INTEMPERANCE AMONG THE YOUNG. diamond hidden in the mine, she neither shines nor dazzles, yet she possesses an inherent worth and beauty, which equals, and even transcends that of the brightest and most beautiful ornaments of the historic page. She may not be able, like Cornelia, to send her name linked with that of the Gracchi, down the tide of time, to coming generations; but if she is a mother she can, like Cornelia, cherish her children as priceless jewels, committed to earthly caskets, and entrusted to her vigilance and care, to keep, intact, unspotted and unsullied in their heavenly beauty, by the damps and soils of earth. She cannot be Paulina, and bleed with Seneca; but if she is a wife she can every day test the fervor and devotedness of her conjugal affection by a thousand acts of selfsacrifice and tender assiduity. Her injured honor may never call her, like Lucretia, to plunge a dagger in her own heart's warm life-blood, as it leaps wildly and throbbingly along its living channel-ways; but if she has a true woman's soul, her brow will crimson, and her heart recoil, at thought of impurity and shame. A FAREWELL. BY "MAUD." FORGET me?--ah! I ask it not! I could not bear that thou shouldst blot I would not that my name should be Our paths diverge to meet again, INTEMPERANCE AMONG THE YOUNG. BY REV. A. W. M'CLURE. MOST of the slaves of intemperance become such while young men. It selects its victims from among the choicest of our youth. The father's pride, the mother's hope, the sister's delight, is stripped by the spoiler, and chained to the oppressor's chariot wheels. Taking no 218 warning from thousands of sad examples, they tamper with those seducing and dangerous stimulants, and pamper an appetite "which grows by what it feeds upon," till it devours the heart, and eats out the very life and substance of the man. Strange infatuation, which hurries so many to that bridge of broken arches, heedless of the shrieks and death-struggles of the many travellers whom it has decoyed to their destruction. Let us look at some of the temptations by which young men are lured into the snares of intemperance. 1. They are often betrayed by the natural ardor of their temperament. There is something exceedingly interesting in that overflow of animal spirits, that eager expectation and impetuous energy, which commonly characterize the young. It may be well to regard with an indulgent eye-or, at least, to scan not too closelytheir occasional outbursts of feeling, provided they are marked by no malignity of disposition, and no propensity to low and vicious gratification. Let something be pardoned to the effervescence of life in its first-drawn freshness; and let its ebullitions be looked upon as the foam of an excitement that may soon subside amid the cold realities of the world. But this same ardor of feeling, which gives them such buoyancy and elasticity of temper, and makes their company so cheering and aftrractive, is the very quality whereby they are often impelled into the mistakes of a lifetime," and into faults not to be expiated or repaired by years of penance and self-conflict. Many have lamented that there is no way to put old heads upon young shoulders. But this, surely, would be unnatural, and therefore as undesirable as it is impossible. It were far better that youthful energy and vehemence be turned into the right channels, where they may safely roll along as impetuously as they will. Even It would seem as if the native fervency of the young could crave no artificial excitement. Yet this, too often, is found not to be the case. in them a natural excitement cannot uniformly last; and when the habit of living on excitement is fixed by studied indulgence, they are strongly tempted to resort to stimulants, everywhere at hand, to force the flagging powers to fresh exertion. In their mutual intercourse, and their most intimate associations, occasions arise when they heedlessly, and without premedita tion, plunge into sad excesses. Having once broken over the bounds of early and virtuous training, they are swept along as with a flood. Or ever they are aware, their unregulated 214 INTEMPERANCE AMONG THE YOUNG. and thoughtless ardor has whirled them into the raging vortex of intemperance, and left them helpless wrecks. 2. Another source of temptation to the young arises from their intense social sympathy. They must get together;-and when together, they must be amused; and if no legitimate and innocent amusement be provided, they will almost inevitably resort to pernicious pleasures. When there is a lack of mental resources, a want of material for agreeable conversation, a deficiency of matter fitted to occupy the thoughts usefully and cheerfully, they will be almost certain to have recourse to hurtful entertainments, and will hurry each other into scenes most fatal to right character and true happiness. Multitudes of young men rush to the billiard-room and the card-table, to the ball-room and the theatre, less from taste for such things, than from mere sympathy with each other. And when they have got as far as this, it is but a short and easy step to the noisy drinking-bout and the wild carouse. There is no other way in which they can be so wrought upon as they are one by another. Who ever knew a young man to become a solitary drunkard, and to addict himself to the bottle, in his silent and secluded room? Some such there may be ; but the cases are as rare as they are disgusting. Few would begin to take the intoxicating cup if there were none like themselves to take it with them. It is the warmth of fellow-feeling which mutually heats them, till they break out into combustion, and are consumed in the fires of intemperance. 3. Another source of temptation to the young is found in their innate love of pleasure. Pleasure seems properly to belong to that stage of existence, when they are passing from the golden clouds and flowery fields of their youthful dreamland into the first flattering experiences of life, not yet corrected and sobered by disappointment. The passion for enjoyment is so strong as to make them slow in learning that he who drains the draught of gratification to the very bottom, must swallow dregs which will grievously embitter the soul. "Tis sweet to sip of pleasure's cup; intervals. This may be had for money at any hour of the day or night. It is to be had so easily, that indolence, as well as sensuality, invites its aid. Alas! that false ideas of pleasure should obtain such early and obstinate lodgment in the mind. How many, in mad pursuit of this fancied happiness, become the prey of grim and lasting misery! 4. Another source of temptation to the young is found in the corrupt usages of society. The drinking usages of society have slain their tens of thousands. The customs and fashions which have mingled the fascinations of the cup with all the rites of hospitality, with the gayeties of every festival and public celebration, and with the enthusiasm of the political gathering, have lured to destruction full many an unwary youth. Interperance is peculiarly a social vice, and has insinuated itself into all the currents of social life. Young men, as they come forward into the world, and see how the wine-cup is exalted on all occasions, intruding at the nuptial feast, the dinnerparty, the evening entertainment, and the more casual intercourse of acquaintances and friends, can hardly help forming an exaggerated opinion of its importance. He is in danger of considering it as essential to his gentility, and even his manliness. The drinking usages of society are smoothing and paving the paths that lead so many to destruction. It is in respect to these usages that a great reform is needed,-one that shall banish the baleful bowl from the festive board and the social circle. 5. Young men are exposed to severe temptation from the eagerness of bad men to get their money. To this end, neither pains nor expense are spared. Even literature is debased, and the muses are debauched, to grace the orgies of Bacchus. Resorts for dissipation are opened, and garnished with lavish cost and enticing decorations, to invite the company of the young and gay. There is an active emulation among splendid saloons and magnificent club-rooms, which shall most attract the spirited young man, flush and free of his money. And when, by his extravagance in these gilded halls of sin, he is shortened of his means, he finds abundance of cheaper places of resort, adapted to his sinking fortunes and failing reputation, till he descends at last to the lowest retreats, where vice in its final stages and most hideous forms dispatches him with a finishing stroke. Not till he has parted with his last farthing, and his last foul breath, will he cease to find wretches who will eagerly help him to ruin for the luck of a little gain. They might be called sharks, only that IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? the shark, by some nobler instinct, will not prey upon its own kind. Is it strange, that so many a fiery youngling, impatient to snatch the rose of pleasure from among the thorns of sin, should be caught in the snares spread for them at every corner? The marvel is rather, that any thus beset with temptations, and acting under the impulse of youthful blood, escape the arts and decoys of those who lie in wait to take them captive. A few, indeed, by desperate effort, may escape from the entangling net; but the proportion of these is so very small, that the hope is mainly in prevention. A square yard of actual prevention is worth an acre of possible cure. What is needed is a thorough system of personal pledges, associated effort, and legal safeguards, to protect the uncontaminated, and keep them from the paths of the destroyer. How sad to see a young man falling into habits of intemperance! Ruin to himself, grief to friends, loss to the community! Soon you will see him with soul and body crushed together into a loathsome mass of deformity. Talk of reforms! All other moral evils are but trifles compared with this, as to magnitude, prevalence, and calamitous results. When will the friends of humanity, the ministers and disciples of Jesus Christ, rise up in the fervor of Gospel-love, and in the might of grace, and throw their protecting arms around the young? Oh, when will our young men themselves rise up as by a common impulse, and in that exalted and generous enthusiasm, which is the crowning beauty of their years, pledge themselves for mutual defence against their most dangerous and cruel foe? If one of them makes a pledge only to himself, it is like an anchor kept on board the ship while winds and currents are setting her on toward the breakers. But such a pledge honorably exchanged with his fellows, is like an anchor cast into firm and tenacious holding-ground, and enabling the gallant bark to ride out the gale with ease and safety. The pledge of abstinence from all intoxicating drinks is a preventive of intemperance, easy of application, and infallible just as far as it is applied. This is all that can be asked of any preventive. And it is one that is crowned by the benediction of Heaven. THE little leaf that trembles in the breeze, And the proud monarch seated on his throne, C. A. 215 IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN? BY GEORGIANA MAY 8YKE 8. IT has fallen to my lot to be "a stranger and a sojourner" in a pleasant village. I am familiar with its streets and its lanes, its houses and its gardens, its church and its church-yard, studded with memorial stones. I know its one or two places of merchandise, its more numerous wheelwrighting and smithery, and other mechanical work shops, as well as I do the aspect of its broad acres of rich, level farm-land, running back for miles on either side of the village street. I recognize the huge farm-wagons attached to some of these, and am well versed in many little details of their management. All these I know; but of the living, moving beings to whom they appertain, I know nothing that I have not learned from the outward characteristics of their dwellings, or from some incident occurring at their door, which has set me upon constructing a theory of the inner life, more likely to be wrong than right, as I have sometimes verified by an inquiry. But even in such a panoramic view of a community, human interests will cluster themselves about familiar objects. Something attracts the fancy, and draws the sympathies to one rather than another of the many homes. We establish a sort of intimacy with the premises, and could almost feel a right to walk in, and make ourselves at home, on the ground of having taken a fancy to the place, and adopted it as a favorite. Such a relation began some months ago to exist between my own mind and an old mansion on the corner, whose roof comes sloping down to form a broad sunny porch, not upon the main street, for to that it offers its blind side, but upon the more quiet intersecting street, where it can contemplate at its leisure the profile of the respectful church on the opposite corner, standing among the graves of many generations. Two gigantic bunches of box stand as sentinels at its gate. I marked their quaint aspect when they were half-buried in snow, and mused upon the many years of undisturbed growth they must have known. When the snow disappeared, I remarked that they had their companion and compeer in a solid bed of myrtle, covering the yard with an evergreen carpet. Half a century could hardly have sufficed to give it such a foothold. The patriarch tree in front of the house verifies the legend attached to it, that Washington held a meeting of his officers beneath it, while sharing the hospitalities of the mansion it shades. The charm of the spot to me is its venerable and 216 OH! THERE ARE THOSE. time-hallowed aspect, and the testimony it has seemed to bear to peaceful permanency, and to family stability as a practical problem here on earth. But the old house on the corner has since taught me another lesson. Under the shelter of its peaceful roof, in the midst of his family, in the prime of his days, the proprietor was suddenly stricken dead, and I saw a vast concourse of mourners gathered within and around the dwelling to carry him forth. Amidst the tears and lamentations of a community to whom he was an endeared physician, he was borne between the green sentinels at his gate, across the dividing street to the church-yard, and laid down to his last repose, as it were, beneath the windows of his home. Thenceforth, as I passed, my thoughts were divided between the freshly raised mound on one hand, and the house of bereavement on the other. she cannot bring," and, shutting out external nature, nurse our one great grief. But this is all wrong. We should be learning another lesson when God reneweth the face of the earth; we may find it written in every opening leaf and springing blade, in the bursting of every buried bulb-a lesson passing human wisdom, that might pause, as we do, dismayed at the sealed door of the grave, were it not for revelation-the great Christian lesson of the resurrection. The grave is but a winter of a little longer duration, and shall as surely know its spring. Come forth, O mourner, and take to your heart the consolation that buds and blossoms for you on every hand. Whose word is this now verified before your eyes-"seed-time and harvest, summer and winter shall not fail ?" And whose is this other word- 66 thy dead men shall live again ?" "Because I live, they shall live also." Does he not live to re-animate the dead material world, and clothe it anew with freshness and beauty? Then he lives to bring again from the dust of death the form of the friend we loved, and to clothe his redeemed ones with incorruptible beauty. Come forth, O mourner, and let every leaf bursting its way from the folds of the protecting envelope that lately enshrouded it, but which has now lost its power to restrain its growth, speak to you in promise of a time when the cerements of the grave shall be riven, and death shall lose its power to bind. Open your heart to the healing influences of natural beauty, and the cheering truths of God's word. Be comforted, and be quickened, amidst the universal burst of rejoicing life, in the work of doing good in the world for which its Maker cares so minuteThen you may consistently exclaim― "Break from his throne, illustrious morn! The winter snows have now melted away; green grass is springing to border the pathway; buds are swelling on every bough, red blossoms are on the maple, and tender green leaves fringe the flexible rods of the willow; the wheat-fields are brilliant in their vivid green; and the animated face of man, and the songs of rejoicing birds, welcome the spring. As I pass the old corner mansion, I see that there too it is spring. That bed of ancient myrtle is gay with blossoms, and intermingled with daffodils and early violets, while the garden, through its whole length, shows the varied hues of the hyacinth, the gorgeous crown-imperial, and the broad leaves of budding tulips, just ready to add themselves to the imposing array. Even the old tree feels the genial influence. The sap moves in its gnarledly. branches, and finds its way to the ends of its twisted and time-tattered boughs, to swell the buds there. Nowhere about the village is it more truly spring than about the old corner mansion, and yet it looks sad. I seem to hear ever from within a plaintive voice that asks, "But when shall Spring visit the mouldering urn, Oh, when shall morn break on the night of the grave ?" Why is it that the heart of the recently bereaved is always oppressed by the brightness of the spring, and that the grave never looks more sad than when fresh verdure begins to cover it? Happy are they who know not that sickness of the heart which the joyous spring-tide seems to mock, when the earth is garnished anew, every ravage of winter effaced, and all losses made up but our own great loss. Ah, then it is that we turn away, sickened, "from all she brings to that Attend, O earth, his sovereign word; OH! THERE ARE THOSE. BY MAY RITCHIE. OH! there are those to whom I owe Oh, there are those whose cheeks are flushed, DEAF AND DUMB.-One of the most interesting of the anniversary meetings held in Metropolitan Hall, was the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The pupils presented a remarkably fine appearance; their countenances evinced the greatest cheerfulness and intelligence. One could not discern any difference between them and other children of their own age. After a few remarks from the Principal, on the design of the instruction given at the Institution, he called up four to be examined, who had been under instruction but eighteen months. Their knowledge of history, &c., would have done honor to much older pupils, and those who have the advantages of hearing. Four of the senior class were also called to write. Opportunity was given to the audience to assign any theme for them to write upon. A gentleman requested the teacher to have them write their opinion of the spiritual manifestations. They immediately and readily did so. The first one read as follows:-"It is the most injurious humbug we have met with in this age of progress. The inventor deserves a diploma from the prince of darkness." The others were equally good, and worthy of the highest commendation. The exercises were closed with the Lord's Prayer, given by a young lady through the sign language, and translated by her teacher. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.-Dr. L. Bacon, at the meeting of the American and Foreign Christian Union, remarked: The battle between Romanism and Protestantism is to be fought on this question of religious liberty. The first question be tween these two conflicting systems is, whether we have the right to read the Bible, and under our responsibility to its Author, to judge what it requires of us. Wherever we can secure for the subject of Romanism complete religious liberty, there we have delivered him from the thraldom of that superstition. Religious liberty wherever it is established brings in its train all other sorts of reasonable liberty. This country and England stand out prominently before the world, as the defenders of liberty; and in both these countries, the origin of liberty is found in the assertion of the right to freedom of worship. But the separation of the Church from the State, in this country, grew out of the providence of God, in so ordering events as to make the separation inevitable. Why have the recent attempts to establish civil liberty in Europe so signally failed? Because the element of religious liberty was not in the movement. And such will inevitably be the result, whenever civil liberty is attempted without the freedom of religion. The signs of the times point to this question of religious liberty as the great question of the present day. The question which we are to assert and maintain for our country is that of religious liberty. It had well been said that Romanism was always the same. It was true, there were some Roman Catholics who appeared to have imbibed the spirit of religious liberty; but Archbishop Hughes and O. A. Brownson would reconcile this in a moment. They will denounce these men as apostates. The true spirit of Popery is seen in the mobs of Roman Catholic Irishmen, gathered to break up a Sunday school, or to interrupt a meeting called to discuss the subject of Popery; and a fair specimen of it we have in the persecution of Dr. Kalley and his friends in Madeira. But it is not Romanism alone that is opposed to religious liberty. Wherever Protestantism is established by law, there is an end to religious liberty. He was sorry Mr. Oncken was not here to testify on this point, in relation to the persecution of the Baptists in Germany. D'AUBIGNE.-FIFTH VOLUME OF THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION.-This is a valuable addition to the series which the enterprising Carters are giving the public. The author's credit as an ecclesiastical historian was established ten years ago, on the appearance of the first two volumes of his attempt to write, from a purely religious point of view, the History of the Reformation. He has published his volumes at considerable intervals, taking time to study his subjects with great care, and to make original investigations from such sources as could be found. The four |