author Theocritus. This production is the more valuable, as it has handed down to posterity the superstitious rites of the Romans, and the heathen notions of enchantment. Virgil himself seems to have been conscious of the beauty of his subject, and the dignity of the person whom he was addressing, and accordingly has given us, by the fertility of his genius, and the brilliancy of his imagination, some of the most sublime images that are to be found in any of the writings of antiquity.' "Some of the Christian fathers have stated, that on the eve of the birth of Christ, all the oracles of the heathen world ceased. It is certain that the Delphic oracles grew into disrepute about this time; but the Eleusinian mysteries, and those of the Bona Dea, were kept up much longer. Milton adopted the belief of the early fathers of the church, and has expressed his poetical opinion, in an ode upon the subject of the silence of the oracles, which is full of deep interest and exquisite beauties. But there is no more reason to think that he was convinced of this as a fact, than that he believed all the incidents in his Paradise Lost. "All superstitions are to be traced to the diseases of the body or the mind. The filtres and charms are made for a diseased body or mind. Sometimes they may be efficacious, by chance; sometimes nature, the best of nurses, overcomes all obstacles, and heals the malady in spite of the nostrums prescribed. Among the ignorant, in all nations and ages, these panaceas are found. The greater the ignorance, the more efficacious the charm. The charm called the Obi, or Obiah, which is now practised in Jamaica, and other slave-holding places, was brought from Africa, and is now known throughout the country bordering on the Senegal and on the Gambia, and probably is a very ancient superstition. Something resembling this charm has been practised by the Indians all over the North American continent. "Feeble minds, under the influence of supposed guilt, are more likely to be affected by superstitious feelings than strong ones, full of deeds of blood. Sickness, fatigue, and hunger, would have made Hercules a whining child, as chills and fevers did the mighty Cæsar; but a sound mind in a sound body, with a good education and a clear conscience, will never fear the charms of superstition, the spells of witchcraft, nor the power of magic. The seeds of superstition are too often sown in the nursery, and cherished in our youthful days. Bugbears are too often mingled with lullabies, and raw-head and bloody-bones with the first tales given to amuse infancy. The household divinities should all be pure, kind, lovely characters, having countenances of beauty, and tongues of truth. The stories of the fireside should be free from all hobgoblins and monsters. There are perhaps many things in our history, and even in our natures and our hopes, hard to be understood, and some portion of them that the Great Author of our race never intended that we should be fully acquainted with. A sound mind will very readily comprehend enough of its powers and capacities to teach it, never to strive to attain what is above human reach, or to sink with fear at that which it cannot readily explain. Seen by the light of philosophy and sound sense, all the marvellous deeds of the magician, the astrologer, and the whole tribe of those who attempt to deceive the people, sink into those of common men." SONG OF THE EXILE. FROM THE GERMAN, BY C. M. SAWYER. SEE the clouds above us hasting; Ah, with them might I but flee! Haste not thus in your career! As they came, ah, they're departing, Swifter still they ride the air. Longings filling all my breast, From thee, home, how deep my anguish- Grant me yet one fond petition, Wanderers of the viewless air; Though you leave me here, a mission That my heart remembers yet- THE GLORY OF EARTH IS EVANESCENT IN ITS DURATION. BY BRO. G. W. MAGERS. How vain is Earth's glory, how flitting its light, On a bright beautiful morning in May, I stood amid a garden, redolent with the breath of spring's earliest flowers. The earth, was beautifully arrayed in her new carpet of verdure; the trees, bedecked with leaflets green, interspersed with blushing blossoms: The lovely flowers, looked timidly up toward the day-god, as if anxious to drink in his cheering beams: the early songsters, were caroling their wildest, freest notes of melody. The blue arch of Heaven, was spread out serenely o'er the bounding earth; without a cloud to dim, or darken its beautiful surface: all was life, and beauty, and hopefulness! I left the place, with my mind filled with ideas of poetry, with thoughts of immortality! I returned again, and lo! what a change! The beautiful walls of the garden were thrown down! The earth now presented a stark, dreary, and sterile aspect. The trees looked barren and leafless! The flowers, the lovely flowers had "Withered at the north wind's breath!" The birds, which erewhile gladdened the place with their thrilling lays, had flown. Heaven's broad expanse was overspread with threatening clouds. The cold, hoarse, hollow winds of December, were sweeping gloomily o'er the garden; sighing the funeral dirge of the flowers; singing the requiem of departed beauty, and vernal glory! All was cold, and lifeless. With my heart saddened at the sight, I turned away, inwardly exclaiming, what a striking emblem of the mutability of all earthly things; of the instability, and transitory nature of all human affairs!— Thus is it, with man's fondest hopes, and proudest achievements! How soon is the garden of his cherished anticipations invaded by the stroke of death, or the blast of misfortune; and in an hour, the foundations upon which the hopes of years were built, may be swept away, and all his grand designs frustrated. Although he may "to-day, put forth the tender leaves of hope; and to-morrow, bear his blushing honors thick upon him ;" yet "the third day there may come a chilling frost," and whilst he is exulting in prosperity, and luxury, all his "greatness" may be laid "level with the dust!" Passing away, passing away, all things beneath the sky, All, all, that blooms with life to-day; must wither, fade and die! In the blended past, what resolutions, and convulsions, and changes, have taken place in the affairs of men and nations. Nations have arisen up, and stood forth boldly in all the pride and pomp of power and glory, but those nations have fallen; their glory has departed, their sceptres have been wrested from them; their thrones have up-turned, and mingled with the dust; and around the brow of humbled majesty, the chaplets of mortified pride, and blasted ambition, have enwreathed themselves! Sects, and parties have come forth upon the bustling arena of mortal strife, and each has in turn put forth its momentous, or imbecile effort; and though great impulses may have been inspired; and great ends accomplished, and greater ones contemplated; yet after flourishing a while they began to languish, and finally they died! As a leaf, from some o'er hanging limb, Falls on the surface of a journeying stream, Thus has it been with much of human hope, and mortal enterprise !— Where is now the glory of those oriental cities of other centuries, where thronging thousands were once bustling about, on the noisy arena of commercial life? Where is Balbec, Palmyra, and Pompei; with their myriad populations? and where Ninevah, Babylon, and Jerusalem of old, with their teeming millions, and their hill-tops enthroned with stately palaces, almost outvieing in splendor, the lustre of the noon-day sun? Some of those cities have dwindled down into insignificant fishing villages! The bowels of the earth have swallowed others, those among them, the locality of which can be at all identified, are but miserable wrecks of former grandeur; the silent, yet signal, and impressive monitors proclaiming emphatically to all the world that all human power is imbecile; that all earthly glory is evanescent in its nature; and rapidly passing away: and all that can now be said of these once splendid cities, and vast nations which contained them is; "here once flourished a mighty city! This was once the site of a powerful empire!" Where's the glory, and what the end, of that ambitious spirit, whose military prowess gained him the mastery over the whole known world; and who, not content with having attained to the zenith of power and glory; was prompted to weep because there were no more nations to subdue to his dominions! Although he immortalized his name, and built up to perpetuate his memory, a monument as enduring as the "everlasting hills;" yet the results of his achievements are scarcely discernible; and Alexander the mighty conquerer became a drunken sot, and died in a fit of debauchery! And what has become of the splendid military conquests, of him of more modern date, yet of similar ambition and aim? He who stretched out his iron sceptre over the nations of the east; and made all Europe tremble at his nod? Who filled all Europe with weeping and desolation; and drenched the land with the blood of the slain! Who claimed as his own, the princely heritages of monarchs, and despots; and trampled on the crowns of kings and princes! Who burst asunder the holy ties of matrimonial affinity, to subserve his base purposes; and brought ecclesiastical power to submit to his sway!Go, visit him in his prison-abode on the secluded, rock-bound island of St. Helena. Stript of his power; robbed of his glory; guarded, watched, and subdued! His proud, ambitious, eagle spirit, could not submit contentedly to such humiliation; and after pineing awhile over his prostrate condition he died, and lo! a heap of dust is all that now remains of the giant Napoleon! He who paralyzed the nations of the earth with fear; and shook the political world to its centre! Thus plainly demonstrating the fact, that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave!" Thus in like manner have passed away, the millions who hung with extacy upon the living fire, the fervid pathos, of the eloquence of Demosthenes, Cicero, Tully, &c.! Their thundering, overwhelming, or captivating peals of oratory, have died away along the sunny vales of those oriental climes; and the waves of time have obliterated from existence, even from history's page, the myriads who were the willing captives of their power! The magnificent monuments of art, in sculpture, painting, &c., together with much of the glory of ancient literature, is also in ruins; or fast verging to decay! and on the face of all earthly things, whether ancient or modern, great or small; animate or inanimate; is plainly and indelibly written "CHANGE!" Amid the mutabilities, fluctuations, and changes of earth; it is a source of unqualified consolation to know, that There is a bright inheritance that fadeth not away; Unlike the flitting wealth of earth, which lives but to decay; An indisputable estate, a title to it given, By Him who holds the destinies of all in earth or Heaven There is a mansion-home, prepared for those who sorrow have, Carlisle, October, 1843. A STATE OF NATURE. WHILE labouring under the restraints that a state of civilization imposes, we are but too apt to find fault with our condition, and, if wrought to a pitch of excitement, perhaps wish that we were well out of the trammels of society, and dwelling in peace in some remote corner of the world, where law and government were alike unknown. Feelings of this description are frequently very chimerical, and, while indulging in them, we forget that the slight troubles that affect us are the penalties paid for a state of social freedom more happy than is enjoyed by almost any people.There are few countries in the world, besides the U. States, in which a virtuous family can sit down securely at their own cheerful fireside, with their door shut and bolted, and no dread upon their minds of disturbance or personal molestation. And who would not, to enjoy this great boon,. give up a little of his individual pretensions for the good of the whole ?— Man is a gregarious animal; he necessarily prefers society, with all its trammelling conditions, to a life of solitude. The natural independence enjoyed by Alexander Selkirk has its charms, and captivates many a young and ardent mind; but if put to trial, it would soon lose all its zest. The dismal quietness that would prevail, the difficulties of gaining a rude subsistence, the fear of wild beasts and venomous reptiles, the frightful idea of laying in a helpless state of disease, if not dying unheeded and uncared for, form no species of allurements, and would make us exclaim, in the words of Cowper, "Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place." A state of natural independence among fellow-men would be much more irksome and fatal, for the strong would overpower the weak, and the artful, with impunity, would circumvent the unsuspecting. There must be order-there must be law. "A state of nature (says Doctor Wade, in his excellent History of the Middle and Working Classes,) is a state of great inequality; as much so as men's abilities and physical power. It follows that it is civil, not natural liberty; which induces equity among mankind, by making the law, not force, the shield and arbiter of right. A The natural right of a man to do as he desires, and can, supposes the same right in every other person: but the exertion of so many independent rights would often cause them to clash and destroy each other. law that would restrain all, might be beneficial to all; because each might gain more by the limitation of the freedom of others, than he lost by the curtailment of his own. Natural liberty is the right of every one to go where he lists, without regard to his neighbour; civil liberty compels him to go on the public road, which is most convenient to himself, consistently with the enjoyment of the same convenience by other persons. The |