agriculture and commerce, and all subsidiary and related arts, must forever remain just what they are, and mankind continue devoted to them much in the same way they now are. Must we not be sheltered and clothed? Then the sciences, arts, and manufactures, which satisfy these wants, must continue to the end of time, and men continue devoted to them. There will be differences of condition, moreover, there will be rich and poor, richer and poorer, serving-man and master, so long as God makes men to differ in natural capacity. The whole race must be industrious and hard-working just as it is, till the earth is burned up, or the constitution of all things is changed. Religion, then, rightly defined, can mean nothing more than a principle which shall influence men to engage in these occupations honestly, and in such a manner, that while they provide, as they are bound to do, for the comfortable estate of the body, they do not neglect, at the same time, to make more sure provision still for the happy future existence of the immortal mind that inhabits it. Religion is to be the guide of life, not its occupation.* THE GERMAN'S NATIVE LAND. Happy the land of which the following song may be sung! Would that it could be said or sung of our own; but to neither one verse nor another is there bere anything very closely correspondent. We have no Rhine winding sea-ward among her castle-crowned bills, with her "vineyards gleaming in the sun," though of oak, and other forests, we have indeed enough and to spare,-America is not, just now at least, an honest land, "where word of man is good as gold," nay, her word would not now * Here is one of the most significant religious anecdotes of the day; it is from a late sermon by Mr. Mott. It is full of meaning as it can hold, and is an apt illustration of the above sentiment. "In a late excitement in Boston, a person met a Christian neighbor, who took him by the hand, and besought him to go to these meetings, and become a Christian. I have done so, said he, and have got religion. I am at last a Christian. You are a Christian, then, all at once, said the other. You profess to act strictly on Christian principles. I am glad of it. I congratulate you. Suppose now we have a settlement of our little accounts between us. Pay me that thou owest. No, said this new-born child of grace, turning away on his heel, religion is religion, and business is business." avail in Europe to borrow a shilling;-wicked songs are still sung, judging especially from some late indictments ; — religion is anything but devoid of art; and, lastly, for the AngloAmerican heart, it has sadly lost its simplicity. Happy and honored the land, then, of which the song we now quote may be sung with truth. It is a translation from the German of some unnamed author, by Mr. Brooks. “Know ye the land, where tall and green Know ye the land where truth is told, Know ye the land where each vile song We know that sacred land full well; 'Tis where the free-souled Germans dwell." SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Happening, not long since, to hear a sermon, preached by a person a little past middle life, upon the subject of fear, as one of the false foundations of a genuine religion, it was curious to notice, though the sermon in truth was not bad, how its merit, nevertheless, was diminished if not quite taken away, as a friend, upon reaching his library after the service, took from his shelves a volume of Sir Thomas Browne, containing his Religio Medici, — and read the following sentences, as forcible and eloquent as they are true. "I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of hell, nor never grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery of the other; to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs, methinks, no addi tion to complete our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear God, yet I am not afraid of him. His mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof. These are the forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation; a course, rather to deter the wicked, than incite the virtuous to his worship. I can hardly think there was ever any scared into Heaven. They go the fairest way to Heaven, that would serve God without a hell. Other mercenaries, that crouch unto him in fear of hell, though they term themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty." Having opened Sir Thomas Browne, it is not easy to close his volumes without a more liberal quotation. Let the reader then take one upon death, and another upon dreams. DEATH. "I thank God, I have not those strait ligaments, or narrow obligations to the world, as to dote on life, or be convulst and tremble at the name of Death. Not that I am insensible of the dread and horror thereof.... but that, marshalling all the horrors, and contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well resolved Christian. And, therefore, am not angry at the error of our first parents, or unwilling to bear a part of this common fate, and, like the best of them, to die, that is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements, to be a kind of nothing for a moment, to be within one instant of a spirit. When I take a full view and circle of myself without this reasonable moderator, and equal piece of justice, Death, I do conceive myself the miserablest person extant. Were there not another life that I hope for, all the vanities of this world. should not entreat a moment's breath from me. Could the devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not outlive that very thought. I have so abject a conceit of this common way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this is to be a man; or to live according to the dignity of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life; yet in my best meditations do often defie death. I honor any man that contemns it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it; this makes me naturally VOL. XXXIII. -3D S. VOL. XV. NO. II. 27 love a soldier, and honor those tattered and contemptible regiments, that will die at the command of a sergeant. For a pagan there may be some motive to be in love with life, but for a Christian to be amazed at death, I see not how he can escape this dilemma, that he is too sensible of this life, or hopeless of the life to come.' DREAMS. "Let me not injure the felicity of others if I say I am as happy as any. Ruat cœlum, Fiat voluntas tua, solveth all; so that whatever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content, and what should Providence add more? Surely this is it we call happiness, and this do I enjoy, with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses; without this I were unhappy, for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend; but my friendly dreams in the night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness; and surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as meer dreams to those of the next, as the phantasms of the night to the conceit of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than emblems in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense but the liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendant was the earthly sign of Scorpius; I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet within me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful, as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my de votions. But our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed. We term sleep a death. . [it is] so like death I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu to the world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God." These thoughts are in both a sweet and a manly strain; they speak of a pure life, a clear conscience, a brave heart, and a trusting faith. A simple and natural piety breathes through the whole, and engages the affections as well as commands the respect of the reader. Every part of this celebrated essay is not equal to those that have been now selected, but all is weighty in thought or quaint in fashion, and well rewards perusal. The edition from which the present citations have been made is that of 1685, in small folio, and of course is not generally accessible; bnt the Religio Medici will be found reprinted in the series of Old English prose writers, edited by Mr. Young. It may be interesting to know how a man, who at thirty wrote with such contempt of the fear of death, encountered that event when it overtook himself. It will be gratifying to learn that he met it with equanimity. A friend of Brownewhose brief memoir is cited by Johnson-who was present with him during his last illness, says: "His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound faith of God's providence, and a meek and holy submission thereunto, which he expressed in few words. I visited him near his end, when he had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard from him were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did freely submit to the will of God, being without fear. He had often triumphed over the king of terrors in others, and given many repulses in the defence of patients; but, when his own turn came, he submitted with a meek, rational, and religious courage." Johnson's general estimate of Browne is high, but his reader will not think it too high; nor will he be inclined to defend him from the faults with which he is charged by the great critic. "It is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem of posterity, of which he will not easily be deprived while learning shall have any reverence among men; for there is no science in which he does not discover some skill, and scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant, which he does not |