it, exacting as we proceed, with the relentless greed of conquerors, the terms we choose to demand. It is a brave game. We secure obedience; our houses will be quiet, our late sleep in the morning will be unbroken; fewer windows will be cracked; our books will be unsoiled; our newspapers will never be made into cocked hats. We shall systematize that wholesome terror with which we guide the young idea. There are grave sentimentalists who temper the parental authority with all the kindness of parental love; "which," says the doctor, "even in exacting obedience only where obedience is necessary for the good of him who obeys, is still the exacter of sacrifices which require to be sweetened by the kindness that demands them. This duty, indeed, may be considered as in some degree involved in the general duty of moral education; since it is not a slight part of that duty to train the mind of the child to those affections which suit the hollow turnip for a head is a vulgar rendering after all, lacking the majesty to which this national tutor may fairly lay claim. It is too real, and therefore inadmissible, for the power of tutor Bogie lies in his mystery. Children tremble under his hands, because they cannot see him; they continue, for generations, to fly from his presence, because his proportions swell with their fears, and his eyes glare, and his teeth gnash, and his wild hair waves in coal-black masses over him. Where *he begins and ends are unfathomable mys-hold, with Dr. Brown, that is a duty to teries. He is not a vulgar ghost of everyday life; nor is he in any way related to the time-honored specter that has been so long occupied in the dreary business of dragging heavy chains up and down the oaken staircases of old castles. He declines to acknowledge affinity even with the vampire family. Cross question him as you may, you will get no definite answer from him. Clever dog! here lies his strength, and he knows it. There is the greatest horror in the greatest mystery. Tutor Bogie's empire begins, there-filial nature, and which are the chief elefore, as the sun sets; like the owl, he sleeps through the daylight, except when he is keeping school in the coal-cellar. As the gloom of night comes on he stalks abroad, and thousands of little children's heads are buried deep under the counterpane. But does he walk? Well, that is his secret; as the form of his body, the color of his eyes, the depth of his revenge, are secrets we shall never know. And, if a grateful country decide to give him a statue, the form must proceed entirely from the sculptor's vivid imagination. He can be presented, in the stone, only through the medium of elaborate allegory. Figures of dancing madmen, gibbering idiots, mothers and fathers quietly asleep, folded figures of little children shrinking into corners, are among the evidences of his power that might decorate his pedestal. And then for the figure. Why, let it be carved in the imagination of every spectator who gazes upon it. Yes, let there be the solid pedestal, chiseled out of the hardest granite, and upon that pedestal let there be Nothing! That is, nothing perceptible to the touch yet there shall be upon that pedestal, folded up in the gloom of night, a figure, at which our children will look with starting eyes and parted lips. And then we shall take them up, shrieking, in our arms, and advance with them toward | It is im ment of every other affection that adorns Now is it probable that the world will fall in with this sentimental view of education? No man who has observed the world as it is rolling, can promulgate this doctrine of limitless kindness, and hope to see it presently in practice. There is a tyranny in the world from which our grand-children will not be emancipated, because it rests in the selfishness and in the pride of men. Deep and subtle as parental love is, it is soon reconciled to the shifts which selfishness imposes upon children, and to the hard laws with which pride rules them. For the sake of quiet, in the quest of economy, how soon is the father ready to turn his child from home, to the care of a stranger! He cheats himself generally into the belief that he is sorry to part with his child, but that the step is for its ultimate good. More, his mother is spoiling him. True, the poor mother may have worked upon the child's fears to keep it quiet; true, she may have created in its mind a horror of our old friend and tutor, Bogie; but has she not, too, held it to her bosom? It will run to fetch mamma's scissors with a nimbler foot than that which follows the paternal orders; for the father is but a mild form of Bogie-a Bogie tempered with occasional flashes of kindness. If there be punishment to inflict, it is he who chastises. If there be a lecture to deliver, his deep voice pronounces it; and the child listens very gravely. This is, we are told, proper respect for the parent-the duty of the child to the father. But what if we say that the child, when it comes into the world, owes the parent no duty whatever; that what we call duty is simply bondage; if we assert that the true and only duty due from the child, is its acknowledgment of the parental love that may be lavished upon it. But suppose no love warms its childhood-suppose that the father mistakes stern authority for parental dignity-is the child a debtor for its mere existence? "Non est bonum vivere, sed bene vivere," said Seneca. And he declared that he who gave him nothing more than life, gave him only what a fly or a worm might boast. Well, is he a benefactor to the child or to the state, who nurses the child's fears and works upon them chiefly? In no sense. Constant fear degrades the moral sense. It is the basest of all influences; it chops the fingers of the dying wretch overweighting the raft; it turns crowds into wild animals, even in a place of worship. Yet, Old Bogie is our witness that fear is brought to our children's cradles. We, 263 We whip them, imprison them, reduce men and women, are their slave-owners. their allowance of food, and, strange perversity of nature, they grow up ungrateful! TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. HIGH hopes that burn'd like stars sublime, There's nothing left but sorrow The Promised Land to-morrow. Our birds of song are silent now, There are no flowers blooming, And Freedom's spring is coming! Though we may strand in sorrow; Shall float again to-morrow. Through all the long, dark night of years, And earth is wet with blood and tears, The many moil in sorrow; Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes For lo our day bursts up the skies! O youth flame earnest! still aspire, Our yearing opes a portal! Build up heroic lives, and all Be like a sheathen'd saber, NEVER regret an act of generosity, howto one that deserves nobly, you confer a ever worthless the object. If you act nobly. benefit on him and yourself; if he be undeserving, still the very action does good to your own heart. LITTLE BRIDGET. HE correspondent to whose graceful THE pen the NATIONAL is indebted for a series of articles on Humane Institutions, has given several biographical sketches of those who, in God's inscrutable providence, have come into this weary world without those faculties, in possession of which most of us rejoice. The deaf, and the dumb, and the blind, have excited our warmest sympathies. The various forms of insanity, and the philanthropic means used for its alleviation, have also been described in former pages. There is another large class of our fellow-creatures, the silly, the half-witted, who pass through life, too frequently the mere sport of the thoughtless, and who, nevertheless, have warm hearts, and whose lives might, by a little care, be rendered, if not happy, at least not altogether wretched. Read the simple account which follows, from the pen of a German philanthropist. Little Bridget, when I first saw her, was no longer quite a child, being already thirteen years of age; but she was very little and a sad cripple. Judging from her height, you would have taken her for six or seven. She was very deaf, spoke most unintelligibly, was most painfully deformed, and her face looked as if it belonged to a person of forty years of age. She always appeared very serious and ill-tempered, I had almost said morose; and if she did occasionally smile, it had such a painful appearance that one hardly knew whether to grieve or to rejoice. Her parents were poor people; and one day, as I entered their cottage to offer her father a job of work, I saw Bridget standing amid a merry, rosy-cheeked group of her brothers and sisters. I was so startled by her appearance that I had almost forgotten the object of my visit, and could only stand staring at the poor little girl's old wizened-looking face. "Yes," said Bridget's mother, who seemed to guess the current of my thoughts, "that child is a sad trouble; she is nearly thirteen, and can neither read nor say her prayers. At school they can do nothing with her, and I have no time to devote to her; so, you see, she grows up any how; though, goodness knows, one cannot exactly say that she grows." The little one, perhaps, understood a great part of this speech, for she retired with dignified ill-humor into a corner of the window. "Yes," continued the mother, "what is to become of her I don't know. She can do nothing, and she has learned nothing. It is a sad thing when the two come together." "Is she a good child?" "Good? well, I hardly know myself; I have so little time, and she doesn't talk much, but goes her own way. She does not beat her brothers and sisters; I must say that; and when I ask her to do anything that she can do, peel potatoes, or anything of that sort, she does it without any objection, and is very industrious about it; but, at the same time, most dreadfully slow." I looked, with unspeakable compassion, at the poor little thing; it grieved my heart to look, and yet I could not help doing so. I gave a small piece of money to each of the children, simply for the sake of an excuse for giving a trifle to Bridget. When her mother called her to me, she gave me a disdainful look, held out her hand sullenly, and muttered a few words, which I did not understand; if it was a "thank you," it was, at any rate, an unfriendly one. I went away, but the image of the little one went with me. I could think of nothing but that miserable, old-looking face, and the gray eyes that had been fixed upon me so scrutinizingly. In a few days I had arranged my plans; I begged Bridget's parents to confide the child to me, and, taking her to my country estate, placed her under the village schoolmaster, who had an excellent wife, and was himself a very good man. In three years' time Bridget had acquired some notion of religion-as much, perhaps, as was requisite for her; she could read and write too, but no one understood what she read. I called often to see her: she had gradually become accustomed to me; I often praised her; and when I first told her that she was a sensible little girl, to whom a great deal could be trusted, she smiled gratefully and joyously. I reflected a long time upon the position that Bridget seemed fitted to fill in the world; at last I discovered a suitable occupation, and, after the expiration of those three years, took her on to the estate, and gave her the charge of all the poultry. The employment seemed made for her; she had not grown at all, and a curious sight it was to see her, when, armed with her little switch, she went the round of the poultry-yard, calling the fowls together in her murmuring way, and taking care of them. It was easy to see, in her anxiety about them, that a rich treasure of love lay hidden in the heart of this poor little cripple. Her sole thought, from morning till night, was how best to preserve her hens, ducks, turkeys, and geese; the sick, the lame, and, above all, the crippled among them, she nursed with unwearied care. Every morning she handed over the eggs in the kitchen; she would walk in with her dignified air, noticing no one, lay the eggs on the kitchen table, and go away again without uttering a syllable. The number of the eggs and of the fowls that had been killed, or sold, she reckoned after a singular fashion. For every egg she made a stroke in her book; and then, further off, was written, in letters an inch long, "for one hen," "for one duck," "for one goose;" and the price of each was indicated by strokes. She handed this account in to me, and I always told her that I understood it all, and that she was very neat, which made her happy for a long time to come. Bridget had had the charge of the poultry-yard for a year, when the schoolmaster's wife was taken ill. She came to me, and I guessed, rather than understood, what she wanted, and said, "You wish to go and see your foster-mother?" She nodded her head, and still continued mumbling. They told me that she never left the room excepting to see after the sick chickens; that she had eaten nothing, and had only had a little milk to drink. The schoolmaster's wife died a week afterward. Bridget had not been in bed once; in fact, she never stirred from the invalid. She neither spoke nor cried; only now and then she stroked the sufferer's hand, who smiled every time she did so, for she loved the poor little creature who was so devoted to her. As soon as I heard of the poor woman's death, I drove over to fetch Bridget, who refused at first to return with me, till I asked her, "What will become of the poultry if you do not look after them, Bridget? That is your duty, you know." After the death of her foster-mother, Bridget held herself more than ever aloof from every one, living only for the fowls. Half a year afterward she was taken ill; I sent for a doctor, but he said that he could not save her, and that it was quite a wonder that the poor little girl had lived so long. I could not help feeling very sad, having become so accustomed to the poor little creature, whom I had tried to benefit by kind treatment. I went to see Bridget on her sick bed; she could only converse with me by signs; her face looked graver and older than ever, as her eyes wandered now and then to some crippled birds, who lay or ran about in the room. When I last saw her, her glance rested uneasily upon one spot; I saw that her eyes were riveted upon a bundle which was carefully wrapped up in At length she feebly raised her paper. "You would perhaps like to stay all little hand, and signed to me to give it to night there, if things are very bad?" her. When I had done so, she handed the packet to me with a great effort. She smiled, almost pleasantly, and attempted with her little, hard, deformed hand, to press mine. This was what she wished; so I proposed that some one should drive her over; but she declined the offer contemptuously, and soon after left the yard, her switch in one hand, and in the other a little basket containing a few sick chickens. The next day I went to see the invalid: she was suffering a great deal. Bridget was seated on a little stool by her side. The poor woman told me, in a feeble voice, that the child had been keeping watch by her all night, and could not be made to move away; but that it was too much for one so delicate, and begged me to desire her not to do it again. It was very affecting, and I could not restrain my tears; she signed to me to leave her then, and a few minutes afterward they told me she was dead. The packet contained the feathers which Bridget had collected from the ducks, hens, and peacocks, which were on the estate. I placed some of them in a vase, in which they may still be seen, for I shall keep them ever in remembrance of the poor little girl who was externally so unI spoke to Bridget about it. She looked prepossessing, but was, nevertheless, enat me disdainfully, but made no reply. I dowed with a heart so warm and faithful. THE PLEIADES-A TRUE TALE OF IT THE SEA. T was a lovely night; "the moon, parting aside the light clouds" that floated in the heavens, peered forth with her brilliant face. The sea, sparkling beneath her earnest glance, seemed like one vast casket of gems; each ripple appeared a diamond, and from each billowy wave gleamed forth "the ever-changing opal's light." Truly, Luna had never a more "shining bath in which to lave" than on this night. For hours I had stood watching "the sea of fire" as it appeared in its brilliancy. I had never recollected seeing it more dazzling bright; and calling to Henry Maxwell, who was standing near, I invited him to share the glorious spectacle with me. He came, I thought, rather reluctantly; and after giving one rapid glance, turned coldly away. I followed him, for I had noticed that he shuddered, as if in horror at the sight. On similar occasions I remembered his exhibiting the same apparent disgust, and I felt somewhat | anxious to find out the cause. He had seated himself when I reached him, in thoughtful attitude, and placing myself by his side, I gathered from him the following thrilling incident: of sugar. It is some years since the vessel I then belonged to was taking in a cargo of sugar at Barbadoes. We were obliged to go from our ship, which was anchored at some distance from the landing, in boats, and transport our cargo in that manner. The afternoon was a very windy one, when two comrades and myself pushed off in our boat, "nothing fearing," to take in a load We had got out of sight of the vessel, when suddenly there came upon us one of those violent gusts so often experi- | enced in a tropical climate. It seemed as if the "caverns of the wind" had been suddenly opened, and their pent-up prisoners rushed out to scatter with their footsteps the ocean's foam around. The boat reeled as the blast descended, which was sweeping over us with a mighty power, hurling us from our places with a giant's strength. O! the horror of that moment, when I found myself tossing about on the merciless deep; and how cold the waves felt as, dashing over me, I would rise and sink with their swell. I had caught two pieces of timber that were floating past, and in that manner sustained myself, for For the shore was at too great a distance for me to reach it by swimming. Upon looking around, I found that my companions were near me buffeting the waves. several hours we tossed about, looking out anxiously for a sail, and striving to keep up each others' fast drooping spirits. As long as I saw my companions near, I felt buoyed up, and continued to combat with the waves. But the fearful agony of that moment I shall never forget, when, looking again on the spot where I had last seen them tossing wildly their hands as if imploring for aid, I found that they had disappeared. I called aloud, I implored them to answer; only one word, I said, to tell me that I am not all alone-alone on this horrible deep. But O! my God, my God, (said the speaker, overcome by his emotion,) no voice replied; they were gone. The waves had opened and ingulfed them. Yes, I was alone alone to combat with the fierce elements that seemed driving me on to eternity; alone with my fast failing strength; no voice near to cheer me, no human arm to uphold me. To add to my horrors, night threw her mantle covering over the earth and sea, and soon its shadows darkened all around. It was the first quarter of the moon, and O! how I looked up and blessed her, as she hung out her brilliant crescent, "like a silver boat launched on a boundless flood." While I lay gazing up to heaven and thanking God for even this little ray of light, which was enough to enable me to distinguish surrounding objects, I saw a shark moving its ponderous form toward me. I felt as if divested of all powers of volition, and it seemed as if I had been spared the fate of my companions to meet with this more horrible death. Slowly the creature advanced, and then remained perfectly motionless at a little distance, watching me. I bent my gaze upon it, and kept it fixed steadily; it moved not, neither did I, save the gentle motion of my body caused by the rocking of the waves. All was still and silent; the winds had murmured themselves to sleep; the billows moved quietly, as if fearful of disturbing the slumbers of those who slept beneath them. It must have been about ten minutes (to me it seemed an "age of ages") that this strange scene continued. At last I saw the creature move gradually off, and with a deep plunge that agitated the waters around, it sunk beneath the |