THOR WALTZEN, the Danish sculptor, was a native of Copenhagen, though of Icelandic extraction. His name is conspicuous amongst the first artists of the present age. He resided twenty years in Italy, and so great was the attachment of the late king to him, that a Danish man-of-war was devoted to his service when about to return to his native city. At Rome his genius luxuriated in the halls where mind has left some of its fairest creations. His copy of the Venus de Medicis is pronounced by those who have compared it with the original, a specimen of uncommon execution. It is, indeed, admired as second to no other copy. At the time of my visit to Copenhagen, this artist was nearly eighty years of age, and yet his

works were rapidly multiplying. The hand that had, for half a century, been giving life to stone, moved at that age as freely as ever, at the bidding of an unclouded genius. His studium still bore witness to his industry, and young artists waited for the mantle expected to fall so soon. He has since left his hall of silent forms for a world, it is believed, of warm, and conscious, and ever-beaming life.

The Museum of Northern Antiquities is an object of much interest, as it contains sarcophagi with the ashes of the ancient dead; implements of husbandry and war; ornaments and coins excavated from the tumuli which abound in Zealand; as also many Icelandic antiquities illustrative of the national and social

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character of the ancient inhabitants of that island.

The Picture Gallery is one of the most interesting on the continent, containing many rich specimens from artists of a former age, and also of landscape paintings by modern Danish artists. Many of the Norwegian and Swedish winter scenes, reminded me of my own New-England, where the Author of nature has for ages

"Poured the waters from his hollow hand

And notched the centuries in the eternal rocks!"

Jonah preaching to the Ninevites, and Jesus blessing little children, are among the best of the collection. Indeed, the former is considered by competent judges, the master-piece of its great. author. The earnestness of the prophetheightened by penitence for his recent infidelity, gratitude for his miraculous preservation, and resolution to live in future for the honor of Him whose commission he bears—is strikingly portrayed in his features and posture. The king, forgetful of his throne and royal pageantry, bends with the humility of a child before the awful messenger of God. The members of the royal family kneel around the king, and with streaming eyes and trembling hands lifted heavenward, pray that the bolt of wrath may not fall; that their city may not at once and forever be blotted from the world. In the market place is an equestrian statue of Christian V., in bronze. His steed tramples upon a most pitiable and hideous mortal personating "Heresy." This is the work of an indifferent French artist of whom Belzoni, the distinguished Italian traveller, said, "he must have been a clever fellow, for all the animation I can discover about his statue is in the tail of the horse."

Near the harbor, in the centre of an octagon, formed by four palaces and as many intervening dwellings and streets, is an equestrian statue of Frederick V. This portion of the city, and the statue of the king who designed it, are indicative of no small degree of taste.

A beautiful nonument in the suburbs towards the country, commemorates the honor of Christian VIII. for proclaiming liberty to the Danish peasantry in 1793.

The traveller is amused with a rude stone monument in a low and dirty part of the city, "erected to the infamy" of one Ulfeldt, who was suspected of treachery during the war between Sweden and Denmark. A mob once assembled to destroy this monument, but the military interfered and saved it. How many whose names are emblazoned on columns of marble or brass, as heroes and statesmen, would have been more justly commemorated by an enduring tribute to their " infamy.”

The city is not destitute of benevolent institutions. It has one hospital capable of accommodating twelve hundred patients at once. This is supported in part by the crown, and partly by the voluntary contributions of the citizens. There are also two asylums, one for deaf mutes, containing fifty scholars, and one for blind children, containing twenty-six scholars. These last are taught to spin and knit, to reckon by wooden or pasteboard figures, and to sing. The readiness with which some of these children answered our questions was surprising. A little boy played most sweetly on the violin, whilst the girls sang to his numbers. It was a sacred tune, one which I had often heard by my own native hearth. We left the asylum with a deep sympathy for the young unfortunate inmates, but consoled by the reflection that the eye of benevolence has not overlooked them, and that although deprived of sight, they can still enjoy and occasion happiness. How many in the world, who have not to lament the loss of any of the senses, abuse their nature by a wrong use of them, gazing upon scenes which cannot with safety be witnessed; listening to discourse which stains the soul; and tasting pleasant things in which lurks the poison of death. To be prepared for a better life, our physical as well as moral nature must be educated. If the soul would converse with the glories of the heavenly state through a perfect spiritual medium hereafter, let it begin to purify that medium here. Let it breathe through its earthly tabernacle all it can of spirituality, before that tabernacle shall be taken down to await its reconstruction in the revival of immortality.

Havre, France.

In this connection I am tempted to report from memory a passage from Dr. Beecher's lectures on Butler, combining all the singularities of his style. "Revery is a delightful intoxication into which the mind works itself by this power of retiring from the real world to one of fancy. Revery is an extempore making of novels. It destroys the power of God's moral government over us; it blots out the beauty and excellence of holiness; it eclipses the fearful ideas of God, eternity, heaven and hell; and shuts up the soul against all motives to correct action. I knew a person who, by the power of this habit, for a year battled conviction and delayed conversion. When truth cut too closely, he would open this back door and retire into the elegant garden of fancy, thus stifling unwelcome facts with pleasant fictions. I told him he must break up the habit or be damned, for God's Spirit would not seek for him in that garden."

Somewhere in the same course of lectures, he spoke of "laziness deranging the nervous system, and rousing a tyrant within capable of making hell on earth. And it is most remarkable how stoutly nature resists all inroads upon her rights, always hanging out the flag of distress before she yields.”

And by the way, I am reminded how much we used to be amused by the Doctor's questions on Butler. He would construct questions of such a leading character even on the most profound ideas of the book, that the answer was indicated, and a child could have replied. It required no study to keep square with this examination. But when he began his own development of Butler in continuous remarks, no mind could flag and yet keep up. He pressed forward like a panting war-horse. Never did that knotty old book appear so grand, as when this master commentator took it to pieces, showing us the intricate and splendid mechanism which so skillfully had fitted bone to his bone, and fleshed it into perfect form. Now he would

take an isolated idea compressed as with a hydraulic press by Butler, and then expand and illustrate it in its relations to a great scheme, until our minds would glow with excitement. Now he would fathom some chapter, and prove it not bottomless, but on the contrary, a sea of condensed thoughts from which common minds may draw to their fill without exhausting it. Now he would take his position as a man in a quarry of this primitive granite, and roll down thence huge blocks out of which to construct the eternal temple of truth. And with his mighty torch illuminating the perfection of God's government, and of the means He has instituted to secure the highest good of all his creatures, never did we realize more forcibly that "Satan is an intermeddling scoundrel, who has thrust his hand maliciously into the perfect chronometer God made to guide his creatures to heaven. Wretchedness and death ensued. And yet was God to be blamed ?"

These lectures on Butler abound in most splendid passages, which make me long to see them published. I cannot refrain from quoting one, although it must be imperfect, having been written from memory. It was delivered with the greatest energy. The Doctor had closed his book, and laid his spectacles up on his head. "The infidel demands, why did not God so create man that he must be happy? Because He is benevolent. Mind, to be happy, must be voluntary. God never intended to people this world with machines, and then create another order of beings to wait on them! Had this been done, that fountain, the affections, would have been dried up. Affection for a wife, a child, or a friend, would then have been impossible. The exercise, free and joyous, of reason, conscience, will, is necessary to happiness. Yet the infidel wishes God to blot out all this. All the happiness resulting from the restless activity of mind, which may roam from object to object, collecting something new from every

thing in nature, and then soaring from world to world, enraptured with the new displays of wisdom and benevolence it everywhere beholds; all the happiness gushing like a well of living water within the heart of a being voluntarily holy; the tender sympathy which now thrills the souls of friends in prosperity and adversity; all these must be annihilated to satisfy the cavils and the sneers of cold-hearted infidelity! But it cannot be. God's plan is the best. It diffuses heavenly joy if unperverted, even if it does hurl thunderbolts on the transgessor."

I have no doubt but hundreds of the Doctor's most brilliant thoughts, having been flung out as the friction of excitement has elicited them, will perish. They have been like brilliant meteors, rushing in a track of light down to darkness. And no more striking illustration of the fact can be made, than the series of lectures he preached to the mechanics of Cincinnati, the first year after he went to the west. The circumstances were so peculiar, that they called out all the Doctor's power. A young man, of devoted piety, was employed by some pious ladies of Cincinnati as city missionary. Somewhere in the city he had found a clique of infidel mechanics, who frequently assembled to discuss their common disbelief in Christianity. He managed the case with so much adroitness, that they consented that he should meet with them on one condition. They were to propose their difficulties in writing, and he should have a week to prepare his answer, which was to be delivered to the club assembled. For a short time he acquitted himself remarkably well, but it was not long before they drove him into deep water. He tried to fathom it, but it was too deep. On his way to the place of meeting he met Dr. Beecher going to his weekly lecture in his own church. He unburthened his difficulties, and besought the Doctor to go with him.

Forthwith, without any more notice, the Doctor started to grapple with these subtle opponents. The place of meeting was a workshop, and his rostrum a carpenter's bench. More auspicious circumstances could not be summoned to arouse his mind. The entire novelty of the scene, its suddenness, and withal, the hand-tohand fight he had now engaged in with actual men, who were no "men of straw," all combined to rouse every energy, and string every

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moved the internal power of the man, and gave it momentum, which bore him triumphantly through the difficulties. Those who heard him, agree in this, that he drove, like a giant, at the heart of every objection, and sent every man away silenced if not convinced. Another meeting was appointed at the same place, which was so numerously attended that all could not be admitted. The Doctor was none the less a giant for having girded his mind with the meditations and researches of a week. The whole ground was now laid open, and the work of refutation commenced in earnest. No objection could be started, but this luminous mind would search it through and consume it. But he was not content with mere defensive Like a bold warrior he made aggression. The heartlessness of infidelity was shown up in clearest light. Then the hopeless darkness which infidelity would bring, made all shudder. Then the fruits of the system were drawn out in flaming fire, as seen in the lives and deaths of particular infidels, and especially in the horrid catastrophe of infidelity in the French Revolution. Men wondered and quaked, and felt the flimsiness of every system save Christianity, as a strong man grappled the difficulties and dissipated the objections relied on.

war.

By this time the affair had become notorious, and as the original place of meeting was insufficient to accommodate the crowd, it was determined to hold the meetings in the Doctor's church. But the charm was broken. The men who most needed the lectures would not go to a splendid church, and they being gone, the real living men, and in their place being found men of straw, the Doctor's mind lost its interest. To be sure, he lectured with great power in the church, but not with such power as in the shop, surrounded with actual infidels. It was a pity that so good a beginning should have become so popular as to mar it.

Some one at the time wrote out meagre reports of these lectures for the " Cincinnati Journal," and those bare outlines are all that remain of a course of intellectual efforts, which those who heard them, pronounce to be the noblest Dr. Beecher ever has made in the Queen city, which is saying not a little.

And while speaking of this, it may not be out of place to say that when Dr. Beecher is inspired to speak in such manner as has been described, never was there a more natural speaker. He gives himself up to his own thoughts, which bear him forward naturally as