a lively interest in the pairing of birds, the reproduction of flowers, and the changing tints of autumn ferns. Nature, unlike other friends, has an exhaustless meaning, which one sees and hears more distinctly, the more they are enamored of her. Blessed are they who hear it; for through tones come the most inward perceptions of the spirit. Into the ear of the soul, which reverently listens, Nature whispers, speaks, or warbles, most heavenly arcana.

And even they who seek her only through science, receive a portion of her own tranquillity and perpetual youth. The happiest old man I ever saw was one who knew how the mason-bee builds his cell, and how every bird lines her nest; who found pleasure in a sea shore pebble, as boys do in new marbles; and who placed every glittering mineral in a focus of light, under a kaleidoscope of his own construction. The effect was like the imagined riches of fairy land; and when an admiring group of happy young people gathered round it, the heart of the good old man leaped like the heart of a child. The laws of nature, as manifested in her infinitely various operations, were to him a perennial fountain of delight; and, like her, he offered the joy to all. Here was no admixture of the bad excitement attendant upon ambition or controversy; but all was serenely happy, as are an angel's thoughts, or an infant's dreams.

Age, in its outward senses, returns again to childhood; and thus should it do spiritually. The little child enters a rich man's house, and loves to play with the things that are new and pretty, but he thinks not of their market value, nor does he pride himself that another child cannot play with the same. The farmer's home will probably delight him more; for he will love living squirrels better than marble greyhounds, and the merry bob-o'-lincoln better than stuffed birds from Araby the blest; for they cannot sing into his heart. What he wants is life and love-the power of giving and receiving joy. To this estimate of things, wisdom returns, after the intuitions of childhood are lost. Virtue is but innocence on a higher plane, to be attained only through severe conflict. Thus life completes its circle; but it is a circle that rises while it revolves; for the path of spirit is ever spiral, containing all of truth and love in each revolution, yet ever tending upward. The virtue which brings us back to innocence, on a higher plane of wisdom, may be the childhood of another state of existence; and through successive conflicts we may again complete the ascending circle, and find it holiness.

The ages, too, are rising spirally; each containing all, yet ever ascending. Hence, all our new things are old, and yet they are new. Some truth known to the ancients meets us on a higher plane, and we do not recognize it, because it is like a child of earth which has passed upward and become an angel. Nothing of true beauty ever passes away. The youth of the world, which Greece embodied in immortal marble, will return in the circling Ages, as innocence comes back in virtue; but it shall return filled with a higher life; and that, too, shall point upward. Thus shall the Arts be glorified. Beethoven's music prophesies all this, and struggles after it continually; therefore, whosoever hears it (with the inward, as well as the outward ear) feels his soul spread its strong pinions, eager to pass "the flaming bounds of time and space," and circle all the infinite.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

THIS distinguished historian was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in the year 1800. His father, the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, was the minister of a congregational church, in that town, for more than half a century, and had a high reputation as a theologian of learning and piety. At the early age of thirteen, Mr. Bancroft entered Harvard College, and graduated in 1817, with the highest honors of his class. His first inclinations were to study theology; but in the following year he went to Germany, and spent two years at Gottingen, in the study of history and philology, and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He then visited in succession Berlin, Heidelberg, Italy, France, and London, and returned home, in 1822, one of the most accomplished scholars for his age our country had produced. He was at once appointed tutor of Greek in Harvard College, and those who had the benefit of his instructions remember well his zeal and faithfulness, and varied learning as a teacher. Desirous, however, to introduce into our country the system of education that obtained at the German gymnasia, he established, in conjunction with Joseph G. Cogswell,' a school of a high classical character at "Round

Now the learned librarian of the Astor Library, and one of the first bibliographers in our country.

Hill," Northampton, Massachusetts. Here he prepared many admirable Latin text-books for schools, much in advance of anything then used in our country. In 1828, he gave to the public a translation of Heeren's "Histories of the States of Antiquity." Before this he had given some attention to politics, and ranked himself with the Whig party, but he now went over to the Democratic party, and was in the high road to political preferment.

In 1834, Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of "The History of the United States," a work to which he had long devoted his thoughts and researches. The first and two succeeding volumes of the work, comprising the colonial history of the country, were received with great satisfaction by the public, as being in advance of anything that had been written on the subject in brilliancy of style, picturesque sketches of character and incident, compass of erudition, and generally fair reasoning. We must, however, express the doubt whether, for a stern recital of facts, it will be considered as the history of our country.

In 1838, Mr. Bancroft received from President Van Buren the appointment of Collector of the Port of Boston, which situation he retained till 1841. During this time he was busily engaged upon the third volume of his history, which was published in 1842. In 1844, he was the " Democratic" candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, but was unsuccessful. In the fall of that year, Mr. Polk was elected President, who, early the next year, appointed him Secretary of the Navy. In 1846, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, and there represented the United States until succeeded by Mr. Abbott Lawrence, in 1849. On his return, this year, to his country, he made New York his place of residence, and resumed more actively the prosecution of his historical labors. The fourth volume of his history, which appeared in 1852, includes the opening scenes of the great drama of American Independence: the fifth and sixth volumes were published in 1854, and fully sustain the character of the previous portions of the work.'

I regret that Mr. Bancroft, in the third edition of his history, after he had entered upon the line of political preferment, should step aside from the calm dignity of history, and introduce six new pages, prefatory to the colonization of Virginia, apologetical of slavery.

CHARACTER OF ROGER WILLIAMS.

While the state was thus connecting by the closest bonds the energy of its faith with its form of government, there appeared in its midst one of those clear minds which sometimes bless the world by their power of receiving moral truth in its purest light, and of reducing the just conclusions of their principles to a happy and consistent practice. In February of the first year of the colony, but a few months after the arrival of Winthrop, and before either Cotton or Hooker had embarked for New England, there arrived at Nantasket, after a stormy passage of sixty-six days, "a young minister, godly and zealous, having precious" gifts. It was Roger Williams. He was then but a little more than thirty years of age; but his mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from English persecution; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate understanding; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had revolved the nature of intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul. The doctrine contained within itself an entire reformation of theological jurisprudence; it would blot from the statute-book the felony of non-conformity; would quench the fires that persecution had so long kept burning; would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship; would abolish tithes and all forced contributions to the maintenance of religion; would give an equal protection to every form of religious faith; and never suffer the authority of the civil government to be enlisted against the mosque of the Mussulman or the altar of the fireworshipper, against the Jewish synagogue or the Roman cathedral. It is wonderful with what distinctness Roger Williams deduced these inferences from his great principle; the consistency with which, like Pascal and Edwards, those bold and profound reasoners on other subjects, he accepted every fair inference from his doctrines; and the circumspection with which he repelled every unjust imputation. In the unwavering assertion of his views he never changed his position; the

sanctity of conscience was the great tenet which, with all its consequences, he defended, as he first trod the shores of New England; and in his extreme old age it was the last pulsation of his heart. But it placed the young emigrant in direct opposition to the whole system on which Massachusetts was founded; and gentle and forgiving as was his temper, prompt as he was to concede everything which honesty permitted, he always asserted his belief with temperate firmness and unbending benevolence.

THE PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS.

The nobler instincts of humanity are the same in every age and in every breast. The exalted hopes that have dignified former generations of men will be renewed as long as the human heart shall throb. The visions of Plato are but revived in the dreams of Sir Thomas More. A spiritual unity binds together every member of the human family: and every heart contains an incorruptible seed, capable of springing up and producing all that man can know of God, and duty, and the soul. An inward voice, uncreated by schools, independent of refinement, opens to the unlettered mind, not less than to the polished scholar, a sure pathway into the enfranchisements of immortal truth. This is the faith of the people called Quakers. Their rise is one of the memorable events in the history of man. It marks the moment when intellectual freedom was claimed unconditionally by the people as an inalienable birthright. To the masses in that age, all reflection on politics and morals presented itself under a theological form. The Quaker doctrine is philosophy, summoned from the cloister, the college, and the saloon, and planted among the most despised of the people. As poetry is older than critics, so philosophy is older than metaphysicians. The mysterious question of the purpose of our being is always before us and within us: and the little child, as it begins to prattle, makes inquiries which the pride of learning cannot solve. The method of the solution adopted by the Quakers was the natural consequence of the origin of their sect. The mind of George Fox had the highest systematic sagacity: and his doctrine, developed and rendered illustrious by Barclay and Penn, was distinguished by its simplicity and unity. The Quaker has but one word-The Inner Light, the voice of God in the soul. That light is a reality, and therefore in its freedom the highest revelation of truth; it is kindred