The tongue shall be eloquent to disclose all its burning emotions, no longer labouring and panting for utterance. And a new organization of body for joining and mixing affections may be invented, more quiet homes for partaking it undisturbed, and more sequestered retreats for barring out the invasion of other affairs. Oh! what scenes of social life I fancy to myself in the settlements of the blessed, one day of which I would not barter against the greatness and glory of an Alexander or a Cæsar. What new friendships-what new connubial ties-what urgency of well-doing-what promotion of good-what elevation of the whole sphere in which we dwell! till every thing smile in "Eden's first bloom," and the angels of light, as they come and go, tarry with innocent rapture over the enjoyment of every happy fair. Ah! they will come, but with no weak sinfulness like those three* lately sung of by no holy tongue; they will come to creatures sinless as themselves, and help forward the mirth and rejoicing of all the people. And the Lord God himself shall walk amongst us, as he did of old in the midst of the garden. His Spirit shall be in us, and all heaven shall be revealed upon us.

"God only knows what great powers he hath of creating happiness and joy. For, this world your sceptic poets make such idolatry of, 'tis a waste howling wilderness compared with what the Lord our God shall furnish out. That city of our God and the Lamb, whose stream was crystal, whose wall was jasper, and her buildings molten gold, whose twelve gates were each a silvery pearl-doth not so far outshine those dingy, smoky, clayey dwellings of men, as shall that new earth outshine the fairest region which the sun hath ever beheld in his circuit since the birth of time.

"But there is a depraved taste in man, which delights in strife and struggle; a fellness of spirit, which joys in fire and sword? and a serpent mockery, which cannot look upon innocent peace without a smile of scorn, or a ravenous lust to mar it. And out of this fund of bitterness come forth those epithets of derision which they pour upon the innocent images of heaven. They laugh at the celebration of the Almighty's praise as a heartless service-not understanding that which they make themselves merry withal. The harp which the righteous tune in heaven, is their heart full of glad and harmonious emotions. The song which they sing, is the knowledge of things which the soul coveteth after now, but faintly perceiveth. The troubled fountain of human understanding hath become clear as crystal, they know even as they are known. Wherever they look abroad,

Moore's three lovesick angels.

they perceive wisdom and glory-within, they feel order and happiness--in every countenance they read benignity and love. God is glorified in all his outward works, and inthroned in the inward parts of every living thing; and man, being ravished with the constant picture of beauty and contentment, possessed with a constant sense of felicity, utters forth his Maker's praise, or if he utters not, museth it with expressive silence.”

He who speaks in the following style of the death-bed anticipations of hell, which agitate the wicked, how will he speak of hell itself?

"And another of a more dark and dauntless mood, who hath braved a thousand terrors, will also make a stand against terror's grisly king--and he will seek his ancient intrepidity, and search for his wonted indifference; and light smiles upon his ghastly visage, and affect levity with his palsied tongue, and parry his rising fears, and wear smoothness on his outward heart, while there is nothing but tossing and uproar beneath. He may expire in the terrible struggle-nature may fail under the unnatural contest; then he dies with desperation imprinted on his clay!

"But if he succeed in keeping the first onset down, then mark how a second and a third comes on as he waxeth feebler. Nature no longer enduring so much, strange and incoherent words burst forth, with now and then a sentence of stern and loud defiance. This escape perceiving, he will gather up his strength and laugh it off as reverie. And then remark him in his sleep-how his countenance suffereth change, and his breast swelleth like the deep: and his hands grasp for a hold, as if his soul were drowning; and his lips tremble and mutter, and his breath comes in sighs, or stays with long suppression, like the gusts which precede the bursting storm; and his frame shudders, and shakes the couch on which this awful scene of death is transacted. Ah! these are the ebbings and flowings of strong resolve and strong remorse. That might have been a noble man; but he rejected all, and chose wickedness, in the face of visitings of God, therefore he is now so severely holden of death. "And reason doth often resign her seat at the latter end of these God-despisers. Then the eye looks forth from its naked socket, ghastly and wild-terror sits enthroned upon the pale brow-he starts-he thinks that the fiends of hell are already upon him-his disordered brain gives them form and fearful shape-he speaks to them-he craves their mercy. His tender relatives beseech him to be silent, and with words of comfort assuage his terror, and recall him from his paroxysm of reVOL. I.-No. I.

3

morse. A calm succeeds, until disordered imagination hath recruited strength for a fresh creation of terror; and he dies with a fearful looking-for of judgment, and of fiery indignation to consume him."

The indifference of the modern Londoners in respect to religion, and their eagerness after the pursuits and pleasures of the world, are lamented as follows:

"They carry on commerce with all lands, the bustle and noise of their traffic fill the whole earth-they go to and fro. and knowledge is increased-but how few in the hasting crowd are hasting after the kingdom of God! Meanwhile, death sweepeth on with his chilling blast, freezing up the life of generations, catching their spirits unblest with any preparation of peace, quenching hope, and binding destiny for evermore. Their graves are dressed, and their tombs are adorned; but their spirits, where are they? How oft hath this city, where I now write these lamentations over a thoughtless age, been filled and emptied of her people since first she reared her imperial head! How many generations of her revellers have gone to another kind of revelry!-how many generations of her gay courtiers to a royal residence where courtier arts are not!-how many generations of her toilsome tradesmen to the place of silence, where no gain can follow them! How time hath swept over her, age after age, with its consuming wave, swallowing every living thing, and bearing it away unto the shores of eternity! The sight and thought of all which is my assurance that I have not in the heat of my feelings surpassed the merit of the case. The theme is fitter for an indignant prophet, than an uninspired sinful man."

We shall close these extracts with the remarkable description of the modern bully, which has made its way into so many of the British prints.

"And here, first, I would try these flush and flashy spirits with their own weapons, and play a little with them at their own game. They do but prate about their exploits at fighting, drinking, and death-despising. I can tell them of those who fought with savage beasts; yea, of maidens, who durst enter as coolly as a modern bully into the ring, to take their chance with infuriated beasts of prey; and I can tell them of those who drank the molten lead as cheerfully as they do the juice of the grape, and handled the red fire, and played with the bickering flames as gaily as they do with love's dimples or woman's amorous tresses. And what, do they talk of war? Have they

forgot Cromwell's iron-band, who made their chivalry to skip? or the Scots Cameronians, who seven times, with their Christian chief, received the thanks of Marlborough, that first of English captains? or Gustavus of the north, whose camp sung Psalms in every tent? It is not so long, that they should forget Nelson's methodists, who were the most trusted of that hero's crew. Poor men, they know nothing who do not know out of their country's history, who it was that set at nought the wilfulness of Henry VIII. and the sharp rage of the virgin queen against liberty, and bore the black cruelty of her popish sister; and presented the petition of rights, and the bill of rights, and the claim of rights. Was it chivalry? was it blind bravery? No; these second-rate qualities may do for a pitched field, or a fenced ring; but when it comes to death or liberty, death or virtue, death or religion, they wax dubious, generally bow their necks under hardship, or turn their backs for a bait of honour, or a mess of solid and substantial meat. This chivalry and brutal bravery can fight if you feed them well and bribe them well, or set them well on edge; but in the midst of hunger and nakedness, and want and persecution, in the day of a country's direst need, they are cowardly, treacherous, and of no avail.

"Oh these topers, these gamesters, these idle revellers, these hardened death-despisers! they are a nation's disgrace, a nation's downfall. They devour the seed of virtue in the land; they feed on virginity, and modesty, and truth. They grow great in crime, and hold a hot war with the men of peace. They sink themselves in debt; they cover their families with disgrace; they are their country's shame. And will they talk about being their country's crown, and her rock of defence? They have in them a courage of a kind such as Catiline and his conspirators had. They will plunge in blood for crowns and gaudy honours, or, like the bolder animals, they will set on with brutal courage, and, like all animals, they will lift up an arm of defence against those who do them harm. But their soul is consumed with wantonness, and their steadfast principles are dethroned by error; their very frames, their bones and sinews, are effeminated and degraded by vice and dissolute indulgences."

FOR THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

(Communicated.)

AN ESSAY ON THE REASONING CAPACITY OF BRUTES.

It is an axiom in metaphysics, that nothing tends more to retard the progress of science, than the neglect of designating with distinctness, the limits of the human understanding. The want of a clear line of demarkation, between those subjects that are within its reach, and those that are beyond it, is the great source of useless and delusive theory. Of the truth of this remark, the various and discordant opinions, expressed by writers of eminence on the subject before us, afford a striking confirmation. One believes animals to be mere machines, asserting that the impressions of light, sound, and other external agents, on their organs, produce by simple mechanical laws, the various actions we see them perform. Another is more liberal, he grants that they possess the capacity of distinguishing between pain and pleasure; but by their aversion to the one, and desire for the other, and by certain mysterious actions and reactions of the brain and nerves, he endeavours to explain the most striking operations of brutes. Another furnishes them with an understanding differing in degree only from that of man, and ascribes their inferiority to the want of proper bodily organs.

The erroneousness of these diversified opinions arise from the same source-from a vain attempt to penetrate the veil of the Temple of Nature, and to reveal mysteries, not intended for human eyes. Their authors are misled by a desire to conceive and explain, what that active principle is, by which brutes are governed-not perceiving, that they waste their strength upon a problem that admits of no solution. The last theory, as it is the only one intimately connected with our subject, is also the most plausible. Its supporters perceiving, in the conduct of brutes, various operations that seem to result from the power of reasoning, have hastily adopted the conclusion that they possess that power; but to this application of analogical reasoning, there are serious, nay, insuperable objections. Their nature may be explained in a few words, It cannot be disputed that