civilization. And instead of the solitary pass of the Taurus, along whose narrow and rocky defiles the caravans descended to bear to Antioch their scanty burdens, there flow to us through liquid channels, hollowed by man or framed by God, there rush upon us, over ways made level and smooth as floors, in caravan-trains whose tread thunders equal and steady as a star's, from all the expanded districts and States that make the interior, their exuberant wealth.

And then remember that behind these instruments and vehicles of thought there stands a people, the majority of itunlike the mixed and sensual mass of Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Jews, who made the majority of the population of Antioch-united in the sentiment of the authority of justice as between man and man, in the sentiment of reverence for liberty as man's birthright, and of reverence for Christianity as God's revelation, and eager to inform and to transform the world through these ideas; and you see again what an eminent pulpit this metropolis is, in which and from which to preach Christ to mankind. He who preaches Him here, preaches to India, China, Japan, to Kamtschatka and Labra dor, to the Society Islands, to Borneo and Siam. He sweeps not merely that "many-nationed sea" the Mediterranean; but round the world, on every coast, is felt the far vibration of his influence. "Not an axe falls in the American forest," said an English statesman long ago, "but it sets in motion a shuttle in Manchester." Not a voice speaks for Christ, we may say as well, in these central American cities, but its echo is heard, sometime or other, wherever the shuttle sends its fabric, wherever the traveller pierces the jungle, wherever the dawn of a Christian civilization begins to disperse the heathen night.-R. S. Storrs, Jr.

THE TEACHER THE HOPE OF AMERICA.

LOOK abroad over this country; mark her extent, her wealth, her fertility, her boundless resources, the giant energies which every day developes, and which she seems already bending on that fatal race-tempting, yet always fatal to republics-the race for physical greatness and aggrandize ment. Behold, too, that continuous and mighty tide of population, native and foreign, which is forever rushing through this great valley towards the setting sun; sweeping away the wilderness before it like grass before the mower; waking up industry and civilization in its progress; studding the sol

itary rivers of the West with marts and cities; dotting its boundless prairies with human habitations; penetrating every green nook and vale; climbing every fertile ridge; and still gathering and pouring onward, to form new States in those vast and yet unpeopled solitudes, where the Oregon rolls his majestic flood and

"Hears no sound save his own dashing."

Mark all this, and then say: by what bonds will you hold together so mighty a people and so immense an empire? What safeguard will you give us against the dangers which must inevitably grow out of so vast and complicate an organization? In the swelling tide of our prosperity, what a field will open for political corruption! What a world of evil passions to control, and jarring interests to reconcile! What temptations will there be to luxury and extravagance! What motives to private and official cupidity! What prizes will hang glittering at a thousand goals, to dazzle and tempt ambition! Do we expect to find our security against these dangers in railroads and canals; in our circumvallations and ships of war? Alas! when shall we learn wisdom from the lessons of history? Our most dangerous enemies will grow up from our own bosom. We may erect bulwarks against foreign invasion; but what power shall we find in walls and armies to protect the people against themselves? There is but one sort of "internal improvement"-more thoroughly internal than that which is cried up by politicians-that is able to save this country. I mean the improvement of the minds and souls of her people. If this improvement shall be neglected, and shall fail to keep pace with the increase of our population and our physical advancement, one of two alternatives is certain: either the nation must dissolve in anarchy under the rulers of its own choice, or, if held together at all, it must be by a government so strong and rigorous as to be utterly inconsistent with constitutional liberty. Let the one hundred millions which, at no very distant day, will swarm our cities, and fill up our great interior, remain sunk in ignorance, and nothing short of an iron despotism will suffice to govern the nation-to reconcile its vast and conflicting interests, control its elements of agitation, and hold back its fiery and headlong energies from dismemberment

and ruin,

How then is this improvement to be effected? Who are the agents of it? Who are they who shall stand perpetually as priests at the altar of freedom, and feed its sacred fires, by

dispensing that knowledge and cultivation on which hangs our political salvation? I repeat, they are our teachers, the masters of our schools, the instructors in our academies and colleges, and in all those institutions of whatever name which have for their object the intellectual and moral culture of our youth, and the diffusion of knowledge among our people. Theirs is the moral dignity of stamping the great features of our national character; and, in the moral worth and intelligence which they give it, to erect a bulwark which shall prove impregnable in that hour of trial, when armies and fleets and fortifications shall be vain. And when those mighty and all-absorbing questions shall be heard, which are even now sending their bold demands into the ear of rulers and lawgivers, which are momentarily pressing forward to a solemn decision in the sight of God and of all nations, and which, when the hour of their decision shall come, will shake this country-the Union, the Constitution-as with the shaking of an earthquake,—it is they who in that fearful hour will gather around the structure of our political organization, and, with uplifted hands, stay the reeling fabric till the storm and the convulsion be overpast.

"The sensual and the dark rebel in vain,
Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game
They burst their manacles, and wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."

Samuel Eells, 1837.

THE TEACHER'S OLD AGE.

MARK yonder feeble and decrepit old man, as, panting with fatigue, and grasping his staff with both his hands, he slowly makes his way along one of your public streets. He is a veteran teacher. He commenced his employment in early life, and the first scene of his labors was on a bleak and rocky hillside, in the interior of his own New England. When the call of his country rung among his native mountains, he left his peaceful charge, to meet her enemies on the tented field, and to bring back her eagles in triumph from the scene of battle. After the achievement of our independence, he returned to his favorite employment, and became one of a small band who, with the axe and the rifle, plunged into the Western forests, and, amidst toil and danger and suffering, laid the foundations of a great and prosperous people. With his own hands he helped to pile the logs of the first school-house

that was erected on the spot where now stands your beautiful and prosperous city; and, having reared, he entered it, and with the devotion of an apostle, officiated as the instructor of many whose sons and whose daughters we may now recognize around us as the founders of families and the pillars and ornaments of society. Thousands of youth, in his day and generation, has he taken from the paternal roof, and given back to their parents and their country, with a discipline and a cultivation worthy of both. They have gone out into the four quarters of the world; they may be found scattered through all the ranks of society, in all the arts and occupations of life, and in all the liberal professions, which they live to dignify and adorn. Better than the most successful candidate for popular favor-better than he for whom we erect triumphal arches, and whose path we strew with garlands-has he merited the proud title of benefactor of his country! But what is his reward? Throughout life he has struggled with embarrassment and want; and, forced at last, by the infirmities of three-score and ten years, from his profession, he lingers out, in an obscure part of your city, a stinted and companionless old age, with no consolation for a life of unrequited toil but the reflection that it has been a useful life, devoted, with fidelity and singleness of purpose, to the well-being of his country and his fellow-men. Mark, now, the generosity, the justice, of a grateful and discriminating public. This palsied and infirm old man-this man who, more than statesmen or politicians, deserves to be honored with monumental marble, and days of public festivity and rejoicing—has come out to feel the warm light of the sun, and to gaze once more upon those new scenes which have arisen around him, and which so mournfully remind him that he is becoming "a stranger in the midst of a new succession of men." The young, the gay and the fashionable throng pass him, but ungreeted, unnoticed, he totters on. The men of business rush by him, and jostle him as they go. Presently he hears a confusion of mingled voices, and then cries and shouts rend the air. Planting his staff before him, he stops; and, as he raises his dimmed eyes, he discovers a hurrying and gathering crowd. He inquires the meaning from some passer-by, and learns that it is the gala-day triumph of some political adventurer, some heartless demagogue, who has obtained his supremacy by feeding the passions and flattering the vanity of the people.

"The statesman of the day

A pompous and slow-moving pageant comes.
Some shout him, and some hang upon his car

To gaze in his eyes and bless him. Maidens wave
Their kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy;

While others, not so satisfied, unhorse

The gilded equipage, and turning loose

His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve.

Why? What hath charmed them? Hath he saved the State?
No! Doth he purpose its salvation? No.

Thus idly do we waste the breath of praise,
And dedicate a tribute, in its use

And just direction sacred, to a thing

Doomed to the dust, or lodged already there."

Samuel Eells, 1837.

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

THIRTY years ago, it was asked, "Who reads an American book?" It may now be asked, what intelligent man in all Europe does not read an American book? Who is there? Sam Rogers reads them, Henry Hallam reads them, McCulloch reads them, Lord Mahon reads them, and sometimes finds himself answered when he comments on them. And there is not an intelligent man in all Europe who does not read our American authors, and especially our legal and historical works. And in France, Thiers and Guizot read them; and throughout the vast population of France there is no doubt that there is a greater devotion paid to the study of our popular institutions-to the principles which have raised us to the point at which we now stand-than there is paid to the monarchical institutions and principles of government of every other part of Europe. America is no longer undistinguished for letters-for literature. I will not mention those authors of our own day, now living, who have so much attracted the attention of the world by their literary produc tions.

Under

Gentlemen, a circumstance occurred in the city of Madrid, which I ought not to forget. There it was that an event took place which raised me to eminence in the literary world, of my position in which I was not previously aware. the eye of the ministry, an article appeared in the Madrid Ga zette, which was intended to be rather complimentary to the Secretary of State of the United States, and which said that he was the most distinguished man of letters in his country; and that he was the immortal author of the celebrated dictionary of the English language. I the author of an English dictionary! Shade of Noah Webster! what do you think of such an intrusion on your rights and your property?