time-the asperities of my nature (or position) and fixed my eyes so intently upon the bright tints in the great picture of life, that its deep shades have escaped my eye almost entirely, and I am half resolved, like the cheerful dial, to record "only the hours which are sunny." Verily it is good for our poor race that its scattered members take down (or leap over) the bars which society has put up between them, and enjoy the luxury-for say what we will it is a luxury-of a good hearty embrace. For then, "Hand locked in hand, heart locked in heart; forgetting all injuries, and remembering all benefits; burying the weapons of war beneath the olive-branch of peace, and "soothing ourselves with pleasant loves" beneath its quiet shade; we shall soon be united by that unity of spirit which, as it is the only bond of purity, is also the "only bond of peace," (all other bonds are but as ropes of sand which cannot endure, or as bonds of iron which ought not to.) And to remove these bars of which I have spoken, and ensure the "heavenly union" which I have so faintly foreshadowed, it is well, as often as is consistent with other duties, to travel out of the narrow circuit of one's place of residence, whether it be a city or a hamlet, and enlarge and elevate the mind by intercourse with those whom we call “strangers,”— and especially those whose habits of mind and life differ widely from our own. This will be sure to deepen and widen the channel of our thought, and enlarge the circle of our affections. It will prevent" lands intersected by a narrow frith" from " abhorring each other," and "mountains interposed" will no longer "make enemies of nations." "The lion and the leopard "-now at relentless war-will "lie down together," and the "little child" —now a victim of both-" shall lead them." Men will quit this marching about the country in battle array, while their swords will be beaten into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. And I believe these long arms which the city is extending to the country, and the country is reaching back to the city, are daily and hourly drawing the hearts of men more nearly together, and leading them rapidly toward this happy result. Every car which courses over our railroads is a "car of emancipation,”—hastening with the speed of light to release men from the thraldom of "state lines" and national prejudices. Every time you lessen the distance between the Old World and the New by those mighty engines, which from the way they devour space should seem to live on it, you lessen the chance of war, or, in other words, teach the people the great lesson of human brotherhood. You thus bring folks so near together that they can't fight. You make friends of them. Humanity is being steamed out of its jealousies and enmities. And when you have brought the two worlds-the mother and her daughter a little nearer together, so they can kiss each other, they will give up " preparing for war," and there will be no killing, except of fatted calves for the festival. BE PATIENT. BY THE EDITOR OF THE DUBLIN NATION. Be patient, Oh, be patient! Put your ear against the earth; How noiselessly and gently it upheaves its little way, Till it parts the scarcely broken ground, and the blade stands up in the day! Be patient, Oh, be patient! The germs of mighty thought Be patient, Oh, be patient! Go and watch the wheat-ears grow! Be patient, Oh, be patient! Though yet our hopes are green, Till the whole broad land is tongued with fire, on Freedom's harvest day! THE TRUE SPIRIT OF REFORM. I have just returned from a delightful visit to my island home, and re-entered upon my duties with a recruited body and a refreshed spirit. I think the visit did me good. I know it did. It increased my faith-it broadened my vision-and brightened my sight. Intercourse with enlightened minds and generous spirits, whose path was once parallel with mine, and in some instances almost identical, but who, driven by the varying winds and tides of life, have been for the last few years sailing over far different waters, and visiting remote channels and coasts,—such intercouse, of which I partook freely and largely, did much to elevate my ideas of right, and enlarge my ideas of duty. It enabled me to see more distinctly than hitherto, not only their errors, (i. e. the errors of the friends alluded to) and the errors of community,-but my own, and those of my co-workers and associates. It revealed to me, especially, the danger and moral death which must inevitably be the fate of those who, assuming to themselves immunity from error, proceed to dogmatize and trifle about matters concerning which, to say the least, there is room for an honest difference of opinion. And, moreover, it unsealed my eyes to the consciousness that a man may err in judgment, and by the strength of his social feelings, and the wonderful power of his religious associations, be drawn aside from the straight and narrow path of the highest wisdom-which " but few" ever "enter"-and still be, in many respects, a kind, affectionate, and noble spirit. This fact we have too often overlooked, and finding men sluggish, or stupid even, in their approach to what seemed to us the absolute truth, have often, in impatience of spirit, and blindness of zeal, used language which, as no man can honorably listen to or be influenced by, so no one can honorably use. I have two motives for turning my columns into a confessional to "this extent" ("no more"):-first, because I was impelled to by a strong sense of justice :-second, because I am getting more and more afraid, daily and hourly, of being associated, in the minds of my readers, with that class of persons, who-to use a rather hackneyed comparison-have their Procrustean beds on which they measure every man, shortening him by the knife or lengthening him by the rope, as he happens to exceed, or fall within, their iron standard. I believe in progress-infinite progress; and with this belief, must of necessity, be very suspicious of those who boast, either by doubtful words or obvious actions, that they are perfect. There are men who were never known to acknowledge themselves in the wrong-whose self-esteem towers up over their intellectual domain to such a height, as to throw reason, conscience, reverence, and-as an almost inevitable consequencetruthfulness, even, completely into the shade. Such persons, especially when spurred on by a brisk combativeness, are incapable of seeing the least good in, or doing the least justice to, and enemy. When this class of mind gets into the reform ranks, it may be bold, intrepid, uncompromising, but it is also rude, boastful, unfair, and unforgiving. It has no magnanimity, no charity, no love,but is captious, cold-hearted, and hateful, and soon becomes morose and misanthropic. Now the true spirit of reform, if my present apprehension of it is right, while it is brave is also generous; while it is uncompromising is also charitable; while it is dignified is also humble; while it is almost impetuous is yet civil; while it has the wisdom of a serpent has also the harmlessness of a dove. It has the keenest perception of wrong, and is as alive to the touch of vice as the Eolian harp to the slightest breath of air,-and yet has a compassion for the victim of vice co-extensive with his desolation of spirit and sadness of soul. While it has thunders of denunciation for sin in high places, and makes the high priests of politics and religion astonished at its reproof, it has also the gentlest notes of mingled encouragement and admonition for the debased subjects of this dreadful priestcraft, and a kindly ear for all their complaints. While it has no sympathy with the bastard religion of this country, which has a shade and shelter for every vice within the broad pale of fashionable practice, and impiously baptises the dreadful systems of war and slavery in the name of the Lord Jesus,—it nurses the religious sentiment itself with tender care, and protects it with a watchful eye and jealous hand from everything which would weaken or impair it. Such, in brief, is my view, this morning, of the spirit of reform. It strikes me, now, that it is broad enough to satisfy all those who have enough of moral perception to discover, and enough of moral courage to embrace the simple principles of the New Testament, or rather the principles of that pure instinct which dates its existence far back to the childhood of the race, and out of which as its purest embodiment, sprang the New Testament. MODERN CHRISTIANITY. WRITTEN FOR THE "LIBERTY BELL." One may not, in these days, confess Christ before men, without many a careful qualification; for, to be a Christian, in the minds of a large majority of the community, is to be a supporter, directly, of every sin within the broad pale of fashionable practice. Nay, more; a conscientious man may well explain, in these degenerate times, his belief in a God, before he asserts it very boldly in the presence of a mixed audience; for the God of this nation, (if not of all nations,) is a God who has a complacent smile for all degrees of moral obliquity which are not in disfavor with the ever-shifting majority. That Being before whom angels bow and archangels veil their faces, and in whose sight the very heavens are unclean, is to this people an unknown God, and has no part nor lot in its "ever-blessed Trinity." The triune divinity of this nation is the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. So inverted an order of things prevails in this country, that the name Infidel has become transfigured from its original and repulsive meaning into a term of the holiest significance. To be an infidel now, is to hide the outcast, to unbind the heavy burthen, |