pitiable and ill-used in our Christian land, have been unwearied, but she has the satisfaction of witnessing the fruits of her disinterested toil. We have noticed with peculiar satisfaction the formation of a Society in New York for rendering assistance, especially through counsel and sympathy, to released convicts. No Society among us occupies a more important or more neglected sphere of benevolence. By the treatment which those now receive whose terms of imprisonment have expired, they are, almost inevitably, driven back to the commission of crime. Objects of suspicion, and unable to obtain employment, the alternative offered them is starvation or renewed violation of law. There is no class of persons in the community, we believe, for whom it is more necessary that some provision should be made, to save them from utter ruin. A Society whose object it is to assure them that they are not outcasts from the kind regards of their fellow-beings, must find great opportunities for usefulness; and we should rejoice to learn that other Societies of the same kind were established in our other cities.

Increase of Boston. — At no period since the settlement of this place has its growth in population and business been so rapid as everything which we see indicates at present. New dwelling-houses, new blocks of warehouses, new meetinghouses, new streets, show that there is a great increase in the number of the inhabitants. The construction of railroads connecting the city not only with different parts of the Commonwealth, but with the extreme North and the extreme Westwith Canada in the one direction and with the Valley of the Mississippi in the other, has given an impulse to business, which is felt alike by the rich and the poor, the enterprising and the indolent — if of the latter class there be any among us. We hope that the evil consequences which are apt to attend such a state of prosperity may not be realized here. There is always danger that people will become worldly in character, when their minds are crowded with worldly cares or elated by worldly success. There is reason, also, to apprehend that they will forget the restraints of prudence and moderation, will "make haste to be rich,” and bring on disaster through the rashness or magnitude of their engagements. Speculation is a word of ominous meaning for practical men as well as for visionary theorists. If there be any element in the American character yet ascertained, it is the love of change, or discontent with the present-be that ever so safe or prosperous. Our people are "reaching forth unto those things which are before,” in a very different sense from that intended by the Apostle. The lessons of experience seem to be lost upon them. Again and again have we seen the mischiefs that flow from an excessive eagerness to accumulate wealth. If the considerations which a regard to reputation and domestic comfort suggests are insufficient securities against the seduction of "good" times, men of religious principle, men who lay any claim to the Christian name, should remember that there are higher interests than those which are represented by mercantile terms, and that these are endangered by surrounding the mind with earthly anxieties. The question has not less siguificance now than centuries ago-"What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

OBITUARY.

DEACON JACOB WHITNEY died at Stow, Mass., October 20, 1844, aged 85 years. "For more than half a century he was a member of the Unitarian church" in that place, "and for more than a quarter of a century one of its officiating deacons." Mr. Whitney was a devout and sincere Christian, who labored to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and man.

G.

SAMUEL DORR, Esq. died at Boston, Mass., December 18, 1844, aged 70 years. Mr. Dorr preferred the offices of integrity and charity in private scenes to the engagements of public life. But he in various ways made himself a useful and valued citizen. In the suppression of intemperance, in the relief and prevention of pauperism, and in the support of religious institutions, he was among the foremost and most consistent. He was a member of the New South church in this city, and clung with a grateful faith to the truths of the Christian revelation.

G.

Rev. IRA H. T. BLANCHARD died at Weymouth, Mass., April 9, 1845. Mr. Blanchard was a native of Weymouth, and graduated at Harvard College in the year 1817. After holding the office of Tutor in the College, and completing his theological studies, he was ordained over the First Congregational Church in Harvard, Mass., where he remained till severe illness compelled him to relinquish the pastoral care. At a subsequent period, having partially recovered his health, he took charge of the congregation in South Natick, but was never again settled in the ministry. A few years since he removed to Weymouth, and occasionally preached in the neighborhood. His death was occasioned by that fatal disease of our climate, consumption. Mr. Blanchard was a man of much more than ordinary abilities, and of great excellence. His physical sufferings, which for a long time were extreme and left permanent effects upon his constitution, prevented his occupying the place before the public eye which he might otherwise have filled, but few men excelled him in soundness of intellectual or moral character.

G.

DEACON SAMUEL H. HEWES died in Boston, April 6, 1845, aged 84 years. Mr. Hewes was a worthy member of the community which he had long served. He was for many years Superintendent of the Burial-grounds of this city, an office of considerable labor and responsibleness, which he held at the time of his death. His activity, both of body and mind, continued in old age. He was an officer in the New South church, and was a willing almoner of the bounty of our churches to the poor.

G.

The writer of the article on "Poetry" in our last number desires us to say, in reply to a letter received by him from the author of Gonzalvo, that he "did not undertake to pronounce upon the work as a story, and said nothing against or about the value of the book in point of historic or romantic merit. He was concerned simply and solely with so much of Mr. Hood's part of the work as related to the general style of the literary execution, as indicating the poetic sense and spirit." "One or two expressions in the article," he thinks, "were unnecessarily harsh."

INDEX.

VOL. XXXVIII. 4TH S. VOL. III. NO. III.