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golden color, and part of white, more white than chalk or snow, and in like manner composed of other colors, and those more in number and more beautiful than any we have ever beheld. And those very hollow parts of the earth, though filled with water and air, exhibit a certain species of color, shining among the variety of other colors, so that one continually variegated aspect presents itself to the view. In this earth, being such, all things that grow, grow in a manner proportioned to its nature, trees, flowers, and fruits; and again, in like manner, its mountains and stones possess, in the same proportion, smoothness and transparency, and more beautiful colors; of which the well known stones here that are so highly prized are but fragments, such as sardin-stones, jaspers, and emeralds, and all of that kind. But there, there is nothing subsists that is not of this character, and even more beautiful than these. But the reason of this is, because the stones there are pure, and not eaten up and decayed, like those here, by rottenness and saltness, which flow down hither together, and which produce deformity and disease in the stones and the earth, and in other things, even animals and plants. But that earth is adorned with all these, and moreover with gold and silver, and other things of the kind; for they are naturally conspicuous, being numerous and large, and in all parts of the earth; so that to behold it is a sight for the blessed. There are also many other animals and men upon it, some dwelling in mid-earth, others about the air, as we do about the sea, and others in islands which the air flows round, and which are near the continent: and, in one word, what water and the sea are to us, for our necessities, the air is to them; and what air is to us, that ether is to them. But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are free from disease, and live for a much longer time than those here, and surpass us in sight, hearing, and smelling, and every thing of this kind, as much as air excels water, and ether air, in purity. Moreover, they have abodes and temples of the gods, in which gods really dwell, and voices and oracles, and sensible visions of the gods, and such-like intercourse with them; the sun, too, and moon, and stars, are seen by them such as they really are, and their felicity in other respects is correspondent with these things.

"To affirm positively, indeed, that these things are exactly as I have described them, does not become a man of sense; that however either this, or something of the kind, takes place with

respect to our souls and their habitations - since our soul is certainly immortal-this appears to me most fitting to be believed, and worthy the hazard for one who trusts in its reality; for the hazard is noble, and it is right to allure ourselves with such things, as with enchantments; for which reason I have prolonged my story to such a length. On account of these things, then, a man ought to be confident about his soul, who during this life has disregarded all the pleasures and ornaments of the body as foreign from his nature, and who, having thought that they do more harm than good, has zealously applied himself to the acquirement of knowledge, and who having adorned his soul not with a foreign but its own proper ornament, temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and truth, thus waits for his passage to Hades, as one who is ready to depart whenever destiny shall summon him. You, then," he continued, "Simmias and Cebes, and the rest, will each of you depart at some future time; but now destiny summons me, as a tragic writer would say, and it is nearly time for me to betake myself to the bath; for it appears to me to be better to drink the poison after I have bathed myself, and not to trouble the women with washing my dead body."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Leaves of Grass. Boston: Thayer & Eldridge. Year 85 of the States. (1860-61.)

Better dressed than we ever expected to see him, Walt Whitman again makes his bow, but with purpose unabated to "sound his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world." The sensations of the roofs under this process are, as may be imagined, various and strong. "Some said that it thundered, others that an angel spoke." The Christian Examiner, with the unctuous air of one who has just read without blinking the accounts of Joseph and Potiphar, Judah and Tamar, pronounces it "impious and obscene." Mr. Emerson sends word, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." When doctors, etc. Well, we have gone to the book itself for a decision. The Leaves of Grass has been our companion out in the wild outlooks of Newport and Nahant, we have read it at night after following the throngs of New York by day, we have conversed with its music when the obligato was the whizz and scream of the locomotive which bore us across the continent, and have turned to it from the calm rush of the Father of Waters, from the loading here and there on its shores by the glare of pine-knot fires, from the eager crowd of men and women chatting, singing, gaming in the saloon, and we confidently announce that Walt Whitman has set the pulses of America to music. Here are the incomplete but real utterances

of New York city, of the prairies, of the Ohio and Mississippi,-the volume of American autographs. To these formidable eyes the goddess Yoganidra, who veils the world in illusion, surrenders; to them there are no walls, nor fences, nor dress-coats, no sheaths of faces and eyes. All are catalogued by names, appraised, and his relentless hammer comes down on the right value of each.

We can not dwell on this remarkable work as much as we would like, because we wish to place here some extracts.

"O truth of the earth! O truth of things, I am determined to press my way toward you; Sound your voice! I scale mountains, or dive in the sea after you.'

"I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world."

Voices.

"Oh, what is it in me that makes me tremble so at Voices?

Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow, as the waters follow the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe.

Now I believe that all waits for the right voices;

Where is the practiced and perfect organ? Where is the developed soul?

For I see every word uttered thence has deeper, sweeter new sounds, impossible on less

terms.

I see brains and lips closed-I see tympans and temples unstruck,

Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose."

To a Common Prostitute.

"Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;

Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you."

The Child.

"There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder, pity, love or dread, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.

The early lilacs became part of this child;

And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,

And the Third-Month lambs, and the sow's pink-faint litter, and the mare's foal, and the cow's calf,

And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire of the pond-side,

And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful curious liquid,

And the water-plants with their graceful flat-heads-all became part of him.

The strata of colored clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away by itself-the spread of purity it lies motionless in,

The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt-marsh and shore-mudThese became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day."

A friend of ours told us that once, when he was visiting Lizst, a fine gentleman from Boston was announced, and during the conversation the latter spoke with great contempt of Wagner (the new light) and his music. Lizst did not say anything, but went to the open piano and struck with grandeur the opening chords of the Tannhauser overture; having played it through, he turned and quietly remarked, "The man who doesn't call that good music is a fool." It is the only reply which can be made to those who do not find that quintessence of things which we call Poetry in many passages of this work.

We can not, nor do we wish to deny that biblical plainness of speech which characterizes these poems; we or nature are in some regards so untranslateable that in some of these pages one must hold his nose whilst he reads; the writer does not hesitate to bring the slop-bucket into the parlor to show you that therein also the chemic laws are at work; but to lose the great utterances which are in this work because of these, is as if oue should commit suicide, refusing to dwell on the planet because it was not all an English Park, but had here and there a Dismal Swamp or a dreary

desert. This Poet, though "one of the roughs," as he calls himself, is never frivolous, his profanity is reverently meant, and he speaks what is unspeakable with the simple unreserve of a child.

Rutledge: New York: Derby & Jackson. Cincinnati: Rickey, Mallory & Co. 1860.

A rather interesting story, full of passionate scenes and intense feelings. There is very little originality in the plot; and railroad accidents, runaway horses, brain fevers, dreadful family secrets and remarkable coincidences, murders and suicide, follow each other in too rapid succession to be quite natural. The hero is the stereotyped, middle-aged hero; cold, reserved and interesting; and is kept from the object of his love by a blindness and stupidity inconceivable in one of his years and usual brilliancy. The book is full of common-place quotations and cant expressions, which give it the air of a school girl's composition. The chief merits of the work are the few vivid characters, and the interest you are compelled to feel in them throughout the story. There is very little time wasted in moralizing, or in tedious descriptions.

THE WESTERN CONFERENCE.

THIS body met at Quincy, Illinois, on the 13th of June, and though we were unable to get a word concerning it into the Dial for July, we can not allow the time which has elapsed to prevent a comment thereon in our present issue. Indeed, such a gathering as that, with such results, can never be thought of as passé; rather does it require months and years ere it can be estimated at all. We can not grow familiar all at once with the largest Thought or Fact. We can give only some features of that Liberal Reunion.

1. We do not make too hasty an assertion when we say that at the Quincy Conference the Crisis of Liberal Christianity in the West-we might almost say in America was safely passed. The verdict of the Churches there represented -about thirty in number- was perfectly clear for the utmost catholicity. The Churches of the West have resolved that they will stand by every honest mind in its sacred right of inquiry and judgment; that they will not falter at any earnest conviction held in a reverent spirit; and that they will do this not under that frozen charity called TOLERATION, not because the organization contains no form for ostracism, but heartily and because above even faith and hope is Love. In that Conference men of the most different sentiments and temperaments Sabellians, Arians, Socinians, Humanitarians, Conservatives, Radicals, Supernaturalists, Universalists, Transcendentalists, met without descending to meet; hands clasped hands, hearts joined hearts, without compromising any of their individual veracity and solemn specialty. They were not lumped together by the chemistry of conformity, but rather as various fingers are united in one hand:

Thank God, we are to have no more of the successors of Channing and Freeman and Ware turning with averted faces from those who are by truth and earnestness their own brothers; no more pious fratricide; no more the heaping on any honest free-thinker of unjust burthens and sorrows and isolations which will not rest until he reposes in a premature grave!

2. This diversity thus, for the first time perhaps in any conference of Churches, entirely respected (not tolerated merely), secured a unity but little known in Christian History. A common faith and purpose arose, clear and sunlike; the living Christian Idea stood in the eyes of all against the sky waiting to lead us to a full possession of this Promised Land of Truth and Liberty. For this Unity we did not burn anybody, nor excommunicate anybody, nor coerce

any mind; therefore it was not a Unity full of secret dissents and discontents; and that unity for the truth and the mission of Christian Liberty of thirty or more Churches made us stronger than a Papal See, and freer from schism than any other body in the world.

3. This great Purpose of Liberal Christianity in the West thus rising up clear and defined, the many-fingered hand of which we have spoken at once grappled with it. It was plain that there had been awakened in the West a spirit which was of vaster dimensions than any which had been contemplated. From cities, towns, villages, throughout Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, appeals came up for help, for ministers and prophets. Several ministers came who had but lately broken away from the old trammels, and desired to be received into fellowship. These circumstances made the sessions of the Conference of thrilling interest; indeed, the feeling in our meetings frequently grew into an intense excitement, pervading the large crowd of those in constant attendance.

The practical results of this were chiefly two: First, initial steps were taken, under a proffer of union from Dr. Krebs, a distinguished Unitarian (German) minister, of St. Louis, towards securing help and interest for the German Liberal Churches, which stand between the Evangelical (soi disant) Churches and the Materialists and Atheists. Ministers in St. Louis, Alton and Cincinnati were appointed to consult with the German ministers for this desirable object. In the second place, a Missionary Association was formed for the purpose of answering the ever-growing hunger of the West for a higher religious life and faith. The object of this association is to support a man, an energetic, live man, whose duty it shall be in the good old style of Wesley and Asbury to go around through the West and see after the bands of seekers and thinkers, establish institutes for discussion and inquiry among them, foster them where they are already established. The small societies of independents scattered in the West are generally calling for pastors, but they are generally not prepared for pastors, and to help them from outside to support pastors is often to do them an injury. There should be a crystallization about some self-sustaining centre before a minister is called, and this would be secured best by regular meetings amongst the people for discussion of the religious topics of the day. For example, at a certain point, it was told us, two prominent members had declared that they would not help support a minister who would touch the Slavery question in the pulpit; two others in the same place declared they would have nothing to do with one unless he rebuked the national sin. Now, it is not best for a Church in that condition to call a minister. Let them meet from Sunday to Sunday, and bring their respective views side by side, and see which is the true path on such questions, and when they have reached a fair and honest platform on which they can meet without compromising their manhood, their crystallization will be pure; otherwise it will not be.

A strong effort is now being made to induce the Rev. Robert Collyer, Pastor of the Second Church in Chicago, and Minister at Large also in that city, to throw himself into this work. Mr. Collyer was formerly a blacksmith; he was afterward a Methodist minister in the Philadelphia Conference. On the anvil of strong and true experience he was shaped into the stalwart and influential character which he now is. A man of perfect health, both physical and theological, of unwavering purpose, of a heart rich and broad as a prairie, whose extemporaneous utterance is a stream of copious and delightful eloquence, he is the man who can unite the "right and left wings," (and it is on two pinions that Liberal Christianity is to sweep over this country,) can create the interest needed for such a work, and to him with much hope our eyes turn.

Most reluctantly did we bid each other farewell, and take our departure from the beautiful and hospitable city of Quincy. As we came down the magnificent Father of Waters, it seemed to hint of that great destiny as yet sheathed in the grand resources of the West. Star after star climbed up to its setting in the breastplate of Infinitude above us, and cast its clear image into the waves; and so, we prayed, may the great tide of Humanity setting Westward reflect in its heart the holy truths which human progress is ever lifting above the horizon into the soul's clear vault.

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