is out of place, every thing looks ugly, and every thing causes painful sensations; while in the midst of the dirt and gloom and elemental war, stands a scowling slattern, whose looks send a chill through every heart, and in whose presence every budding fancy withers. That woman was not intended for hard labour in the fields and woods, it is easy to see by her peculiar organization; and the intelligent reader will remember striking examples, in the savage state of society, of the evils of such a system. Savages have, invariably, ugly wives; and the comforts of their rude homes are not often equal to those of the unreasoning brutes, even while these savages far surpass the brutes in intelligence. Their women do the hard work; and while these are, in consequence, unlovable, and degraded to such a degree as to be thought to be of a race inferior to the men, the lives of both sexes and of all ages present the most cheerless forms of animated existence. The civilized nations of antiquity and of modern times, among whom Christianity was and is unknown, afford striking instances of the evils attending social systems in which woman is housed up as a pretty toy or caressed as an object of passion only. The universal corruption of manners-the utter want of integrity in public and in private stations-the total absence of filial reverence, of fraternal kindness, and of paternal tenderness, with a thousand other consequent ills, fratricide; parricide, infanticide, are all mainly attributable to the manner in which woman is treated. And there is on record a great and melancholy example of the danger of allowing woman to stand between man and the world and its temptations; of allowing her, in short, to take on herself the guidance of public affairs. With Adam, when he was made the proprietor of Eden, God entered into a compact, imposing conditions by which he was to remain in his blissful station; but woman, tempted by the father of all evil, took it on herself to question the propriety of this agreement, violated it, and caused her husband to violate it, whereby he lost his seat in paradise, and doomed his descendants to toil and suffering and death. And, finally, in Christian countries, we behold the effects of female education properly regulated. Here, where she is allowed to work in-doors only, and to teach and legislate around the family altar, we behold races of men superior to all other races, and comforts and enjoyments to which the rest of the world are strangers. Here, and here only, we find true patriots, honest statesmen, and active philanthropists. Here, and here only, we find virtue, chastity, honesty, love, and fraternal affection, truth, sentiment, benevolence, and sympathy. How wonderful, com pared with those of other countries, are the comforts of these Christian homes-how astonishing are their improvements-what harmony reigns in all social, political, and moral affairs! It was the legislation and teaching of a Christian mother which made Washington; and with that name are bound up all the dearest political hopes of men. From woman was descended that other Being, whose name is still dearer to human ears; and only through her was Christ our Saviour, the Redeemer of the world, connected with man. And thus, if by her indiscretion as a politician she lost us Eden and made us heirs of death, she gave to the world the Conqueror of the grave; and as a mother and a sister, when man assigns her her proper station, and prepares her for it, she will atone for her former folly, produce to the world a race of Washingtons, and, herself guided by the glorious doctrines of Jesus Christ, lead us back, through him, to paradise! "WHOEVER has been once on the sand-hills of North-Carolina will not forget them soon. The country is not hilly, as the term applied to it would seem to indicate; but an unbroken plain stretches round the whole horizon, and the face of the earth, never clothed with verdure, and thinly covered with leaves, gleams like the desolation of perpetual snow. Still, it has its beauties and its attractions peculiar to itself, and which endear it to the dwellers there. There are occasional mounds of drifted sand to relieve the monotony of the plain; near its streams the air is laden with the fragrance of delicious flowers, and at all seasons the evergreen still wears its summer robes. Nature seems ever to be in a state of soft repose, and the hazy atmosphere invites to that dreamy listlessness, that middle ground between the hard realities of life and the wild phantoms of sleep, so pleasant and soothing to the contemplative mind. The crowning glory of the country, however, is its forest of pines. There are no thickets of brushwood, no tangled webs of vine, no dwarfs nor misshapen woody monsters in this noble family of trees. Grouped in squares, circles, parallelograms, and an endless variety of fanciful figures, they rise high and straight from the earth, some with the stately grace of matrons, and others with the elegant symmetry and lighter proportions of youthful maidens, while the long and slender leaves that, like dishevelled hair, depend in rich luxufiance from their neatly rounded summits, justify the figure used. Few birds are seen among them; and had Ovid told us that to these, and not to poplars, the Heliades were changed, the constant moan heard in their midst might well be taken for the endless wail of the sisters for their rash brother Phaeton." THE PILOT MOUNTAIN. FROM THE GREENSBORO' (N. C.) PATRIOT. THIS wonder of nature is situated in the eastern part of Surry, N. C., near the line which divides that county from Stokes. It rises, an isolated pile, in the midst of a plain; no other mountains, or even any considerable hills, being within many miles of it. The ascent of the mountain to "the spring," an agreeable post of refreshment, more than half the distance to the top, is so gradual that the visitor may proceed on horseback. From this spot the acclivity becomes steeper until you reach the pinnacle, which presents an elevation of some two hundred feet. The only pass to the summit is on the north side, narrow, steep, and difficult of ascent; yet it is considered by no means a difficult achievement; and the visitor is rewarded for his toil by an enchanting prospect of the surrounding country and mountain scenery in the distance. The dense and wide-stretching forest appears dotted with farms and hamlets. The Blue Ridge reposes in a long line of mountain heights on the north-west. Eastward, in Stokes county, the Saura Town Mountains rise to the view, some of whose summits exceed the Pilot in height. And the Yadkin River, flowing down from the hills of Wilkes, and washing the western base of the mountain, "rolls its silvery flood" in a mazy line of light through the wilderness. The result of measurements, taken by President Caldwell and Professor Andrews, is as follows: Height of the Pilot Mountain, from a base near Grassy Creek to the top of the trees,..... Elevation of the pinnacle on the north side, at the place of ascent, .1551 feet. 205" 250" Elevation of the same on the south side, "In the geology of the pinnacle there is something quite remarkable and curious. It is made up chiefly of mica siate and quartz; but each exhibits peculiar and interesting characters. Its rocky wall is full of rents from top to bottom, and it is also regularly stratified, the strata dipping easterly at an angle of only ten degrees. The most abundant rock is a peculiar kind of mica or grit rock, composed of very fine granular quartz, with fleshred mica intimately disseminated. The texture is exquisitely fine, and the cohesion is so loose that it may be frequently crumbled between the fingers into the finest white sand." At a point on the road between the Little Yadkin and Mount Airy, the traveller may obtain the most singular, and perhaps the finest view of the Pilot. One end of the mountain is there presented to the beholder in its most perfect pyramidal form. Its vast sides are seen sweeping up from the surrounding forest, gradually approaching and becoming steeper, until they terminate at the perpendicular and altar-like mass of rock which forms the summit. It here gives an idea of some gigantic work of art, so regular and so surprisingly similar are the curves of its outlines, and so exactly over the centre does the towering pinnacle appear to be placed. The name is said to be a translation of an Indian appellation, signifying Pilot, called so by the aborigines, because the mountain served as a beacon to pilot them in their forest wanderings through a great extent of surrounding country. It satisfies the eye, and fills the soul with a calm and solemn delight to gaze upon the Pilot. Whether touched by the fleecy wings of the morning clouds, or piercing the glittering skies of noon, or reposing in the mellow tints of evening; whether bathed in the pale light of the moon, or enveloped in the surges of the tempest, with the. lightning flashing around its brow-it stands ever, ever the same-its foundations in the depths of the earth, and its summit rising in solitary grandeur to the heavens-the twin of Time and emblem of Eternity-just as it rose under its Maker's hand on the morning of creation, and just as it shall stand when the last generation shall gaze upon it for the last time. THE MISSION OF WASHINGTON-UNION AMONG MEN. BY C. H. WILEY, OF NORTH-CAROLINA. FOR nearly six thousand years the world was without one pure patriot; for nearly six thousand years our race had been making progress before it produced a soldier without ambition, a statesman without guile, a ruler who preferred to live under equal laws rather than be the law himself. He had been looked for: through the long years of injustice and misrule, of fraud and force, his expected coming shed a hope in the hearts of men. And often it seemed that he had come; but they who ran to meet him and laid offerings at his feet were smote with iron rods and delivered into bondage. |