VOLTAIRE AND WILBERFORCE.-WM. B. Sprague.

Let me now, for a moment, show you what the two systems-Atheism and Christianity—can do, have done, for indi vidual character; and I can think of no two names to which I may refer with more confidence, in the way of illustration, than Voltaire and Wilberforce; both of them names which stand out with prominence.

Voltaire was, perhaps, the master-spirit in the school of French Atheism; and though he was not alive to participate in the horrors of the revolution, probably he did more by his writings to combine the elements for that tremendous tempest than any other man. And now I undertake to say that you may draw a character in which there shall be as much of the blackness of moral turpitude as your imagination can supply, and yet you shall not have exceeded the reality as it was found in the character of this apostle of Atheism. You may throw into it the darkest shades of selfishness, making the man a perfect idolater of himself; you may paint the serpent in his most wily form to represent deceit and cunning; you may let sensuality stand forth in all the loathsomeness of a beast in the mire; you may bring out envy, and malice, and all the baser and all the darker passions, drawing nutriment from the pit; and when you have done this, you may contemplate the character of Voltaire, and exclaim, "Here is the monstrous original!" The fires of his genius kindled only to wither and consume; he stood, for almost a century, a great tree of poison, not only cumbering the ground, but infusing death into the atmosphere; and though its foliage has long since dropped off, and its branches have withered, and its trunk fallen, under the hand of time, its deadly root still remains; and the very earth that nourishes it is cursed for its sake.

And now I will speak of Wilberforce; and I do it with gratitude and triumph,-gratitude to the God who made him what he was; triumph that there is that in his very name which ought to make Atheism turn pale. Wilberforce was the friend of man. Wilberforce was the friend of enslaved and wretched man. Wilberforce (for I love to repeat his

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name) consecrated the energies of his whole life to one of the noblest objects of benevolence. It was in the cause of injured Africa that he often passed the night in intense and wakeful thought; that he counseled with the wise, and reasoned with the unbelieving, and expostulated with the unmerciful; that his heart burst forth with all its melting tenderness, and his genius with all its electric fire; that he turned the most accidental meeting into a conference for the relief of human woe, and converted even the SenateHouse into a theatre of benevolent action. Though his zeal had at one time almost eaten him up, and the vigor of his frame was so far gone that he stooped over and looked into his own grave, yet his faith failed not; and, blessed be God, the vital spark was kindled up anew, and he kept on laboring through a long succession of years; and at length, just as his friends were gathering around him to receive his last whisper, and the angels were gathering around to receive his departing spirit, the news, worthy to be borne by angels, was brought to him, that the great object to which his life had been given was gained; and then, Simeon-like, he clasped his hands to die, and went off to heaven with the sound of deliverance to the captive vibrating sweetly upon his ear.

Both Voltaire and Wilberforce are dead; but each of them lives in the character he has left behind him. And now who does not delight to honor the character of the one? who does not shudder to contemplate the character of the other?

THE WHITE SQUALL.-W. M. THACKERAY.

On deck, beneath the awning,

I dozing lay and yawning;

It was the gray of dawning,
Ere yet the sun arose;

And above the funnel's roaring,
And the fitful wind's deploring,
I heard the cabin snoring

With universal nose.

I could hear the passengers snorting,-
I envied their disporting,—

UUUUU

Vainly I was courting

The pleasure of a doze!

So I lay, and wondered why light
Came not, and watched the twilight,
And the glimmer of the skylight,
That shot across the deck;
And the binnacle pale and steady,
And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye,
And the sparks in fiery eddy

That whirled from the chimney neck. In our jovial floating prison

There was sleep from fore to mizzen,
And never a star had risen
The hazy sky to speck.

Strange company we harbored;
We'd a hundred Jews to larboard,
Unwashed, uncombed, unbarbered-
Jews black, and brown, and gray;

With terror it would seize ye,
And make your souls uneasy,

To see those Rabbis greasy,

Who did nought but scratch and pray; Their dirty children puking;

Their dirty saucepans cooking;
Their dirty fingers hooking

Their swarming fleas away.

To starboard, Turks and Greeks were,-
Whiskered and brown their cheeks were
Enormous wide their breeks were,-
Their pipes did puff away;
Each on his mat allotted
In silence smoked and squatted,
Whilst round their children trotted
In pretty, pleasant play.
He can't but smile who traces
The smiles on those brown faces,
And the pretty prattling graces
Of those small heathens gay.

And so the hours kept tolling,
And through the ocean rolling
Went the brave Iberia bowling
Before the break of day-

When A SQUALL, upon a sudden,
Came o'er the waters scudding;
And the clouds began to gather,
And the sea was lashed to lather,
And the lowering thunder grumbled,
And the lightning jumped and tumbled,
And the ship, and all the ocean,
Woke up in wild commotion.
Then the wind set up a howling,

And the poodle dog a yowling,
And the cocks began a crowing,
And the old cow raised a lowing,
As she heard the tempest blowing;
And fowls and geese did cackle,
And the cordage and the tackle
Began to shriek and crackle;

And the spray dashed o'er the funnels,
And down the deck in runnels;
And the rushing water soaks all,
From the seamen in the fo'ksal,
To the stokers whose black faces
Peer out of their bed-places;
And the captain he was bawling,
And the sailors pulling, hauling,
And the quarter-deck tarpauling
Was shivered in the squalling;
And the passengers awaken,
Most pitifully shaken;

And the steward jumps up, and hastens

For the necessary basins.

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered,

And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered,
As the plunging waters met them,
And splashed and overset them;
And they call in their emergence
Upon countless saints and virgins;
And their marrowbones are bended,
And they think the world is ended.
And the Turkish women for'ard
Were frightened and behorror'd;
And shrieking and bewildering,
The mothers clutched their children;
The men sung "Allah! Illah!

Mashallah Bismillah!"

As the warring waters doused them
And splashed them and soused them;
And they called upon the Prophet,
And thought but little of it.
Then all the fleas in Jewry
Jumped up and bit like fury;
Ard the progeny of Jacob
Did on the main-deck wake up
(I wot those greasy Rabbins
Would never pay for cabins);

And each man moaned and jabbered in
His filthy Jewish gaberdine,

In woe and lamentation,

And howling consternation.

And the splashing water drenches

Their dirty brats and wenches;

And they crawl from bales and benches,
In a hundred thousand stenches.

This was the White Squall famous,
Which latterly o'ercame us,

And which all will well remember
On the 28th September;

When a Prussian captain of Lancers

(Those tight-laced, whiskered prancers)
Came on the deck astonished,
By that wild squall admonished,
And wondering cried, “Potz tausend,
Wie ist der Stürm jetzt brausend?"
And looked at Captain Lewis,
Who calmly stood and blew his
Cigar in all the bustle,

And scorned the tempest's tussle;
And oft we've thought hereafter
How he beat the storm to laughter;
For well he knew his vessel
With that vain wind could wrestle;
And when a wreck we thought her,
And doomed ourselves to slaughter,
How gaily he fought her,

And through the hubbub brought her,
And he tempest caught her,
Cried, "George, some brandy and water"

And when, its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended,-