by various successive experiments, our active nature,- that is, our will, our passions, and our affections, -moulds itself to a conformity with our perceptive nature, or works out a correspondence between itself and those ideas, which beam on our Reason's eye from the original Source of Light.

There is, then, a cause, and it is a benevolent cause, for the universal inequality between our powers of conceiving and executing. Its effect is to spread out before the soul a thousand allurements attracting it towards its Author; to open a thousand different paths, all leading to the throne of God.

And thus, though this want of harmony between the two main branches of our nature be fraught with perplexities, disquietudes, and pains, yet is it a condition of our being, that conducts to issues the noblest and most desirable, even the transforming of weakness into strength; of the mortal into immortality; of the frail, ignorant child of earth into a creature bearing, distinct and radiant, the impress of the Most High God!

In the preceding views, we are presented not only with a solution, such as it is, of the great problem of human life, but an exposition of the manner in which we may, and should turn life to practical account. The work assigned us is to follow out, or give outward expression in full to our ideas,allotting the predominance, of course, to those which are demonstrated by their very essence, to be the soul's governing ideas.

First and paramount in our nature stands the moral element. First and chiefly, then, should our endeavour be to give full expression to all our moral ideas; or, in other words, to make our external acts the true representatives of our conceptions of duty.

"To act up to our light;" "to do what we think right;" "to follow the dictates of conscience; "- these are phrases with which common speech clothes our doctrine; and they tell strongly for its soundness, inasmuch as they are the spontaneous fruit of the common sense and feeling of mankind.

Again, whatever be our profession, art, or occupation; in other words, whatever be the mode in which we choose to put forth habitually the principal sum of our intellectual activity, or of our intellectual and physical activity combined,

our endeavour should be that our execution correspond, as closely as possible, to our idea of what is perfect.

"To do the best we know how;" "what is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; "these are phrases which demonstrate our doctrine not to be alien to the common sense and feeling of mankind.

The wise man's exhortation, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," bears, with equal force, on all the three modes of exerting our nature's activity, the moral, the intellectual, and the physical. "Whatsoever thou

doest," he would say, "be it of much or of little importance, do it according to the best of thy knowledge and ability. Let this be with thee a settled habit. Do not at all, – or, at least, deviate from this rule as rarely as may be, do not at all what time and opportunity will not allow thee to do according to thy utmost light and capacity."

This principle, extending from the least unto the greatest of our nature's operations, is the one only sufficient proof of our nature being in a completely healthful tone.

Our doctrine is not a mere barren interpretation of facts. It is a doctrine, in the highest sense, practical. It embodies a principle, in whose working is found the spring of all excellence of whatever kind; a principle, the degree of whose energy affords a universal measure of excellence.

Wherever you find one excelling, be it in what it may, you will, by inquiry, discover the secret of it to be, that, through a long series of efforts, each gaining on the last,he has been sustained and led onward by an idea, existing in his mind, of something superior, in the same kind, to what any one of his successive efforts has reached.

The painter and the sculptor, the architect and the poet, are each kindled and allured forward by an image of beauty or grandeur, which they strive to fix, and embody in external symbols. One effort follows another, earnest and laborious, and still they are disappointed and vexed to witness the imperfect correspondence between the image within and the symbol without. But if actuated by the spirit implied in the names they bear, the genuine spirit of the doctrine we are urging, every failure, instead of disheartening, will stimulate to further and more energetic effort. And gathering new force from defeat, even as the fabled giant became threefold stronger from every prostra

tion, they will draw continually nearer to giving complete outward expression to what is within them; that is, they will constantly improve in their respective arts.

He, in like manner, who thirsts for moral excellence, whose ambition it is to realize all that is indicated by the name Christian, he finds, in those majestic images of Christian virtues and graces, which flit across the firmament of his Reason, the spring of his noble thirst, of his high and holy ambition; and to arrest these images, and give them a permanent home in his inmost soul, and make them the counsellors of his will and the guardians of his affections, will be his settled aim and strenuous endeavour, and herein consists the process of religious culture. Fail he will, again and again; but not so will he lose courage or give over. In the words of the great Apostle, himself a model in this kind, "he is troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." Bruised and wounded, discomfited once and again, yet once and again he rallies; and stung with ingenuous shame and penetrated with wholesome regrets, he presses the more ardently forward, and will press forward until the prize is won, to which he is called by God from on high through Jesus Christ.

The ideas we have been considering, at least in their greatest vividness, belong most naturally to youth; - to the youth, I mean, of a mind, which, having been sheltered with the utmost care from evil influences, has been, at the same time, provided with such intellectual and moral nutriment, as is suited to its years. Such a mind has not become fettered by the tyrannous customs, or sophisticated by the maxims, of an artificial and imperfect state of society. There is a comparative closeness of sympathy between itself and that benign Spirit, who is the Life and Light of all things. Such a mind, therefore, swarms with images of excellence in every kind, and burns with the desire to give them outward form and feature. Wisely, therefore, said one of those clear Natures that make us rejoice in our Humanity, 'Tell him, when he is a man, to reverence the dreams of his youth.'

The worldling would stigmatize these dreams with the epithet romantic. But alas for the debasement of him, who can look back with shame on the time, when his heart

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was warm and unhackneyed, and his love a spring perpetually overflowing, and his hopes bright, and his mind full of the thoughts of all excellent deeds. Matter of triumph rather and grateful rejoicing should be the dreams of our youth. Nor this alone. They should be prophecies involving and insuring their own fulfilment. Counsel more solemn or more momentous can be addressed to no one, than that he take heed not to fall away from his early aspirations.

Let not the world cover thee with its cold, blighting shadow. Hearken not to the sophistry, which would persuade thee to substitute expediency for right; smooth hypocrisy and fair-seeming equivocation for honesty and truth, cold prudence and unfeeling self-interest for frankness and, freegushing love. Rely rather on thine own pure, spontaneous impulses, than on the narrow, frigid maxims of an unspiritual world. Let those images of truth and beauty, of good and right, which were the stars of thy youth, be the lightbeaming and warmth-diffusing suns of thy riper years. Work while it is yet day. With earnestness and perseverance, not disheartened by failure, not crushed by defeat, — strive to bring thy heart into harmony with whatsoever thy mind can conceive of universal excellence.

Thus strive thou till the end of life. And, thus striving, shalt thou accomplish the task assigned thee by thy Maker; and by His hand be crowned with "glory, honor, and immortality."

ART. III. Report on Punishment by Death. By Messrs. SULLIVAN of Boston, RANTOUL of Beverly, KENDALL of Boston, HOLDEN of Charlestown, and DAVIS of Boston, a Committee of the House of Representatives. June 9, 1831.

THE Marquis Beccaria published, in 1767, his admirable essay on Crimes and Punishments, in which he argues lucidly aad cogently against the justice and expediency of punishment by death. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was induced by the perusal of it to abolish this mode of punishment. And ever since, there has been, throughout the civilized world, a

constant progress of sentiment in favor of its abolition or infrequent infliction, a progress that has kept pace with the increase of intellectual light, with the advancement of science, with the improvement of public morals, and especially with the growth of religious knowledge, and of Christian faith and piety. The doctrine, that the legal destruction of human life is unnecessary and impolitic, has sprung up and gained ground under a light, before which antiquated errors of all kinds are disappearing. In the present age of intelligence, virtue, and philanthropy, it is maintained by many among the wisest and best of men. Whether their views are sound and well-based, it is our present purpose to inquire.

We are willing to concede at the outset, that civil government has a right to inflict capital punishment, if the public good demand it; and to rest our decision wholly on the question of expediency. In discussing this subject we shall, first, inquire, whether it be expedient to punish capitally aggressions upon property, such as arson, robbery, and the like; secondly, whether it be expedient to punish murder capitally; and, lastly, whether, if we reply negatively to the two first questions, there be any case in which it is expedient to inflict capital punishment.

I. Is it expedient to punish capitally mere aggressions upon property?

Laws, themselves the expression of public opinion, as long as they are in force, exert an influence upon it. The fact that a legislative provision attaches the same penalty to several different crimes, tends to place those crimes on the same footing in the public mind. We appeal to our readers for the truth of this remark; and ask them whether they have not looked upon the house-breaker, the highway robber, and the incendiary, with the same horror and loathing that they have felt for the murderer. Yet we doubt not that many a man has robbed, who would not at the moment have committed murder, even to save himself from the gallows, that many a man has been led by a deep sense of injury to fire his neighbour's dwelling, who would be among the first to rescue its occupants from the blazing ruins. But not only do the virtuous part of the community class crimes as the law classes them. That the viciously disposed make the same classification every one's own ob