them would we class ourselves, even while endeavoring so to widen the platform as to embrace as many others as possible. Let those, again, who can take no higher view than that derived from its physical benefits, hold fast to such a faith. Frail as the plank may seem, it may deliver them from the shipwreck of total unbelief. The view indeed is a low one, and yet, if honestly held, may conduct the mind to a higher estimate. It is something,--it is much,--to believe truly that in the physical arrangements of the world, God has shown this kind care for our material well-being. If the soul is not utterly buried in earthliness, the thought of such a concern for the body must _tend_, at least, to the higher idea of a still higher concern for the blessedness of our spiritual nature.

Now it is in this thought we find that third view of the Sabbath which must have an interest, we would charitably hope, for all the classes that have been mentioned. Many believe that we need a day for special religious _worship_; others hold to the necessity of a day of _bodily rest_. But do we not all--whatever may be our creed, our belief or our unbelief--need a day, an oft-recurring day, of _serious thought_? Whatever may be our faith, or want of faith, every man who has not wholly sunk down into the mere animal nature, needs periods, oft-recurring and stated periods, in which he shall yield his whole soul to the questions--- _What_ am I? _Where_ am I? _Whence_ came I? _Why_ am I here? _What_ have I to do? _How_ am I doing it? _Whither_ am I going? The tremendous interest of these questions is not to be measured by the excess or deficiency of our creeds, unless it be that the very lack of belief invests them with a more immeasurable importance, or that each presents a more serious problem for serious minds, until we come down to that "horror of great darkness," the death of all faith in a supernatural or truly spiritual world.

Take the man who calls himself the liberal or free-thinking Christian. We have no objection to the title, or want of charity toward him who assumes it. He needs a Sabbath for intense thought, not so much on the argumentative evidence of particular dogmas, as on the great yet simple questions, whether the liberality of his opinions, and the few difficulties they present to his own mind, may not be evidence of their having no foundation in any wide system of eternal truth,--whether a religious creed that has no profound awe for the soul, no fearful apprehensions, no deep moral anxieties, no absorbing interest in a life to come, does not, from the very fact of such deficiency, prove itself a contradiction and a lie. So too the man who is but beginning to doubt the full inspiration of the Scriptures needs a period of most earnest meditation on the risk he may be running of giving up an only guide, whose place can never be made good by any thing in nature, philosophy, or science. The professed infidel needs a Sabbath, an oft-recurring Sabbath, of serious thought on that question of questions--Has God indeed ever spoken to man, or spoken at all, except through physical laws?--Has the awful stillness of nature been ever broken by a true voice from a true supernatural world?--And the atheist, too,--has he no need of a Sabbath, a frequent day of thought and thoughtfulness, in which he may call up and spread before his mind, in all their fearful importance, the sombre articles of his own dark creed? For creed indeed he has, unsurpassed in solemnity by that of any religionist. It has been quite common to deny the possibility of atheism, but the history of the world and of the church is showing that it is the only legitimate antagonism to a true belief in positive revelation. The shallow sciolist may not perceive it, and yet this is the dark conclusion in which some of his favorite speculations must inevitably terminate. There is no man, therefore, who has a stronger demand upon our most tender charity than the atheist. No belief presents greater difficulties, and yet there is no one to which the thinking mind is more strongly impelled, when it has once learned to distrust the lamp of revelation, and to see only shadows and spectres in that "_light shining in a dark place_, and to which we do well to take heed, until the day dawn and the eternal day star arise in our souls."

No man, then, we repeat it, stands more in want of a Sabbath than the atheist. No man has greater need of some such seasons in which he may perhaps find a cure for his dreadful spiritual blindness by giving himself up to all the terrific consequences of his gloomy creed. Let him devote one day in seven to the sober contemplation of a universe without a God, without a providence, without prayer, without a moral government,--religion, reverence, and worship forever dead and gone,--buried with them in their graves all that was most touching in poetry, beautiful in art, elevating in science, or sublime in philosophy,--all moral distinctions perished, of course, except those base counterfeits which resolve themselves into the pursuit of physical pleasure, or the avoidance of physical pain. Let him think of worlds on worlds teeming with life, yet all surrendered to the wheels of a blind and inexorable nature crushing on eternally with her mindless laws,--revolving in her slow but endlessly-recurring cycles,--making every seeming advance but the forerunner of the direst catastrophes of ruin,--or else in an apparent endless progression ever sacrificing individual parts and individual personalities to soulless wholes, yet furnishing to our philosophy no satisfactory ground on which to decide the question, whether the eternal drama in its most universal estimate is any more likely to be one of happiness than of intense and hopeless misery. Let the atheist, and the unbeliever who is on the road to atheism, fix his mind on thoughts like these until he begins to have some conception of what it is to be "without God and without hope in the world." Let him dwell on this sad orphanage, until in the intolerable loneliness of his spirit he is driven for shelter to the idea of a personal law-making, law-executing Deity, and is forced to admit that no doctrine of moral retribution, however stern, no creed, even of the most gloomy and fanatical religionist, ever presented so many difficulties as a rejection of those ideas on which all religion is founded.

Again, we need seasons of thought and thoughtfulness, not only on the ground that they are rational and demanded by the dignity of our rational nature, but because, moreover, they constitute the _true rest_ of the soul. It is a gross and pernicious error that would make the idea of rest, especially spiritual rest, the same with that of indolence and passivity. It is as false as it would be in physics to confound rest with inertia. The former is the opposite of motion simply, the latter the negation of strength and force. Rest is equilibrium, a duality of forces;--indolence the loss of the soul's balance, and the consequent prostration of its power. Rest is refreshing; renewing, strengthening, recuperative;--indolence the generator of a greater and still greater lassitude. Rest is a positive,--indolence a negative state. Rest is resistance (_re-sto_), recovery, internal energy,--indolence a base and effeminate yielding, ever followed by a loss of spiritual vitality.

It is in the light of such a contrast we see how very different a thing is this true rest of the soul from that dissipation, or vacancy of all thought, with which some would confound it. Else it would not be held out to us, in the Scriptures, as the peculiar bliss, or blessedness, of the heavenly world. The idea this sweet and holy word presents to the contemplative mind is, indeed, the opposite of a busy, bustling, _restless_ progress, the highest conception of which is an ever lasting movement of the intellect adding fact to fact, each as unsatisfactory as the preceding, and never bringing the soul nearer to any perfect quietude; but then, on the other hand, it is not the vacant passivity of which the transcendental Buddhist dreams, any more than the indolent lassitude of the Epicurean paradise. It is a contemplative energy, finding repose in itself, and deriving sustaining strength from its calm upward gaze upon the highest and most invigorating truth. In such an _upward_ rather than _onward_ movement is found the proper end and highest value of the Christian Sabbath.

Suave tempus consecratum
Spiritus ad requiem.

It is the nature of this elevated communion to strengthen instead of wearying the soul, and hence to impart to it a new energy for the performance of the duties of life.

We would confidently test the truth of these positions by an appeal to practical experience. There is exhibited now and then, a vast deal of sentimental philanthropy in decrying what are called the religious abuses of the Sabbath. It proceeds generally from those who would confine themselves to the physical or purely secular view. Great stress is laid on mere bodily relaxation. Utter vacancy, too, of mind, or what is worse, mere pleasure-seeking is held forth as the source of refreshment from past labors, and of recovered strength for those to come. The toil-worn mechanic is invited to the place of popular amusement, or to convey himself and his family to some scene of rural enchantment and festivity. We are pointed for appropriate examples to the parks of London, and the boulevards of Paris. The Sabbath, they say, is a noble institution; but then there should be great care to guard against the perversions of Pharisaic or Puritanical bigotry. It may be well to give a part of the day to the services of religion; but then, the purest religion consists in admiring God's works in the natural world; and the poor laborer who can take his wife and children on a ride to Bloomingdale, or indulges them with a walk in the Elysian Fields, is performing a more acceptable service than he who makes the Sabbath a weariness by confining himself to his own dwelling, or spending any considerable part of it within the still more gloomy walls of some religious conventicle.

We would not impeach the motives or the philanthropy of those who talk in this style. Doubtless they are sincere; for there is certainly an extreme plausibility in such a view of the matter, especially as respects that class who have no other day of relaxation. There are parts of the picture, too, to which the sternest Sabbatarian would take no objection, if in any way they could be practically separated from the rest. Pure air is certainly favorable, not only to the physical, but to the moral health. The observation of nature, to say the least, is not opposed to devotion, although it requires some previous devotion to make that observation what it ought to be, or to prevent its being consistent with the most profane and godless state of the mind and heart. Where these can be enjoyed without danger of perverted example, or other evils, which, in respect to our crowded city population are almost inseparable from such indulgence, he must be a bigot indeed who would deny them to the poor, or regard them as a desecration of the Sabbath.

But there is another side to this picture, and other truths having a bearing upon the argument, in support of which we might let go all a priori reasoning, and appeal directly to facts of observation. We will not take an extreme case, or rather, what is well known to be a common case with the Sabbath haunters of Hoboken and other rural purlieus. We will not take the intemperate, the gambling, or the debauched. Let two sober and industrious families be selected from the ranks of the laboring poor. One man devotes the day to pleasant rural excursions with his wife and children. We would not pass upon him a sanctimonious censure, although we might doubt the philosophy as well as the piety of his course. He has abstained from intoxicating drinks, from the lower sensual indulgences, from profane and vicious company. But he has sought simply relaxation for the body, and the negative pleasure of vacancy or of passive musing for the mind. The other pater-familias would, indeed, desire pure air for himself and little ones, purer air than can be obtained in the confined and populous street, and under other circumstances he would, doubtless, freely indulge in such a luxury; but then he knows there is a higher atmosphere still--a spiritual atmosphere--and that this, above all others, is the day in which he is to breathe its purity, and inhale a new inspiration from its invigorating life. He kneels with his children around the morning household altar--he goes with them to the Sabbath-school and to church--the remainder of the day is spent in devotion or meditation--and the evening, perhaps, is given to the social prayer-meeting. Oh, the gloomy drudgery! some would be ready to exclaim. We would not deny that there might be excess even here; but can we hesitate in deciding which of these two families will proceed to their weekly toil on Monday morning with more invigoration of spirit--ay, and of body, too, derived from the soul's refreshment? To which has the day been the truest _Sabbath_, the most real _test_? In deciding this question, we need only advert to our former analysis. There has been, in the one case, an utter mistaking of the true idea of rest. Experience has shown, and ever will show, that all mere pleasure-seeking, for its own sake, all vacancy or passivity of soul, ever exhausts, ever dissipates, and, in the end, renders both mind and body less fitted for the rugged duties of life than continued labor itself. In the train of these evils come also satiety, disappointment, a sense of personal degradation that no philosophy can wholly separate from idle enjoyment; and all these combined produce that aversion to regular labor, which is so often to be observed as the result of an ill-spent Sabbath. The body, it is true, belonging as it does wholly to the world of material nature, needs the repose of passivity; but the spirit can never indulge itself long in conscious indolence without risking the loss of spiritual power as well as moral dignity. Its true rest--we can not too often repeat it--is not the rest of _inertia_, but that which comes from an intercommuning with a higher world of thought and a higher sphere of spiritual life. This it finds in those great truths Christianity has brought down to us, and by the weekly exhibition of which, more than any thing else, our modern world is distinguished from the ancient.

The picture we have presented of the Sabbath-keeping laborer is no rare or fancy sketch. The socialist, indeed, ignores his existence. Such writers as Fourier, and Prudhom, and Louis Blanc, and Victor Hugo, and Martineau, know nothing about him. They see, and are determined to see, in the condition of the poor only a physical degradation, from which their own earthy and earthly-minded philosophy can alone relieve him. Nothing is more wholly inconceivable to a philanthropist of this class than what Chalmers styles "the charm of intercourse" with the lowly pious, or the moral sublime of that character--_the Christian poor man_. And yet it is neither rare nor strange. We make bold to affirm that it may be realized in almost every church in our city.

In this thought, too, do we find the surest test of all true social reforms. A dislike of the Sabbath, and especially of its religious observance, is an indication of their character that can not be mistaken. It is the Ithuriel's spear to detect every species of spurious philanthropy. We would not impeach the benevolent sincerity of these warm advocates of socialism. We would commend their zeal to the imitation of our Christian churches. But still it is for us a sufficient objection to the phalanx and the social commune that _they know no Sabbath_. Periods of festivity and relaxation they acknowledge, but no fixed days of holy spiritual rest, of serious thought, of soul-expanding and soul-invigorating meditation on the great things of another life. Radical as they boast to be, they present no recognition of that most radical truth, the ground of all real reforms, and so full of encouragement to the real reformer, that physical depression can not possibly continue for any length of time where there has been a true spiritual elevation--or, in other words, that this world can only be lifted from its sunken, miry social degradation by keeping strong and firmly fastened every chain that binds it to the world above.

To these ends it is not enough that each one should determine for himself the portion and proportion of his own Sabbatical times. "Six days shalt thou labor; but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord." We urge it not as Scriptural proof--which would be contrary to the leading design and method of our argument--but as illustrative of the importance of one recurring period for all, and of the benefits to be derived from a community of act and feeling in its observance. We need all the strength that can come from a common prejudice, if any should choose so to call it, in favor of certain stated and well-known times. In distinction from the profanity that would utterly deny a Sabbath, there is a false hyper-spiritualism that would make all seasons, all places, and all acts, alike _holy_--or, in its sentimental cant, every day a Sabbath, every work a worship, and every feeling a prayer. Now, besides destroying the radical sense of the word _holy_, this is in opposition alike to Scripture and to human experience. Both teach us that there must be (at least in our present state) alternations of the holy and the common, the spiritual and the worldly, and that each interest is periled, as well by their false fusion, as by that destruction of the true analogy which would cause the one to be out of all proportion to the other. A stated period, too, is required to give intensity to thought and warmth to devotion. The greatest pleasure of a truly devout mind, is in the idea of contemporary communion with others, and nothing is more repugnant to it than a proud reliance upon its own individual spirituality.

To give the day, then, all its rightful power over the soul, there is needed that hallowed character which can only come from what may be called a sacred conventionality. Every one who has been brought up in a religious community must feel the force of this, even if he does not understand its philosophy. In consequence of it, the Sabbath seems to differ, physically, as well as morally, from all other days. In its deep religiousness every thing puts on a changed appearance. Nature reposes in the embrace of a heavenly quietude. There seems to be a different air, a different sky; the clouds are more serene; the sun shines with a more placid glory. There is a holiness in the trees, in the waters, in the everlasting hills, such as the mind associates with no other period. Thousands have felt it, but never was it better described than in the lines of Leyden:

With silent awe I hail the sacred morn,
That scarcely wakes while all the fields are still;
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne,
A graver murmur echoes from the hill,
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn,
The sky-lark warbles in a tone less shrill--
Hail light serene! hail sacred Sabbath morn!

Or in those verses of Graham, which, if an imitation, are certainly an improvement--especially in the moral conception which forms the close of his entrancing picture:

Calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud,
The black-bird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen;
While from yon lowly roof whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals
The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise.

Editor's Easy Chair.

AN OLD GENTLEMAN'S LETTER.

THE STORY OF "THE BRIDE OF LANDECK."

The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which take exceedingly picturesque forms from their peculiar geological structure. I can not stop in my tale to enter into any details regarding the geology of the country; but I remember once talking to Buckland about it, when I met him with Professor Sedgwick at the English Cambridge, some two or three-and-twenty years ago. Poor Buckland has, I hear, since fallen into indifferent health; but at the period I speak of he was full of life and energy, and one of the most entertaining men I ever met. Our acquaintance was of no long duration; for I was hurrying through that part of the world with great rapidity, and had hardly time to accomplish all that I proposed. I saw a great deal of him, however, and heard a great deal of him then, and once afterward; and there was a certain sort of enthusiastic simplicity about him, not uncommon in men of science, which made him the subject of many good stories, whether true or false I will not pretend to say. His fondness for every thing connected with the subject of Natural history amounted to a complete passion; and he was not at all scrupulous, they said, as to whom it was exercised upon. I heard a laughable anecdote illustrative of this propensity. There had been, shortly before, a great meeting at Oxford of scientific men, and of those fashionable hangers-on upon the skirts of science, who feeling themselves but so many units in the mass of the _beau monde_, seek to gain a little extrinsic brilliancy from stars and comets, strata, atoms, and machinery. Buckland asked a good number of the most distinguished of all classes to dine with him on one of the days of this scientific fair. During the morning he delivered a lecture in his lecture-room before all his friends upon Comparative Anatomy--showed the relation between existing and extinct species of animals--exhibited several very perfect specimens of fossil saurians--dissected a very fine alligator sent to him from the Mississippi--washed his hands--walked his friends about Oxford, and went home to dinner. His house and all his establishment were in good style and taste. His guests congregated; the dinner table looked splendid, with glass, china, and plate, and the meal commenced with excellent soup.

"How do you like that soup?" asked the Doctor, after having finished his own plate, addressing a famous _gourmand_ of the day.

"Very good, indeed," answered the other; "Turtle, is it not? I only ask because I did not find any green fat."

The Doctor shook his head.

"I think it has somewhat of a musky taste," said another; "not unpleasant, but peculiar."

"All alligators have," replied Buckland. "The Cayman peculiarly so. The fellow whom I dissected this morning, and whom you have just been eating--"

There was a general rout of the whole guests. Every one turned pale. Half-a-dozen started up from table. Two or three ran out of the room and vomited; and only those who had stout stomachs remained to the close of an excellent entertainment.

"See what imagination is," said Buckland. "If I had told them it was turtle, or terrapin, or birds'-nest soup--salt water amphibia or fresh, or the gluten of a fish from the maw of a sea bird, they would have pronounced it excellent, and their digestion been none the worse. Such is prejudice."

"But was it really an alligator?" asked a lady.

"As good a calf's head as ever wore a coronet," answered Buckland.

The worthy Doctor, however, was sometimes the object, as well as the practicer of jokes and hoaxes. I remember hearing him make a long descriptive speech regarding some curious ancient remains which had been displayed to him by Mr. B----, who was neither more nor less than a notorious _charlatan_. They consisted in conical excavations, at the bottom of which were found various nondescript implements, which passed with the worthy Doctor as curious relics of an almost primæval age. One third of the room at least was in a laugh during the whole time; for the tricks of the impostor who had deceived the professor--very similar to those of Doctor Dousterswivel--had been completely exposed about a year before at Lewis, in Sussex; and witty Barham, the well-known Tom Ingoldsby, handed about the room some satirical verses struck off upon the occasion. Indeed, though eminent as a geologist and palæontologist, Buckland went out of his depth when he dabbled in antiquarian science. But with a weakness common to many Englishmen of letters, he aimed greatly at universality; and in the same day I have heard him deliver a long disquisition upon the piercing of stone walls by a peculiar sort of snail, and a regular oration upon the spontaneous combustion of pigeons' dung.

The celebrated Whewell, whom I met at the same time, was another who aimed at universal knowledge, but with better success. There was no subject could be started which he was not prepared to discuss on the instant, and I heard of an attempt made to puzzle him, which recoiled with a severe rap upon the perpetrators thereof. Four young but somewhat distinguished men determined to put Whewell's readiness at all points to the test the first time they should meet him together, by starting some subject agreed upon between them, the most unlikely for a clergyman and a mathematician to have studied. The subject selected, after much deliberation, was Chinese musical instruments. The last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was obtained, and studied diligently; and then Whewell was invited to dinner. Music, musical instruments, Chinese musical instruments, were soon under discussion. Whewell was perfectly prepared, entered into all the most minute details, and gave the most finished description of every instrument, from a Mandarin gong to a one-stringed lute. At length, however, the young men thought they had caught him at fault. He differed from the Encyclopædia, and the statements of that great work were immediately thrown in his teeth.

"I know that it is so put down," answered Whewell, quietly; "but it will be altered in the next edition. When I wrote that article, I was not sufficiently informed upon the instrument in question."

English Universities are often very severely handled by would-be reformers. But one thing is perfectly certain, whatever may be the faults in their constitution, they have produced, and do still produce, men of deeper, more extensive, and more varied information than any similar institutions in the world. Too much license, indeed, is sometimes allowed to the young men, and sometimes, especially in former ages, this has produced very sad and fatal results. At a small supper party, to which I was invited at St. John's College, during my visit to Cambridge, a little story of College life in former times was related, which made a deep impression upon me.

Two young men, the narrator said, matriculated in the same year at one of the colleges--I think it was at St. John's itself; but am not quite sure. The one was a somewhat fiery, passionate youth, of the name of Elliot: the other grave, and somewhat stern; but frank, and no way sullen. His name was Bailey. As so frequently happens with men of very dissimilar character, a great intimacy sprang up between them. They were sworn friends and companions; and during the long vacation of the second year, Bailey spent a great portion of his time at the house of Elliot's mother. In those days, before liberal notions began to prevail, this was considered as an honor; for Bailey was a man of aristocratic birth, and Elliot a plebeian. There was a great attraction in the house, however; for besides his mother, a sickly and infirm woman, Elliot's family comprised a sister, "the cynosure of neighboring eyes."

After their return to College, in one of their drinking bouts, then but too common, a quarrel took place among a number of the College youths: the officers of the University interfered, and one of them received a dangerous blow from Bailey, which put his life in jeopardy. It was judged necessary for him to fly immediately, and at the entreaty of his friend he sought an asylum in the house of Elliot's mother. After the lapse of several days, the wounded officer of the College was pronounced out of danger, and Elliot set out to inform his friend of the good tidings. Precaution, however, was still necessary, as the college officers were still in pursuit; and he went alone, and on horseback, by night, with pistols at his saddle bow, as was then customary. The distance he had to ride was some two-and-thirty miles and he arrived about midnight.

Like all young men of his temperament, Elliot was fond of dreaming dreams. He had remarked the admiration of his friend for his sister, to whom he was devotedly attached, and her evident love for him, and he had built up a little castle in the air in regard to their union, and her elevation to station and fortune. As he approached the house, no windows showed a light but those of his sister's room, and putting the horse in the stable himself, he took the pistols from the holsters, approached the house, and quietly opened the door. A great oak staircase, leading from the hall to the rooms above, was immediately within sight with the top landing, on the right of which lay his mother's chamber, and on the left that of his sister. The young man's first and natural impulse was to look up; but what was his surprise, indignation, and horror, when he beheld the door of his sister's room quietly open, and the figure of Bailey glide out upon the landing. For a moment there was a terrible struggle within him; but he restrained himself, and in as calm a tone as he could assume, said, "Come down--I want to speak with you."

Without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment, Bailey came down, and followed him out into an avenue of trees which led up to the house. The only question he asked was--"Is the man dead?"

"Come on, and I will tell you," answered the other; and when they had got some hundred yards from the house, he suddenly turned, and struck Bailey a violent blow on the face, exclaiming, "Villain and scoundrel! give me instant satisfaction for what you have done this night. There's a pistol.--No words; for by ---- either you or I do not quit this ground alive!"

Bailey attempted to speak; but the other would not hear him, and struck him again with the butt end of the pistol. The young man's blood was roused. He snatched the weapon from his hand, and retired a few paces into the full moonlight. Elliot gave the words, "One, two, three," and the two pistols were fired almost at the same moment.

The next morning, at an early hour, Mrs. Elliot, now very ill, said to her daughter, who had been watching by her bedside all night, "I wish, my dear child, you would send some one to Mr. Bailey, to say I desire to speak with him. After what passed between us three the day before yesterday, I am sure he will willingly relieve a mother's anxiety, and let me see you united to him before I die. It must be very speedy, Emma; for my hours are drawing to a close, and I fear can not even be protracted till your dear brother can be sent for."

Emma Elliot gazed at her mother for a moment with tearful eyes, and then answered, as calmly as she could, "I can call him myself, mamma. He sleeps in my old room now, since the wind blew down the chimney of that he had formerly."

"No, send one of the servants," said her mother; and in a few minutes after, Mr. Bailey was in the room. He was a man of a kind heart, and generous feelings, and but the slightest shade of hesitation in the world was visible in the consent he gave to an immediate union with Emma Elliot; but both she and her mother remarked that he was deadly pale.

The laws of England were not so strict in those times as they are now in regard to marriage. The clergyman's house was not more than a stone's throw from the dwelling, and the priest was instantly summoned and came.

"It is strange," he said. "Mr. Bailey," just before the ceremony. "As I walked up the avenue, I saw a great pool of blood."

"Nothing else?" asked Mr. Bailey, with a strange and bewildered look.

"There were poachers out last night," said the old housekeeper, who had been brought into the room as one of the witnesses; "for I heard two shots very close to the house."

Never was a joyful ceremony more melancholy--in the presence of the dying--with the memory of the dead. After it was over, one little circumstance after another occurred to arouse fears and suspicions. A strange, hired horse was found in the stable. Then came the news from Cambridge that young Elliot had set out the night before, no one knew whither. Then two pistols were found in the grass by the side of the avenue. Then drops of blood, and staggering steps were traced across the grass court to a small shrubbery which led to the back of the house, and there the dead body of the son and brother was found, lying on its face, as if he had fallen forward in attempting to reach a door in the rear of the building.

Mrs. Elliot died that night, without having heard of her son's fate. Investigations followed: every inquiry was made; and a coroner's jury was summoned. They returned what is called an open verdict, and the matter passed away from the minds of the general public.

But there was one who remembered it. There was one upon whose mind it wore and fretted like rust upon a keen sword blade. His home was bright and cheerful; his wife was fond, faithful, and lovely; beautiful children grew up around his path like flowers; riches were his, and worldly honors fell thick upon him; but day by day he grew sterner and more sad; day by day the cloud and the shadow encompassed him more densely. Of his children he was passionately fond; and his wife--oh, how terribly he loved her! Happy for him, she was not like many women--like too many--whom affection spoils, whom tenderness hardens, who learn to exact in proportion to that which is given, and who, when the utmost is done, still, "like the horse-leeches' daughter, cry 'more, more!'" He adored, he idolized her. Her lightest wish, her idlest fancy--her caprices, if she had any--were all gratified as soon as they were formed. Opposition to her will seemed to him an offense, and disobedience to her lightest command by any of her household, was immediately checked or punished. Was he making retribution?--Was he trying to atone?--Was he seeking to compensate for a great injury? God only knows. But happy, happy for him that Emma Bailey was not like other women; that spoiling could not spoil her: that indulgence had no debasing effect.

Still he grew more sad. It might be that every time he held her to his heart, he remembered that he had slain her brother. It might be, that when she gazed into his eyes, with looks of undiminished love and confidence, he felt that there was a dark secret hidden beneath the vail through which he fancied she saw him, which, could she have beheld it, would have turned all that passionate affection to bitterness and hate. It might be that he knew he was deceiving--the saddest, darkest, most despairing consciousness that can overload the heart of man.

At length, a time came, when confidence--if ever confidence was to be given upon this earth--was necessary upon his part. He was struck with fever. He had over-exerted himself in some works of humanity among his poorer neighbors. It was a sickly season. God had given one of those general warnings, which he sometimes addresses to nations and to worlds--warnings, trumpet-tongued; but against which men close their ears. He fell sick--very sick. The strength of the strong man was gone: the stout heart beat feebly though quick: the energies of the powerful brain were at an end; and wild fancies, and chaotic memories reveled in delirious pranks, where reason had once reigned supreme. He spoke strange words in his wanderings; but Emma sat by his bedside night and day, gazing upon his wan, pale face and glazed eye, smoothing his hot pillow, holding his clammy hand, moistening his parched lip. Sometimes overpowered with weariness, a moment's slumber blessed her away from care; and then, when the critical sleep came, how she watched, and wept, and prayed!

He woke at length. A nurse and physician were in the room; and the first said he looked much better; the second said he hoped the crisis was past. But the husband beckoned the wife to him, and she kneeled beside him, and threw her arms over him, and leaned her head with its balmy tresses upon his aching bosom.

"I have something to tell you," he said, in a faint voice. "It will be forth. It has torn and rent me for many a year. Now, that the presence of God is near to me, it must be spoken. Bring your ear nearer to me, my Emma."