in the days of its highest splendor, is portrayed before you. The antiquity of Indian inventions, or the discoveries of subtle Arabia, are discoursed upon in your presence with apparent triumph. You are told, that all that now astonishes is but the revival of former experience; and that the world is living over again its ancient greatness. The philosophers of Greece are summoned from their graves to testify to the unrivalled glory of a former civilisation. Whence came our knowledge, it is asked, of the natural sciences, but from Abou-Ryan-al-Byrouny, who spent forty years in the study of mineralogy, and from another hard name in the Arabic dialect, who traversed the plains and forests of all Europe to furnish Linnæus with a complete, though indigested system of sexual botany. The gardens, groves, vineyards, and delightful rural villages of Grenada, under the plastic civilisation of its Moorish conquerors, are instantly cited to rival the highest specimens of English cultivation. Paper, gun-powder, the compass, and numerals, with many other inventions and discoveries, are all industriously traced to an early age. Science, it is said, like the sun, rises in the east and travels westward, shedding its light upon the successive nations which lie under its course, and is probably destined to set out again from the same point, again and again to pursue the same journey.

This is without doubt a delightful picture of the past, and is admirably adapted to please the fanciful notions of the antiquary; but it will not satisfy the demands of fact and of history. To demonstrate the remarkable progress which science has made since the ages to which we have alluded, we have only to study the authors who were cotemporaneous with those civilisations which form the boast of this antiquarian spirit, and then go into the modern world and make the comparison. Let the agriculturist peruse the poetic description which the Roman Georgic contains of the implements of husbandry, and testify if he does not go to his steel spade and patent plough with an improved relish. Let the mechanic take up the poems of Homer (and there are many who can read them in the original) and follow the immortal father of the epic muse through his labored panegyrics of Trojan art; and, after he has caught all the enthusiasm he can from viewing Andromache plying a hand-loom, or Diomed riding into battle on a clumsy though classical vehicle, let him enter one of our modern factories, and hear the hum of a million spindles, and the crash of a thousand shuttles; or into a modern depôt, and behold a train set out with the velocity of the wind, and vanish in the distance before he has time to express his astonishment! Let the seaman look back, through the pages of Livy or Virgil, to those times, when a few perilous yachts, or lumbering, heavy-oared galleys, creeping dastardly along the

shore, were the only navy of the most famous people of all antiquity; and with what pride he will set his foot upon the deck of one of our majestic ships of the line, or enroll his name among the bold adventurers of our thundering steam-vessels

"Whose path is on the mountain wave,

Whose home is on the deep."

How heartily does the geographer laugh at the discoveries of Æneas and the periplus of Hanno! What astonishment would a Roman circus or Grecian amphitheatre express, to witness an American philosopher disarming the tempest of its power, and weaving a peaceful garland with wreaths of lightning when the heavens are on fire! In a word, that science has undergone many revolutions, and been lost in one country to appear in another, is no less true, than that, at each successive development, it has possessed some new element, and shone forth with unprecedented splendor.

The same observation is true of philosophy and religion. Who can doubt that the philosophy of Greece was an improvement on the symbolism of Egypt, the sabeism of Chaldea, and the demiurgic system of the Persian magi? Can it be controverted that philosophy, in the hands of Bacon and Locke, was more real, more pure and rational, than with the philosophers of Athens and Rome? Nor can it be a question, that the path of experiment which these renowned thinkers have contributed to open, is conducting us to greater, clearer, nobler results than any former people or age has achieved. Facts are now the basis of philosophy. The imagination, which so long took the lead in this department of human investigation, has at length found her true place in giving laws to the fictions of romance and in tempering the inspirations of fancy. Analysis and synthesis, for ages separated, have at last formed a happy and promising alliance; induction is taking the place of speculation; and reason is occupying the throne which fancy has at length vacated to her rival.

It is impossible to affirm whether it will be so readily conceded, that religion has also shared in this general improvement. But if we will divest ourselves of the vulgar prejudices respecting the primeval purity of religion which history does not sanction, we shall unanimously acknowledge, that though Christianity is intrinsically the same in all ages, the notions which mankind have entertained of it, and the character and degree of its influence upon the world, have been widely various in different periods of its existence. Its light has certainly been becoming more clear, its sublime doctrines more justly appreciated, and consequently, its tendencies more rational and irresistible. The visible church was the reservoir into which poured, through a series of

ages, the abject soofeeism of the East, the gaudy gnosticism of the South, the splendid but perplexed theistical theories of the West, and ten thousand nameless rivulets of bold and barbaric speculation from the mighty North. This corruption commenced at an early age; nay, in the very days of the apostles. In several of the canonical epistles, and more emphatically in the apocalypse, we are furnished with abundant evidence, that a spirit of innovation had, at that early period, diffused barrenness over vast portions of the Christian world. But the Bible remained; and from that rock there still issued a stream, though at first choked and obstructed in its passage, which was continually increasing in magnitude and power. The names of Vigilantius, Huss, Wicliffe and Luther, are like the graduated columns placed at wide intervals along the bed of the Nile; they mark the progressive elevations of this swelling river of truth, which has at length overflowed its banks, and spread its waters over all lands!

In the progress of these agents of civilisation we witness the advancement of civilisation itself. The individual is now more intelligent, more wise, more virtuous, than in any previous age.. But civilisation is yet in its infancy. It is less than three centuries since the true method of human improvement was discovered. Most of the sciences have not passed the season of youth; some of them have just arrived at a conscious existence; others are springing into being. Correct philosophy is perhaps not older than Bacon; it is certainly younger than the dawn of European civilisation, which must be dated from the fall of Constantinople. Religion, as a pure and separate agent, subsequent to the apostolic age, cannot be traced to a much earlier period than that of Vigilantius; nor did it produce anything worthy of special record, aside from the heroic devotion of its principal patrons, until the voice of the sixteenth century shook the columns of the papal throne, and gave intellectual and moral liberty to the world. The work is now going on. The present age is the result of all previous ages. Science, philosophy, religion, are exerting both a separate and a combined influence upon man, which is rapidly realizing the fondest anticipations of the mind; which is undermining the influence of error, diminishing the power of corporations and communities when exercised contrary to the rights and necessities of their component members, and enfranchising, ennobling and perfecting the character of the individual. Democracy is the characteristic tendency of the age. It is the doctrine of all parties, political, social and religious. In Europe, as well as in America, the people begin to realize their power. Every man begins to feel conscious that he is an individual. Individuality will continue to mark the onward progress

of the world, until, in some future age, the blessings of knowledge, liberty and happiness, will be enjoyed, in nearly equal degrees, by all classes of men. Perhaps the child is soon to live that shall witness the dawn of this glorious period. Who will not invoke, with the Mantuan bard, the speedy presence of that

event:

"Incipe, parve puer !"

or with the rapt poet of Twickenham exclaim:

"Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn,

O, spring to light, auspicious babe, be born!"

THE DYING CHILD.

BY JOHN K. LASKEY.

There thou didst lie, a sinless child at rest,
Hushed as the march of starry-studded night;
Mute as the dew closed in the rose's breast;
Silent as darkness, stealing o'er the light;
Cold as a statue, in pale marble dressed;
Still as a rainbow, falling from the sight;

Calm as a halcyon, that, upon the deep,

Folds slowly its white wings and, fearless, falls to sleep."-Thomas Miller.

A FAIR and lovely child that had just learned
To look on flowers and sky with a wild joy,
Such as the heart of childhood only knows;
To love the bright beams of the morning sun,
As they came glancing through the shady trees,
And stole into her room, like fairy fingers
Making fantastic shapes upon the wall,
Was passing from the earth. I have had dreams
Of beautiful and sylph-like forms of earth,
Whose eyes were brilliant as the stars of night;
Whose lips were like the red and honeyed rose;
Whose mouth seemed made to speak angelic words;
But never dreamed of one so much divine,
So meek, so beautiful, as that young child.
Her eyes were blue, the azure blue of heaven;
And with their melting glance, they shed a light
That stole into your soul, and stirred up thoughts
Of some familiar look you once had known:
Her face was like the face of a bright lake,
Reflecting forms and hues from heaven above;
Her step the light and free step of the fawn;
Her words were music, and her soul was joy.
Have not such beautiful beings crossed your path,
And sat beside your table? You have felt,
As day and night alternate came and went,
A love within your bosom springing forth
To clasp and idolize these gifts of Heaven.

They did not tarry with you! Soon they passed,
As fades the rainbow from the enraptured eye;
As vanish from the sight the clouds of even;
As soars some golden-plumaged bird away;
As disappears some golden dream we've had,
Which waking sense dispersed.
And thus she died,

The beautiful and lovely child of earth.
But many a weary and grief-hidden hour
Her mother passed beside her downy couch,
Watching the life-pulse of her dying babe,
As fast it ebbed away. Death gently came,
As comes some spirit of the heavenly world,
To whisper bliss immortal to the soul
Of one who has long trod the way to heaven;
And while she lay all calmly, as in dreams,
He drew aside the shadowy veil which shut
Her gaze from immortality and God.
Long on her mother she had fixed her eyes,
Then smiled and shut them, as if now she felt
That she had come to watch the weary hours;
And when death closed her dreams of mortal things,
On her pale features lingered yet a smile,
That told how beautiful and full of bliss
Could things of earth be as they passed to heaven!

As that pale form lay hushed in earth's last sleep, I looked upon it and called it a rose:

I thought 'twould bloom beside the golden stream
That flows out from the radiant throne of God.
Was it not so? And with their sinless hands
There angels rear the floweret? And with dews
Far brighter than earth's richest jewels are,
All sparkling in the beams of Heaven's bright Sun,
They water its young leaves, and teach its bloom
To rise in grateful incense to their God?

It may be thus; and 'twas a chosen flower,
And thus God kindly sent his angel, Death,
To pluck it from its tender parent-stem,

Where many a storm might beat to waste its form;
And far to heavenly climes he bore that flower,
To bloom amid the spirit-paradise.

I turned away and felt 'twas autumn's hour:
The crimson sky and yellow leaf we know
Are always o'er us and around us strewn,
For Time for ever is God's harvest-day.
It was a picture of our transient life-
For here a form springs up, another there;

And then to show us how earth's beauteous things

Will fade away and die, Death silent comes

And reaps them in their bloom; and we are left
To fix the heart on fadeless things above.

Let it be so! O! we shall meet again

In the elysian, the eternal fields,

Where parting is unknown; and till that hour
We'll treasure up the memory of the dead.