the same hand; and when they cease to agree, I pause and doubt." It would be well if the spirit of Christian humility and charity which dictated the foregoing remarks, could supplant the tone of dogmatism, conceit, and intolerance, displayed by some religious teachers. Happily the number of those to whom our censures apply is not large. We hope and believe that the great mass of our religious community deprecate, as strongly as ourselves, the errors of misguided zeal. We speak not less for christianity than for science. How feeble must be one's faith in a creed, who exhibits such nervous timidity lest every new discovery in science should undermine it! Will mankind have confidence in a religious belief which trembles at the voice of science? Can religion secure itself by building up barriers against physical truth? Do Protestant Christians dread the diffusion of knowledge? If the epithets 'skeptic' and infidel' continue to be scattered, so freely and unjustly, by pharisees and bigots, they will soon become honorable designations: men of science, generally, will be included in the class of unbelievers, and the slaves of ignorance, superstition, and stupidity, will alone retain the name of Christians! In this age, and in this country, the harsh denunciations of the intolerant and self-righteous have few terrors. Nothing has been gained by denying to Unitarians the name of Christians; nothing will be gained by denouncing physical discoveries as infidelity. A spirit of investigation is generally diffused; and it is rather stimulated than repressed by the report of forbidden knowledge. The human race,' says Cousin, is at this day assuming the robe and ensigns of virility; it has determined to see clearly into more things than one, which have hitherto been kept in darkness by the respect for former years.' Curiosity is but excited by opposition; and the surest means of disturbing the balance of the judgment, and driving inquirers into the extreme of skepticism, is to denounce a real progress toward truth as falsehood and infidelity. We are persuaded, that in deprecating misguided and intolerant zeal, we attack the strongest obstacle to the spread of pure religion.

H.

LINES

SCRATCHED ON HER LOOKING-GLASS, BY A MISS IN HER TEENS.'

BEFORE the men begin to woo,
And even when the fellows do,
Oh! many a silent hour must pass
Between a maiden and her glass:

But ah! such têtes-à têtes must be
Too quiet for good company!

And though one loves to use one's tongue,
Yet 't is not to a thing that's dumb;

"Tis far more pleasant sure to talk

And laugh with something that can walk;
For what's a mirror, to the eyes
Beneath whose beam affection lies?

W. H. S.

* Aimé - Martin, De l'Education des Meres de Famille, etc. See Foreign Quarterly Review, for July, 1836.

MORALITY OF CHILDHOOD.

WRITERS on education lay great stress upon the cultivation of early years; and the reason they give, is, that the mind may be qualified for usefulness and happiness at some future period. People in general seem to forget that childhood is a part of existence, and is capable of constituting an individual life, though it be cut off in its very bloom and verdure; that some beings are only born to die young, the purpose of their creation being fulfilled in a short space. This season, for the most part, is regarded as if it possessed no consequence, apart from its relation to the remainder of life. Hence children are treated as if they had no feelings; their wishes, tastes, and impulses are opposed with savage authority, and the vulgar error often obtains, that the more the child is cramped, restrained, and brought under, the better man he will make. But this error is common to the treatment of the child, and to man's treatment of himself. Point, if you can, to him who is happy-contented now. All the world are doing something which they think is going to produce happiness. All suffer for the present in behalf of the future. No matter, then,' it is said, 'how painful infancy is made, so that the child have the greater chance for happiness, if he live, in time to come.'

I wish to consider, briefly, this period of life by itself. I wish to separate it from the rest of existence, and, like a precious gem, to insulate it in its own purity, and gaze upon it in its own unalloyed loveliness. It has to my mind an importance in the moral world, distinct from maturity, not acknowledged. Taking no part in the business of society, not even gaining its own support, and being chiefly a care and weight to parents, no wonder that in a world of dollars and cents it should be looked upon as insignificant in itself, and only to be valued for what it may become.

But childhood has immortal mind; it reasons, compares, and judges. It has feelings; how pure! how angelic! It has character; how elevated! how free from envy, jealousy, and hatred! How generous is childhood! How quickly does it melt at the sight of suffering it can understand! How ready is it to relieve hunger, and distress in any form, by any sacrifice of its little means! It has not learned the importance of wealth; it knows nothing of the ostentation of pride; it is under the influence of none of the factitious distinctions of the world, and it acts true to nature. How beautiful then must childhood be! It cares not whether its play-fellow be rich or poor, black or white; it studies not the texture of the cloth—which in the best personage covers only poor humanity-before it can make up its mind to look kindly or not upon its hap-hazard acquaintances. Ít knows nothing of genealogy; but all it cares to know is, whether those in contact with itself be good, according to the simple standard by which it forms its opinions. What a morality is taught us here! What a satire upon human conduct is the simplicity of childhood!

'Papa,' says a little rosy-cheeked boy in the city to his father, 'why must not I ride about with the milk-man?' 'My dear,' answers his father, it is not proper for you to be seen in a milk-cart; you shall ride with me in the carriage this afternoon.' 'But, papa,'

persists the little fellow, as he catches hold of his father's skirts, and jumps along by his side, trying to get sight of his face, or to get his father to look in his countenance for childhood argues its causes by the muscles of the face-'papa, I say I had rather ride with the milk-man, because he lets me hold the reins, and drive.' 'Well, well, my dear, you must not, because papa says so; there, be a good boy, and you shall go with me this afternoon.'

The little boy shrinks back, and yields to authority; perhaps he drops a few tears of disappointment; but, before they are dry upon his cheek, a smile, at some new project of sport, lights up his features, and he is happy. Nay, he will soon forget his sorrow, greet his father with a kiss, when he returns, and go to ride with him in his carriage; and if he is a fine boy, and has been suffered to express his pretty thoughts without reserve, he will minister more to the pleasure of the ride, than forty solemn, dignified, ostentatious men, who treat little boys and girls as if they were so many monkeys.

The moral influence of childhood is beautifully shown by Moore, in his Paradise and the Peri.' A Peri is seeking for some gift which shall gain him admittance to Heaven. He has carried thither gold and precious stones, but such offerings are not sufficient. At last, wearied with his fruitless attempts, he is almost in despair of seeing Paradise, when he beholds upon the earth a man, full of crime and wickedness, fresh from some scene of murder and baseness, alight near a brook, to refresh his jaded steed. Under the shade of a tree that overhangs the brook, a little child is on his knees in prayer. The stranger is overcome by the suddenness of such an appeal to his conscience, and perhaps dictated by the spirit of God, he falls prostrate beside the supplicating little being, and for the first time in his life, tears of penitence wet his cheek. The Peri speeds swiftly, and catches the falling tear; he bears it to the portals of Heaven. Wide open the gates of God's house to receive so precious a token of human repentance, and the Peri enters as the bearer of the token. Jesus Christ took little children in his arms and blessed them. He said we must become as little children;' and this perhaps causes us to attribute so much importance to the morality of childhood.

SHE lieth on her flower-strown bed, as if a slumber deep
Its balm upon her senses shed, but ah! it is not sleep!

Her heart knows now no feverish throb- she heareth not the sound
Of the mournful sighs and heavy sobs of weeping friends around.

A gentle smile is resting still, upon her features pale -
The dark curls on her forehead chill, part like a sable veil;
Her eyes are closed - her cheek the same, save that it hath no tear-
Yet this is death! - the thing we name with shuddering and fear!

Oh! well she knew that, though her lot had been supremely blest,
Though the world seemed a happy spot, yet this was not her rest!'
The richer feelings of her heart to earth she had not given,
For her's had been that 'better part,' to trust alone in Heaven!

ARRIA:

OR THE ROMAN WIFE.

'ARRIA, the wife of Cæcina Poëtus, a man of consular digaity, who died in the forty-second year of the Christian era. Her husband and son were both at the same time dangerously ill. The son died, but the mother concealed the distressing event from the sick father; and whenever she appeared in his presence, assumed a cheerful countenance, and answered his inquiries res pecting the deceased with so much courage and serenity, that she even prevented the suspicion of his death. When her husband was confined at Rome by the command of Claudius, she insisted upon attending him; and when the order came for him to destroy himself, observing his hesitation, she plunged a dagger in her breast; then presenting it, covered with blood, to her husband, exclaimed, in words celebrated by the ancients: 'Poëtus, it is not painful!' TACITUS' ANNAL.