from its corruptions and errors? Learning. In a later day, whence but from Oxford came Whitefield and the Wesleys, those men of of learning and piety who awakened the faith

life? In more recent years, who have contended manfully for the truth in our country and Europe, but learned men, scholars of distinction?

with its treasures in a recorded revelation, with a sacred book of history, prophecy, precepts and doctrines; a book to be translated, to be studied, to be interpreted. It is a religion not satisfied with an ignorant priest-ful in England and in this country to a new hood, caring only to learn how to go through with ceremonial sacrifices and oblations, but a religion demanding a learned ministry, teachers of doctrines, expounders of an inspired record, and a book not in the hands of the ministry alone, but known and read by the people. Such a religion is in all its influences and tendencies favorable to knowledge and education. It necessitates an educated ministry and an intelligent church. It demands schools and colleges and professional seminaries. It creates a demand for institutions of learning where those who are to be its expounders and preachers may obtain that culture of natural endowments and make those attainments in literature and theology that are needed to qualify them for their high duties. The people too, under the influence of such a system of faith and such a ministry, and having in their hands the record of God's will, that book of light, will naturally be an intelligent, thinking people, and among them will there spring up of necessity educational institutious from the primary school to the university.

Contented ignorance is no Christian grace. Indifference to knowledge is no ingredient in religious excellence. Ignorance is not the mother to Devotion, neither is Superstition the sister of Piety. If all christians, from the first had felt this, how different would have been the history of Christianity. Had christian ministers always been educated men; had they always been as they now are in this country, the fast friends of popular education and the founders of colleges; had knowledge always been respected by good men as the hand-maid of religion, how few of the absurdities which enslaved and perverted the feelings of millions for ages would have ever had an existence in the christian church.

Protestant Christianity can live only in company with education. She was born in the revival of learning. She has waxed with its triumphs, she would wane with its fall. Protestantism cannot long survive in an ignorant community or barbarous nation. An intelligent faith is to the Protestant Church, helmet, buckler and sword. It is her munition of rocks, her tower of strength, her very life.

The nature and the history of the church unitedly and emphatically prove that Christianity and Education are natural allies and that their mutual relations and reciprocal influences are strong and intimate.

On the other hand, education, through the influence of schools, of learned men and seats of learning, has done much to advance Christianity. Learning has been the ally and friend of the church. Whenever, from the days of Paul to those of Wycliffe, God has needed mighty champions to contend for his truth, he has taken educated men. He has done the same since. Jerome of Prague and John Huss, who sealed their testimony in the fire, were scholars rich in academic honors. It Most surely, then, in an age like this, and was from the universities of Europe that Lu- in a country like ours, ought the two to be ther and the other giants of the Reformation kept in close and friendly alliance. We must came forth, girded with power to attack a ty- have an enlightened form of Christianity, rannical hierarchy, and to battle with a tower- an intelligent church, an educated ministry. ing superstition. The Reformation began in We need a ministry that will be friendly to the universities of Europe. It commenced in knowledge, ready to assist in all wise movethe rising up of christian learning in rebellion ments for the promotion of popular or classiagainst superstition and priestly oppression. cal education, as well as for the cultivation of In the English Reformation, whence came an intelligent piety. We must have instituthe champions of the truth? From the uni- tions of learning founded upon sound, chrisversities. What brought Christianity out tian principle, manned by christian teachers.

and controlled by religious influences, to be the fortressss of the Protestant faith, to educate christian ministers and to furnish the champions of the truth with the weapons of

their warfare.

Teachers, parents and preachers of the gospel should understand the important relations subsisting between Christianity and Education, should remember that the education of the intellect is essential to the cultivation of the heart and that symmetry of christian character is promoted by mental discipline and expansion. Their motto in their several spheres of influence and labor, should be, not those words of delusion and folly,-" Religion first and Education afterwards," but that other sentiment dear to every protestant heart, Religion and Education.

For the Schoolmaster.
The Child and Flowers.

BY ANNIE ELIZABETH.

I saw a rosy child upon

A shaded lawn at play,

W. B.

In wreaths it twined the opening flowers,
Then careless threw away.

The morning sunbeams had not kissed
The dew-drops from the ground,
And joyously his laughter rang

Within the fragant bound.

The noon-tide hour drew on apace,
Ere I returned again,

Then for the shouts of laughter gay
I listened, but in vain.

He drinks the dews that brightly gemined
The early morning hours:

And withers many a budding fower
Ere they in beauty ope;
Vain is the task to bind again
The faded bnds of Hope.

For the Schoolmaster.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

THE author of Paradise Lost evidently sung

because his lyre refused to keep silence. As Mozart, skilled in music, despising the rules which lesser writers need, moulded his productions according to will, so Milton, master of Poetry, carved to his own exquisite taste his own soul animated images. Consequently, his style, because natural, is sublime; for in the vision he portrays, the pencilling is unseen, while the subject itself is presented as real.

To give a dry, statistical account of the number of its lines or of its books would be no more instructive than to state that its first word is a preposition and its last a noun. As useless would it be to attempt an extended review of the work: already this has been done by able pens. We can do no more, then, than to tell of some of its peculiar merits, noticing, in passing, a single fault.

Of all the excellencies of Paradise Lost, the most distinct is its tone of moral purity. After partaking of the older and grosser writings, a sensitive reader is refreshed by drinking from its pure fountain. This excellence is illustrated in the discription of Adam

And wondering what had hushed the tone and Eve, (B. IV, v. 228-357,) as also in the

That hailed the morning hours,

I looked; the child was weeping there
Among his withered flowers.

He could not call the beauties back

That bloomed so fair at morn,

And mid the severed stems, he mourned
Them, now forever gone.

'Tis ever thus the flowers of Hope
Bloom sweetly, and as fair

In life's bright morn, as did the wreaths
The child had scattered there.

But as the fervid noon day sun

Pours down his burning powers,

references which are made to them, henceforth, throughout the work. Surely, no one could have painted with more beauty and purity, a subject so difficult.

One of the most sublime conceptions in Paradise Lost is that of the flight of Satan from Hell to Earth as the ambassador of the damned. In solemn conclave have met the Principalities and Powers, within the domains of Satan, to conceive vile schemes to mitigate their anguish and to provoke the Almighty, that they might satisfy their hate of Him and gain some revenge for their endless punishment. The arch-fiend, in his office of spy and

For the Schoolmaster.

The Mountain Cities of South America.

Ir is a remarkable fact that nearly all the cities in the western part of South America are situated far up from the sea coast on the table lands, as for instance, Bogota, 9000 feet above the level of the sea, and Potosi, the

leader, passing Sin and Death, flies out at the gate of Hell, into the deep, dark, unfathomable chaos beyond. The ear almost hears the swoop of his mighty wings; the soul almost starts back afraid, before the dreadful form of the angel of Darkness. He lights upon the earth, destined to do his fiendish work of accomplishing the fall of man. This is only surpassed by Michael's description of the Con-highest city in the world, 13,000 feet. In this flict in Heaven. Here the reader finds his mind under an enchantment so that he is conscious only of existence and he wakes from the sublime scene of the war of angels and the fall of devils into Hell, with feelings similar to those of men who have been held in breathless attention by the power of an eloquent orator.

Nothing is more startling, in the poem, than the sudden and terrible transformation of myriads of devils into hissing serpents. Satan, also, becomes mad with anger, at finding himself, too, changed into a snake, monstrous and hideous, doomed, forever, to crawl on his belly along the ground, eternally disgraced.

This scene occurs when the hosts of Hell, in council, receive the report of their leader, who has returned successful from his fiendish work.

The most apparent defect in the poem consists in its long comparisons. They might, or might not have been avoided; but shall we attempt to criticise the work of a man, who describes heaven and paints hell with such wondrous power, and who ascribes words and acts to archangels, and fathoms the thoughts of devils?

respect they present a striking contrast to the great cities of the United States, which are, without exception, situated on the sea coast or on some other large body of water. The selection of such elevated sites may be accounted for by the following facts: 1st. The climate is much more temperate and healthy on the table-lands. An ascent of a few thousand feet in these tropical regions, presents as marked a modification of the temperature, as a journey of many degrees towards the poles. In this manner a temperate climate is secured for the British soldiers in Hindostan, by removing them, when debilitated by the heat on the sea-coast, to the plateau of Deccan, which has nearly the same climate as their native country. 2nd. The founders of the South American cities had no need of commerce, since all the productions of the earth which they required, grew in the country around them, and they could procure from their own mines the gold and silver, which form the great stimulus to commerce. 3rd. It was convenient to have their cities among the mountains, that they might be near the mines. 4th. The cities founded by the Spaniards would be placed on the plateaus, in imitation of their native cities in old Spain.

busy little city, but upon which now rests the is indispensible to the best government of a quiet of a country Sabbath.

Treasurer-B. F. Putnam, of Boston. Counsellors-Charles Hammond, Groton; At 7 o'clock, Monday evening, a very John Kneeland, Roxbury; A. P. Stone, Plybeautiful and eloquent lecture was delivered mouth; Homer B. Sprague, Worcester; Samby Rev. William R. Alger, of Boston. Sub-uel J. Pike, Somerville; George Allen, Jr., ject, The School of Life." No report of Boston; James A. Page, Boston; J. S. Eatthe lecture could do it justice. It was beau-on, Andover; Jonathan Kimball, Dorchester; tiful in thought, expression and delivery.

The second topic, "Efficient agencies of a judicious School Government," was very ably Two o'clock. The discussion of the quesdiscussed by Messrs. Stone, of Plymouth, and tion respecting large Grammar Schools was Kimball, of Dorchester. The coöperation opened by Mr. Stearns, of Boston, who deof parents and of the community generally, scribed the working of the system in Boston.

7. It is the duty of parents to visit the school often.

8. It is the duty of parents to send their children to school constantly.

9. If parents would have moral training

The plan generally favored was that of having large schools, divided into separate rooms. Each room under a permanent teacher, who shall be responsible for the good order and progress of the same, the whole being under the supervision of the principal, who is to ex-given in the schools, they must instruct the amine classes from time to time, attend to the committee to report upon the moral condition admission and promotion of scholars, admin- and progress of the school. ister discipline in extreme cases, and secure, Mr. P.'s lecture was a faithful exposition of as far as may be, uniformity and symmetry the wretched system of political trickery to throughout the building. In order to do this, which we are subjected, often in the choice of he must have an assistant in his own room. School Committees. He fearlessly denounced Scholars can be better classified when that species of persecution which would somebrought together in great numbers. The ex-times press whole communities into its serpense of heating one large building is less vice, and deprive its innocent victims even of than that of several small ones. Scholars a vindication. A most touching tribute was would not be obliged to change their schools paid to the virtues and abilities of the late so frequently on account of moving from one Samuel W. King, while his relentless persesmall district to another. Several gentlemen, cutors were unsparingly condemned. who have had experience in both kinds of life has proved the penalty of his truth and schools, spoke upon the question, giving, as honesty, and he did not hesitate to lay the the result of their experience, their preference sin to their charge. for the large schools.

At 3 o'clock, P. M., Mr. B. F. Putnam, of the Quincy School, Boston, delivered an able and most excellent lecture on "The Responsponsibilities and Duties of Parents." I cut the following analysis of the lecture from the report in the Boston Traveller :

"RESPONSIBILITIES.

"1. The tendency of the community to throw upon us, as teachers, responsibilities which rest upon parents and upon the other professions.

2. Much of the juvenile depravity of the present day is attributable to the fact that parents rely too much upon the teachers for moral training.

3. The natures and tendencies we inherit from our parents,—their influence and the influence of nature,-have not received their full weight, when we have been considering the subject of education.

DUTIES.

4. It is the duty of parents to elect the purest and most high-minded citizens for School Committee.

5. It is the duty of parents to teach their children implicit obedience in the family.

6. It is the duty of parents to watch carefully over the reading of their children.

His

The system of corporal punishment was defended as an ultimatum in the correction of children to secure obedience at home and at school. In these days of hesitancy and compromise, it was gratifying to listen to the positive and earnest remarks of Mr. Putnam. Nothing equivocal or apologetic was there. It was a manful and outspoken production, written with a spirit of Christian candor and of Christian love, and delivered more in sorrow than in anger, but with the feeling of one who knew whereof he affirmed.

The portion which referred to the loose reading placed in the hands of the young in the present day, was strikingly beautiful, as it was nobly faithful. It did honor to the

heart as well as to the head of the lecturer."