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139

that I ought to proceed no farther. I would then most solemnly urge this committee not to delay the passage of this bill; and my fervent prayer to the Father of the faithful would be, that many may long live to enjoy its benefits; that they may be induced to call around them their children and their children's children, and by one more patriotic effort rivet their affections still stronger to the republic, by pointing out to them this act of the justice and gratitude of their beloved country.

BOCHIM.

BY MRS. ELIZA

B.

THORNTON.

"And they called the name of that place Bochim; (weeping;) and they sacrificed there unto the Lord."- Judges ii. 5.

Nor in our sunny paths altars we raise,
Not where the roses bloom offer we praise;

Where the dark cypress boughs shadow our way,
Where the dark willow swings- there do we pray.

Not when the morning light opens the flowers,
Not when in glory roll day's perfect hours;
When the last rosy light fadeth away,

When the dew shuts the flower- then do we pray.

Not when the circle is whole at the hearth,
And bright faces gladden the home of their birth;
When the turf covers or seas bear away
Those we have watched over- then do we pray.

Not when the heart we love turns to us, true,
When the bright morning brings love, again new;
When the heart trusted in turneth away,
And the eye answereth not- then do we pray.

Not when the light of bliss shines on the brow,
Not when hope whispers, sweet, "ever as now ;"
When the heart sinketh and hope dies away,
When the eye weepeth sore-
then do we pray.

Beautiful, then, be our valley of tears,

With altars the heart in its wretchedness rears;
Nor grieve we, nor pine, that in grief we must share,
Since our valley of tears is a temple of prayer.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL IMPROVEMENT.

FROM AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE.

BY JESSE APPLETON, D.D.

[Born at New Ipswich, November 17, 1772. Died at Brunswick, Me.]

In the composition of human beings we distinguish the body, the intellect, and the heart. The cultivation of these demands our attention in proportion to their respective importance. Of bodily powers, agility and physical strength are the principal if not the only constituents. By the intellect we perceive, compare, abstract, and form conclusions. Its province extends to moral not less than to other relations. Moral ideas, together with their relations, are as truly objects of intellect, as are ideas of number or quantity. -Perceiving these relations, we discern the reality of duty and the fitness of actions. But though the obligations of virtue are discerned by the understanding, the understanding is not the seat of moral virtue. There is no conceivable state of the intellect, of which we can predicate either virtue or vice. Moral dispositions or affections are distinct from the understanding; and in these consist whatever in accountable beings is worthy of praise or blame.

On this distinction are grounded those few remarks, which the present interesting occasion gives me an opportunity of addressing to you, relative to that union, which ought ever to be maintained between piety and good morals on the one hand, and literature and science on the other. Mind, however capacious, if perverted, does not raise its possessor so much above brute animals, as it leaves him inferior to the man of moral goodness.

It being certain, that the cultivation of the intellectual powers does not necessarily imply virtue, either in principle or practice, I request you to look attentively at the dif ferent effects on civil society, produced by literature and science, as they are combined or not with sentiments of religion. To whom is the cause of social order and human happiness most indebted, to such philosophers as Boulanger, Condorcet, and Dupuis, or to Locke, Newton, and Sir William Jones? None of these distinguished characters lived without effect. The influence of their examples and writings has been discovered in families: it has been felt in deliberate assemblies, by nations, and by the whole civilized world. In regard to the latter, their wonderful powers were employed either directly or indirectly to establish those great principles which lie at the foundation of religion, both natural and revealed. Whether they investigated the laws of mind or of matter, they considered them as originating with an intelligent Lawgiver, of whose existence and agency they discovered new evidence, in proportion as they passed beyond the boundaries by which human knowledge had been previously circumscribed. In the victories which they gained over ignorance and error, they dedicated their richest spoils to the Author of nature, "the knowledge and veneration of whom," says Mr. Locke, "is the chief end of all our thoughts, and the proper business of all our understandings."

If you have any doubts of the effects resulting from talents and science, unconnected with moral sentiments and feelings, consider what has rendered the European continent, for the last twenty years, a scene of misery, revolution, and war. Men of depraved character, possessing that influence which strong powers, science, and an enterprising, restless temper seldom fail to bestow, diffused over Europe that spirit of atheism and misrule which has strewed with mighty ruins the fairest part of the globe. The four winds have indeed striven on the great deep and though

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the tempest is hushed, and the surges are now subsiding, we behold, on a widely-extended ocean, the fragments of scattered navies, and many human beings struggling between life and death.

Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto

Arma virum, tabulæq; et Troia gaza per undas.

The same effects, in a proportionate degree, will be produced, wherever the understanding is cultivated, and the fruits of the heart are permitted to shoot up in the wildness of nature. What infidels of uncommon powers have accomplished in the courts of princes or in the mass of a nation, others of ordinary growth may achieve in their own vicinity or village.

There is another point of view, in which the importance of uniting religion with your studies will be farther apparent. A very elegant and perspicacious inquirer into the philosophy of mind, has mentioned among the advantages derived from the reading of fictitious narratives, "that by exhibitions of characters a little elevated above the common standard, they have a tendency to cultivate the taste in life; to quicken our disgust at what is mean or offensive, and to form the mind insensibly to elegance and dignity." Now, if it tends to purify and elevate the mind to contemplate fictitious representations of human excellence, to how much greater extent, as well as more certainly and constantly, will the similar effect be produced by the habitual contemplation of an ever-present and immutable God! a character which, to use the language of a living author, "borrows splendor from all that is fair, subordinates to itself all that is great, and sits enthroned on the riches of the universe."

Nor ought it to escape your notice, that the strongest motives to cultivate both the intellectual and moral powers, are involved in the belief that we shall exist, and become immortal beyond the grave. If you, who now possess the powers and execute the functions of intelligent agents, are