Mind, mind alone,
The living essence in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime.'

The establishment of Peace and Bible Societies in this country, and the influence of associated effort against that vice which peoples the alms-house and the penitentiary, have not only purified the American atmosphere, but extended their multiplied blessings to the most barbaric shore of the eastern continent. The principles of the peace societies, though coeval with the rise of Quakerism, became more active at the revolution, and have diffused the mild benignity of their spirit into the counsels of every court in Europe. The Bible has unfolded its sublime doctrines, and kindled animating hopes, in regions hitherto unvisited by a gleam of gospel sunshine. In Jerusalem, amid the darkness of heathenism, infidelity and superstition, in the very heart of Palestine, the missionary of the western world teaches the simple doctrines of the Redeemer of mankind, and in those very spots which mark bis nativity, miracles, and death. On the summit of the Himalaya mountains, which separate Hindoostan from Chinese Tartary, an American clergyman preaches the glad tidings of Christianity; hoping, with a noble but romantic enthusiasm, to redeem Asia from the sceptre of Paynim. In Greece, the former home of philosophy and song, the only schools of instruction are those of American missionaries. How refreshing and beautiful the thought, that after ages of ignorance, tyranny, and unbelief have blighted, as with a pestilence, those celebrated districts of the globe, those cherished spots, consecrated as the cradle of religion, of refinement, and liberty, it should be the task of the new world to renovate their decayed systems, and to reinfuse a portion of that vitality and vigor which it derived from themselves ! – that it should thus give back to Palestine the Christian faith, in its original purity, and to Greece a knowledge, well husbanded and improved, which it received from her Platos and her Aristotles !

The idea once introduced of combining numbers in the promotion of a benevolent enterprise, was extended to a great variety of objects. In the wide circle of human action, which these bodies superintend, some have been devoted to the prevention of a particular vice, while others have assumed a higher attitude, in exposing the effects of erroneous legislation. It is thus that good citizenship is enlisted in tbe service of the state, by the Argus eyes which are distributed in the various departments.

The effect of these institutions has corresponded with their design, in elevating the standard of social rectitude. Society is thus purged of many of those vices that exist in communities, which are sustained by the hand of power. A republic wanting the chief element of its cohesion, would separate into fragments, or resolve itself into chaos.

Among the abuses which hoary error has handed down to us from the earliest ages, is the treatment of offenders against the laws of society. Since the epoch of the American revolution, our penal codes have been undergoing revision and amendment. The law no longer wears the visage of a blood-thirsty tyrant, who is impatient to

each moral infirmity an ingenious and vindictive torture. In these mitigations, and above all in the adoption of an improved

visit upon

a

theory of penitentiary discipline, Pennsylvania has been the great pioneer. The fame of her penal institutions has crossed the Atlantic. They have engaged the attention of the European legislatures, who are willing to be instructed by our discoveries, in the wide domain of penal philosophy. France, England, Lower Canada, and Prussia, have shown a commendable anxiety to avail themselves of the results of these labors. Their agents have visited these shores, not ministers to our government, but ambassadors to our people. They carry back with them a part of those returns which America, in becoming a nation, had pledged herself to make to the cause of human science.

But the agency of the revolutionary principle is discernible, not merely in laying deep and broad foundations of moral and intellectual superiority, but in imparting activity, enterprise, and energy to the human character. All the departments of life bear witness to its inspiriting effect. It may be seen in the bum of the metropolis, where the instinct of busy life is visible in the stir and bustle of the jostling world. It may be seen on the river, the railway, the canal; the humble village, just rearing its aspiring head into a fancied importance, and in the solitude of rural life. These all pay homage to the principle of the revolution; they all display the effect of unfettered enterprise, and the consciousness of untrammelled freedom. Commerce has spread her sails in the remotest seas, and brought to our doors the luxuries of the most distant and opposite regions. The distant parts of a territory unexampled in extent, have been approximated by the locomotive engine and the steam-boat. Rivers presenting untoward impediments for the one, have been rendered navigable for hundreds of miles; for the other, mountains have been levelled, and valleys bade to rise, as if by the wand of an enchanter. Nature has been penetrated in her wildest recesses, and made to yield her hidden stores. The genius of Fulton could scarcely have foreseen the wonderful effects of his discovery, in ministering to our comforts, in tightening the bonds of human affinity, and knitting together, as one family, the various districts of the globe. It could scarcely have descried in the future, the navigation of the Atlantic and Pacific waters; the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean ; nor the impelling power of steam over the trackless wilds of the Mississippi, and the sandy desert of Suez. Yet of these, some have been realized, and of the others, time will soon witness their accomplishment.

The success of a new order of sentiments in a new hemisphere; the correction of ancient traditional abuses; the rapid strides of science; its universal diffusion by means of the press; and the multiplied facilities of intercommunication ; all announce a new era in the

1; history of the world. The influence of these is seen in the altered condition of nearly the whole face of Europe. - Calmness and repugnance to change, have been succeeded by a restless and innovating spirit. New ideas of knowledge, improvement, and right, have been awakened. These are teaching to absolutism the proper dignity of human nature; they are teaching the futility of transmitting office, and rank, and privilege, by descent, without relation to merit; they are teaching that the first right of man is to be free, and the first principle of freedom is political equality.

"An observer of the events which have occurred on this continent

and in Europe, during the last sixty years, would ascribe to some
He has
cause the mighty effects which have been produced.
seen the downfall of despotism in France, succeeded by a brutality
of crime, and a fierceness of cruelty, which fill him with dismay. He
has beheld that same France pass through many tribulations to an
elective monarchy; and now exempt from domestic disquiet, sitting
down in the enjoyment of security and peace. He has seen Greece
and Belgium taking their rank as nations, under liberal forms of
government. He has beheld the political agitations which have shaken
the rest of Europe, in the contests for freedom. He has seen the
time-honored institutions of venerable England made obedient to the
spirit of the age, and the practice made conformable to the theory
of her government. He has beheld, in the American hemisphere, a
succession of republics, modelled upon the same principles with our
own, rise into existence. He beholds, even now, others attempting
to throw off the European yoke, and struggling for independence.
Where will the inquirer look for the origin of these stupendous
events? Where will he seek the springs of that impulse which has
given to the human mind a velocity so increased, a tendency so
upward? He will seek it in that potential influence which has
opened the rich fountains of personal and civic virtue; which has
vivified and expanded the principles of knowledge; which has
quickened the spirit, by enlarging the means, of international com-
merce; in a word, he will seek it in the revolution of 1776. I cannot
more beautifully portray the expansive influence which America is
destined to exert in the moral regeneration of man, than by conclu-
ding in the glowing lines of her own BRYANT:

'Here the free spirit of mankind, at length

Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
Far, like the comet's way through infinite space,
Stretches the long, untravelled path of light,
Into the depths of ages; we may trace
Afar, the brightening glory of its flight,

'Till the receding rays are lost to human sight.'

THERE IS ONE GOD.'

WHAT Speaks the thunder, when its midnight cry
Rolls through Heaven's vast and cloudy palaces!
What writes the lightning on the ebon sky,
When the fierce tempests, wrapt in sackcloth, rise
From their huge cradles on the roaring seas!
What shout the gaunt and time-defying trees,

That toss right royally their arms on high,
When from the hills the cold north-western gale
Calls to the torrent in the misty vale,

And the air rings with heaven's artillery!

"THERE IS ONE GOD!' to HIM they lift their prayer,
He framed them temples, and they worship there
Storm, wind, and howling thunder! Go, vain man,
And think their mighty creed a false one, if you can!

H. W. R.

THE period to which the following poem relates, is the latter part of the eleventh century. The renowned leaders of the first crusade, with an army diminished more than half, in its disastrous march from Byzantium, had obtained possession of Antioch; but, with their usual improvidence, the Croises had wasted in festivity and excess the stores which had fallen into their hands. In this situation, they were besieged by KERBOGA, the Persian vizier, with the combined hosts of the Moslem world. The equipments of this immense army were on a scale of magnificence extraordinary even in the East; its numbers countless; and yet it was discomfited and utterly destroyed by comparatively a handful of half-starved Christians, animated by the religious enthusiasm which formed the grand feature of that chivalrous era, and the effects of which were sometimes almost miraculous.

BEFORE stern Antioch's stately towers,
Were camped the Orient's banded powers,
Beneath Kerboga's sway.

Where lodged the Emir and his train,
A silken city graced the plain;
Pavilion rich and gleaming mosque,
Flaunting bazaar and gay kiosk,

And sumptuous serai.
Broad avenues of living green
Wound the light rainbow walls between;
For on the pastures smooth and wide,
Through which Orontes pours his tide,

Gleamed up that bright array:
While backward from the gorgeous van,
Far as the keenest glance might scan,
The tented myriads lay.

Amid his bearded satraps throned,
His Emir's robe with rubies zoned,
The Persian banqueted :
Spoils of the forest, stream, and fold;
Burdened the trays of massy gold,
Foamed the sherbet in goblets rare,
While burning spices on the air

Voluptuous incense shed.
But little recked the fierce vizier
Of sparkling bowl or smoking cheer;
In thought, his arm was hurling death
Among the ranks of Nazareth,

And 'neath his scowling brow
The fire of vengeful triumph shone,
Af if upon the cross o'erthrown

His foot were planted now.

And, if his spies had spoken sooth,

Men fed upon the reptiles' brood,
The warrior slew his steed for food,

Some on the dead brake fast:
Yet though the strongest 'gan to fail,
Though scarce the knight could lift his
mail,

And hope was well nigh past,
The knightly spirit soared untamed,
No craven voice surrender named,
Waved the red cross, triumphant still,
The Christian clarion, wild and shrill,
Answered the Moslem blast!
And every champion vowed his doom
Should be, in Antioch's walls a tomb,
Or victory at last!

From what ignoble germs may shoot
The growth of honor and renown;
And men forget the noxious root,
Shaking the golden fruitage down.
"T was thus in Antioch; rescue, fame,
By fraud and superstition came,

And good grew out of ill.
The nobler chafed with inward scorn,
Yet felt that strength of falsehood born,
Might lead to glory still:
They saw the hands uplifted high,
They heard the wild fanatic cry,
That shook the air, when fraud revealed
The spear by priestly craft concealed;
They knew 't was free from sacred blood,
They knew 't was Norman steel and wood,
And felt in spirit shamed;
Yet deemed 't were well assent to yield,

Well might such thoughts seem types of While blindly superstition sealed

truth;

Well might he trust, ere long, to see

The beacon of Mount Calvary

Before the crescent bow.

And how the while, in Antioch, fared
Th' enduring remnant fate had spared,
To garrison her walls?

As fares the grass a torrid sun
Glares with unshadowed brightness on,
While falls nor dew nor blessed rain,
Its withering fibres to sustain

So they in Antioch's halls.
Some died by famine's lingering throe,
Some the black pestilence laid low,
And some, in pangs too fierce to bear,
Fell on their falchions in despair,

And died a death like Saul's.

What policy proclaimed.

'Tis dawn! Assyria's radiant dawn!
How Eden-like the scene appears,
As daylight, with a blush, is born,
And earth, that night had caused to mourn,
Looks smiling through her tears!
And now, his golden course to run;
From the red desert, bursts the sun;
A flood of crimson light is sent
Far up the cloudless orient;
Antioch's gray bastions catch the glow,
The Persian banners flash below,

* DURING the siege, it was pretended that the spot where the lance which pierced the Saviour's side was deposited, had been pointed out by St. Andrew, in a vision. It was of course found, aocording to the saintly direction.

And far o'er all the listed field,
From twinkling spear and flaming shield,
The blinding beams are flung:
The while Orontes in his flight,
Seems like a messenger of light,

Shining the groves among.

Why doth yon tower, like eagle's nest,
Built on the mountain's barren crest,
That banner dark display?
That tower is Antioch's citadel,
And 'neath its walls impregnable
Are gathered all who 'scaped the fight,
When their strong city fell by night

Around him stand a princely throng,
Raimond, Boëmond, Bouillon,
Tancred, Saint Paul, Bold Normandy,
Stars of a nightly galaxy,

The brightest earth e'er saw!

Stars, but alas how dimmed and pale!
Phantoms of heroes cased in mail:
And for the vassals, though each eye
Gleams with fanatic ecstacy,
How must those shadowy columns reel,
When on them, like a storm of steel,
The Arab horse break down!
They feel no dread they know no doubt;
Hark! to their loud defying shout!
It drowns the distant Moslem drum:
'Dogs of Mahound, we come! we come!
Before us is Jerusalem!