walks. If to all this he add an American hat, and a soldier's coat of blue, faced with red, over the customary calico shirt of the gaudiest colors that can be found, he lifts his feet high, and steps firmly on the ground, to give his tinklers an uniform and full sound, and apparently considers his appearance with as much complacency as the human bosom can be supposed to feel. This is a very curtailed view of an Indian beau; but every reader competent to judge will admit its fidelity, as far as it goes, to the description of a young Indian warrior when prepared to take part in a public dance. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, 1780-1842. "Thou livest in the life of all good things; What words thou spakest for Freedom shall not die; "Farewell, good man, good angel now! this hand Soon, like thine own, shall lose its cunning too; "When that day comes, oh, may this hand grow cold, Oh, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING was born at Newport, Rhode Island, April 7, 1780. His father was William Channing, Esq., an eminent lawyer, and his mother was the daughter of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He graduated at Harvard University in 1798, with the highest honors of the institution, and, after leaving college, pursued the study of theology. He became distinguished as a preacher, and at nearly the same time received an invitation from two religious societies in Boston to settle with them as their pastor. He accepted the call from the church in Federal Street, which was then the smaller and weaker of the two; and his ordination took place on the 1st of June, 1803. The society rapidly increased under his charge, his reputation and influence in the community became marked and extensive, and his assistance was soon eagerly sought in a broader sphere of exertion and usefulness. In 1812, he was appointed "Dexter Lecturer on Biblical Criticism" in Harvard University; but the state of his health did not allow him to enter on the duties of the office, and he resigned it the following year. He was then chosen a member of the Corporation of the college, and held a seat in this board till 1826. In 1820, the honorary degree of D.D. was conferred on him. In 1822, he visited Europe for his health, which was somewhat improved by the voyage; but a feeble constitution and liability to disease proved great impediments to his labors through his life, and it is astonishing how much, with such drawbacks, he really accomplished. In 1830, when the anti-slavery feeling began to take more outward form in Boston, Dr. Channing's sympathies were warmly with it, though he did not then join the ranks of the "abolitionists," technically so called. His interest in the subject, however, increased from year to year, and in 1831 he published his work on slavery, which showed that his whole heart was in the great cause of humanity. In October, 1834, he preached a sermon to his people upon the mob violence exerted in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other cities in the country, against the friends of liberty. In 1837, he addressed his celebrated Letters to Henry Clay against that nefarious plot to extend the area of slavery, the annexation of Texas. In 1840, he reviewed Joseph John Gurney's Letters on West India Emancipation; and in 1842, he delivered an address at the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, held August 1, at Lenox, Massachusetts. This was his last public address. His health had been very feeble for a long time, and, being taken with typhus fever, his exhausted frame sunk under it, and he died October 2, 1842. His end was calm and peaceful. Sustained by the consolations of religion, he met, undismayed, his summons into the future world, assured of a happy immortality. Of the moral purity of Dr. Channing's character, it is scarcely possible to speak too highly. In every relation of life, he deserved unqualified praise. His conduct was a daily exhibition of the characteristic evangelical virtues,-purity of heart, ardent love to God, habitual obedience to his will, benevolence to man, and those amiable qualities which shed a constant sunshine through the breast of their possessor, and strongly endeared him to all within the circle of his friendship and acquaintance. In the latter period of his life, he took a deep and earnest interest in the cause of Freedom, at a time when such a position was uniformly attended, to a greater or less degree, by the coldness or loss of friends, by obloquy, reproach, misrepresentation, ostracism from accustomed social circles, and, in some parts of the country, by mobs and personal violence.2 Dr. Channing's numerous contributions to the "Christian Examiner" and other reviews, together with his sermons, addresses, and miscellaneous works, have been 1 "There is one word that covers every cause to which Channing devoted his talents and his heart, and that word is FREEDOM. Liberty is the key of his religious, his political, his philanthropic principles. Free the slave, free the serf, free the ignorant, free the sinful. Let there be no chains upon the conscience, the intellect, the pursuits, or the persons of men. Free agency is the prime distinetion and privilege of humanity. It is the first necessity of a moral being. Extinguish freedom, and you extinguish humanity. Tyranny is spiritual murder, as sin is moral suicide."-Discourse of Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. 2 Though of a frame so attenuated and feeble that one might fear that the very wind would blow him away, he had a high and dauntless soul,-a moral courage that shone most illustrious when such qualities were most needed; and when, in November, 1837, the news of the murder of Owen P. Lovejoy, in Alton, Illinois, for defending his free press, reached Boston, he headed a petition to the civil authorities for the use of Faneuil Hall for a meeting of citizens, to express their disapprobation of such deeds of lawless violence. It is commentary enough upon the character of soul required at that time to head such a petition, to say that, even with the name of Channing in the most conspicuous position, it was refused. Men who thus stand out boldly for the right, regardless of consequences, deserve to be held up as an example for imitation to all coming generations. collected and published in six volumes, by his nephew, William E. Channing, which have passed through numerous editions. Among the most admired of his general writings are his Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton; on Bonaparte; on Fenelon; and on Self-Culture. Of the last it has been justly said, that "its direct appeal to whatever of character or manliness there may be in the young, is almost irresistible." THE PURIFYING INFLUENCE OF POETRY. We believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity, that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and parts with much of its power; and even when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness and misanthropy, she cannot wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with what is good in our nature, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of outward nature and of the soul. It indeed portrays with terrible energy the excesses of the passions; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to lift it into a purer element, and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. We are aware that it is objected to poetry that it gives wrong views and excites false expectations of life, peoples the mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom against which poetry wars-the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life-we do not deny; nor do we deem it the least service which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thraldom of this earth-born prudence. But, passing over this topic, we would observe that the complaint against poetry, as abounding in illusion and deception, is, in the main, groundless. In many poems there is more of truth than in many histories and philosophic theories. The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest verities, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, the letter is falsehood, but the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his delineations of life; for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the highest office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser pleasures and labors of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye it abounds in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of youth; the throbbings of the heart when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and her blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire, these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys; and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which-being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts-requires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, epicurean life. BOOKS. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am,-no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling,-if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. THE MORAL DIGNITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROFESSION. One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the elevation of the art of teaching to the highest rank in the community. When a people shall learn that its greatest benefactors and most important members are men devoted to the liberal instruction of all its classes, to the work of raising to life its buried intellect, it will have opened to itself the path of true glory. There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth; for there is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, and character of the child. No office should be regarded with greater respect. The first minds in the community should be encouraged to assume it. Parents should do all but impoverish themselves, to induce such to become the guardians and guides of their children. To this good all their show and luxury should be sacrificed. Here they should be lavish, whilst they straiten themselves in every thing else. They should wear the cheapest clothes, live on the plainest food, if they can in no other way secure to their families the best instruction. They should have no anxiety to accumulate property for their children, provided they can place them under influences which will awaken their faculties, inspire them with pure and high principles, and fit them to bear a manly, useful, and honorable part in the world. No language can express The expression of gratitude is a virtue and a pleasure: a liberal mind will delight to celebrate the memory of its parents; and the teachers of science are the parents of the mind."-GIBBON. |