such a consummation. deepest convictions of man's soul, such is the destiny appointed him. If there be any truth in the symbols of that Book, which Christians receive as a revelation of the highest truth, God himself has announced it.

If there be any certainty in the

Man's past history, as we have seen, is the record of his obedience to that "deep commandment," dimly at first, but in each succeeding epoch more clearly discerned, of his whole being, "to have dominion," to be free. "Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's toilings, struggles, sufferings in this earth.' The generation of the present man is busily doing its part in unfolding this destiny, and giving its demonstration of the universal intuitions. Active as are the movements, deeprooted and widely-spread the power of mechanism; the moral force of man is still asserting its right to rule his fortunes. Behind the mechanical movement, there is a deeper, more earnest spiritual movement, in which the former must be absorbed, and made to cooperate. This movement is expressed in the wide-felt dissatisfaction with the present, the earnest inquiry for something better than the past has transmitted, or the present attained, in morals, religion, philosophy, education, in everything that concerns the spiritual culture of man. It is indicated most decisively, where perhaps it is needed most, in the popular efforts for large civil and religious liberty. The depth of this movement cannot be measured by the senses. It defeats all the calculations of logic. The old despotisms are not alone affected by it; but it is most earnest in the freest nations. It laughs at all the political mechanisms, which are contrived to restrain it,, whether in the shape of "Restoration of the Bourbons," Holy Alliances, Citizen Kings, Reform Bills, or Constitutional Compromises. The advent of a "Louis the Desired," cannot prevent "Three Days of July;" Carbonari and Chartist rebellions break out in spite of Congresses of Vienna, and disfranchisement of rotten boroughs; Citizen Kings do not find their thrones couches of down, nor their crowns wreaths of roses; and fraudulent Constitutions of the United States, which guaranty perpetual slavery to one sixth of the people, do not satisfy the remaining five sixths, that, with respect to them, the right of suffrage, and a parchment

declaration of rights, fill all man's conceptions of the liberty for which he was created. Doubtless there is much folly, even madness, and much aimless endeavor, in these movements; as no popular movement, nor even much earnest individual striving after an object worth striving for, is without a portion, more or less, of such. I am not now characterizing the present movements by their degree of wisdom or folly, insight or blindness. I refer to them as the working of a principle deep planted in the inmost being of man, and pointing to a state of higher attainment and more perfect freedom; of which we can, at present, conceive but the faintest foreshadowings; higher than mere political freedom, and perfecting of institutions; which institutions can in no wise represent or embody; which all uttered and unuttered prophecy indicates; when Christ, in all his true, divine significance, shall reign upon the earth. Through toil, and suffering, and blood, the race has advanced thus far towards its destiny. Through toil, and suffering, and blood, the remainder of its course is doubtless appointed. Through suffering alone can the race, as the individual, be perfected. The progress and the result are to be obtained by man's endeavor. too, as to the individual, is it appointed to work out its own salvation, in cooperation with Him, who is also working in man's purposes. For this was man endowed with the faculty of prophecy and insight, that he might be a prophet and a seer. But it is to be remembered, that only the power is given to man with freedom of will. The rest must be all his own work. The Lord's people are not all prophets; and doubtless most of the evils humanity has suffered and is suffering, the crimes and follies which disfigure its history, are the consequences of his want of faith in his intuitions. Man's true life is in the unseen. His truest culture is of those faculties, which connect him with the invisible, and disclose to him the meaning, which lies in the material forms by which he is surrounded. The highest science is that, "which treats of, and practically addresses the primary, unmodified forces and energies of man, the mysterious springs of love, and fear, and wonder, and enthusiasm, poetry, religion, all which have a truly vital and infinite character." For this culture the spirit of man has its own exhaustless resources within, and the

To the race,

material creation speaks to it in thousand-voiced prophecy. The heavens and the earth, the stars and the flowers, the winds and the waves, all that is seen, and felt, and heard, contain revelations. Infancy is a prophecy, with its unclouded eye, over which the shadows of earth have not yet passed, to dim the hues of its celestial birthplace. Childhood, yet bright in its beautiful unfolding; manhood, with its dissatisfaction, its busy restlessness, ever seeking, never finding, its scheming activity, with or without an end, or conscious aim; age, approaching the summing up of life, and recounting its chequered experience; history, as it traces the eventful progress of the race; science, unfolding the immensity of the material universe; the great and good of the past, revealing the wondrous possibilities of man's nature; the good he enjoys, no less than the evil he suffers; even his follies and crimes; all phenomena, and all events in his experience; all suggest inquiry into the problem of life, and man's destiny, and at the same time furnish him the means of solving it.

SONNET TO

THOU art like that which is most sweet and fair,
A gentle morning in the youth of Spring,
When the few early birds begin to sing,
Within the delicate depths of the fine air;

Yet shouldst thou these dear beauties much impair,
Since thou art better, than is everything

Which or the woods, or skies, or green fields bring,
And finer thoughts hast thou than they can wear.
In the proud sweetness of thy grace, I see
What lies within, — a pure and steadfast mind,
Which its own mistress is, of sanctity,
And to all gentleness hath it been refined,
So that thy least thought falleth upon me
As the soft breathing of midsummer-wind.

LETTER.

Zoar, Ohio, Aug. 9, 1838.

66

"HAVE you ever been to Zoar?" said a gentleman to a lady in our presence the other evening. Where is Zoar?" said I, and then followed the description which induced us to take the canal boat for this place at four o'clock, Tuesday afternoon. About the same hour, Wednesday, we perceived an enormous edifice, new and beautifully white, contrasting with the green of the woods, built on each side of the canal, and forming a pretty arched bridge over it; this we were told was the new mill at Zoar, the largest to be seen in the country. Here committing our luggage to the barrow of a stout little German boy, we wound our way up the bank, and through shady lanes planted with rows of trees on each side for half a mile, to the inn of the community, which, with its red sloping roof and pretty piazzas shaded with locusts, stands in the midst of the settlement. But I will give some little history of this place, before I describe our visit to it. About twenty years since two hundred individuals, men, women, and children, who had separated themselves sometime before from the Lutheran church, and resemble the Quakers more than any other sect, and who had selected a teacher by the name of Baumler for their teacher and leader, came out to this country to seek a retreat where they might enjoy undisturbed their own faith. They selected this lovely valley on the banks of the Tuscarawas, and side by side with the river the canal now runs. The valley contains some of the most fertile land in the State. It was then uncleared forest. They encamped under a wide spreading oak, whose stump they yesterday showed us, and went to work. Three trustees were appointed to counsel their leader and limit his power, and the little band formed themselves into a society, which should have all things in common, the land to be held in the name of Baumler, and all the responsibility and headwork to devolve upon him.

They were in debt for their land when they began, and now are said to have a capital of three hundred thousand dollars, and the interest of this they do not enroach upon, unlessTM

some great enterprise is to be undertaken, as the building of a mill, &c. They cleared the land, built houses regularly arranged in squares, separated by pretty shady lanes, surrounded by little grass plats and ornamented by vines, and at first adopted the Shaker method of men and women living separately, those who were already married relinquishing their husbands and wives, and the young persons forbidden to form any connexions. This regulation was observed for fourteen years, and then was abolished, each man returning to his former wife, and those who had none selecting them. They also relinquish the use of pork, on account of the evil spirits which they suppose still have possession of the swine, and the exquisite neatness of their lanes and yards may be attributed in great part to the absence of these filthy animals, which overrun every town and village of the western country. The population of Zoar has diminished rather than increased. Fifty inhabitants died of the cholera, and all the young persons, who were bound to them, at the end of their apprenticeship prefer the risk of self-support with independence, to the safe and tranquil but constrained mode of life of the community; and as they are permitted to leave if they choose, are many of them enjoying their flourishing farms in other parts of the State, probably prizing the little word mein, more than any in their native tongue. The children of the settlers usually remain, and there are at present in the society about a hundred and forty individuals. They have a justice of the peace who attends to their little legal business, but no physician and no minister. Baumler attends to their few and simple maladies, and preaches to them on Sundays; not, as one of them told us, that the elder ones did not know how to behave and conduct according to the golden rule as well as he, but the young folks need to be taught.

When we had taken possession of the neat and airy parlor of the inn, whose plain white walls were adorned with a few colored engravings, in good taste, imported by Bfor the purpose, our landlady was summoned by her husband to welcome us; and a more beautiful face I never saw in her class of life, so kind and benignant in its expression. Her dress was precisely that of every individual of the society on working days. An indigo blue calico, such