They would tear down the roof that shelters the domestic hearth, the wall that guards the nation. Their aim is to split up the two great parties at the North, and, if possible, by slander, ridicule and menace, and the boast of superior party-attachment, drive out or silence, all who oppose them. Many of these men are not obscure and powerless, but enjoying the society of southern statesmen, even as senators and representatives in Congress. Others of these men are known as "able editors," political and religious, elegant essayists, brilliant lyceum lecturers, and wealthy, alms-giving Pharisees, whose praise is trumpeted on sounding and melodious brass, by brainless dupes and knavish parasites. They all practise lying, as if it were one of the "Ten Commandments," and are combined to leave no stone unturned that may gain "one proselyte," or build up the public fame of their confederates. Many of them act as spies in the two great parties, and whenever occasion offers, play into each other's hands across the political card-table. Some, as we have said, are clergymen, who lower the pulpit into a rostrum, from which they deal winged slanders themselves, and into which, if they dared, would invite every polished, eloquent and honorable English blackguard, whom the far-rolling Atlantic spues upon our shores. And all this under the oily mask of philanthropy ! "By their fruits ye shall know them." Whenever a true philanthropist essays to calm the tempest they have roused, they open in "full cry" upon him, with the lowest vulgarity and the most unrelenting fierceness. Well does the old Roman pasquinade apply to them :-"Sicut canes ignotos semper allatrant,"-Like dogs, that always bark-at strangers. If we have failed to draw the portraiture of these self-styled "philanthropists" in sufficiently decided colors, we can only excuse ourselves as did the painter FRANCESCO MOLA to POPE INNOCENT X., at once the saintliest and most vindictively cruel man of all ITALY. His portrait was finished, and the most Holy Father, after regarding it awhile in silence, said-" My son, the likeness is nearly perfect, but I think you have hardly given it expression enough." "That," replied the trenchant Swiss,-"is just what the ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS told me, when I painted the DEVIL for his cathedral. The truth is, your Holiness, I am not accustomed to painting that style of heads." One thought more, and we are done. The grand reason that general history is so dull to the vast majority of readers, and biography and the secret history of courts and cabinets on the contrary so fascinating, is, that historians too often neglect to dwell on the minute and early causes of great events, and only portray them in maturity. And this historical habit, which results from fear to offend the dominant party or some patronly friend, or from the desire to ingratiate one's self with the wealthy and powerful, to whom the truth might give uneasiness, has vitiated the whole popular mind to such an extent, that not only is the historian cramped in his version of facts, but TRUTH is made a Gorgon of which the world is afraid! This is the curse of no particular age, no particular country, but through it, in all ages, facts and causes absolutely indispensable to the full understanding of the rise and decay of great nations, have been irrecoverably lost. Were our habits of thought and speech more free, both history and morals would take a different mould. It is little causes which are first at work to move empires from their foundations. Losing sight of this primal truth, or only dimly per ceiving it, many historians have made their works next to worthless, by dwelling too much on foreign and striking causes while painting the downfall of kingdoms and republics. Indeed, they are in a measure forced to this, aside from personal fear or favor, in order that they may reap present gold and fame. Battles and sieges, and the vast and glittering array of conflicting armies, are genial to the human mind, and gain a ready harvest of applause. And beside, it is far easier to describe the sensible form of things, than to dissect the less obvious and internal causes of the outward and apparent. Not so the man of native strength, and wide intuitive grasp of intellect; who, sobered by large draughts of deep philosophy, writes for all after time. He hastens not to meet the popular gaze, but quietly, and perchance unnoticed in the bustle of his age, sifts the conflicting facts of rival annalists, and in his secret room, builds his enduring work, "which the world will not willingly let die." Present and immediate fame he looks upon as the summer wind, which dies almost ere it has arisen. Wealth, power, and the keen relish for display of meaner minds, are to him pleasurable indeed, but still as nothing in comparison with that future greatness which awaits his name in the long perpetual flight of ages. If we, in a more active and not less honorable sphere, as lovers of our country's good, imitate his nobleness and persevering care in searching after truth, "all may yet be well." Indeed, we have unwavering faith that the torpid apathy of the better portion of the people will be aroused, before it is too late, and crush this viperous philanthropism, which would urge the state to suicide. What now seems so insignificant, if suffered to gather volume, will at last destroy our boasted institutions, so that "not one stone shall be left upon another," and "a gray and melancholy waste" alone remain of all that at the present towers in strength and pride beneath the blue and bending heavens. Unless the noisy brooklet, which now to trace and name upon the map of national politics, appears mayhap so trivial, shall be dried up by the hot blaze of an honest and general indignation, it will enlarge as it flows on, and at last, having by numberless feeding tributaries become a mighty river, this great republic will float down its sullen tide, and finally plunge forever into the dead sea of nations. HONOR TO THE TOILING HAND. ALL honor to the toiling hand, Then honor-honor to the toiling hand! It battles with the elements, It breaks the stubborn sward; It conquers clime-it stems the wave- Then honor-honor to the toiling hand! AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY.* THE present age of science is emphatically that of collecting and arranging facts. With the exception of the elder branches, wherein the experience of ages has enabled us to form a permanent mould, in which each newly discovered fact finds its appropriate niche, while it gives support to the whole, none can be said to have yet attained a certain theory or a permanent base. The primary elements of twenty years ago, are now found to be but compounds of elements which may in their turn be resolved into others. New combinations of matter seem to point to affinities and identities of which, but a short time since, we suspected not even the existence. More deep and accurate examinations of the surface of our globe leave us yet in doubt whether Heat or Cold, or Vapor or Ice, or what combination of these brought the crust we live on to its actual state. Investigations into the phenomena arising from large masses of men herding together, into the causes of crime and the origin of social evil, have led this generation to doubt and hesitate as to their true solution; and when our forefathers would have applied the caustic or the balm, we do nothing. And, to use another illustration, while Galileo was threatened with death for disbelieving the astronomy of the Hebrew writings, we may now safely doubt the accuracy of the ancient Jewish notions of geography, deny their chronology with Bursen or Lepsius, and with Arnold dispute their authenticity, without being put into any modern inquisition of public infamy. Thus the formation of theories, and the enticing pleasure of seeking wherewithal to prop them up, has, in a great measure, in the present day, given way to a diligent searching for facts alone, and their faithful and secure record. Too long have we sought to understand nature and art by chance and guess. We must pick out our alphabet before we can learn to read. In the science of archæology, above all others, is the cautious method of inductive philosophy most needed; and certainly we have never seen it carried out with greater pertinacity and with happier, results, than in the work now before ns. Considering the nature of the subject, the vastness of its range, the magnitude and interest of the results to which each step of the process of investigation leads us nearer, and the contagion of the theory-building spirit of those who had gone before, we hold it to be no small praise in Mr. Squier, that, turning aside from the seductive yet delusive by-paths of speculation, he has trodden firmly and without faltering, the road which, if less pleasant, was yet more sure. The problem to be solved was this: the learned researches of Humboldt, Prichard, Morton, Gallatin, Duponceau, and Pickering, in the departments of physiology, psychology and philology, having all tended to demonstrate the 66 Unity of the American race, and its radical difference in respect to all the other great families of the globe," "it yet remains to be seen how far an investigation of the religious conceptions and notions of the American race shall seem to confirm the results of physiological and philological researches. But American Archæological Researches. No. I: The Serpent Symbol, and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America. By G. G. Squier, A. M. this will prove an inquiry of great difficulty; for if we assume that the religious sentiment is inherent, and its expression in accordance with natural suggestions, then the nearer we approach the first stages of human development, the more numerous and more striking will be the coincidences and resemblances in the religious systems of the globe, however widely they may appear to differ at the present time. If, however, we shall find a general concurrence in what may be ascertained to be conventional or arbitrary in the various religions, then we may reasonably infer a community of origins, or a connection more or less remote."-Page 17. The assumption, however, in the preceding extract, is one not to be passed over without remark in a general review of the subject, because it is on this very point that is founded the repugnance of a very large body of learned men, especially among divines in this country and England, towards ethnological subjects in general. Cradled and bred up in an implicit belief of the divine inspiration of the Mosaic writings, they regard with pity, if not sometimes with horror, any course of investigation that appears to lead away, even for a moment, from a firm belief in that in which they see the sole foundation of the Christian religion, a direct revelation of the Deity himself to Adam, and his successors, the patriarchs. Parallelisms of religious beliefs in all nations they scorn, or refer them all to corruptions of the primeval revelations to Adam in Paradise. The all-pervading Sun Worship, traced in all forms, simple and complex, throughout the whole region of Asia, on the banks of the Nile, amid the wilds of Scandinavia, and from the squalid Esquimaux to the polished Peruvians, is to them only a proof of the universal depravity of mankind derived from the fall of Adam. Should we speak of Serpent Worship, and show, as Mr. Squier has so ably and succinctly done, (Ch. X. and XI.,) how in all regions of the ancient world, stones and temples were erected in celebration of it; and in more immediate connection with his subject, how from the mound monuments of the Mississippi valley he has traced it (Ch. VIII. and IX.) through the ruins of Yucatan and the temples of Mexico, we are told triumphantly that these monuments are only corroborations of the Scripture account of the serpent tempting Adam, or of the truth of the Scripture history of the Devil. Tell of the ancient Trinities, or of the Divine Mediator, the Son of the Supreme God, whether under the name of Buddha, Fohi, Zoroaster, Osiris, Hermes, or Odin, in the old world, or Quetzalcoatl, Manco Capac or Manabozho (Ch. VII.) in the new, equally everywhere the instructor, lawgiver, and benefactor of man, and science is forthwith thanked with emotions almost of gratitude, for having discovered these barbarous and heathenish imitations of the more glorious original, whose excellence only borrows fresh lustre from their attempted usurpation. The striking resemblances between the primitive forms, symbols, and essences of all ancient religions and those of our present religious institutions, do not however appear to us capable of such a very easy, yet most orthodox solution as we allude to, and as many learned and pious men of our day are contented with for in such solution of these analogies is involved the belief of a common centre of religious faith, and this necessarily includes that of the "unity of the human race," a doctrine not taught in the Bible any more than geography is, and against which a strong tide of scientific evidence now sets. You cannot argue that the symbolism of all nations has a common identity, because they all had a common origin and drank at the same stream of revelation, while that common origin is every day growing more and more doubtful. Such an argument was that of Abbas Pacha, the present enlightened Viceroy of Egypt, who one day informed his French physician that he had discovered a certain proof of Mohammed's being a prophet inspired by God, because the four letters (in Arabic) of his name M, H, M, D, were written over the gates of Paradise. But if scientific evidence be accumulated so as to render the demonstration as perfect as that of any negative proposition can be, that mankind had not their origin from a single pair, and such point is not far off, how then will you explain such identities save by the fact which all history even now proves, that under similar conditions the mind, as well as the body of man, will develop itself in a similar manner; and the universal reverence of man for the powers that are above him would be emblematized by the same objects, wherever the glorious sun poured his rich and life-giving influence, the earth gave forth her yearly increase, or the moon trod nightly on her golden path. The most direct argument on this subject is one drawn from chronology, a science now moving pari passu with that of ethnology itself, each reflecting a brilliant light on the progress of the other. So far as we yet see, the Jewish religious records must yield in antiquity to others which disclose to us the same Deity under similar manifestations as the Jews, assert to have been revealed to them alone, and worshiped under symbols which enclosed the mysterious name of Jehovah himself. But this is a branch of the subject which, however tempting, neither time nor space will allow us to enter, however briefly-the less so, as it leads us away from the scenes of Mr. Squier's able researches, wherein, as yet, no clue has been found to give a chronological value to the sculptured records. The "Rosetta Stone" of Central America has yet to be discovered. The Mexican Monuments, therefore, can only have a synchronous value with those of the old world by means of the similarities of their symbolical representations, and through some of these we now propose to follow Mr. Squier. It is doubtless well known to most of our readers, that Mr. Squier has achieved for himself a high reputation in two distinct departments of intellectual labor. By his researches into the "Ancient Remains in the Mississippi Valley," published under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, he has been among the first to point out and describe the traces of a highly refined religious worship on this continent, while by his earnest advocacy of American interests in Central America, he has vindicated and upheld the character of our diplomacy. This mission indeed favored the scientific views of our author, and we have now before us the results of his researches into Mexican monumental remains, forming, as it were, the complement, or more full development of the Mound worship of our northern regions. And without insisting upon it as of any scientific value, but noticing it merely as a curious coincidence, we may remark, that as in our modern, but not "degenerate" times, the highest form of religion, or civilization, which is religion, has proceeded, and is still proceeding from the north towards the south, so anciently, there is reason to believe, from the gradually increasing complexity and number of the religious types, as we now trace them from the head waters of the Mississippi to the volcanic *Lanci, Lettre à Monsieur Prisse, page 33. |