Oh, Mary asthore, my darling, much | Come, darling, kiss your poor Mary beinjured wife, how can I look up, how fore she dies." can I dare to kiss your pure and innocent lips, when your blood is on my hands, when I all but murdered you in my drunken rage?" The poor, wretched, and all but homicide husband arose from his knees; bent, with many a choking sob, over the form of his dying, loving and forgiving wife "Oh, James, dear, don't say any more-clasped her with a gush of returning about that; I have long since forgiven fondness to his heart--and in that moyou from my inmost heart. I shall die ment of forgiveness and reconciliation happy now I have seen you once more. she expired.-SICK CALLS. REPENTANCE. Stay, stay, thou angel of my soul, Though erring, doth he not forgive? Through mists of doubt I've followed far Like to the child, that sought the gold I've wandered for the crystal stream To quench my burning at its fount. Then stay, my angel; let the rod Safe in His fold the golden chains And humbly Calvary's cross I'll bear, Till hyssop pure, shall cleanse my stains! IN ESSAY WRITING AND THE ESSAYIST. N the spring of 1709, Richard Steele | verbially dogmatic tone with which ver. and Joseph Addison began a series dicts are rendered, whether in history, of facetious and humorous compositions philosophy or literature, instead of the that laid the foundation of a new de- assumed superior lights and inspirations partment in English literature-one with which the writer would have you which, somewhat modified as periodical consider him to be highly gifted, there literature, wields a powerful influence lurk two substitutes that do far better upon our times. In the magazines and than real merit-shallowness and asjournals of the present day is condensed surance. It is our opinion that the inevery kind of information, which is very accurate statements, silly gossip, loose often too implicitly relied upon by the principles and false philosophy that unsuspicious reader. Little thinks he, abound in our periodicals constitute, in "good, easy man," that behind the pro- no small degree, the cause of that lack of depth and truth so perceptible in the way and models of energetic lanbooks of the present. guage. There are exceptions to this charge. 2. Polemical essays are also short-lived. There are magazines and journals whose Not the genius of a Milton or the invinarticles in general possess all the merits cible logic of a Dr. Doyle or an Archof a good essay-being conscientiously bishop Hughes can enshrine controversial scrupulous in the statements and prin- pamphlets in armor strong enough to ciples laid down-instructive and solid, withstand the ordeal through which a suggestive rather than exhaustive, and work has to fight its way to imperishable cleverly written. A good essay ought fame. In the beginning of the so-called to be an avenue opening into a subject, so beautifully laid out that the reader is allured along its pleasant paths until he finds himself in the face of the main building, and urged to enter and study the whole structure. Indeed, no man should undertake to write an essay unless he has a new idea to communicate to the reader, or has attained a point of view from which a subject looks fuller, or is more suggestive of thought than hitherto. What, then, are we to think of those essays that are made up of inspired rehashes from authors in which the same things may be found fresh and palatable? But it is not our intention to lay down rules for the composition of good magazine articles. Since essay writing is so universal, it behooves us to know how much of it is going to form a permanent part of our literature. Guided by principles in which we place as much reliance as the astronomer does in his when, standing on the brink of futurity, he predicts an eclipse, or defines the comet's path, let us skim over this interesting subject. Reformation many were the brilliant and forcible pamphlets that were published on both sides of the question; and yet how few have come down to our own day except in name merely. How difficult the historian finds it to pick up in the most extensive libraries essays that were then published. Polemical essays, then, can have no part in the popular and higher literature of a country. 3. It is evident that scientific or merely instructive essays can never take such hold upon the hearts of a people as to cause them to be cherished and preserved through all future ages. 4. Neither can critical essays form part and parcel of our literature. "What! not Macaulay-not Jeffrey-not Carlyle not Alison-will hold an elevated position in the literature of essay writing?" We repeat it, as critics they will never be the popular writers of the nation. The critic is like the clerk in a custom house, who inspects and registers the goods that pass through. He simply brands the articles that have been tossed from an author's brain when 1. Political essays, as demonstrated they enter the port of publication-proby the literary history of the past, live nouncing them spurious or saleableonly with the occasion that gives rise to often, indeed, not knowing what he does, them; that over, they sink into oblivion. as when Johnson uttered pompous nonIn those fierce, outspoken, energetic sense about Milton, or Jeffrey solemnly "Letters of Junius," in which the declared that the "Excursion" would doughty author, with unsparing hand, "never do." We of the present admire lashes the Government officials of his the splendid page of Macaulay; but at time, we have a brilliant exception to a future period it will appear dim and this rule, for they are unique in their tarnished, and will be consulted only by essays. a few interested in the science of criti-petent judge pronounced it-A precious cism, or some curious reader who is casket of practical thoughts, "for that struck by a quotation from him. So it seems, they come home to Men's Busiwith the rugged earnestness of that nesse and Bosomes."* 2d, Addison's wrong-headed" word-wielder" Carlyle. "Spectator"—that fascinating collection So with Alison. Their essays will be re- of essays, in which the times are so membered because of their valuable, gracefully pictured, with an elegance of though by no means faultless, contribu- style "beyond the reach of art." 3d, tions to history, as Milton's prose works Lamb's inimitable "Essays of Elia," live because he is the author of "Para- arch-humorous, sometimes deep and dise Lost," or as Scott's poetry will be thoughtful,sometimes amusing and witty, preserved because he wrote the "Wav- always impressive and distinct in the erly Novels." "The Confessions of an ideas they convey or the pictures they Opium Eater" may rank with "The paint. 4th, The "Recreations of ChrisAnatomy of Melancholy" or "The Com- topher North "-that grand gush of unplete Angler," among the classical prose rivaled prose that carries away the of our language, but the introversions reader like a "rush of mighty waters," and convolutions of that great master in such a manner that his soul is hushed of prose, De Quincy, do not seem suffi by the imposing awe of the magnificent cient warrant for the immortality of his mountain and lake scenes, described with "And if not these, what ones a vividness more akin to reality than anywill form a permanent part of our popu- thing ever written a book inspired by lar literature?" The writer is acquaint- nature and nature's great poet, Wordsed with four, and only four, series of worth. essays to which he would award niches in the Alhambra of literary fame, and which, judging from the history of the past, the signs of the times, and the cravings of intellect, he considers so deeply rooted in the popular literature of our language, that no revolution of whatever nature can detach or destroy them. He even considers a nation rich in possessing so many. Naming them in the order of time, they are: 1st, That volume, small but richly stored with words of wisdom from the pen of the great Bacon, on a wider range of subjects, in which, as was rightly remarked by one of the initiated in literature: Being the unbending of these great Thoughts and suggestions of thoug it men's minds-" recreations," as Bacon move in such solid phalanx that every and Wilson call them-they represent line is a study."* A work "full of the natural course of their geniuses, and recondite observations, long matured and as a river that runs in a new bed reveals carefully sifted." ↑ As another com 46 *Reed-"Lectures on English Literature." + Hallam-"Literature of Europe." What is it, you would ask, that entitles these to imperishable fame? Read them, and you will feel that nameless something-the impress of geniusthough you may not be able to express it. So volatile and intangible is this spirit that no system of analysis can define it. Its absence is what makes mere imitations of these essays fall flat to the earth, and be soon forgotten except by the patient literary student, even when the solidity of a Johnson, the brilliancy of a Leigh Hunt, or the fluency of a Goldsmith, is brought to bear upon them. the nature of the soil through which it | degree; these words of another great esbreaks, they reveal the man, because sayist of world-wide fame: "I wish to they are suggested by choice of inclina- be seen as I am-simple, natural and tion, and in the absence of all effort, so ordinary, without study and artifice; for that each might use as his motto, though it is myself that I paint." by no means applicable to all in the same B. A. IN N one of the street-cars of the metrop-| girls alone that the love of babies is conolis, a few evenings since, was a lady fined. with a baby. One of the blue-eyed, crowing, happy babies, disarranging its white robes and rumpling its blue ribbons with all the abandon of a baby that is secure in ever-fresh supplies both of love and clothes. The mother was evidently a stranger to the other ladies in the car; yet all of them smiled when they looked in her direction, and many of them spoke to her and seemed to love her for the sake of the beautiful child. The opening instinct of womanhood seems to be the love of babies, and the girl must be a very little one who does not want a doll to which she can play the sweet part of mother. The depth and purpose of the instinct are revealed to us in the petition of the little miss of five years, who happens to be an only child—“ Mamma, I want a baby to p'ay with, a meat baby, mamma." It was once the lot of the writer to dwell in the white tents of Camp Harrison, in Georgia-in that lower part of the State where families are always far between, and much more so in war-timesFor long weeks we had not seen a woman or a child. At last the railroad through the camp was repaired, and in the first train there was a lady, with just such a wide-awake, kicking baby as the later one of the metropolis. Some hundreds of rough soldiers were around the cars, and Captain Story, of the 57th Infantry, was the biggest and roughest among them, if we judge of the tree by its bark. The lady with the baby in her arms. was looking from a window, and he took off his hat and said, " Madam, I will give you five dollars, if you will let me kiss that baby." One look at his bearded face told her that there was nothing bad No kinder blessing was ever bestowed in it, and, saying, with a pleased laugh, than in the close of Fanny Fern's letter "I do not charge anything for kissing to the then newly-married Princess Royal my baby," it was handed over. The of England: "And when, brightest of little one was not afraid, and the bushy all others, the crown of maternity shall whiskers, an eighth of an ell long, were descend upon your youthful brow, God just the play-house it had been looking grant you that nicest of all places on earth to cry in-a mother's bosom !" for. More than one kiss did the captain get from the little red lips, and there was energy in the hug of the little round Then other voices said, "Pass Yet, while the instinct of maternity is peculiar to woman, and marks her sex more plainly than rounded limbs or arms. gentle manners, it is not to women and him over here, Cap. !" and, before the train was ready to move, half a hundred fool; but I've got one just like it at men had kissed the baby. It was on home." its best behavior, and crowed, and Other lands have owned the power of kicked, and tugged at whiskers, as only this young immortality, and the Hindoo a happy baby can. It was an event of hails the little stranger with the words, the campaign; and one giant of a mount- "Young child, as thou hast entered the aineer, who strode past us with a tread world in tears when all around thee like a mammoth, but with tear-dimmed smiled, so live as to leave the world in eyes and quivering lips, said, "By smiles while all around thee weep."George, it makes me feel and act like a Appletons' Journal. "JAM AM mysterium operatur iniquita- | authority to administer the law, it has detis." The spirit of evil is at work. denied both of them, and in denying Never were these words more applicable both, it has denied God Himself. This to the social and religious condition of is a grave charge, but let us see if we the world than they are at the present cannot substantiate it. day. Never were the social and religious elements more agitated, or the civilized world in a greater ferment, than we see it now over questions of supremest importance. In the midst of this "battle and confused noise," two grand movements are clearly discernible, tending in opposite directions and leading to still more opposite results. The spiritual world is dividing into two camps. The time of sects and creeds and of partial errors is past; all minor differences are sunk, and the two great armies of these words we have an infallible, perCatholicism and Rationalism are rang-petual authority, with promise of divine ing themselves under their proper ban- assistance all days, even to the end of ners. To the camp of Catholicism gather time. all those who believe in the revelation What do we read in the Evangelist? Christ has instituted an Apostleship universal and perpetual, a living teaching authority, with the promise of divine assistance, without interruption, to the end of time. "Go teach :" there we have a living teaching authority. "All nations:" behold a universal teaching authority, designed to be a religious society spread throughout the world among all peoples. "And lo I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." In Now let us ask Protestantism where of God to man. To the camp of Ra- is this universal, perpetual, infallible tionalism flock all those who believe in authority? It denies the existence of the revelation of man to himself. To any such society, and consequently af the ranks of Catholicism come all those firms that the Bible is a book of false who believe in God: to those of Ra- promises; and still more, that Christ, tionalism gather all who believe in man; having promised to man, in the words for we must not forget that Protestant- above quoted, a teaching, perpetual, inism, pushed to its logical and ultimate fallible Church, has been false to His conclusion, makes humanity a god unto word, and is only a faithless founder! itself. Yes, in separating the written So that the final resting-place of Protword from the living word, the Scrip- estantism is radical rationalism; the deture from the Church, the law from the nial of the divinity of Christ to which it |