loved, and she was obliged to be satisfied with rubbing her hands; and at length Gabrielle heaved a deep sigh, and soon after opened her eyes.

For some time she appeared insensible to all around her; but Adelaide turning her head to know whence proceeded a noise she heard, the lovers exchanged looks. Those looks, what did they say? or, rather, what did they not say? Ah! that language of the heart, more eloquent a thousand times than speech, said all. Gabrielle soon rose,-Ermano assisted her. Adelaide, who did not think the assistance of a young man could be agreeable to her friend, eagerly inquired if she could not walk without his assistance. Gabrielle did not appear to hear her, but, the young Count, seeing D'Esterville's mansion, and perfectly satisfied in regard to the sentiments of his adored Gabrielle, thought it best to take leave. As Adelaide was not acquainted with the stranger who had assisted Gabrielle, and she did not say a word which could cause a suspicion that she knew him, the accident was soon forgotten, and Gabrielle enjoyed in secret the assurance that she was beloved, and her happiness had no bounds.

Another six months passed away, when her father desired her to prepare for her union with Adolphus Torigny. Gabrielle assured him him she had no wish to marry. The Count seemed surprised that she should dare to offer an obstacle to his wishes, and a few days after presented her to an old man of sixty-five, though she was only fifteen.

Gabrielle received his attentions with great coldness, and feeling herself fortified by the conviction that she was beloved by Ermano, assured her father that she would never marry a man whom she could not love. "Love!" exclaimed her father; "do you know what love is? and have you dared to dispose of your heart without my permission?" His daughter replied, blushing, and casting down her eyes, "All that I request, my dear father, is to remain as I am."

Her father then vaunted the advantages of the marriage, which was the more desirable, as Adolphus was extremely rich, and immediate heir to the title.

Gabrielle refused so resolutely, that the Count at length told her, that if, in a week, she was not more obedient, she should return to the convent to remain. How can words express the grief of the Countess, who loved her daughter with the most ardent love; she entreated her husband not to torment the poor child,—above all, not to force her into such an unequal marriage. All that she could obtain was a week, at the expiration of which her daughter was torn from her arms, which was a poniard to her heart.

On her return to the convent, the nuns received her with great affection; they assured her that they had never ceased to pray for her, and that they had never doubted of her return.

They applauded her for having so generously trampled the world and its vain pleasures under foot, and exhorted her never to consent to marry.

Gabrielle, whose grief at leaving her mother was extreme, and miserable at being again in the convent, returned their caresses with coolness; and, to augment her sufferings, Father Gerardin had left, and in his place was a narrow-minded, bigoted monk.

The conduct of the nuns soon changed towards her, and her sufferings became insupportable, when, at the end of six weeks, the good Father Gerardin arrived to withdraw her for ever from the convent. He was accompanied by Adelaide and one of her friends.

The nuns received the good father with great repugnance. They had sent him from the convent because they did not think that he promoted the interest of it by augmenting their number, and now they attributed to him the resolution of Count d'Esterville of withdrawing his daughter. They hesitated whether they should allow her to go, but at length fear prevailed, and they no longer resisted. In effect, remorse for his cruelty, and the grief of the Countess, joined to the remonstrances of Father Gerardin, induced the Count to recall his child. At her return she had the grief of finding him dangerously ill, having been suddenly indisposed after the departure of the good father.

During his illness Gabrielle assisted her mother in tending him with the greatest assiduity.

One day, after thanking her for her attention, he informed her of the offer of Ermano, and of his refusal. "Now, my dear Gabrielle," added he, "I am sorry for it, and would, if possible, repair my fault." Gabrielle fell at his feet and owned all.

Father Gerardin was sent to inform Ermano of the change in the Count's sentiments; after which he appeared to recover. He received the young Count de Villanuova with respect and affection; the marriage was soon after celebrated with great pomp and solemnity, but he survived only a short time, and was followed to the grave in two months by the Countess, who fell a victim to grief and her previous sufferings, having never recovered the shock of her son's death.

THE REFORM OF REFORMS.

In every attempt to bring about a better state of things, so far as the human understanding has any participation in it, clearness and precision in the mode of stating it are essential to success. The so frequently observed absence of these qualities from statements or propositions put forth by the well-intentioned is to be accounted for-not so much by the inapplicability of the suggested improvement, as by the want of a clear intuition in the proposer's mind of the constituent elements and primary motions in the human being. What each one asserts, even although it differs from each other one's assertion, may nevertheless be true for itself, while at the same time, taken with relation to the all-comprehensive, it is false. Yet it is assumed to be all-comprehensive. In considering Man as the being to be bettered, it is scarcely possible to admit too much into the category of existence. Yet how little is generally granted, even by those very individuals who should themselves be living conscious examples of man's universal nature! A twofold existence is, however, so generally conceded, that no violence will be committed by assuming in this review such twofoldness under any suitable pair of terms, as the inner and outer, the antecedent and consequent, the mental and earthly life.

In concurrence with this position, we may assert that the reforming

projects put forth by reformers at the present day are founded on consequences or results, having no respect to ends or human destiny, considering man as to his earthly life only.

Although such reformers admit there is another life, they make it to rest wholly on the physical as a basis, whereas, the fact is, that the physical is the last consequence, or the res-ult, of an antecedent life, on which it therefore depends.

In pursuance of their ideas on this erroneous principle such reformers propose to devote all attention to outward arrangements, asserting that there are no other amending means. And even while they are in a remarkable degree moved by the highest interior life, that is to say, the all-pervading Love Spirit, towards accomplishing its own destiny in man, they are most firm in its denial intellectually. Affirmations in being, negations in perception. Of this Love Spirit, every human being, whether he knows it or not, is a manifestation, and the progress affected for new principles in every quarter and under the most fierce opposition, is absolute demonstration of the fact.

While from various motives the New Spirit Propositions meet with an externally cold reception, or a verbal denunciation, the reforming angel has a secret entrance into every heart, and finds a prepared home in every bosom. It is because they who have been so deeply instructed to reject the newness, and who make an earthly profit by the continued life and support of the old spirit, find in themselves a deep and true response to the new spirit's affirmations, that they tremblingly anticipate the downfall of their old maintenance. If they had not a nature in themselves really feeling thus, they could have no comprehension of others being affected, nor apprehension of their own career being endangered. The truth and universality from the new, echoed in their own consciences, is the basis for the attributed falsehood and

narrowness.

To the multitude of expedients already extant in the thinking world for renovating the human race, the present year witnesses the addition of two, whose claims merit investigation on account of the universality in their assumptions, whether they can or not be hailed with approbation by reason of the hope of success.

In Fourierism and in the Home Colonization Society" we have the outworking of the New Generation Spirit in two new modes, which, although for a long time, perhaps, germinating and quickening in their respective projectors' minds, have only just come to an outward manifestation.

We hail these as fresh evidences and further confirmation of the working of this love spirit in all sentient beings; but, at the same time, we are bound to sift their claims to the lofty and honourable positions they assume, and to see whether they really promise more satisfactorily than their predecessors to lead to human redemption.

The fairest and most friendly exposition of the greater part of the plans yet brought under discussion, shows them to be of that order which politicians call temporary expedients; they do not involve organic changes; they would merely alter the surface and the appearances, while the basis and the reality remain untouched. We have to inquire whether a deeper value can be assumed for these.

Now it appears that no injustice is done to them by placing them in the same class, for it is because they are plans of this description that they lay claim to man's attention. They only assume to touch the profane or outward life; the sacred or inward they professedly avoid. It is on the sound and wholesome regulation of external affairs that they rely for approbation. Now, if man's real wants are other or deeper than these, it is evident that no supply is furnished him here. Like most other modern propositions on the subject of human renovation, they rely too much upon doings, as if it were possible for man, by greater activity, as he is, to become other than he is. No additional doings of an unhappy man can make him happy; no busy occupation by an idiot can transform him into a wise man.

The present age is ripe with projects for doing things. Not that the things are done; but it is supposed, that if done, man would be happy. It is, indeed, possibly true, that if they were actualized, man would be happy; because, only the happy man, that is to say, the love-spirit man, can enact them. For the acting man requires the spirit-being nature, or the spirit-being man, to maintain him. The active man must be, or have, spirit-being realized to the point necessary, to do these happy things. Spirit-being, therefore, it is, which man wants, in order both to think correctly and to act happily.

The scientific activity of which the world is at this moment so full, and which is reducing the physical roughnesses into some sort of smoothness, literally making the rough places plain, cannot, in its utmost and widest application, reach beyond its own sphere, which is that of physical arrangement, based on sensual experience and observation. If man were simply and alone a physical being, it might be very well to attend to physical conditions exclusively, for the evolution of the physical nature only. But he happens to be more. Of spiritbeing the elements at least are bound up in the very lowest human specimens, and but a little progress suffices, in some degree, to call them into active life. No sooner are the animal wants satisfied than another series of wants starts into appetite, and must demand its supplies. After all the well-founded outcry respecting insufficiency of food, it is under the condition of its abundance alone that so many excellent mental schemes could be brought out. Science is, to the modern aspirant, what war was to the ancient Roman, and art was to the Greek. And when Fourier and the Home Colonization Society extend the scientific circle to a larger inclusion of objects for human convenience than scientifics usually contemplate, they are still but scientific operations, whose sphere is limited to the physical nature, or to mental speculations, physic-based.

Such philosophers, it appears, have yet to learn, that altered conditions do not alter man, to whatsoever extent they may modify men's expressions. Their being remains unchanged in all the modalities, the polishings, the refinements, into which it may be brought. When another nature is spoken of, it is constantly placed under the external arrangements, as a something to be influenced by them. Now, the misfortune is, that on whichever side good influences come to man, whether from without or within, they are but influences, and not real existences; and to set about making a system of mental and moral

N. S.-VOL. VI.

3 G

influences, seems to be a confirmation in that very error which should be avoided as most dangerous.

An influence is opposed to the permanent. Thus in respect to real being, little or nothing is gained by influence. An influence is a flowing in, and is not the abiding. That which readily flows in, readily flows out again. When we find the public quickly influenced on any subject, we confidently predict that they will be as quickly dis-influenced. It is common enough to witness the results of mental influence: the exhibition is something like that made by drawing forth a metal spring. So long as a more powerful force presses against the spring, it is held in the new mode, but the moment the extraneous or influential power is removed, the spring flies back to its original position. Such are the influentializations of preaching, which continue just as long as the preacher's voice is heard, and no longer. The weekly sermon of twenty or sixty minutes from goodly lips, to which every other minute in the week, and every other assertion is a flat contradiction. Nor are the influentializations of education much more valuable. It is a deeper process than either which declares of real being.

The projectors of these plans desire that men should be otherwise than they are, yet they propose only those measures which modify present being. Now new being cannot arise from modification of old being. And new being influence is only a glance or shadow from new being, and not new being itself. Hence it is to be asserted, that what mankind wants is more real being. No preaching nor assent to principles, nor education, is added being. No modification or improvement, or education of the old, can attain that happiness which is the peculiar attribute of the new; neither can either of these in any way substitute the new. The new is as clearly something added to the old, as the ripstone graff is added to the crab stock; no mere self-developement of which could raise it above the condition of an improved crab.

A tabular statement will assist in rendering these propositions more plain and probably self-evident. Taking man, as when integral and entire he must be, as a tri-triune being, thrice threefold natured, we are enabled to consider him in three respective natures, and as having three aspects in each nature. Thus then, as a ninefold being, is not too complicate a machine to estimate humanity. The first or highest, is the spirit-sphere, in which Man is an Idea-Law-Being, the immediate recipient of Love: the second is the Spiritual-sphere, that in which he is an Affection-Intellect-Agent, the mediate recipient of Light; the third is the Natural, in which he is a Feeling-Observing-Worker, the ultimate recipient of human Life. Thus :

First.
Second.

1.
LAW.
AFFECTION.
Feeling.

2.

IDEA.

INTELLECT.
Observing.

3.

BEING.

AGENT.

Third.

Worker.

The third nature is not that in which the first and second natures originate; but the second, when in true order, grows out of the first, and the third out of the second. Such is the fact, though the contrary appears to the philosophic eye. Of the first, it may be pretty safely asserted, taking the world at large, that nothing is known; of the se