the great object of early training is to form the mind into a capaci ty of surmounting intellectual difficulties of any and every kind. In his view, also, the young have much to learn in early life, the use of which they can not then comprehend. They must learn it by rote, particularly the spelling of so complicated a language as ours; and all those systems which lead forward children no faster than they can understand and apply every word they spell, he considered as radically erroneous. He wished, on the contrary, at this early period of ready memory and limited comprehension, to store the mind with many things which would afterward be found of indispensable use; things which are learnt with the utmost reluc tance, or rather, in most cases, are not learnt at all, in the more advanced stages of intellectual progress. He felt that there must necessarily be much of drudgery in the formation of a thoroughly educated mind. He thought it wise, therefore, to commence those tasks which it involves, from the earliest period at which the youthful intellect can endure them. Upon these principles he constructed his Spelling Book, and other works for the use of children. He designed to make them instructive, and not mere books of amusement. Whether his views were incorrect or unphilosophical, the public will judge.

In respect to religion, Dr. Webster was a firm believer, during a large part of his life, in the great distinctive doctrines of our Puritan ancestors, whose character he always regarded with the highest veneration. There was a period, however, from the time of his leaving college to the age of fifty, when he had doubts as to some of those doctrines, and rested in a different system. Soon after he graduated, being uncertain what business to attempt or by what means he could obtain subsistence, he felt his mind greatly perplexed, and almost overwhelmed with gloomy apprehensions. In this state, as he afterward informed a friend, he read Johnson's Rambler with unusual interest; and, in closing the last volume, he made a firm resolution to pursue a course of virtue through life, and to perform every moral and social duty with scrupulous ex actness. To this he added a settled belief in the inspiration of the scriptures and the governing providence of God, connected with highly reverential views of the divine character and perfections. Here he rested, placing his chief reliance for salvation on a faithful discharge of all the relative duties of life, though not to the entire exclusion of dependence on the merits of the Redeemer. In this state of mind he remained, though with some misgiving and frequent fluctuations of feeling, to the winter of 1807-8. At that time, there was a season of general religious interest at New Haven, under the ministry of the Rev. Moses Stuart, now a professor in the Andover Theological Seminary. To this Dr. Webster's attention was first directed, by observing an unusual degree of tenderness and solemnity of feeling in all the adult members of his family. He was thus led to reconsider his former views, and inquire, with an earnestness which he had never felt before, into

the nature of personal religion, and the true ground of man's acceptance with God. He had now to decide not for himself only, but, to a certain extent, for others, whose spiritual interests were committed to his charge. Under a sense of this responsibility, he took up the study of the Bible with painful solicitude. As he advanced, the objections which he had formerly entertained against the humbling doctrines of the gospel, were wholly removed. He felt their truth in his own experience. He felt that salvation must be wholly of grace. He felt constrained, as he afterward told a friend, to cast himself down before God, confess his sins, implore pardon through the merits of the Redeemer, and there to make his vows of entire obedience to the commands and devotion to the service of his Maker. With his characteristic promptitude, he instantly made known to his family the feelings which he entertained. He called them together the next morning, and told them, with deep emotion, that, while he had aimed at the faithful discharge of all his duties as their parent and head, he had neglected one of the most important, that of family prayer. After reading the scriptures, he led them, with deep solemnity, to the throne of grace, and from that time continued the practice, with the liveliest interest, to the period of his death. He made a public profession of religion in April, 1808. His two oldest daughters united with him in the act, and another, only twelve years of age, was soon added to the number.

In his religious feelings, Dr. Webster was remarkably equable and cheerful. He had a very strong sense of the providence of God, as extending to the minutest concerns of life. In this he found a source of continual support and consolation, under the severe labors and numerous trials which he had to endure. To the same divine hand he habitually referred all his enjoyments; and it was known to his family, that he rarely, if ever, took the slightest refreshment, of any kind, even between meals, without a momentary pause, and a silent tribute of thanks to God as the giver. He made the scriptures his daily study. After the completion of his Dictionary, especially, they were always lying on his table, and he probably read them more than all other books. He felt, from that time, that the labors of his life were ended, and that little else remained but to prepare for death. With a grateful sense of past mercies, a cheering consciousness of present support, and an animating hope of future blessedness, he waited with patience until his appointed change should come.

During the Spring of 1843, Dr. Webster revised the Appendix of his Dictionary, and added some hundreds of words. He completed the printing of it about the middle of May. It was the closing act of his life. His hand rested, in its last labors, on the volume which he had commenced thirty-six years before. Within a few days, in calling on a number of friends in different parts of the town, he walked, during one afternoon, between two and three miles. The day was chilly, and immediately after his return, he

was seized with faintness and a severe oppression on his lungs. An attack of peripneumony followed, which, though not alarming at first, took a sudden turn after four or five days, with fearful indications of a fatal result. It soon became necessary to inform him that he was in imminent danger. He received the communication with surprise, but with entire composure. His health had been so good, and every bodily function so perfect in its exercise, that he undoubtedly expected to live some years longer. But though suddenly called, he was completely ready. He gave some characteristic directions as to the disposal of his body after death. He spoke of his long life as one of uniform enjoyment, because filled up at every stage with active labors for some valuable end. He expressed his entire resignation to the will of God, and his unshaken trust in the atoning blood of the Redeemer. It was an interesting coincidence, that his former pastor, the Rev. Mr. Stuart, who received him to the church thirty-five years before, had just arrived at New Haven on a visit to his friends. He called immediately; and the interview brought into affecting comparison the beginning and the end of that long period of consecration to the service of Christ. The same hopes which had cheered the vigor of manhood, were now shedding a softened light over the decay and sufferings of age. "I know in whom I have believed," -such was the solemn and affecting testimony which he gave to his friend, while the hand of death was upon him,—“I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." Thus, without one doubt, one fear, he resigned his soul into the hands of his Maker, and died on the 28th day of May, 1843, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

Such were the life and labors, and such the end, of one of the earliest and best known of American scholars. Whatever influence he gained by his writings, was used at all times to promote the best interests of his fellow-men. His books, though read by millions, have made no man worse. To multitudes they have been of lasting benefit, not only by the course of early training they have furnished, but by those precepts of wisdom and virtue with which almost every page is stored.

THE INDIAN SUMMER.*

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

When was the red man's summer?

When the rose

Hung its first banner out? When the grey rock
Or the brown heath the radiant Kalmia cloth'd?
Or when the loiterer by the reedy brooks
Started to see the proud Lobelia glow

Like living flame? When thro' the forest gleam'd
The Rhedodendron, or the fragrant breath

Of the Magnolia, swept deliciously

O'er the half-laden nerve?

No! when the groves

In fleeting colors, wrote their own decay,
And leaves fell eddying on the sharpened blast
That sang their dirgə, when o'er their rustling bed
The red deer sprang, or fled the shrill voic'd quail
Heavy of wing and fearful; when with heart
Foreboding or depressed, the white man mark'd
The signs of coming winter,-then began

The Indian's joyous season.

Then, the haze

Soft and illusive as a fairy dream,

Wrapp'd all the landscape in its silvery folds,
The quiet rivers, that were wont to hide
'Neath shelving banks, beheld themselves betray'd
By the white mist, that o'er their foreheads flung
A bridal veil; while sea and sky at morn
Slept 'neath one curtain; as if both were merg'd

In the same element-slowly the sun,

As if reluctantly, the spell dissolv'd,

And then, it took upon its parting wing,

A rainbow glory.

Gorgeous was the time,

Yet brief as gorgeous. Beautiful to thee

Our brother-hunter-but to us, replete

With mournful thought. Our joys, alas! too oft
Were woe to thee.

Yet though we fain would drive
Thee from our hearts as from thy father's lands,
The perfect year doth bear thee on its crown,

And when we would forget, repeats thy name.

An aged chief said to our ancestors, "the white man's summer is past and gone, but that

of the Indian begins when the leaf falls,"

CLASSIC VAGARIES.

V.

CHRISTIANS IN ROME.

We will rest one day from our rambles, my patient friend, for to-morrow we shall visit the most fascinating scenes, which even Rome presents to the stranger. But you must not expect a respite of

your ears.

You are interested, I know, in the history of the ancient Christians. As you are well-informed about what they have said for themselves, you must be anxious to hear what others, what their enemies, say of them. We have already trod over the grave of the martyred Paul in the street of Ostia. But through what a multitude of experiences have the other primitive followers of Christ passed within the precincts of this same Rome. The classic authors, in whose writings you and I take such sincere delight, scarcely mention them; and, when they do, it is with impatience and disgust. The small space, which those holy men are allowed to occupy on the classic page, becomes ten times precious, because it is so small. Besides, it contains enough to attest how real was the faith of those early saints, how deep were their sufferings, how strong and pure was the soul within them: enough, in short, to unseal the fountain of tears, but to illuminate these very tears with the joyful lustre of pious gratitude.

The prejudices of the writers of heathen Rome against Christians are absolutely unaccountable. Stringent in the extreme, we cannot guess why they were so. We instinctively wonder where they learned enough of the unworldly doctrines of Christianity to hate its professors so intensely. Or why, ignorant as they evidently were of the fundamental views of Christians, their feeling was not rather one of arrogant contempt than of animosity. The notions of those intellectual heathen seem to have been the result of one of those incontrollable impulses of the lowest mob, who, always hating such as do not sympathize with themselves or feel or assume distinctions of opinion or character remote from their own, sometimes contrive to force their own opinions through the upper strata of society and, undeservedly, make public opinion.

The Savior of the world perished between two thieves. This ignominious association of perfect purity with flagrant crime Suetonius has seemed anxious to keep in vogue. In speaking of certain reforms adopted by Nero, he says that this brutal emperor retrenched the public expenses, prohibited races, suppressed pantoInimes and punished the Christians, "a class of men affected with a