p kind. Ten days' residence in this country would have made you the organ of the sanity of England and Europe to us and to them, and have shown you the necessities and aspirations which struggle up in our free states, which, as yet, have no organ to others and are ill or unsteadily articulated here. In our to-day's division of Republican and Democrat it is certain that the American nationality lies in the Republican party (mixed and multiform though that party be), and I hold it not less certain that, viewing all the nationalities of the world, the battle of Humanity is at this hour in America. A few days here would show you the disgusting composition of the other party which within the Union resists the national action. Take from it the wild Irish element, imported in the last twenty-five years into this country, and led by Romish priests, who sympathise of course with despotism, and you would bereave it of all its numerical strength. A man intelligent and virtuous is not to be found on that side. "Ah! how gladly I would enlist you with your thunderbolt on our part! How gladly enlist the wise, thoughtful, efficient pens and voices of England! We want England and Europe to hold our people staunch to their best tendency. Are English of this day incapable of a great sentiment? Can they not leave cavilling at petty failures and bad manners, and at the dunce part (always the largest part in human affairs), and leap to the suggestions and finger-pointing of the gods, which, above the understanding, feed the hopes and guide the wills of men? This war has been conducted over the heads of all the actors in it, and the foolish terrors,— 'What shall we do with the negro?' 'the entire black population is coming North to be fed,' &c., have strangely ended in the fact that the black refuses to leave his climate; gets his living and the living of his employer there, as he has always done; is the natural ally and soldier of the Republic in that climate; now takes the place of 200,000 white soldiers; and will be, as the conquest of the country proceeds, its garrison, till Peace without Slavery returns. Slaveholders in London have filled English ears with their wishes and perhaps beliefs; and our people, generals and politicians, have carried the like, at first, to the war, until corrected by irresistible experience. The dismal Malthus, the dis mal De Bow, have had their night. Our Census of 1860, and the war, are poems which will, in the next age, inspire a genius like your own. "I hate to write you a newspaper, but, in these times, 'tis wonderful what sublime lessons I have once and again read on the bulletin boards in the streets. Everybody has been wrong in his guess, except good women, who never despair of the ideal right." REMINISCENCES OF THE Rev. Ezra RIPLEY, D.D. [The subject of this letter was Pastor in the Church at Concord, Massachusetts, from 1778 until his death in 1841, in his 91st The letter was addressed to the Rev. Dr. Sprague, of year. "Concord, Oct. 25, 1848. "My dear sir,-It will be easy, as it is grateful, to me to answer your inquiries in regard to Dr. Ripley, as I still have by me some sketches which I attempted of his character very soon after his decease. Indeed, he is still freshly remembered in all this neighbourhood. He was a man so kind and sympathetic, his character was so transparent, and his merits so intelligible to all observers, that he was very justly appreciated in this community. He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all men. I remember the remark made by an old farmer, who used to travel thither from Maine, that no horse from the eastern country would go by the doctor's gate.' Travellers from the west, and north, and south could bear like testimony. His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations which company could interrupt. His friends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and his tongue. In his house dwelt order, and prudence, and plenty; there was no waste and no stint; he was openhanded, and just and generous. Ingratitude and meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his compassion; he bore the insult, and the next day his basket for the beggar, his horse and chaise for the cripple, were at their door. Though he knew the value of a dollar as well as another man, yet he loved to buy dearer and sell cheaper than others. He subscribed to all charities, and it is no reflection on others to say that he was the most publicspirited man in the town. The late Dr. Gardner, in a funeral sermon on a parishioner whose virtues did not come readily to mind, honestly said, 'He was good at fires.' Dr. Ripley had many virtues, and yet all will remember that even in his old agc, if the fire bell was rung, he was instantly on horseback, with his bucket and bag. "He was never distinguished in the pulpit as a writer of sermons, but in his house his speech was form and pertinence itself. You felt, in his presence, that he belonged by nature to the clerical class. He had a foresight, when he opened his mouth, of all that he would say, and he marched straight to the conclusion. In private discourse or in debate, in the vestry or lyceum, the structure of his sentences was admirable-so neat, so natural, so terse, his words fell like stones, and often, though quite unconscious of it, his speech was a satire on the loose, voluminous, patch-work periods of other speakers. He sat down when he had done. A man of anecdote, his talk in the parlour was chiefly narrative. I remember the remark of a gentleman, who listened with much delight to his conversation, at the time when the doctor was preparing to go to Baltimore and Washington, that ‘a man who could tell a story so well was company for kings and John Quincey Adams.' With a very limited acquaintance with books, his knowledge was an external experience, an Indian wisdom, the observation of such facts as country life for nearly a century could supply. He watched with interest the garden, the field, the orchard, the house, and the barn, horse, cow, sheep, and dog, and all the common objects that engage the thought of the farmer. He kept his eye on the horizon, and knew the weather like a sea captain. The usual experience of men-birth, marriage, sickness, death, burial, the common temptations, the common ambitions, he N |