from want of proper food, pure air, and exercise, it is not confirmed clinically, for the majority of those affected are in vigorous health. That malarial and epidemic fevers may be of cryptogamous origin, and connected with the diffusion of these plants in the atmosphere, has more than once been asserted; and, though the opinion has been decried by several writers, a slowly accumulating mass of evidence seems to preponderate in its favor. The immense profusion of these plants; their power of penetrating almost every where, and developing themselves in almost any circumstances; their well-known deleterious effects in parasitic diseases; the fact that their agency is purely zymotic, and that bodies very closely resembling them, if not identical with them, have been found in the blood and kidneys of patients afic nature, not excepting man himself.

fected with typhus; all these render it very probable that the relation between these plants and epidemic diseases is, to say the least, closer than is commonly supposed. The pestilence still walks in darkness; but the little that is doing from time to time to lift the vail from the mystery is calculated to impress us more and more with a wholesome dread of this vast army of minute plants- which, as important auxiliaries in the operations of Providence, are conferring incalculable benefits, by making our world purer and more healthful than it would otherwise be; but which, when carried beyond the line of safety and usefulness by the very impetus acquired in obeying the anti-Malthusian law of vegetation, are attended with the most disastrous consequences to all organ

From the London Times.

THE CRISIS

-

AMONG the European events of the present year the closing of the Prussian Chambers by the King is likely to prove one of the most important. Since the day when Charles X. published the proclamations which led to his downfall, no more summary invasion of constitutional liberty has been seen in the larger States of Europe. And the act is in the present instance still more indefensible, since it is leveled against the vital principle of all constitutional government the right of the people's representatives to control the taxation of the country, and to determine the nature and limits of the military force which is intrusted to the hands of the Sovereign. For months the struggle between the Court and the popular party has been going on, each side becoming more and more determined to carry its point. The last elections confirmed the preceding ones, and have fully proved to the Government that the nation is of one mind, and that the popular opinion is accurately expressed by the vote of the Chamber of

IN PRUSSIA.

Deputies. It has been, in fact, a contest between a Sovereign with military and despotic instincts, bred up in the traditions of his House, and a people imbued with the spirit of modern liberty, and, what is of hardly less importance, well grounded in the principles of modern political economy. King William I., with his warlike tendencies and his confidence in his power to check both his own subjects and foreign potentates, has been called by a French satirist, with happy ridicule, William the Conqueror. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to conquer the will of a people who have set their minds on managing their own affairs.

Count Von Bismark's comparison of the autumn vacation with an armistice too truly betokened the spirit in which the Court regarded the differences between itself and the representatives. We may be sure that no two armies ever looked upon each other with feelings of greater hostility than the Royalists and the extreme Liberal party in Prussia. In the

breast of the former the desire to be rid In the Upper House it was moved that of their pertinacious opponents by any the Budget as presented by the Governmeans whatever has become too strong ment should be voted, although it had been for prudence, and has produced an act rejected by the Chamber of Deputies. which may lead to most serious conse- This was adopted by the large majority of quences. Count Von Bismark has entered one hundred and fourteen to forty-four. into all the purposes of the Court, and This conduct on the part of the Upper made himself the instrument of its most House was, of course, suggested by the unconstitutional policy. After his speech Government, and the Ministers immediand those of some others of the retro- ately took advantage of it. They pretendgrade party it was almost in vain to hope ed that the authority of the Upper House for a reonciliation. The popular members was sufficient to sanction them in disrewere plainly told that the King was deter-garding the opinion of the deputies, and mined to keep under arms the number of men which he judged to be necessary for the defense of the country, and that if the Chamber refused to grant the supplies it must expect either to recant its seditious opinions or see its authority wholly disregarded. This had been threatened in the most express terms by M. Von der Heydt, but few thought that the violation of the Constitution was so near and would be so complete. The blow has now fallen. Majesty has made its coup d'état. William the Conqueror has buckled on his armor, and is prepared to rule by the grace of God and his good sword. His barons stand by him in this struggle against those rude churls the Liberals of the Lower House and their constituents. Certainly these nobles of the Upper House are not very princely aristocrats as far as wealth and station are concerned, for they are most of them poorer than a solid Baltic trader or Rhineland manufacturer, and in many cases they owe both position and income to the favor of the Government. How ever, they now stand by the Court resolutely. The Lower House had in committee dealt very roughly with the Ministerial Budget: The Liberals, who on this question comprise nine tenths of the House, had provided only such a sum as would suffice to keep up the army on its old footing, and the King had to choose between giving up his cherished plan of a first-rate army to rival that of France or Austria, or defeating the treasonable economy of the Liberals. It is said that moderate advice was given him by persons near the throne, and that even the Crown Prince, who has since left Berlin with the Princess, was in favor of a constitutional policy. But King William, urged on by the boasts of the military party, and their expected taunts in case he should yield, has determined to try his strength against that of his people.

that the budget must be considered as voted. On the other hand, the Chamber of Deputies was in a ferment, and even the President, in communicating the vote of the Upper House, declared it to be unconstitutional, The Chamber referred the whole matter to the committee on the budget, which unanimously passed a resolution that the vote of the Upper House accepting the budget brought forward by Government was opposed to the plain sense and words of the Constitution, and therefore null and void; they also declared that the Government would not be justified in basing any rights whatever on that vote. This resolution of the committee, being read to the Chamber, was unanimously adopted by two hundred and thirty-seven members who were present. Thus was war declared between the two parties. If the Court prided itself on its determination, the Liberals might also boast of their unanimity. With the exception of some half-dozen Royalist members who left the House before the question was put to the vote, the whole Chamber had adopted the resolution of the committee, that the action of the Upper House was unconstitutional. In fact, the question was precisely the same as that which had caused some of the earliest constitutional struggles of this country, and the successful settlement of which question is generally looked upon as the foundation of constitutional freedom. The Chamber had to decide whether it would assert at once, and boldly, the principle that the representatives of the people have a right to control the expenditure, or whether it would acquiesce in the design of the King to make it merely a subordinate power, from which an appeal might lie to the Upper House. The former principle is part of the Constitution of Prussia as well as of this country, and the notion of constituting the Upper House an assembly to reverse

[December,

the decisions of the Lower only originated | declare to them in explicit terms that he in the desperation of the Court party at considers himself victorious, and that he is the defeat of their cherished schemes. It determined to improve his victory to the utis evident that, as every law requires the most. Despotism never ventured on a coars assent of both Houses, the encouragement er proclamation of success than in the royof dissension between the two could lead to al message. "The budget," says the King, nothing, unless, indeed, it were intended to "as amended by the Lower House, having do away with the Constitution altogether. been rejected by the Upper House, the Nothing less than this seems the pur- Government finds itself compelled to carpose of the Prussian King. No sooner ry out the budget as it was originally laid had the Chamber agreed to its resolution before the Lower House, without taking as to the unconstitionality of the proceed- cognizance of the conditions imposed by ings in the Upper House, than Count the Constitution." On this principle it is Von Bismark read a royal message order- sufficient that a majority of the Upper ing that the close of the parliamentary House should be on the side of Governsession should take place the next day. ment, and the authority of the Lower This, under the circumstances, was equi- House ceases entirely. If in every case of valent to telling the Chamber that he a difference of the two Houses on a minshould govern without them, since the bud- isterial proposition that proposition may get was unvoted, and, if the session were be legally carried out, there seems no reaclosed, there could be no constitutional son why a Chamber of Deputies should raising of money at all. But the King is exist at all. If the Prussian Liberals wish not even content with having the reality to resist this interpretation of the law, of absolute power. He must make his op- they must make up their minds to a long ponents feel that they are beaten; he must and difficult struggle with power.

REV. ALBERT BARNES.

EMBELLISHING this number of THE ECLECTIC will be found an accurate like ness and finely engraved portrait of the Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, who for more than thirty-two years has been the laborious pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in that city. As a man, as a Christian minister, as a preacher of the Gospel, as a voluminous writer and expounder of the text of the sacred Scriptures, and extensively known as such over this country and in foreign lands, a good portrait of him will be highly valued by his very numerous friends. known him for many years, we have Having sought to put on record, in permanent form, an accurate portrait of his face and form. Most of the portraits which we have seen have failed to express the exact lineaments of his features. This engraving has been made with great care from a photograph taken a few months since, and admitted to be the best of all. The art

ist, Mr. Perine, has improved much upon the photograph, and brought out a full expression, and given it quite a life-like resemblance to the original. A brief biographical sketch will add interest to the portrait.

of Rome, Oneida county, New-York, Albert Barnes was born in the village December 1st, 1798. His father was a tanner, and Mr. Barnes remained in his father's family until he was seventeen years of age, employed with his father, while, in the mean time, he laid the basis tion to general reading and study, and the of a solid education by a diligent applicapursuits of literature. At the age of twenty-two years, he graduated at Hamilton College, and in November, 1820, entered upon his theological studies at Princeton, New-Jersey, where, after a three years' course, he remained one year more as a resident graduate.

In April, 1824, he was licenced to preach

volumes of commentaries on the Old and New Testament Scriptures, which have had for many years an increasing and still wider circulation every year as time moves on. Besides these, Mr. Barnes has published many volumes of essays, reviews, sermons, addresses, etc., of a practical or dogmatic character. His Village Sermons, selected and published for practical use, is one of the most interesting and instructive of any in the language.

These incessant and arduous labors a few years since seriously impaired his eye-sight, which led him to visit Europe to obtain the best medical advice in that country. Happily his eye-sight has been so far improved that his labors have been continued till now.

the Gospel, and on the twenty-fifth of the following February he was ordained and installed pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, New-Jersey. He entered upon the work of the ministy as a pastor with untiring zeal and fidelity, and continued his successful labors at Morristown during five years, when, much to the regret of the people of his charge, he received a call to become the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which he accepted, and entered upon the duties of his new field of most responsible labors June 25th, 1830, where he has remained ever since. The ecclesiastical history of Mr. Barnes, is, in some respects at least, one of the most interesting and instructive in modern times. But amid most abundant labors among the people of his His commentaries alone, in some eighcharge, and untiring diligence in exposi- teen or twenty volumes, are a monument tions of the Scriptures, he has been a of untiring industry. They have been exburning and a shining light in the churches tensively republished in England, and to of the land. By a systematic disposition some extent in other languages. They of his time, and with clock-like prompti- have been used in families, in Sabbathtude in the assignment of his varied duties schools, and Bible-classes, and entered into and studies, Mr. Barnes has accomplished a wider circulation perhaps than any an amount of intellectual labor such as few series of the kind in this age. More than men, if any in this age, have achieved. half a million of these volumes had been His life, from his first entrance on the pas-printed and sold some years since. The torate at Morristown, has been one of number now can hardly be less than three great activity and laborious toil. The quarters of a million. To have provided labor which he has performed-a large such an amount of sacred reading for such part of it in the early morn while other an age as this, is to have exerted an influmen were asleep - would seem to be ence on the human mind and destiny rarely enough to crush any constitution but one paralleled. As a preacher, Mr. Barnes of iron. We believe the three large belongs to the first rank of American volumes of his commentary on the Prophet divines. But he is too well and widely Isaiah, published in 1838, were chiefly writ-known to need a more extended sketch of ten in early morning, while many were his life and labors, which are embodied in asleep. The same general course of early- his numerous works, and his eminent hismorning study was pursued in after-years, tory as a pastor and preacher. which has resulted in the long series of

LITERARY

MISCELLANIES.

AMERICAN HISTORY. BY JACOB ABBOTT. Illustrated
with numerous Maps end Engravings. Vol. IV.
NORTHERN COLONIES. Pages 288. New-York:
Sheldon & Company. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

AMERICAN history, from its first discovery and on. ward till now, is fruitful of interest to every lover of his country. The fame and ability of Mr. Abbott as a writer of history, in this form of easy, graceful,

and instructive diction, must commend it especially to the younger portion of the public. Among the topics of this volume are: "The Voyage of the Mayflower," "Landing at Plymouth," "First Week in Plymouth," "Massasoit and the Indians," "The Dutch on the Hudson," "The Conquest of the New Netherlands," "Growth and Extension of the Colonies." Under these general heads, Mr. Abbott has given a beautiful and graphic narrative of the events

Preached and revised by their Author. Pages The Paris correspondent of the Morning Post writes MARINE ENGINES FOR THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT.— 878. New-York: Sheldon & Company, Publish.