well as in our every-day speech. The following passages, which I have noted in reading, are interesting as showing the origin and progressive forms of the word. It will be observed that, in these quotations, the word is used in the sense mentioned above as the primitive one, that of reconciling enemies, and not of expiating sins,

"If gentilmen or other of that contree

Were wroth, she wolde bringen hem [them] at one,
So wise and ripe wordes hadde she,
And judgement of so great equitee."

Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, v. 8312.

"And the next day Moses showed himself unto them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?" Acts vii, 26. "Lodovicus.-Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio? Desdemona.-A most unhappy one; I would do much

Tatone them, for the love I bear to Cassio." Othello iv, 1. "There is but one mediator, Christ, as Paul sayth, 1 Tim. ii; and by that word understood an atone-maker, a peacemaker and bringer into grace and favor, having full power so to do." Tyndale's Works, p. 158.

“Madam, the King desires to make atonement
Between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers,
And sent to warn them to his royal presence."

King Richard II, i, 3. W. G. Ws.

THE BLUE-STOCKING CLUB.-W. S. B. wishes to know

the origin of the epithet "blue-stocking." By consulting Chambers's Cyclopedia of English Literature, Vol. II, p. 579, the inquirer will find that, in the "days of other years," a literary assembly entitled the Bas Bleu Club met at the house of Mrs. Montagu, in London. In 1786 Miss H. More published a poem, bearing the title of "The Bas Bleu, or Conversation," "being," says the editor of the Cyclopedia, "an elaborate eulogy on the Bas Bleu Club." In a note on the bottom of the page it is said that "Miss More's poem proceeds on the mistake of a foreigner, who, hearing of the Blue-Stocking Club, translated it literally Bas Bleu." It it also stated, in the same note, that the "meetings at Mrs. Montagu's were called the 'Blue-Stocking Club,' in consequence of one of the most admired members, Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wearing blue stockings. The appellation soon became general, as a name for pedantic or ridiculous literary ladies." MARY.

POPE ON NATURE AND THE HUMAN WILL.

66 But, binding nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will."

I have often heard these two lines of Pope quoted by persons, with the assertion that they were without meaning. Now, it seems to me that the idea Pope intended to convey is, that while all the operations of nature in her physical forms are governed by fixed laws, the human mind, which is here spoken of as the will, is free-free to follow such course as it may choose. The child of the ignorant, groveling miser, while it must, in accordance with the fixed laws of nature, possess a physical frame similar to its father's, is not necessarily like him in mind and disposition. True, from associating with him, as well as transmission of qualities, he may resemble him. A grain of corn will never produce wheat, neither will a beet-seed produce a radish. Each seed necessarily reproduces its like, and the husbandman never feels any uncertainty in regard to the produce of his land being different from the secd sown. This is no less true of the

animal kingdom. There may be strange anomalies in both; but they do not affect the universal law. M. K.

THE VERB TO Do.-There is a peculiarity in the conjugation of this verb not mentioned in our grammars, nor generally observed in its use. It is a transitive verb, and has both active and passive voices; but when used in its passive form and the present tense, it is impersonal; that is, it is only used with a nominative, in the third person, singular number, and neuter gender. Such expressions, therefore, as, I am done, He is done, etc., are incorrect, and should be changed to, I have done, and, He has done. M. K.

ANSWER AND NOTE.-The original of the "epitaph" in the Repository of this month you will find as a chant in the ninth scene of Mrs. Hemans's "Siege of Valencia." It reads a little different from the copy:

"Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit, rest thee now!

E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod,

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!

Soul to its home on high!

They that have seen thy smile in death

No more may fear to die."

While I am writing, I will just add that your correspondent from Crawfordsville, Ia., is laboring under a great mistake relative to the authorship of the poem en

titled "The Mystical Isle." The author is none other than Benjamin F. Taylor, author of a very entertaining volume entitled "January and June," and now the able editor of the Chicago Daily Journal. In a private note, speaking of the article referred to, he says, "The River Time' seems as mysterious in its origin as the source and course of the White Nile. I have had the pleasure of seeing it dislocated and maimed-now written by one person, and now by another-served up in rations-produced with additions-amended, revised, stolen bodily and outright, while all the time, for the past four years or so, I have been laboring under the delusion that, as it originally appeared, it was written by myself." I hope to be able to procure of Mr. Taylor a correct copy of the original, and will send it you soon, to make such disposition of as your judgment dictates.

M. S. A.

THE AMERICAN FLAG.-The following, Mr. Editor, though not exactly a scientific or literary note, may yet have sufficient interest to the more juvenile of your readers to merit a place in your department of notes and queries:

"The standard of the army is fixed at six feet and six inches, by four feet four inches; the number of stripes is thirteen; namely, seven red, and six white. It will be perceived that the flag is just one-half longer than it is broad, and that its proportions are perfect, when properly carried out. The first stripe at the top is red, the next white, and so down, alternately, which makes the last red. The blue field' for the stars is the width and square of the first seven stripes; namely, four red and three white. These stripes extend from the side of the 'field' to the extremity of the flag. The next stripe is white, extending the entire length of it, and, directly under the 'field,' in strong and pleasing relief, then follow the remaining stripes alternately. The number of stars on the field' are now thirty-one, and the army and navy immediately add another star on the admission of another state to the Union."

H.

imprisoned the gentleman. "You foolish fellow," said he, "why, it is the superintendent." But the only reply from the sentry was the vociferous demand, "Give the parole." The policeman, deeming his uniform to be a sufficient authority for passing the sentry, had also forgotten to learn the parole, and he, too, was ordered into the sentry-box, from which he and his distinguished fellowprisoner were only rescued when the sentry was relieved from his post.

man,

ROGER SHERMAN'S RETORT UPON RANDOLPH is one of the few witticisms that will not die. Roger Sherman was representative in Congress from Connecticut; his business had been that of making shoes. John Randolph, who had Indian blood in him, rose, and, with his usual squeaking sounds, said, “I would like to know what the gentleman did with his leather apron before he set out for Washington." Mr. Sherman replied, imitating the same squeak, "I cut it up, sir, to make moccasins for the descendants of Pocahontas."

HOW TO TREAT A CHALLENGE.-The late eccentric mathematician, Professor Vince, of King's College, Cambridge, being once engaged in a conversation with a gentleman who advocated dueling, is said to have thrown his adversary completely hors de combat by the following characteristic reply to his question, "But what could you do, sir, if a man told you to your very face, 'You lie?" "What could I do? Why, I would n't knock him down ; but I'd tell him to pruv it. 'Pruv it, pruv it,' I'd say. If he could n't he'd be the liar, and there I shud have him; but if he did prove that I'd lied, I must even pocket the affront, and there, I expect, the matter would end."

PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE: "GIVE THE PAROLE."-A laughable illustration of practice following theory, and precept carried immediately into example, occurred not long since in one of the royal dockyards. The superintendenta mild but zealous disciplinarian, who is admitted to be thoroughly acquainted with the most insignificant details of his noble and gallant profession, from the duties of the energetic boatswain to those of the dignified commanderin-chief-was briskly passing a sentinel, on his way to his official residence, when he turned upon the stalwart guardian of the royal establishment, and demanded the reason why he did not challenge him. In vain the sentry declared that he knew him to be the superintendent; he was emphatically told his duty was to challenge every one who approached him, and, warming with excitement, the gallant superintendent exclaimed, "Challenge all! Challenge me, sir." "Well, then," said the sturdy pupil, lowering his musket, and bringing it to the charge, "I do challenge you; give the parole, sir;" and the hasty superintendent having, in the course of his practical instruction, allowed the parole to slip his memory, was forthwith made a prisoner and driven into the sentry-box. So situated, the worthy preceptor was soon allowed another opportunity of estimating the effects of his teach

WIT AND FOLLY.-Burke once mentioned to Fox that he had written a tragedy. "Did you let Garrick see it?" inquired his friend. "No," replied Burke; "I indeed had the folly to write it, but the wit to keep it to myself."

"THE LITTLE CHIPS."-A plain and unschooled man, who had received his education principally beneath the open sky, in the field and the forest, and who had wielded the ax more than the pen, while speaking of children, remarked with true and beautiful simplicity, "The little chips are nearest the heart."

PHYSIOGNOMY OF BOOKS.-There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skillful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.-Butler.

A GOOD DINNER.-"A good soup," said the late Earl of Dudley, "a small turbot, a neck of venison, ducklings with green peas, or chicken with asparagus, and an apricot tart, is a dinner for an emperor-when he can not get a better."

"THE HAPPY MAN," says Landor, "is he who distinguishes the boundary between desire and delight, and stands firmly on the higher ground-he who knows that pleasure is not only not possession, but is often to be lost, and always to be endangered by it."

UNFORTUNATE MEN.-There is a melancholy vein of wit in the saying of Thackeray, that there is a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disappointment, who excels in it, and whose luckless triumphs in his meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the kind eyes above with as much favor as the splendid successes and achievements of coarser and more prosperous men.

CONSEQUENCES AND CAUSES.-Mr. Hobbes once said, "There is no action of man in this life which is not the

beginning of so long a chain of consequences, as that no human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the end." Southey, quoting this, observes, "Although the chain of consequences be so long, I will venture to say that the chain of causes is longer."

OTHER-WORLDLINESS.-Coleridge, mystic as he was, often struck down into an under-current, as pure as it is bright and sparkling. He says: "As there is a worldliness, or the too-much of this life, so there is anotherworldliness, or rather other-worldliness, equally hateful and selfish with this-worldliness."

SNARES OF THE DEVIL.-The reward of honors, the hight of powers, and the delicacy of diet, are the snares of the devil.

NOTHING is more natural than for a man, having discharged the grave duties of the day, to sit down and chat awhile with his children. So we now sit down to chat awhile with the little ones, or rather to let them chat to us. Not without design have we reckoned chatting with children among the duties of life. It is such; and that duty properly discharged is productive of good, both to age and childhood. While it keeps life fresh and young with the former, it draws out, develops the latter-nurtures beautiful thoughts and feelings, that may erelong ripen into the most noble and exalted traits of character in stalwart manhood or virtuous womanhood. A sparkling fountain can not more surely revive a man fainting with thirst than prattling childhood-when the heart is open to give it access-drive away evil and disquiet thoughts from the soul. Parents, Christian parents, try its virtue. It will be a well-spring of life and joy to your own soul, and your children, even in their old age, long after you have been gathered to the tomb, will bless your memories for it.

But we must let the little ones speak. elbow has a son. He is smart, of course.

A friend at our The father says:

I have a little fellow of four years. His name is Willie. Some time since I had occasion to make a "buck" on which to saw my wood. (I do my own sawing, Mr. Editor.) I drove four sticks into my cellar floor, and the apparatus worked well. One day recently Willie went down cellar with his uncle, and the latter, in some quizzing of the little fellow, asked him why his father made a buck by driving the sticks into the ground. He paused a moment, and then replied, "I don't know, except pa wanted to grow more saw-bucks."

A FRIEND in New York city writes:

E. H.

I have a little boy just two and one-half years old, who is a very observing little fellow. We take breakfast about halfpast seven o'clock. We finish our meal at about eight o'clock, and I generally leave home about the time the clock strikes eight. When the clock strikes our little Charlie always says, "Dat say time for papa go to store." This morning we were late with our breakfast, and the clock struck before we had commenced our meal. Charlie looked up rather surprised and said, "Dat say time papa go to store; tink it's real mean; might wait till he gets his breakfast." Then, after a pause of a few moments, during which he was absorbed in thought, he said, "Mamma, I tink dat's impidence clockified, tell papa go before he gets his breakfast." I could not imagine what the child meant; but the mother explained as follows: A few days before she playfully remarked to some one in the room, "I think you are impudence personified." Charlie caught the expression, and repeated it several times; and now he applied it to the clock. If impudence in a person was impudence personified, in a clock it was impudence clockified. S. W.

AN Illinois friend writes:

Our only child, little Ella, is just sixteen months old, but speaks very many words quite distinctly. During the winter we have been accustomed to have family prayer immediately after breakfast. We use a little Bible. A month since we observed, the moment I rose from the table, Ella would run quickly to the stand, and looking imploringly to her ma, would exclaim, "Bookie, bookie, ma, bookie!" which, as soon as she had received it, she would bring to me. Recently Ella and her ma made a visit of over two weeks to her grandma. There being no family prayer there, we were very anxious to see the result upon her former habit. On the first morning after their return-we having said or done nothing to remind her of

prayers or the book-as soon as I rose from the table and took my accustomed seat, she ran to the stand, exclaiming, “Bookie, bookie!" W. F. S.

A FRIEND from northern Ohio writes:

Is there any thing new under the sun? Yes. Here is a new contributor with a new article at your disposal, for the press or the fire-0, I mean the article, not myself, is ready for the above fate. As for myself, I want to "live to fight another day." I send you an item or two for the children's Sideboard. If they afford you half the merriment they have our household, they will "pay."

Our Willie-only three years old-was sitting at the table one day, when, he exclaimed, "Aunt Fanny, I like God. By and by God will say, Willie.' I'll say, "What?" 'Come up

here in less than no time!'"

I was standing at the door one evening with him, when he began looking intensely into the sky, and inquired, "Where's God gone?" I asked what he meant. "Why," said he, pointing to the moon just darting from behind a cloud, “is n't that a little bit of God?" T. P. W.

ONE who subscribes herself "A Christian Sister," and who has "seen affliction," says:

Our little "Dany" has been safely garnered into the fold of the good Shepherd nearly three years. When I commenced teaching him to say, "Our Father," he repeated correctly, sentence by sentence, till I came to "Give us this day our daily bread," "Give us this day our daily bread and buddy”—butter. I could hardly persuade him that it was not proper to add the butter. Once he undertook to ask a blessing at table, and, folding his hands and closing his eyes, he said, "Buddy, buddy, buddy, Kist's sake, amen." He used frequently to respond to prayer in terms and phrases strikingly appropriate. As he grew older, he claimed, in the absence of his pa, the right to ask a blessing, and of his own accord adopted the form of the Lord's Prayer. About a year and a half after he was removed to the "happy land," still another gem from our household went up to deck the Savior's diadem.

HERE is an item from one of "the legal profession." It illustrates what we have said before, that every class and profession have an open road to the heart, along which the little ones may pass and sport freely:

I send you the following sayings of our little girl four years old. It was a beautiful moonlight evening, and the sky full of stars, as she went with me to the post-office. Her mind seemed in its happiest mood, and she was continually talking of the beauty of the sky, and asking children's questions. Suddenly she looked up with great earnestness, and asked, "Pa, has God any matches to light the stars with?" and added, "O, I wonder where he keeps them !"

On another occasion, while telling her that good little girls, when they die, went to heaven, said she, "If you die first won't you tell God I will be a good girl, if he will let me come to heaven ?" J. J. P.

THE incident below illustrates a skill at evading the close points where God's law and conscience pin us down, not peculiar to children:

We have some "smart children" down here in "Little Rhody." A friend of mine has a little daughter about four years of age. One day she told her father she wanted a very pretty cow that belonged to a neighbor, and if she could not have that, she wished him to buy one. Her father told her that he had not money enough. Her mother asked her if she had forgotten the commandment which says, "Thou shalt not covet," etc. "O no," said she, "but you know that says or and ass, and don't say any thing about cows."

WRITING AND WRITERS.-The field of authorship is broad and inviting. It appears to the eye like a common, lying open, and which may, without obstruction, be entered by all. The mission of the pen is at once grand and attractive. Exercising, as it seems to do, an almost unbounded dominion over the realms of thought, and the extent of its sway seemingly enlarged from the very indefiniteness of the boundaries of its influence, it possesses a fascination for the literary aspirant almost irresistible. Hence the multitudes that aspire to the dignity of authorship.

Yet this field is not so easily entered as some imagine. Of the hundreds that gather along its outskirts and peer through the hedge with straining eyes and eager desire, only the minutest fraction are able to find access. Want of time from other and indispensable avocations; want of ability to originate, or patience and skill to shape thoughts, so that the types will not abhor them; lack of perseverance in the severe disciplinary process through which only the talent of authorship can be obtainedare among some of the incipient obstacles in the way of the young writer.

Nor is it easy, even when there is substantial merit, to arrest the attention of the public. We may speak derisively of its want of appreciation, of its eager, bustling activity in the marts of commerce, and of its absorbing greediness for pelf, as the causes of its want of literary appreciation. All this may be true; but the difficulty it interposes to successful authorship is no less real. We must, however, do justice to even this want of appreciation. The public mind is so often teased and vexed by the importunity of that which is worthless, that we can scarcely wonder it is so slow to lend its ear, and thus sometimes real merit fails of deserved notice.

Samuel Rogers relates of himself that when he put his first published poem to the press, he paid his publisher thirty pounds to insure him against loss. At the end of four years, when the adventuresome author came to reckon profit and loss, he found the publisher had sold TWENTY COPIES. Thus the entrance to authorship is often by not only severe discipline, but by severe disappointment. Whether the weary struggle should be prosecuted, unless the individual is deeply convinced that God has given him a mission in that direction, is doubtful. There are other departments of effort, other vineyards of our Lord, and into some one of which every one may enter and labor. In those fields the fruits may be even more abundant and the rewards more glorious.

CONTRIBUTORS AND CONTRIBUTIONS.-We had intended a little parley with our contributors; but the disquisition in which we have just indulged has taken up the space usually allotted to these running comments. Nearly all the articles in this number, our readers will perceive, are either prepared editorially or from original contributors. They comprise a variety in which, we trust, something will be found adapted to all classes of readers. One or two new contributors make their debut in this number. Our readers will want to hear from them again.

OUR LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE, we are pleased to find, is well received by our readers. The writers, by the

way, are both of them laymen, one of them editorially connected with a leading literary journal in New York city, the other with the London (Wesleyan) Watchman. We hope, after this month, to be able to furnish a letter from our London correspondent regularly. His letter in our last issue has been highly commended for the beauty of its style, as well as for the richness of its matter.

QUALITY AND COST OF ENGRAVINGS.-It has been generally admitted that no other magazine in the country has furnished engravings equal in artistic excellence to those contained in the Repository. A very conclusive testimony as to the manner in which we have served our patrons in this respect, is found in the fact that some of these very plates, having been sold by our Agents, after we had used them, are now made to do good service for southern and eastern-yes, even eastern-magazines.

Well, for the present volume, the Agents have given us a carte-blanche in the matter of engravings. Thus authorized, we have engaged some of the best artists in the country, and told them that nothing short of their very best efforts would satisfy us. But the cost! We became rather alarmed at that, not long since, and reported the state of affairs to the Agents. But they took our fifty per cent. additional cost so coolly, and said so calmly, that "if it would pay they would stand it," that we determined to proceed, and see whether "it wil pay." In one sense, we have no doubt, "it will pay ;" that is, in the increased pleasure our engravings will impart to our patrons, and also in the refinement of taste and feeling to which they will minister. And if they shall incite a little extra effort, even now in this pleasant month of June, to secure one, two, or three additional subscribers in each locality, our publishers will also become convinced that "it will pay." Look out, in the next number, for a beautiful engraving of "The Mother of John Wesley."

MAD RIVER. The Mad river is one of the principal branches of the Great Miami. It rises in Logan county,

Ohio, and, in a tortuous course, makes its way southward, emptying into the Great Miami at Dayton. Along its valley some of the most thrilling scenes in Indian life and warfare in the west have transpired. Indian villages were clustered on either bank at almost every point. On the northern or north-western bank, which is the left in the picture, stood the village which was the birthplace of the great Tecumseh. Most historians have stated that this chief was born in the Scioto Valley, near where Chillicothe now stands; but such was not the case. For when Tecumseh, with three other chiefs, was, in 1805, accompanying the commissioners from Greenville to Chillicothe, then the seat of government, to hold a "talk Governor, he pointed out to them the site of this old Shawnee town as the spot where he was born. The birth of Tecumseh occurred about 1770; and ten years later, or in 1780, an army of one thousand Kentuckians swept along this valley, destroying the Indian villages and desolating their corn-fields. From this blow the natives never recovered; but soon after fixed their residence further west. Here Tecumseh, probably, took his first lessons in the art of Indian warfare, and was first

with the

inspired with that invincible hatred of the whites and of civilization which made him so distinguished a leader in later years. The reader will find much that will interest him in Indian history and adventure in the northwest in Finley's Life Among the Indians, just published at the Book Concern.

What a wide contrast between the wild and terrific scenes that have been witnessed along this valley, and probably upon this very spot, and the calm aspect of rural beauty and loveliness which the engraving, touched by the master strokes of the artist, presents to the eye! MUTUAL IMPROVEMENT.-Years ago-you recollect the time, reader the branches studied in the district school were reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. Sometimes English grammar, in its elements, came in for a share of attention. We recall with distinctness the hours when, as in the case of the three juveniles in our engraving, we studied geography from an atlas. Good faces that girl and her two brothers have. We suppose that John, who is acting temporarily as tutor, is directing the attention of his brother Charles to the subject of latitude and longitude. There is very considerable of "mental complexity," as Sir Benjamin Brodie would tell us, in Charley's countenance. He sees the parallel, and the countries through which it passes, and yet there is an abstruseness lingering over the whole subject, and that compels him to take time for reflection. As we were about to say, the picture makes us think of the days of "twenty years ago," when, in the unpainted old village school-house, we went wandering, with Peter Parley, over the "variegated surface of this terraqueous globe." We thought, when poring over his maps and remarks, that mayhap the day would come when we would be a traveler, too, over mountains, or a passenger in a ship, or a navigator on some noble river. Manhood has come, and youth has faded into the past, and our first transatlantic voyage is to be made. Well, life has had its changes and its dark clouds, its sunny skies and its rain-storms, but the memory of our early school days-our studies with brother and sister at home-abide with us. The recollections of the past haunt us like voices from fairy-land. Blot them out we could not, nor would we; for they fill our heart as with the pensive yet touching melodies of an Eolian harp. Beautiful is youth, winning the eye innocent-hearted boy and girl; and wrong though it may be, yet many and many a time have we wished for the days of early home, the run in the meadow, the tumble in the hay-mow, the spelling-match, and a geography lesson in the old school-house, and the sweet, wild laugh of many who, in youth, were healthy as we, but whose forms, alas! now sleep in the quiet of the church-yard.

of

ARTICLES DECLINED.-We might say a good word about most of the articles we decline, by way of encouragement to their authors, as well as to do justice to them, but we have little space for such notes. We must decline "Lost Time;" "Man's Limited Knowledge;" "Man's Ignorance of God;""The Release;" "Who has not Felt his Spirit Lighten ?" "A Requiem for the Dead;" "Slowly;" The Departed;" "The Elements of True Greatness" and "A Night among the Breakers." "Affection" will hardly do; nor will "The Past" without revision, but this the author can make. "Christmas" had better be recast by its author. "To the Watchmen on the Walls" had better be forwarded to some religious newspaper. "The Two Travelers," "The Music of Nature," "My Wanderer," "Missionary Hymn," and "Our

Faded Rose" have some excellences, but we can not use them. The author of "To My Father" would do well to try her skill in prose.

EXCERPTA FROM CORRESPONDENCE.-Most frequently "the first great sorrow" of life comes in the form of bereavement, and when it does come the crushed heart is made to bleed through all its pores. This thought has been awakened by a note from a brother of the Philadelphia conference, who, speaking of the sudden death of a lovely daughter of six years, says: "It was our children's first great sorrow. And her parents feel that there has been made a vacuum in their hearts which will never be filled till they clasp her in that land where there is no more death. Though she died away from home, yet it was in the same house where she was baptized in her infancy, and in the same place where she was born. There, too, I buried her. The Rev. Wm. Torbent, who fell at his post, lies here far away from all his kindred. I selected a grave for my little one right by his side, and when doing so could hardly repress the thought that when that man of God shall arise in the morning of the resurrection, he will take my precious little one in his arms, and thus together they will rise to meet the Lord in the air." Thanks be to God for the resurrection hope! As we go forth without certain home or dwelling-place on earth, we may not be able to gather into one place the precious dust of our loved ones, but God, our Father, watches over them, and he shall erelong gather them where there shall be one fold and one Shepherd.

A correspondent, who is evidently smitten with Lues Foxiana, thus claims of us a hearing on the subject of his special disease: "Justice demands that all subjects affecting the faith and life that now is, or the life that is to come, should be fully and fairly presented to those whose credence is sought. Fairness and fullness have not been the characteristics of the secular and religious press on the subject of " modern spiritual manifestations." I charge no impurity of motive, only want of knowledge and that freedom of mind which is essential to impartial investigation and correct deduction. But I demand as a right of mind, that the other side of this great subject shall go to the jury, whose verdict, doubtless, has been already pronounced on ex parte testimony. I shall be most happy to see the Repository manifest the magnanimity-not to mention the justice-of allowing the accused to be heard by himself or counsel, in showing cause why the opinions of Messrs. Ferris and Whedon should not influence the verdict of the jury." Any individual, whose perceptions were not entirely blunted by delusion, would not fail to perceive the absurdity of the assumption, that a hearing must, in justice, be given to every one who chose to oppose views presented in this or any other periodical. Our readers would groan under such an infliction; the design of the magazine would be frustrated. We can recognize no such right. But we did not wonder at the fluttering occasioned among the pseudo-spiritualists by the articles referred to. Though they did not run precisely in the same line, yet they did good service in the cause of truth.

A NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS.-We are in the almost daily receipt of letters desiring information on various points or services of some kind. To all these we should be glad to give the response desired. But really it is an impossibility, crowded as we are with official duties. To this cause, and not to indifference, our brethren will please attribute any apparent neglect in this respect.