BOOKS. THEIR INFLUENCE AND PLEASURES. BY REV. A. STEVENS. BOOKS. THE family library is one of the peculiarities of our modern civilization. A high-sounding assertion is this, no doubt; but do not blink it; for it is as full of significance as of sound. We boast a good deal of this thing, or congeries of things, called "modern civilization," and very justly, doubtless. We point to the compass, the quadrant, the steam engine, and even the cotton gin-to the habeas corpus, the jury, and the representative assembly. Grand facts, indeed; but what are the compass, the quadrant, the steam engine compared with the art of printing-the art preservative and diffusive of all arts? or what the habeas corpus, the trial by jury, or popular representation compared with the great intellectual provision of modern times, THE PRINTED BOOK, which has come forth in these ages as light did amidst the chaos of the creation-flashing intelligence down into the abysses of the world's mind, and spreading truth, civilization, and joy over its vast fields of ignorance and delusion-multiplying illimitably all great truths and noble thoughts, and bringing home to the hearth of the lowliest cottage the converse of the loftiest minds? Could men have found the art of printing earlier, they would have had the steam engine and the habeas corpus earlier. Men's minds have the faculties necessary to discover truth, if there is but light reflected from it; but the eye cannot see without light. The art of printing came forth like the fiat of God, "Let there be light: and there was light." A few hundred years ago a book was an estate. Sages and noblemen preserved a volume in their families, or committed it to public institutions, by solemn mention in their last testaments. The price of a Bible required much of the labor of a peasant's life. Now that greatest of all books (intellectually as well as morally) is the commonest and cheapest of all-it can be had for a few coppers, pennies, or even "without money and without price." Then the more sterling productions of mind were to be found only in public libraries, or, perchance, occasionally in the closet of the nobleman, or the patronized man of study. Now the productions of Moses and Paul, Homer and Virgil, Plato and Cicero, Milton and Shakspeare, Bacon and Locke, can be procured, through a few weeks' economy, by a common mechanic; and on the unplaned shelves of many a western log cabin lie more intellectual treasures than enriched most of the palaces of royalty before the invention of printing. Then the ability to read was a rare skill, almost confined to priests and philosophers; and princes frequently could not write their names. Now the masses of our population can read and write; and there is 335 more real truth taught to the frolicksome urchins in our "district schools" than was known by the great Stagyrite, or the founder of the Academy. Then the idea of the intellectual life was unknown, except among the sequestered few of the schools, and in them it was mostly dreary dreaming. Now the taste for books has become almost as common as a natural appetite-the richest fruitage of knowledge drops about us as in an orchard in autumn, and the book market is as determinate an affair as that of corn or clothing. Printing-the printed book, is the symbol and the chief cause of this marvelous improvement. How many influences, what dear delights flow from books! And yet, wonderful as have been their agency in our civilization, we have scarcely begun to apply this agency aright. In our institutions expressly for study we may do so; and the literateur, and occasionally the professional man, may give it a daily and a definite regard; but almost everywhere else, and even in professional life, to a great extent, the mental life is but occasional and flickering, an episode, now and then, from the dogged routine of physical existence and pecuniary pursuits. Will not the time come when, by the multiplication of mechanical agencies, men will be so far relieved from physical labor, and have such abundant facilities for subsistence, that a large portion, perhaps the largest portion of their time, can be spared to their moral, intellectual, and social life? That day, if it come at all, may be far distant; but there can be no question that, even now, with all the eager bustle of our lives, we can give a larger place to their intellectual wants and pleasures, and this not only in the more favored spheres of wealth or education, but in the cottage, the log cabin, and the habitation of the toiling mechanic. The domestic library, though it be on a small scale, may be there, and the leisure interval, the winter evening, or the Sabbath rest may be refreshed from it. We may gather our little ones about the crackling hearth, and invite Bunyan to sit down in the circle, and entertain the tranquil hour with his vision of wondrous beauty, or the blind bard of "Paradise" to unvail Eden, hell, and heaven, or the troubadour of the "Fairy Queen" to sing the marvels of knightly adventure, or the bard of Avon (albeit, with courteous restraint) to laugh, weep, or shiver as he describes motley charactered man. great minds whose thoughts have quickened nations, will obey our invitation, and share with us there, without embarrassing our diffidence, their sublimest conceptions. Travelers will sit down with us, and make the marvels of all lands to pass before us. Historians will unroll to us the records of time, and the sublime scenes of the past, the conflicts of armies and navies, the pageants of courts, the developments of society will unfold like the scenery of a magnificent theatre around our humble hearths. Biographers will tell us of the good and the brave, The 336 MINIATURE SKETCHES. who have struggled and suffered for the right, till our hearts gather strength from their deeds, or our eyes overflow at their wrongs. Prophets and apostles will converse with us of heaven and the way thither; and even He that spoke as man never spoke will enter the circle, and utter his beatitudes and divine lessons. This is not idle poetry. Many an elevated mind finds its chief earthly consolation in this converse of great intellects-many a destitute garret has thus been made, to suffering genius, a sanctuary of intellectual communion, where the old bard of Chios has sung again his undying ballads, Shakspeare unvailed the world, Newton the spheres, Milton the heavens, and Paul has discoursed of "immortality and eternal life"-many a victim of incurable disease has relieved his languishing days with the dear friendship of books, and walked down into the valley and shadow of death surrounded and strengthened by the companionship of the great and the good, who, "though dead, yet live" in their works. Our first sentence spoke of the family library. Assuredly the agency of good books in the domestic circle, as a source both of pleasure and profit, is no unworthy theme for the best pen. With the indulgence of the reader we may refer to it in another number. MINIATURE SKETCHES. BY W. NIXON. LAUREL HILL CEMETERY, PHILADELPHIA. SURELY death, in a place like this-in so "sweet" a "home"-is deprived of half its external horrors. Beautiful seclusion! How inviting to the weary pilgrim are those guardian trees! How lovely to shelter beneath their shade, and to rest among the verdant grass and blooming flowers! How sweet, too, in life, is the reflection, that, in death, our surviving friends will not be repelled from our place of repose, but may even take pleasure in still partaking, in imagination, of our present society! Christ himself-his "sorrows" over, and his mission closedwas laid in a garden. And whatever different opinions may be entertained about the ease of a Christian's condition, while alive, there can be but one in relation to his remains when his spirit has departed. Why, then, endeavor to increase the gloom of the grave? Why should we supply the funeral, and furnish the charnel-house with all the forbidding and repulsive appendages ingenuity can contrive, or imagination can conceive? or what benefit can arise from aggravating the sorrows of surviving friends? Ought we not, rather, to inquire, how may the living be most pleasingly invited to hold communion with the dead?-be reminded of the termination of their own probation on earth, and, in spirit, continue that sweet society which shall be perfected only in heaven? The shortest and most impressive reply to this would be to point to the cemetery of Laurel Hill, a minute description of which, however, would require too much space for my present sketch. Passing the interesting and appropriate group, in sculpture, of Old Mortality, by Thom, and which is placed in a suitable recess within a handsome architectural entrance, the road branches up an easy ascent in several directions, leading to numerous inclosures among groves of trees, and along the flowery ridge of the Schuylkill. These, from ten to fifty feet square, are surrounded by fancy railingsare laid out with evergreen shrubs, flowering borders, and rustic walks, and are supplied with light and graceful garden chairs, from which, under the solemn shadow of lofty trees, the friends of the departed may view a lovely country along the banks of the river, and meditate upon their former friendships and their future home. In the centre of the grounds is a neat Gothic chapel, where the service is performed in stormy weather, and scattered over the area, are many beautifully executed monuments, exhibiting the most poetical and Scriptural illusions. It is to be hoped, however, that these may not become too numerous and crowded-one of the great advantages that this place possesses over the celebrated Pere la Chaise being, that while the former is a charming rural retirement, the latter is a magnificent church-yard. As a rural retirement-a delightful seclusion-a place of rest from the labors and cares of the world for both the living and the dead, let it continue; and may its cheering, its happy example be universally followed! BLESSED BE THY NAME FOR EVER. BY REV. T. HARRISON. "His kingdom ruleth over all."-PSALMS. GOD of all created wonder; God of countless orbs of light; God of rain, and wind, and thunder; God of morning, noon, and night; Thy great system faileth never, All thy works in truth remain; Blessed be thy name for ever; Blessed be thy glorious reign! God of valley, plain, and mountain; God of garden, field, and wood; God of river, stream, and fountain; God of all created good; All thy works in truth remain; Blessed be thy glorious reign! LITERARY SKETCHES. 337 LITERARY SKETCHES. BY THE EDITOR. THE KNOWING DOCTOR; OR, THE ELOQUENT LITTLE with one voice, as they both started from their slumbers. It was nothing but the downward rush of a mighty tree, which some wood-cutter had been felling. But we were all now thoroughly roused from our dreams and reveries. Gradually we fell into a brisk conversation. The talk turned chiefly on topics suggested by the noise which had so unceremoniously disturbed us. Another proud giant of the wilderness had fallen! It was emblematic of the work going on in every quarter. The forest is, on all sides, giving way before the advancing footsteps of American industry. Where an eternal shade has brooded since the creation, the light of civilization is now dawning, and the star of our empire is contin ON a beautiful evening of midsummer, after the sun had gone so far down, as to render the shade of a few trees refreshing, and just as the soft southwest was breezing up and cooling off every thing, earth, air, and water, a small company of us, four or five in number, issued from the heated inclosures of a country cottage, and walked out into a little grove on the south side of the dwelling. After wandering listlessly about, enjoying the luxury of coolness, and, for the mere lack of employment, pluck-ually moving westward. ing off young leaves from the trees and picking them to pieces as we loitered, some one set the precedent of reclining upon the green grass, under cover of a wide-spreading beech, and all soon followed the tempting example. Never, since the classic days of Tityrus and Melibous, whose pastoral gossip has been so immortalized by Virgil, was a more idle group gathered to enjoy the freshness of a summer evening. The tyrant of the day had ruled us, as with a rod of redhot iron. Released from our mid-day tasks, and having nothing in the world to do, or to think of, but how we might best regale our minds and bodies, every thing was abandoned to the course dictated by each one's convenience or pleasure. In a few moments, one of the company was sound asleep, with his head resting upon a soft tuft of grass for a cushion. Another, remembering how the royal Dane came to his death, sought a more secure way of reposing, and half ensconced himself between two big seams or spurs of a giant tree, with his head reclining against the trunk. The rest of us, who, like the lean Cassius, never have any drowsy hours, sat ruminating on the scenery around us. "But these were not my thoughts," said one of the sleepers, "roused as I was by the sudden concussion." "Pray, what were they, Professor, "for we make no doubt you were interrupted in the midst of some very classical dreaming.” "Not exactly so," replied the professional grindstone to other people's genius; "and yet they had some connection, after all, with dreaming." "Let us hear-let us hear," repeated several voices; "you seldom tell tales out of school; but when you do, they are worth hearing." The Professor excused himself on the score of fatigue and dullness; and he modestly added, that the train of thoughts suggested was really too lengthy for the occasion: no one would have patience to listen. But the terms between the parties were soon concluded. A treaty of patience was speedily rati{fied, on condition that the Professor should reserve nothing of what he had been thinking. "Well then," began the oracle of language, "I was thinking how unmercifully I was once tormented by the daily visitations of a knowing doctor. The falling of that tree reminded me of the circumstances of his story. The cattle were coming out from their coverts, and following each other down the hill-sides. Flocks of sheep were bleating in the valleys. The birds had ventured from the thickets, and were serenading the fiery old monarch of the heavens, as if to secure his clemency for the morrow. The hum of innumerable insects was wafting nearer and nearer, as the light breeze spread the coolness of the hour from the neighboring forests. Scarcely a word was spoken by any one of us. The wakeful were no doubt busy with their thoughts, but had hardly life enough to reveal them. The sleepers had their dreams; and, as every person seemed to be employed in his own idle business, I, in my turn, was as idly running over in my mind that pastoral of the bard of Man-ality. tua, where the two swains recount life's fortunes and misfortunes, reclining at their ease as we wereceiving himself to be the object of my attention. "In a small town, in one of the southwestern states, stood, many years ago, a literary institution. I was at that time officiating there as Latin and Greek professor. At a late hour one evening, having just returned, almost exhausted, from a ramble in the country, I was drinking a cup of young hyson in my back parlor. Just as retiring hunger and advancing sleepiness had fully prepared me for a good sound nap—for you see I am fond of napping-I looked up, and lo! there sat a stranger at my fireside, whose entrance I had not noticed. He sat so motionless, I could hardly tell whether he were a spectre of my sleepy imagination, or a man in re "Sub tegmine fagi." { "How do you, Professor,' said the phantasm, per "How do you do, sir,' replied I, still regarding "What crash was that?" said the two sleepers him with much earnestness. VOL. VI.-43 338 LITERARY SKETCHES. "There was now a pause, long enough to render his person, and his probable business, the subject of some notice and reflection. "As the light of a few straggling faggots cast a doubtful glimmer through the room, the stranger, sitting almost directly between me and the fire, became a sort of dark shadow, with its sides partially illuminated, thrown in strong relief against the back of the large fire-place. The outlines of the figure were very visible; but I could discern nothing farther. If he is really a man,' thought I, 'he is of small stature; but then small men are generally nervous, and full of motion. Why does not the image move? Perhaps it is the projection of myself, thrown down by some light behind me.' But, no; up to that time my shadow had never addressed me; and, besides, there was really no luminous object in the background. I began to get nervous. I would have given something to see it move, or hear it pronounce another sentence. Like young Hamlet, when he saw his father's ghost, I could not endure the silence; and had almost broken it at random. "No, sir,' replied I, 'you have the advantage of me in that matter.' "I reside a few miles in the country. I am a physician by profession. My name is Scuti, or, as I sometimes spell it, SCYTHICUS. Learning that you were professor of the dead languages in the college here, I have come up to hold a little conversation with you on a very particular subject.' "Whether I nodded assent, or said, 'Well, sir,' or made a more civil answer, I am now uncertain; but one thing is clear, from the moment his first word was uttered, till past twelve o'clock at night, I sat and listened to one of the most wonderful harangues ever made for the bane or benefit of mortals. I have read works of witchcraft and necromancy-have studied astrology, and books on the black art; and when a boy, I had devoured all the tales of oriental magic, and Arabian fiction, and Spanish chivalry; but, in all my life, I was never more completely puzzled. 6 Plato, and Aristole, and Pythagoras had been abandoned in turn by the moderns; and yet nothing had been substituted in the place of their vagaries. We were now disputing about the elements of psychology, when we ought to have become complete masters of the sublime science of reason. "Plato makes the universe a great animal, possessed of a living soul, which his Latin followers denominated the anima mundi. Each globe, also, has its soul. The soul of man existed before his appearance in this world; and when we die, we go to make our habitation in the stars. Each of us, after death, is to have his own star as an eternal residence, which the great Anima Mundi, or, as Plato sometimes styled him, the One Being, originally produced for this purpose. What a lonesome thought, Professor, what a lonesome thought is that!' ejaculated the Doctor in passing. It would be like living in a boundless prairie, with a space of hundreds of millions of miles between yourself and your nearest neighbor! 66 6 "As to Aristotle, he was nothing but a downright infidel. He traces all philosophy to matter, and there leaves it. He says death is the greatest of calamities, because we know of nothing beyond it. "Old Pythagoras was a mere visionary. True, to his "exoterie," or outside pupils, he taught arithmetic and geometry; but to those called "esoterie," or inside, nothing but nonsense. His doctrine of the transmigration of human souls, through the different orders of the animal world, is fit only for a poet's brain. And then all his followers have been skeptics. Resolving the whole universe into particles of matter, and giving to those particles nothing but the four qualities of figure, place, magnitude, and motion, no possible chance is left for a belief in spiritual things. God and the soul are mere phantoms; and religion is the pleasure derived from self-gratification. Man is nothing but an animal, having his origin and end in this world; for, as Epicurus, the principal follower of Pythagoras, has remarked, "When death is, we are not!" 6 Ba "But this is not all,' said the Doctor. All philosophy is a tree sprung from these three roots. con, and Locke, and the Scottish philosophers, or rather, miserable sophists, and the entire AngloSaxon school, are the representatives of the skeptical Aristotle. The more rational of the Germans, and French, and the greater part of continental Europe, derive better notions and nutriment from Plato. The infidels of every country, such as Sanchet, Huet, Bayle, Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, and D'Alembert, get their sap from Pythagoras. Now, what can the tree be, nourished and supported from these sources! What manner of fruit can it bear for the gratification or growth of human reason! The very apples of Sodom, fair to look at, but full of ashes, were infinitely better.' "The stranger began by gently hinting at the discouraging aspect of the world around us; and, at a stroke, exhibited a wide acquaintance with man and his various achievements. His knowledge of history, both profane and sacred, was remarkable. He passed through science after science, as if he had made each of them his profession. Philosophy,' he said, 'is nothing; it is but a mere “ nominis umbra”. the shadow of a word. It is destined to be something hereafter; but it has now not the first elements of existence. The seven wise men were only dreamSocrates was a good example of morality; but he never uttered a syllable of what Plato and Xenophon have ascribed to him. And even if he had, "These last words were pronounced with an emwhat were those pretenders, and all others like them!phasis not to be mistaken. ers. LITERARY SKETCHES. "But, turning from philosophy,' said the eloquent little shadow, 'what more can be said of the natural sciences? Clouded by the superstition of Romanism for more than twelve hundred years, they have just began to emerge from midnight darkness. Nor Egypt, nor the Cimmerian valley, was ever darker, than was natural science at the opening of the Reformation. And what has since been accomplished? Much is said of Bacon, and Kepler, and Copernicus, and Boyle, and Gallileo, and Kenelm Digby, and, last of all, of the illustrious Sir Isaac Newton. But Newton, with as much truth as modesty, has given us the upshot of all their labors, where he represents himself as having spent his life in picking up pebbles from the ocean. "For sixty centuries the world has been at work on these topics, and the first principles of science have not been determined. We are yet ignorant of the constituent elements of both mind and matter. The very pebble picked up by Newton was a mystery beyond his comprehension. His admirers have lauded him to the skies for having settled some general principles in reference to the solar system. And yet, what part or particle of that system is not a subject of dispute among these knowing philosophers! The very life and centre of it, the all-glorious sun, is either a ball of fire fed by comets, or a dark world like our own, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere, or something else, the Lord knows what! "Light, which reveals every thing, is itself a wonder unrevealed. It may be a particle of fire thrown off by the sun, or an impulse given to an ethereal fluid, which fills all space. Whether electricity and galvinism are material, or only the properties of matter, the learned world has yet to agree upon; and every storm that rises from any point of the heavens, is roused by an impulse, of which the great ones cannot affirm whence it comes, or whither it goeth. "But there is Christianity. I trust I shall not trench upon your predilections in speaking of that also, Professor.' "Silence, whether from acquiescence or amazement, gives consent; and the wonderful apparition proceeded. "My faith is firm in the Lord Jesus. His Gospel, as we find it in the Scriptures, is pure and blessed. It is the sun of the moral world, from which all light and life is derived to us. But, then, that sun has been obscured by the mists of ignorance and superstition. "In the early days of the Church, many of the learned doctors of Pagan philosophy were converted and added to its communion. They brought with them their philosophical speculations. Soofeeism from the east, Gnosticism from the south and west, and the Grecian and Roman philosophies from every quarter, passed into the Church and corrupted it. 339 The Bible, the great book of God, was overwhelmed with the innovations of human reason. Christianity, the tree of life, was successively stript of its leaves and branches; and into the mutilated trunk was afterward ingrafted the fatal scions of error and superstition, on whose death-giving fruit the world has since been feeding! "I say the world, Professor, because so little of it has as yet received the better doctrines of the Reformation; and yet such is the downward tendency, the natural proclivity of our race, in every thing good and gracious, that at this time the Reformation itself needs reforming. "Should I speak of any thing I may dislike in your own denomination, you might regard me as too personal. The world has said evil enough of you, nine-tenths of which I know to be as ungenerous as it is unfair. Nor do I undertake to compliment you; your works must be the sole monument of your renown. That monument may stand, long after your traducers are forgotten in their graves. "But what, as a whole, is the condition of the Protestant world? Are you not, if not quarreling, at least contending with yourselves? And are not the creeds and confessions of many of the existing sects full to the brim of the dogmatical nonsense of the middle ages? Take the doctrine of decrees for an illustration. Calvin derived it from the civitatis Dei of old Augustine. Augustine borrowed it from the Roman philosophers. The philosophers found it in the foolish though classical legend about the Three Sisters, who, with wheel and distaff, were said to have spun out the threads of destiny to both gods and men. "Look where you will, examine what you will, and the most gloomy and discouraging aspect surrounds you on every side. There is left but a single ray of hope to this sinful and benighted world. That ray proceeds from God by revelation; and it is the duty and eternal interest of every man, to open his heart and let it in. Should this be the case, my con fidence in the ultimate regeneration and glory of mankind would be strong; and, with some reason and propriety might we adopt, in advance, the hopeful presentiment, "Great is truth, and it shall prevail!""" "Here, at about ten of the clock, the mysterious spectre made a pause in his oration. When he began it, I looked upon him from mere curiosity. Curiosity soon changed to wonder; and from that time on, my mind had been vibrating between admiration and amazement. But I ought to remark, gentlemen," continued the Professor, as he was narrating the story, "that I have given you the most meagre outline of the eloquence displayed on that occasion. It would be impossible to reduce to the space of a few minutes, as I am attempting to do, the volumes of history, philosophy, science, literature, and, I may say, revelation, which fell from the lips of my |