IGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE CHIEF STATE UNIVERSITY COLF MASSACHUSETTS.-In the Address which the Governor s) of Massachusetts, on the 29th of last June, made to Dr. SPARKS, in presenting to him, according to law, the seal and f HARVARD UNIVERSITY, as President of that Institution, we he following remarks on the subject of religious instruction University:

n opinion exists to some extent in the community, that, in rious departments of education in this country, the moral g of the pupil is too much neglected. If such an error s, it ought to be corrected. The importance of moral inon cannot be over-stated. The heart is the fountain of , and the wise man enjoins that it should be "kept with all ce, for out of it are the issues of life." Christianity is the ck upon which the character of man can be built with safety. Eure, Sir, that its hopes and its principles, that its beautiful blime precepts, as illustrated in the wise teachings and in otless life of its Divine Author, will be leading topics of the ctions which the youth committed to your charge will daily e from your lips.

more than two hundred years the people of Massachusetts respected and cherished this first-born literary institution of w World. In the constitution of the Commonwealth, they was founded by 'wise and pious men,' and ratify its legal

ce.

truth of your character is to them a pledge, that all the sof your mind and heart will be devoted to a faithful and imadministration of its affairs, and to the advancement of good g and science; that you, as the executive officer of the e, will maintain a discipline that will win the affections of young gentlemen and their successors, and that will secure nce to its laws; that all party politics will be avoided, and y governmental doctrines inculcated will be the great prinof constitutional liberty; and that, discarding all secsm in religion, the theology taught will be the simple of revelation, as written in letters of living light on the of the Bible."

SIDENT SPARKS, in reply to this part of GOVERNOR BRIGGS' rating address, observes as follows:

Then your Excellency speaks of the importance of a moral igious education, your words must meet with a cordial refrom every friend of youth, nay, from every friend of manThe principles, the vital truths, the practical rules of life, in the Divine Word, the doctrines and precepts of the Saevealed from heaven to illumine, cheer, and save a dark and world, should be made in every institution of learning the 1 elements from which all other instruction should spring. ligion set forth in the Gospel of Christ inculcates love to d man; it exhorts us to reverence our Maker and obey his search for the truth with honest hearts, and to build our Don honest conviction; it enjoins charity, forbearance, goodt teaches men to live together as brethren, to think for Ives, but to act for the good of others, to avoid names, divisscords, and to strive for peace, amity, union; and it opens he certainty of an immortal world, where the acts and moE men will be weighed in an equal balance, and where the will be meted out by a just and merciful Judge. May this be taught here in its purifying efficacy, felt alike by those ach and those who learn; may it be taught and felt everyin the temples of God, in the busy throngs of men, and in et repose of the fireside, till the whole human family, children common Father, shall learn the lesson of universal love, and with one voice in hymns of praise and adoration!"

MATE OF COMMON SCHOOLS AS WELL AS COLLEGES, BY VERNORS AND SCHOLARS OF NEW ENGLAND.-The GOVERMASSACHUSETTS, in inducting Dr. JARED SPARKS into the - President of Harvard University, a few months since, made Owing reference to Common Schools:

t doubting that the colleges of the Commonwealth always interest in the success of her common schools, I may be

November, 1849.

allowed to suggest that more practical demonstrations of that interest, and the manifestation of a desire for their advancement, in all suitable ways, would greatly tend to promote the prosperity of both these essential departments of education.

The mass of our children and youth must begin and finish their education in the district school house. There the children of the poor, mingling with the children of the rich, must gather the treasures of knowledge. Our system of free schools is one of the richest fruits of the Gospel, which upon its introduction into the world, was preached to the poor. They are the natural nurseries of the colleges.

Let the free schools in all our towns be competent to fit their pupils for college, and our colleges will be always full. The interests of the two institutions are identical. Both should be ardently loved and cherished by all who love their country, liberty, and their race."

PEESIDENT SPARKS replies to the Governor in the following golden words:

"Your Excellency has mentioned the common schools, and the intimate relation between them and the colleges. Here, permit me to say, you have touched a chord, whose vibrations I would neither resist nor disguise. Many of my earliest and dearest associations are centred within the narrow walls of the school-room. Nurtured during my childhood and youth in the common schools of New England, and for six winters a teacher of a common school, I have reason to be grateful for the benefits derived from them, in forming both my mind and character. Nor is it too much to say, that, for such of the qualifications as may possess for understanding and discharging some of the most important duties of the station in which I am now placed, I have been more indebted to the seeds planted in the common schools, and to the experience which strengthened their growth, than to the latter instruction and discipline of a college. But they are both necessary to a well-ordered, prosperous community, columns of the same temple, administering mutual and needful support. They both claim the fostering care and sub stantial aid of an enlightened public, and the earnest good wishes. of every citizen, every patriot, who would see the glory and happiness of his country resting on the durable foundation of virtue upheld by knowledge, high intellectual culture, and a wide-spread intelligence."

Miscellaneous.

SPHERE OF HUMAN INFLUENCE.

BY THE REV. THOMAS HILL.

Charles Babbage, in his "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," has a chapter concerning the permanent impression of our words upon the air, a chapter which none have ever read without a thrill of mingled admiration and fear; and which closes with an eloquence that is worthy the lips of an orator, though coming from a mathematician's pen.

Would that Babbage had touched, in his fragmentary treatise, upon some of the inferences which may be drawn from the Newtonian law of gravity,-inferences which would probably have been as new to most of his readers, as those which he, with so much acuteness, draws from the law of the equality of action and reaction.

The motion of which Babbage speaks, in the chapter to which we refer, is undulatory, communicated by impulse, and requiring time for its transmission; and the startling result of his reasoning comes from the never-dying character of the motion, keeping forever a record of our words in the atmosphere itself; always audible to a finer sense than ours; reserved against the day of account, when perchance our own ears may be quickened to hear our own words wringing in the air.

But motion is not only enduring through all time, it is simultaneous throughout all space. The apple that falls from the tree is met by the earth; not half way, but at a distance fitly proportioned to their respective masses. The moon follows the movement of the earth with instant obedience, and the sun with prompt humility bends his course to theirs. The sister planets with their moons are moved by sympathy with the earth, and the stars and most distant clusters of the universe obey the leading of the sun.

Thus, throughout all the fields of space, wherever stars or suns are scattered, they move for the falling apple's sake. Nor is the motion slowly taken up. The moon waits for no tardy moving impulse from the earth, but constantly obeys. The speed of light reaching the sun in a few seconds, would be too slow to compare with this. Electricity itself, coursing round the earth a thousand times an hour, can give us no conception of the perfectly.s multaneous motions of gravity. There are stars visible to the telescopic eye, whose light has been ages on its swift-winged course before it reached this distant part of space, but they move in instant accordance with the falling fruit.

True it is, that our senses refuse to bear witness to any motion other than the apple's fall, and our fingers tire if we attempt to untie the long list of figures, which our Arabic notation requires to express the movement thereby given to the sun. Yet that motion can be proved to exist, and the algebraist's formula can represent its quantity. The position of every particle of matter at every instant of time, past, present, or to come, has been written in one short sentence which any man can read. And as each man can understand more or less of this formula of motion, according to his ability and his acquaintance with mathematical learning, so we may conceive of intelligent beings, whose faculties are very far short of infir.ite perfection, who can read, in that sentence, the motions not only of the sun, but of all bodies which our senses reveal to us. Nay, if the mind of Newton has advanced in power since he entered heaven with a speed at all proportioned to his intellectual growth on earth, perhaps even he could now with great ease assign to every star in the wide universe of God, the motion which it received from the fall of that apple which led him to his immortal discoveries.

Every moving thing on the earth, from the least to the greatest, is accompanied in its motion by all the heavenly spheres. The rolling planets influence each other on their path, and each is influenced by the changes on its surface. The starry systems, wheeling round their unknown centre, move in harmony with each other's courses' and each is moved by the planets which accompany it in its mighty dance. Thus does this law of motion bind all material bodies in one well-balanced system wherein not one particle can move, but all the uncounted series of worlds and suns must simultaneously move with it.

Thus may every deed on earth be instantly known in the farthest star, whose light, travelling with almost unbounded speed since creation's dawn, has not yet reached our eyes. It only needs, in that star, a sense quick enough to perceive the motion, infinitely too small for human sense, and an analysis far reaching enough to trace that motion to its cause. The cloud of witnesses that ever encompass this area of our mortal life, may need no near approach to earthly scenes, that they may scan our conduct. As they journey from star to star and roam through the unlimited glories of creation, they may read in the motions of the heavens about them the ever faithful report of the deeds of men.

This sympathetic movement of the planets, like the mechanical impulse given by our words to the air, is ever during.

The astronomer, from the present motion of the comet, learns all its former path, traces it back on its long round of many years, shows you when and where it was disturbed in its course by planets, and points out to you the altered movement which it assumed from the interference of bodies unknown by any other means to human science. He needs only a more subtle analysis and a wider grasp of mind to do for the planets and the stars what he has done for the comet. Nay, it were a task easily done by a spirit less than infinite, to read in the present motion of any one star the past motions of every star in the universe, and thus of every planet that wheels round those stars, and of every moving thing upon those planets.

Thus considered, how strange a record does the star-gemmed vesture of the night present! There, in the seemingly fixed order of those blazing sapphires, is a living dance, in whose track is written the record of all the motions that ever man or nature made. Had we the skill to read it, we should there find written every deed of kindness, every deed of guilt, together with the fall of the landslide, the play of the fountain, the sporting of the lamb, and the waving of the grass. Nay, when we behold the superhuman powers of calculation exhibited sometimes by sickly Children long before they reach man's age, may we not believe that

man, when hereafter freed from the lo be able, in the movement of the plane errors of his own past life?

Thou who hast raised thy hand to d thine arm! The universe will be wit an everlasting testimony against thee; test heavens will move when thy han prayers thy soul can utter will never the path from which thy deed has draw

THE SUBLIME SOLITUD

To go into solitude, a man needs chamber as from society. I am not write, though nobody is with me. B let him look at the stars. The rays th worlds will separate between him and think that the atmosphere was made tr to give man in the heavenly bodies th sublime. Seen in the streets of citie the stars should appear one night in a men believe and adore; and preserv remembrance of the city of God whi every night come out those preacher universe with their admonishing smile. tain reverence, because though alway inaccessible; but all natural object when the mind is open to their influen mean appearance. Neither does the secret, and lose his curiosity by find Nature never became a toy to a wi animals, the mountains, reflected all t as much as they had delighted the si When we speak of nature in this mar W most poetical sense in the mind. pression made by manifold natural obje tinguishes the stick of timber of the the poet. The charming landscape w indubitably made up of some twenty of this field, Locke that, and Manning none of them owns the landscape. horizon which is no man's but he who that is, the poet. This is the best o this their land-deeds give them no title

HOW TO MAKE HO

1. Each one in the family circle spirit, a disposition to make the rest h 2. Everything tending in the least happiness must be strictly avoided.

3. Each must have a forbearing spi burdens, and so fulfill the law of Chris

4. Great patience and meekness ar 5. A forgiving spirit. Each one s forgive, when required, but to ask for 6. Cultivate an open, frank, cheer 7. Each member, in the home cir every relative duty, and perform it fa alacrity.

8. Finally, let the love of God per it is impossible to enjoy that exalted relation is calculated to bestow.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.-There is so of a mother, that, no matter how the was formed, she becomes, as it we and the past is forgotten, and the v swept away when that love alone is watches over the little one, she deputy in whose tenderness there bre

ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTE most beautiful of flowers, emits no fr the most beautiful of birds, elicits no the finest of trees, yields no fruit.

sent.

tains and clouds, are distinctly delineated. (Can chance be the author of such an instrument ?) -A concave mirror is curved inward, and reflects from the hollow surface, and its powers, as its shape, are the reverse of those of the convex mirror.-Though we have figures to illustrate what is here stated in respect to mirrors, we have not room for them and the requisite explanations at preIn the spherical parts of brass andirons, or silver spoons, we have convex mirrors, with which children frequently amuse themselves in viewing their own miniature likenesses; while in the concave or hollow parts of silver cups or spoons we have concaee mirrors, which correspondingly magnify the images of objects reflected by them. It will therefore be recollected that concave mirrors collect the rays of light, and magnify objects-that convex mirrors disperse the rays of light and diminish objects-that plane mirrors reflect rays of light without either enlarging or diminishing the visual angle, and consequently represent objects of their natural size.

6. LENSES.-Lenses, on account of their extensive use in the construction of optical instruments, from the microscope up to the telescope, require more particular notice. Glass, in various forms, is the substance most used for these purposes, which owing to the peculiar form of the lens, causes the rays of light to converge to a focus, or disperses them according to the laws of refraction. There are several varieties of lenses, named according to their focus. Five B C D E

F

A

HOD

(Fig. 5.)

of these varieties are represented in Figure 5. It will be seen that they G all represent portions of the internal or external surface of a sphere. A represents a single or plano convex lens, which

is bounded by a plane surface on one side and a convex one on the other, or in other words, is flat on one side and convex or oval on the other. B represents a single or plano concave lens, which is flat on one side and concave or hollow on the other. A double concave lens is concave or hollow on both sides, as represented by D. C represents a double convex lens, which is bounded by two convex or spherical surfaces. Their centres are, of course, on opposite sides of the lens. E represents a meniscus-a word derived from the Greek, literally signifying a little moon. The term is applied to this kind of concavo-convex lens, from its similarity to the young As all the lenses are portions of the internal or external surface of a sphere, their axis is a straight line, F G, passing through their centre.

moon.

7. The peculiar form of the various kinds of lenses, causes the light which passes through them to be reflected or bent from its straight course, according to laws which we briefly explained last month. According to these laws, it will be recollected, light passing from a rarer to a denser medium is refracted or bent towards the perpendicular; and, on the contrary, passing from a denser to a rarer, it is refracted or bent further from the perpendicular. Now, it will be seen, from the straight line F G, Fig. 5, that a perpendicular to any convex or convave surface, must, when prolonged, pass through the centre of sphericity-or, in other words, the centre of the sphere of which the lens is a portion. It therefore follows, according to the laws just stated, and the situation of the perpendicular on each side of the lens, that a convex lens (contrary to convex mirrors) collects the rays into a focus, and magnifies objects at a certain distance; while concave lenses (contrary to concave mirrors) disperse the rays and diminish the objects seen through them.

8. The focal distance of a convex lens is the distance from the centre of the glass to the point at which the rays of light passing through the lens converge. This depends upon the convexity of the lens. The more convex the glass is, or in other words, the more the thickness of the middle exceeds that of the extremities, the shorter will be its focal distance; or the nearer to the glass will the rays passing through it be converged to a point. This point is easily ascertained by experiment, and may be accurately stated in any given case. It has been remarked, that a convex lens is a portion of a sphere. The sphere of a lens, then, is an imaginary circle of the surface of which the lens is a portion. The radius of a lens is, therefore, the radius or half the diameter of this sphere. Now, the focal distance (or the point beyond the lens where the refracted rays meet) of a plano-convex lens, is equal to the diameter of its

sphere, and the focus of a double-concave le or half the diameter of its sphere. The therefore, the lens is, the more nearly it a and the more distant or longer is its focus bulging a lens is, the more obliquely will t face, and the more will they be refracted o

9. It is on this principle, arising from t lens, that burning glasses and optical instr cles, microscopes, telescopes, &c., are co rays of the sun, which pass through the g point, or collected together in the focus, an must be equal to the heat of all the rays or the heat at the focus is to the common heat the glass is to the area of the focus. Thus if a

times less than the surface of the lens, and will be 1600 times greater at the focus tha tille substances placed in the focus of suc consumed; metals are melted, and even vitr are produced beyond the reach of the most By a large lens, or burning glass, two feet Leipsic in 1691, pieces of lead and tin w plate of iron was soon rendered red-hot, and melted; and burnt brick was converted int more wonderful effects were produced by a d feet in diameter, made by Mr. Parker, in E afterwards presented by the King to the En cave mirrors, placed in a peculiar position sun, or to any heated body, produce the same A peculiar combination of a number of pian to produce the same effects. ARCHEMEDE employed some such mirror, in setting fire t MARCELLUS, when bombarding Syracuse.

10. The refraction of rays of light follo that of the rays of heat, eye-glasses are co principle as burning-glasses. As the conve human eye varies in different individuals an life, it varies in its power (in connexion w the eye) of refracting or converging the ray upon the retina, where the image of any obj remedy these, or other defects in vision, di are employed. An artificial chrystalline le place of the natural chrystalline lens of moved by surgical operations. In aged pe something of its convexity, suffers a diminu verge the rays passing through it upon the to which the converging rays tend is beyon cient power is supplied by convex lens, in a p are so selected and adapted to the eye as ex the want of refracting power in the eye its are brought to a focus on the retina, where can be formed. Near-sighted persons hav or round-forming the image too soon, o retina. Concave glasses, dispersing instea of light, counteract this effect, and are theref persons. Convex glasses are, then, used flat; and concave glasses when it is too rou usually numbered, by opticians, according vexity or concavity; so that knowing the a purchaser can generally be accommodated trying many glasses.

The application of the same property laws of refraction in the construction, of mi with illustrations, must be deferred until an

ary and Scientific Entelligence.

wn,

pplication of the Electrotype Process. -We take eresting account from the Builder :application of the electrotype, a galvano plastic process, the sculpture of the cathedral of St. Isaac, at St Peterschitect. After having made very important experiments, d to adopt this mode in the execution of the metallic sculps for the following reasons:-1. The identical reproducpture without chiseling. 2. The lightness of the pieces, the Architect to introduce sculptures of higher relief than and to fix the pieces suspended from the vaultings, accident, or of their being detached. 3. The great e between these and castings in bronze. The gilding also the same process, and presented equal advantages. The e cathedral will be of bronze and electrotype, the frame he former, and the sculptural parts of the latter. Three of 0 feet high and 14 feet wide, the four others 17 feet 8 inches ontain 51 bas reliefs, 63 statues, and 84 alto-relievo busts, ects and characters. The quantity of metal employed in the ws:-Ducat gold, 247lbs.; copper, 52 tons; brass, 3 iron, 524 tons; cast iron, 1068 tons. Total, 1966 tons. .-The reproduction of these creatures has recently esting subject for discussion among naturalists. In some in produced like buds on a tree, which eventually drop off:ge and wondrous changes! Fancy an elephant with elephants sprouting from his shoulders and thighs, bunches ers hanging epaulette-fashion from his flanks in every stage

9

Here a young pachyderm almost amorphous, there ore , but all ears and eyes; on the right shoulder a youthful ad, trunk, toes, no legs, and a shapeless body; on the lift r grown, and struggling to get away, but his tail not sufied as yet to permit of liberty and free action! The comparesque and absurd, but it really expresses what we have been ctually occurring among our naked-eyed medusæ. It is true re minute, but wonders are not the less wonderful for being mall compass. The multitude, being muddleheaded, love t the philosopher does not estimate a whale above a minnow gness: Nosci digna læc animalcula, non quia Deus maxi. s est, æque enim magnus in omnibus, at ob eximiam memem, miram organorum diversitatem, varia Creatoris cundem a media et pulchritudinem et proportionem quam nihil exote Otho Frederic Muller-filled, by his studies of minute pspirit of reverence and admiration of his monoculi, so might - medusæ. But when to all the wonders of their structure surprising physiological facts as those which we have thus concerning their reproduction, the spirit of reverent astonfuller and fuller. La force qui develope, l'intelligence qui rdoune, l'amour qui unit vivifie'-the triune powers maniand every being, in each single and all-combined, are rely in our little sarsia, as in the mightiest monster of the whose shadow it may swim invisible to the unarmed eye. behold how its perpetuity in that ocean is secured, we are aim with Spenser

onder it is to see

w diversity Love doth his pageants play,

ad shows his powre in variable kinds.-[Professor Forbes. -The silkworm, previous to its change from the e chrysalis, forms for itself a casement of silky filaments, alists a cocoon. Ten thousand of these cocoons produce on ut five pounds of silk; and a thread unwound from one of weighed three grains, has measured four hundred yards. der the immense quantity of silk used at present, the numrs, which produce it, will exceed calculation Think but of a silkworm! How many hands, how many machines, le ball put in motion! Of what riches should we not have if the moth of the silkworm had been born a moth without viously a caterpillar !—

e did nature pour her bounties forth,

o work millions of spinning worms,
heir green shops weave the smooth-haired silk
er sons!-Comus.

Book. This invaluable record, so aften quoted, and ets of ancient times, is still a perfect preservation, every word at this time as when written, seven hundred and forty years Orised in two volumes, one a large folio, the other a quarto. with the county of Kent, and concludes with Lincolnshire, one and the same hand, in a small but clear character, on

three hundred and eighty double pages of vellum, each page having a double column, and contains thirty-one counties. The quarto volume is on four hundred and fifty double pages of vellum, but in single columns in a large distinct hand-writing, and contains the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffok.

Alexander Von Humboldt.-It cannot fail, says a letter from Berlu, to be interesting to the literary world to know that the Nestor of Philosophers, the venerable Alexander Von Humboldt, will accomplish his 80th year next Friday, he being born upon the 14th of September, 1769. It will be further gratifying to his admirers and friends in England and in many other parts of the globe, even to the mighty Andes and far-distant Himalayas, to hear that the illustrious author continues in the full enjoy ment, not only of sturdy health, but of all those mental faculties which have crowned his name with immortal glory, shed lustre upon his native land, and conquered for him a permanent place among the princes of the intellectual world.

Antiquities for the British Museum. -A vessel which has arrived at Chatham from Bombay has brought twenty tons weight of antiquities from Nineveh, which are intended to be forwarded to the British Museum for deposit in that national establishment. The authorities of the Treasury have given the necessary directions for the unshipment and free delivery of the antiquities to the museum, and arrangements have been made for the packages containing these valuable relics to be forworded direct to the museum without being previously disturbed, and there opened and exam. ined by the proper authorities, in order that every one may be taken that no damage should be sustained by them.

66

Ivory. At the last quarterly meeting of the Geological and Polytechnic Society of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Earl Fitzwilliam in the chair, Mr. Dalton, of Sheffield, read a paper on ivory as an article of manufacture," in which he disclosed the following interesting facts :— The value of the annual consumption in Sheffield was about £30,000, and about 500 persons were employed in working it up for the trade. The number of tusks to make up the weight consumed in Sheffield, about 180 tons, was 45,000. According to this the number of elephants killed every year was 22,500; but supposing some tusks were cast and some animals died, it might be fairly estimated that 18,000 were killed for the purpose.

The Magnetic Clock.-Our readers will feel interested in know ing that Professor Locke's Magnetic Clock is now finished. The different parts have been put together, and it completely fulfils all the expectations of the inventor. It is a beautiful piece of mechanism, which reflects much credit on the ingenuity and skill of the manufacturers, Messrs. Howard and Davis, and in its operations reminds us of the wonders we read of in tales of necromancy, or which were brought about by the astrologers of the olden times, after making a compact with the evil one. This clock will be packed immediately, with all due care, and conveyed to Washington, to be placed in the National Observatory.-[Boston Journal.

Commerce in the Days of Abraham.-The various particulars of the transaction between Abraham and the children of Heth evince very considerable progress at that early period in economics, in commerce, in law. There is money, and of a given denomination or coin-balances for weighing it a standard thereof, such as was current with the merchant-a superiority thereof in the methods of trade above the day of barter-forms in the conveyance and change of property before witnesses, as here in the audience of the people of Heth-the terms and specifications of a bargain, by which its several particulars were made sure to Abraham in the presence of and before many witnesses-all serving to confirm the doctrine that the progress in these days was from an original civilization down to barbarism -the civilization being coeval with the first and earliest revelations, or, with Adam himself. A thorough attention to these early chapters of Genesis confirms our belief in this tenet supported as it is by this strong negative argument, that a nation was never known to emerge simultaneously and unaided from the savage state- the civilization thereof having always, as far as it is known, originated in, or been aided by, a movement or influence from without.-[Dr. Chalmers.

Boundaries of the British Empire in the East.-Among the greatest phenomena in the history of the world may, undoubtedly, be reckoned the British Empire in the East Indies.

This empire has, within a single century, risen from the humble rank of a trading factory to an imperium of more than 100,000,000 of inhabitants, with an equal number (100,000,000) who though under their own prince still obey the British power, extends over 1,250,000 English square miles of the most fertile part of the surface of the earth (from 8 deg. latitude to 35 deg., and from 68 deg. longitude to 92 deg.,) and consequently contains a polar altitude the same as from Messina to Tarnea, and a breadth as from Lisbon to Smolensk, which shows that it cannot be compared by anything' in Europe, either as to size or population. --[Edinburgh Review.