enjoy in this world! Henceforth no thought of business shall enter my mind, until I recross the Atlantic. I will study painting, and sculpture, and music: I will commune with nature; I will ponder the works of departed genius; I will cultivate the society of the intellectual and the gifted;"-at this point of his harangue, he suddenly left his friend's side, and darted into a shop they were passing,-apologizing, upon resuming the walk, by saying he had merely stopped to inquire the price of tallow ! Leisure with us is still an anomaly. Now, far be it from us to gainsay the advantages of industry, to deny that labor is man's appropriate sphere, or to lament, for a moment, the spectacle of universal activity, and, consequently, of prosperity, around us. Let us only contend that all labor is not obvious and tangible; that no man who thinks deserves to be called an idler; that the absence of any obvious employment or specific profession does not necessarily make any one amenable to the charge of inactivity. How much of our boasted industry is profitless; to how many, social ambition or extravagant tastes, instead of necessity, form the true motives of business; how much of the so-called occupation about us is void of any higher result than that of keeping its votaries out of mischief; how seldom do those who have acquired a competency retire upon it to scenes of domestic improvement; and with what reluctance, do the fortunate yield the arena to the young and penniless, even when age and infirmity warn them to retreat! It is time we learned, not to underrate business, but to appreciate leisure. ENTHUSIASM-SYMPATHY. It Let us recognise the beauty and power of true enthusiasm, and, whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment. For what is the human mind, however enriched with acquisitions or strengthened by exercise, unaccompanied by an ardent and sensitive heart? Its light may illumine, but it cannot inspire. may shed a cold and moonlight radiance upon the path of life, but it warms no flower into bloom; it sets free no ice-bound fountains. There are influences which environ humanity too subtle for the dissecting-knife of reason. In our better moments we are clearly conscious of their presence, and if there is any barrier to their blessed agency, it is a formalized intellect. Enthusiasm, too, is the very life of gifted spirits. Ponder the lives of the glorious in art or literature through all ages. What are they but records of toils and sacrifices supported by the earnest hearts of their votaries? Dante composed his immortal poem amid exile and suffering, prompted by the noble ambition of vin dicating himself to posterity; and the sweetest angel of his paradise is the object of his early love. The best countenances the old painters have bequeathed to us are those of cherished objects intimately associated with their fame. The face of Raphael's mother blends with the angelic beauty of all his Madonnas. Titian's daughter and the wife of Correggio again and again meet in their works. Well does Foscolo call the fine arts the Children of Love. Reason is not the only interpreter of life. The fountain of action is in the feelings. Religion itself is but a state of the affections. I once met a beautiful peasant-woman in the valley of the Arno, and asked the number of her children. "I have three here and two in paradise," she calmly replied, with a tone and manner of touching and grave simplicity. Her faith was of the heart. Constant supplies of knowledge to the intellect and the exclusive culture of reason may, indeed, make a pedant and logician; but the probability is these benefits, if such they are, will be gained at the expense of the soul. Sentiment, in its broadest acceptation, is as essential to the true enjoyment and grace of life as mind. Technical information, and that quickness of apprehension which New Englanders call smartness, are not so valuable to a human being as sensibility to the beautiful, and a spontaneous appreciation of the divine influences which fill the realms of vision and of sound, and the world of action and feeling. The tastes, affections, and sentiments are more absolutely the man than his talent or acquirements. And yet it is by and through the latter that we are apt to estimate character, of which they are at best but fragmentary evidences. It is remarkable that in the New Testament allusions to the intellect are so rare, while the "heart" and the "spirit we are of" are ever appealed to. Sympathy is the "golden key" which unlocks the treasures of wisdom; and this depends upon vividness and warmth of feeling. THE POET CAMPBELL. If we were to adopt a vernacular poet from the brilliant constellation of the last and present century, as representing legitimately natural and popular feeling with true lyric energy, such as finds inevitable response and needs no advocacy or criticism to uphold or elucidate it, we should name Campbell. He wrote from the intensity of his own sympathies with freedom, truth, and love: his expression, therefore, is truly poetic in its spirit; while in rhetorical finish and aptness he had the very best culture,-that of Greek literature. Thus simply furnished with inspiration and with a style both derived from the most genuine sources,--the one from nature and the other from the highest art, he gave melodious and vigorous utterance, not to a peculiar vein of imagination, like Shelley, nor a mystical attachment to nature, like Wordsworth, nor an egotistic personality, like Byron; but to a love of freedom and truth which political events had caused to glow with unwonted fervor in the bosoms of his noblest contemporaries, and to the native sentiment of domestic and social life, rendered more dear and sacred by their recent unhallowed desecration. It was not by ingenuity, egotism, or artifice that he thus chanted, but honestly, earnestly, from the impulse of youthful ardor and tenderness moulded by scholarship. It is now the fashion to relish verse more intricate, sentiment less defined, ideas of a metaphysical cast, and a rhythm less modulated by simple and grand cadences; yet to a manly intellect, to a heart yet alive with fresh, brave, unperverted instincts, the intelligible, glowing, and noble tone of Campbell's verse is yet fraught with cheerful augury. It has outlived, in current literature and in individual remembrance, the diffuse metrical tales of Scott and Southey; finds a more prolonged response, from its general adaptation, than the ever-recurring key-note of Byron; and lingers on the lips and in the hearts of those who only muse over the elaborate pages of those minstrels whose golden ore is either beaten out to intangible thinness, or largely mixed with the alloy of less precious metal. Indeed, nothing evinces a greater want of just appreciation in regard to the art or gift of poetry, than the frequent complaints of such a poet as Campbell because of the limited quantity of his verse. It would be as rational to expect the height of animal spirits, the exquisite sensation of convalescence, the rapture of an exalted mood, the perfect content of gratified love, the tension of profound thought, or any other state the very law of which is rarity, to become permanent. Campbell's best verse was born of emotion, not from idle reverie or verbal experiment; that emotion was heroic or tender, sympathetic or devotional,-the exception to the everyday, the commonplace, and the mechanical; accordingly, in its very nature, it was "like angels' visits," and no more to be summoned at will than the glow of affection or the spirit of prayer. MARY. What though the name is old and oft repeated, And yon bright star we hail, although its looming As starry beams o'er troubled billows stealing, Like patriot music or affection's tone,- The course of present thought has quickly broken, The sweetest tales of human weal and sorrow, And marvel not I thus call my ideal,— In a far land where I was sad and lone? Both angels must the same blest title own. What spirits round my weary way are flying, Hang o'er me when the chord of life is riven, Be my dear household word, and my last accent here. HENRY WARD BEECHER. THIS very eminent preacher and eloquent lecturer was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the 24th of June, 1813. He was graduated at Amherst College in 1834, and studied theology at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, when it was under the direction of his father. He was first settled in the Presbyterian Church at Lawrenceburg, Dearborn County, Indiana, in 1837, where he remained two years. Thence he removed to Indianapolis, where he continued till he was called to the new congregation-the Plymouth Church-at Brooklyn, New York, in 1847, where he has since remained, acquiring for himself and giving to his church a position and a fame known throughout the land. It may be safely said, indeed, that as a pulpit and a platform orator he has no superior. Nothing is studied, nothing artificial, about his oratory: all is natural, frank, cordial, hearty, fear less. One great secret of his power is, that he feels deeply himself the great truths that he utters, and therefore makes his audience feel them too.1 Mr. Beecher was married in 1837 to Miss Bullard, sister of the late Rev. Dr. Bullard, of St. Louis, and of Rev. Asa Bullard, Boston. Mr. Beecher's only publications are Letters to Young Men, and Star Papers, or Experiences of Art and Nature. But there have been published for him two very remarkable books, Life Thoughts gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by Edna Dean Proctor; and Notes from Plymouth Pulpit: a Collection of Memorable Passages from the Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by Augusta Moore. Few books can be found containing such rich gems of deep thought, brilliant fancy, and devotional feeling. It is impossible to do Mr. Beecher justice by any extracts from his sermons or essays. One must hear him preach or lecture to feel his power, or to understand it. The following selections, however, will give some idea of his style, sentiments, and inexhaustible wealth of thought and illustration. THE TRUE OBJECT OF PREACHING. A sermon that is dry, cold, dull, soporific, is a pulpit monster, and is just as great a violation of the sanctity of the pulpit, as the other absurd extreme of profane levity. Men may hide or forsake God's living truth by the way of stupid dulness, just as much as by pert imagination. A solemn nothing is just as wicked as a witty nothing. Men confound earnestness with solemnity. A man may be eagerly earnest, and not be very solemn. They may also be awfully solemn, without a particle of earnestness. But solemnity has a reputation. A man may be a repeater of endless distinctions, a lecturer in the pulpit of mere philosophical niceties, or he may be a repeater of stale truisms; he may smother living truths by conventional forms and phrases, and if he put on a very solemn face, use a very solemn tone, employ very solemn gestures, and roll along his vamped-up sermon with professional solemnity above an audience of sound men; men, at least, soundly asleep,that will pass for decorous handling of God's truth. The old pharisaism is not dead yet. The difference between Christ and 1 In 1850, Mr. Beecher made a brief trip to Europe; and the impression be produced is described in the following spirited paragraph in the "British Banner," written by Dr. Campbell :-"Mr. Henry Ward Beecher is by far the most amusing and fascinating American it has ever been our lot to meet. He is a mass of flaming fire, restless, fearless, brilliant,-a mixture of the poet, the orator, and the philosopher, such as we have seldom, if ever, found in any other man to the same extent." For a good notice of Mr. Beecher, see "Fowler's American Pulpit." 2 This is composed of the communications he has given to the "Independent." his signature in that paper being a star (*). He continues to write for it; and bis contributions are one of the many attractions of that admirable journal. |