with a small quantity of superficial talent should be the contrary. A truly great man, who thoroughly knows his mental and moral vigour and value, will scarcely ever be satisfied with the results that he attains, on account of the high ideal that he cherishes of his character and mission. All that he does will seem a poor and meagre embodiment of what he is able to do. The ardour and the onwardness, therefore, which impel him to perfect his imperfect work, and to do something more worthy of his sublime conceptions than any thing that he has yet succeeded in giving as a blessing to his fellow-creatures, will produce thorough selfforgettingness. Whereas the would-be-great inan, devoured by the quenchless longing for human applause, cherishing no ideal vision of his character or mission, living not in his own consciousness, but in the opinion of his fellows, will be satisfied with any result provided it bring him the excitement of praise which he so much desires. Great men are satisfied with and confide in their real qualities, but are dissatisfied with the results of their labours, and therefore are they modest; wouldbe-great men are dissatisfied with, and do not confide in their real qualities, but are satisfied with the results of their labours; therefore are they vain and presumptuous. Do not then, my friends, be afraid of carrying to its utmost extent the system of individualism which I recommend for the education of your children. It will not make them either vain or presumptuous; it will make them modest. The contrast between the results that they aim at, and the ideal of their character and mission, will urge them as it urges the great man to more earnest and persevering endeavour.

Another reflection suggested by the review that we have taken of the agents of civilization, and which is intimately connected with the preceding reflection, is, that no idea which once enters as an idea into the mind perishes without in its main lineaments and purport attaining its realization. What are the main lineaments and purport of every such idea? To give a higher and better mode of happiness, and thought and comprehension to the mind to which it is communicated. Even then, though such a mind never could succeed in bring

ing the idea in a tangible form before the world, still it would have attained its principal object in the happiness, and thought, and comprehension, that it communicated to the individual. What are the reward and the realization of heroism to the hero? Unquestionably the idea of heroism itself. And so, also, with the poet, the prophet, the martyr, and other agents of civilization that I have mentioned. It is often thought that a man lives in vain, however immense his genius or his virtue, unless he succeed in convincing mankind of his genius or his virtue, and in leaving a deep and durable trace on the progression of society. But this is a sad mistake. No appreciation of such genius or of such virtue could ever be so complete as its appreciation as an idea in the mind of the individual; and the social consequences that might possibly have flowed from the social incorporation of the idea, Providence will compensate for by some other manifestations of power. The man who has conceived an idea, has from that conception seen and enjoyed the best and most blissful effects of that idea. And more than this. The man who has so conceived an idea, is the only man who can individually realise it, even in its external social form. An idea communicated by an individual to society, may be completely carried out and embodied by society; but it requires a countless succession of individuals to do what the original conceiver did, or could himself have done. Luther, to some extent in his life, but to a larger extent in his heart, realised the idea of faith which he made the basis of Protestantism, more completely than the whole of European society has been able to do since. Should not such facts teach you, if you are teachable at all, the preposterousness of waiting for a more convenient season for doing either in religious, in political, or in social change, what your conscience tells you ought to be done? There are in the minds of all men ideas, and apparent ideas. If you are possessed by a real idea, and not by an apparent one, you will speak out, and act out that idea on all occasions, irrespective of consequences. If you are possessed only by an apparent idea, you will wait, and wait, and wait; for what

is not a reality in yourself, cannot become a reality either in your speech or your action.

Other reflections besides these plentifully offer themselves. Such I shall not unfold. I have selected what I consider the most practical and direct. And I conclude with a fervent hope, that if you are unwilling to become, or, as you imagine, are unable to become, you will never cease to testify interest, and affection, and gratitude, and reverence for the agents of civilization.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS.

Lines suggested by a Picture in the Fourteenth Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, entitled, "Female Convict the Night before her Execution," by J. E. Lauder,

"Sleep, baby mine-to-morrow I must leave thee,
And I would snatch an interval of rest;

Sleep, these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee,
For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast."

HENRY KIRK WHITE.

[The author of the following lines assumes the eloquent canvass of the artist, to tell the tale of Mary Jones. The facts attending her execution were thus reported by Sir William Meredith to the House of Commons ·- "It is a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under 19) and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak. The shopman saw her, and she laid it down again; for this she was hanged. Her defence

was,

That she lived in credit and wanted for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her, but since then she had no bed to lie on, nothing to give her two children to eat, and they were almost naked: and perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.' The parish officers testified the truth of this story. But it seems there had been a good deal of shoplifting about Ludgate-an example was necessary-and the woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of some shopkeepers in Lud

gate Street. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her to be in a distracted and desponding state, and the child was sucking at her breast when she set out for Tyburn gallows!"

Poor doomed one! Victim of man's impious laws!
And will they drag thee forth to strangle thee?
Unheeding of thy shrieks, thy prayers, thy tears,
Thy struggling helplessness, that stones might move
To passion, will they tear thee from thy child,
To quench in death a mother's hope and fears?
Monsters! in pity doom the infant too,
And end a tragedy you else begin.

Say, who demands this Moloch sacrifice?
To whom is this atonement to be made?
Mammon, the God of Gods and Lord of Lords,
His is the bloodthirst which must needs be slaked:
She dies that Haberdashery may live,

May live by doing that for which she dies,

By doing it according to the law.

Ask not, will one be found to do the deed,-
A deed, whose ruthless contrast would enshrine
Murder itself among the virtues rare,-
The passionless extinguishment of life:
See men who boast themselves " respectable,"
Apostles of the decencies of life,

Who ne'er offended custom's lightest law;
See such, with puppet mummery bedecked,
Swelling with pride of their fantastic garb,
Cheerful consent to grace the hangman's work,
And act the chief parts in the murderous show.
Or look on him-yon stately state-fed priest:
Oh, holy God! is this thy Minister?
Does he indignant shake the dust from off
His feet, and cry to Heaven against the crime?
He but assists the executioner,

And howls the hymn, " Glory to God on high,
On earth be peace and good will toward men,"
Whilst rope and drop are ready set for work.
No murder like the murder of the law!
Hot blood, revenge, or lustful appetite

Of gold, may whet the knife and point its edge,
To rust for ever in the assassin's breast.
The law alone can murder without hate,
Owning no grain compunction for the act,

Kill while it smiles; condemn, yet mock with pity;
And with a "Lord have mercy on your soul,"
Consign its victim to the hangman's cord.

R. N.

POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO TOTAL ABSTINENCE.No. V.

ANOTHER class of objectors urge upon us that temperance is not religion.

True; and yet there can be no real religion without it. So honesty is not religion; that is, it is not the whole of religion; but there can be no religion without it. We often find that total abstinence, which we deem the safest form of temperance, is the handmaid of religion. Total abstinence lifts the degraded slaves of intemperance from the depths of profligacy and misery, and brings them to feel their connection and relation with their fellow men, and with God their creator, and Christ their redeemer and future judge. Total abstinence hews them out of the rough quarry, that they may afterwards be polished into useful pillars in the great temple of human society, or in the sacred edifice of the Christian church. Many most delightful instances of this kind might be adduced from personal knowledge, and many are brought before our notice in the Temperance periodicals. Would some one take the pains to collect them, they would present a most valuable body of evidence of the spiritual influence of Temperance Societies. In the Scottish Temperance Journal for January 1842, it is stated, that "there are 230 members of an independent church in Edinburgh who were once degraded by intemperance." Mr Mason, speaking of the Temperance Society at Banchory, states, that " it can justly boast (if boasting be allowed) of being the harbinger of much spiritual as well as temporal benefit to not a few of its members. It is delightful to know that there have