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and which is nowhere so successfully displayed as on the soil that nourished" our noble ancestors." Through the reign of the Normans, the Plantagenets, the houses of York and Lancaster, and the first Tudor, (Henry VII.,) this religious independence was not extinct, but slumbering. Rome had partly triumphed; and king oppressed noble, the nobles oppressed the people; while a gradual tide of wealth, flowing into the religious houses, corrupted the ecclesiastics and impoverished the kingdom.* But the good providence of God was yet visible; though John had bowed before the legate, and Henry been scourged at Becket's tomb, the people were waking to the echoes of the reformation.

Such as we have feebly portrayed them, were the aspects of this religion in those early days; and such, or similar, would not be found to mark the experience of any other people. Unrivalled then was the Anglo-Saxon race in religious favor; unequalled now in moral excellence, or the means of social culture. Their benevolent efforts have led back the benighted Hindoo to his ancient source of safety, and their labors defied the perils of Afric's clime! On China's hitherto inhospitable shore has Christianity sought and effected a lodgment, under the guidance of British statesmanship--a permanent home.

In view of these facts and impressions, we cannot resist the conclusion that Providence has raised up, and sustained, and qualified the Anglo-Saxon race, to perform a great work in reclaiming the world; has guided and protected them from temptation, or brought them from it purified, and ennobled by every scene of trial; and has given to them-to us-the destinies of the world. That a moral responsibility-a political accountability rest here, whose extent is measured only by the limits of mankind, and for the discharge of which we have not the means alone, but the disposition and ability, seems probable. Some inquiries as to this destiny, and the point we have already attained in its fulfilment, as most beautifully evinced by the

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missionary operations of the day, will be presented at the close of this paper. And here-" as in the middle watches of the night"-we leave the church, to note the progress of that enterprising disposition first begun under her promptings, fostered by her instrumentality, and encouraged by her auspices; for, previous to the time of the conquest, the church took the lead in every movement of social and civil progress, extended her benign influence as an incentive to every noble enterprise; and, when she afterwards refused to attend the triumphant march of free principles and political regeneration, she was left behind. Thus the once servant became the leader, and the church lost all her enormous privileges, while humanity gained all for which it aimed; and Protestantism, with milder beams, irradiated the land once blessed by the prevalence of the Catholic (that is, the, then, pure) faith. Many tendencies are at work, now, which mar the purity, and cripple the efficiency of the church. One of these is the augmenting exclusiveness, the socialism, so lamentably characteristic of our country. This broods over the altars of the Most High; and, until it be destroyed by a spirit of Christian liberality and expansive feeling, the church will never attain the position, the vantage-ground, designed by Providence, for her efficient guidance of the destinies of mankind, or our own.

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II. Nor is it their zeal for the welfare of the Siberian, the Negro, or the Indian, their interest in the spiritual welfare alone of these benighted tribes, that commands our wonder. Science, inciting their enterprising disposition, has had its boundaries enlarged, its efficacy renewed by their discoveries. The vast oceans encircling the poles, have first greeted the "cross of St. George," and the accompanying and stripes." England's sturdy sons "a thousand years" had braved the battle and the breeze in those ordinary bays and coasts; but now the stubborn enterprise of her Parrys and Franklins has wrested its laurel from the ceaseless roar of circumpolar waters, ice and snow; and the keels of Europe press on to search those untrodden fields. In the thrilling address of the priest to Boadicea, when "seeking counsel of her country's gods," we notice the prophetic words:

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Regions Cæsar never knew,
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they;"

and their rapid fulfilment seems vested with all the truth as well as enthusiasm of poetry.

Attracted by these wondrous evidences of a comprehensive policy-one, too, bounded only by creation's limits-other nations have reared the cross on Greenland's dreary shores, and taught her rude children the blessings of religion and civilization; have planted colonies on the farthest limits of our north-western continent, as if

a world were too narrow for their venturous spirit.* In this "labor of love" Europe is not alone. Recently the southern eross has joyfully witnessed the efforts so perseveringly made by American vessels to penetrate those secluded regions, where, since the "morning stars sang together," nought had scanned their boundless diversities of ice and sea, but the eye of their Creator; while on the lonely isles of many a group repose the reliques of our loved, and lost, and honored dead.

of Juggernaut has been, until very lately, undemolished, and even made a source of revenue to its coffers!

We cannot trace, in detail, the progress of this exploring spirit, nor pause to notice its peaceful triumphs.* Learning has aided such explorations, and been herself improved. With ceaseless rapidity, literature and intelligence are now filling up, where English discovery has paved the way. Knowledge and virtue shout in chorus as civilization welcomes their progress in the North and South, from the East to the late untrodden West. The been marked by a rapid development and mental improvement of such a people has useful permanency, which now extort the admiration of their fellows in other parts of the earth. England's soil has numbered a thousand generations, and her people, in all essential particulars, are still the same-invincible, as when a Cæsar vainly strove to crush and curb their spirit or daunt their valor. A thousand years subsequent, they had exchanged their ruder arms for the bow and arrow, introduced by the Normans. The bow was the emblem of freedom, and the pre-eminence of the English archers shows that the po

It cannot be denied that much has tarnished the English name where such attempts have been made: witness a Haslitical condition of England was superior in the fourteenth century to that of any continental nation.

tings in India, and the progress of the British arms in China. The simple native has been, too often, forced to exclaim, with the ancient Caledonian, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant. But such results, though frequent, are not a necessary part of the policy to which reference is designed. Nay, each victory seems to have been overruled for the spiritual regeneration of the vanquished:

"For, with the avengers came the word of

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Leading the van in every day of battle,
As men who know the blessings they defend.
Hence are they frank and generous in peace,
As men who have their portion in its plenty.
No other kingdon shows such worth and happi-
Veiled in such low estate."

ness,

How different the course of missionary
zeal in India, from what is disclosed by the
melancholy annals of Cuba, Goa, and the
French as well as Spanish West Indies.
So far has this toleration of the supersti-pire
tious faith which flourishes on India's soil mental
been carried by the Company, that the car

*That the French are not behindhand in these movements, see American Review, June, 1846, p. 667; July, p. 699, et aliud.

South. Lit. Mess., May, 1815, pp. 315, 316.

Stern and vast, wild and active, are her energies. And thus, as her physical emhas extended over the globe, her superiority is attested by her

The interested inquirer may observe something elucidating this, in Ed. Rev., Jan. 1838, pp. 171, 187, Am. IV. Rev., 666, et ante; and South. Lit. Mess., July, 1815, p. 420.

† Hallam, pp. 41, 42.

Shakspeares and Miltons; her Newtons | try) the under-current of this tendency, it

and Lockes; by her educated statesmen, her intelligent peasantry.* The action of her press and literary associations, her universities and learned societies, peculiarly ennobles her. To her enterprising disposition, we unite a spirit of freedom at home, which tells us how to benefit ourselves by benefitting others; with her benevolent activity, we combine a reverence for the freedom of religious worship which teaches our people to serve their God and not their "Church."t And these have we received as our dearest, priceless legacy from our venerated forefathers. Palsied be the hand, which, whether in our halls of legislation or elsewhere, would sap the earnest trust of our people in the value of religious influence for the stability of nations!

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The efficient feature, then, in modern civilization, is enterprise-social, moral, intellectual, and political enterprise; and in this race for distinction, England and America have been first and foremost. It has been said by Guizot, that the prime element in modern European civilization is the energy of individual life, the force of personal existence. In aliis verbis "political equality was, and still is, the grand aspiration of the nineteenth century." While discussing the difference in the spirit of the ancient and modern government, Lieber says, with much truth, The safety of the State is their principal problem, the safety of the individual is one of our greatest." In the medieval period it was the standing of man as bishop, priest, or knight which gave tone to his consideration in society: the man was lost in his office; but modern civilization (steering a medium course between the tendency, among the ancient Republics, absorptive of the individual in the mass, and the other extreme just defined,) has clearly exemplified the rank, and elevated the position of the individual abstracted from the State. While the "tyranny of the majority" has ever been (in this coun

Intelligent, not as they should be, but as compared with the mass of the same population in other countries of Europe.

"The very spirit that impels Anglo-Saxon blood in the wilds of Asia, impels us here in the wilds of America; and all the high characteristics of courage and fortitude, that distinguish the Anglo Saxon race there, distinguish us here."

Political Ethics.

is none the less true that the importance of man, us man, was first prominently vindicated by the "resultant force" of the American Revolution, and that our nation has ever been guided by the principle "that Government has for its mission the full and unequivocal maintenance of the rights of man, of each and every man, in all their plenitude." Has the learned writer reflected how much the English race has been instrumental in evolving the necessary relation of individual exertions to the state (the culture and improvement) of society; how much they have done to make virtue commensurate with knowledge? Our civilization, be it remembered, is the type and product of our political enterprise-is the mirror of ourselves.

III. There are some important principles which civilization has marked in the very vitals of the English race, as their progress developed its improvement. We are justified in claiming that here the abstract principles of jurisprudence are made most practically beneficial, as they are, undoubtedly, best understood. From the age of the Saxon Wittenagemot to the time of William the Conqueror, and from that period to the restoration, (1666,) and the independency of the British House of Commons, (A. D. 1832,) these great foundations of Justice have been scrutinized, which are the bulwark of nations. Hence, "nowhere has the science of the law been carried to such perfection" as in England and America, The rude elements of constitutional freedom, existing during the middle ages, have been exchanged for and moulded with those improvements which time has suggested and experience happily confirmed.

A more extended view as to the manner in which these different discoveries, these evolutions of the great problem of Human Rights, have been effected and incorporated with the frame-work of English society, may be, here, not injudiciously given. In this brief investigation, we shall present some incidents, to aid "in tracing out" the originals, the actualizations, "and as it were the elements of the law;" some considerations to assist in "tracing them to their fountains as well as our distance will permit."

The history of the middle ages discloses | few centuries subsequent. Speaking of it, to our view three distinct classes of peo- Blackstone says, that "these encroachple, the thanes, ceorls, and villeins; the ments grew to be so universal, that, when first of whom received their title from the tenure in villenage was virtually abolished Danes, and the others were a necessary by the statute of Charles II., there was offspring of the mixture of Saxon and hardly a pure villein left in the nation."§ What an advancement in the code of human rights, and from hence what an impulse was given to the progress of true freedom!

Danish character.

"Under the Saxon government there were, as Sir William Temple speaks, a sort of people in a condition of downright servitude, used and employed in the most servile works, and belonging, both they, their children, and effects, to the lord of the soil, like the rest of the cattle or stock upon it. These seemed to be those who held what was called the folk-lands, from which they were removable at the lord's pleasure. On the arrival of the Normans here, it seems not improbable that they who were strangers to any other than a feodal state, might give some sparks of enfranchisement to such wretched persons as fell to their share, by admitting them, as well as others, to the oath of fealty, which conferred a right of protection, and raised the tenant to a kind of estate superior to downright slavery, but inferior to every other

condition."+

An important concession, this, even of protection! Observe, now, the progress of this enfranchisement in the lapse of a

*See also Hallam's Middle Ages, (Harper's N. Y. Edit., 1841,) p. 90.

† 2 Blackstone's Comm., (Chitty's N. Y. Edit.

1843) p. 92.

We are not aware that the English operatives are now under any protection ; a privilege (it may be remarked in passing) at that rude period confering valuable advantages. They should remember that the condition of multitudes (Judge Carleton says, that "out of the 26,000,000 who inhabit the three kingdoms, twenty millions, men, women, and children, daily feel the yearnings of unsatisfied appetite." Dem. Rev., Jan. 1844, p. 33. See also Blackwood, May, 1845, pp. 531, 543-518,) of these poor "villeins," [nomine mutato,] now in their midst is but little superior to those of whom Judge Carleton speaks, "degraded indeed for a being endued with reason ;" and cease taunting us with the barbarism of American Slavery.

There is one memorable instance in the progressive actualizations of this firm adherence to the liberties of mankind when in

danger, recorded on the pages of English history: when a proud monarch demanded of the rude and haughty barons at Runnymede by what title they held their lands, each stalwart knight clasped his sword, exclaiming, "By this we acquired, and by this we will maintain them;" an impersonation, an evolution of that far-seeing regard for human rights, and individual sovereignty, whose correspondent type is illustrated by the triumph of the English arms at Navarino, when an oppressed people invoked the sympathy of Humanity. The main features

of this

"Devotion to the right with their last breath-Resistance of the wrong even unto death,"

have often been displayed to the world during this interval of nearly a thousand years between the two events here specially noted. Who, then, can say that national character will not develop reciprocal phases, after centuries of change, which annihilate everything but the attachment to Freedom, which ages never subdue; or that there is no divine Providence guarding the sacred heritage conferred on one people, and that one, our own race?

* 2 Black. p. 96. Warren's Law Studies, p. 341.

AN IMPROMPTU.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, WITH THE QUILL OF AN EAGLE KILLED AT NIAGARA FALLS.

BY THE LATE GEORGE H. COLTON.

• THE following verses were an extemporaneous effusion from the pen of the late GEORGE H. COLTON, the Editor and Founder of this Journal. Some two years since, being on a visit in the country, he was asked to write in a young lady's album, and consented, but afterwards forgot his promise, until within an hour of his departure. Being then reminded, he took a pen and wrote the lines as they are given below, while the family were talking and laughing about him. The whole did not occupy him twenty minutes.

The verses, with the above particulars, were sent to the Editor by an elder brother of their author, who was present with him at the time. Though inferior to much else that he wrote, they serve to illustrate his surprising facility, harmony, and correctness of ear and fancy. The vein of melancholy and pathos which appears in these verses-the same which affects the reader in the pathetic passages of his poem of Tecumseh, and in the eloquent and powerful verses to the Night Wind in Autumn, published in the number of this Journal for Nov. 1846-proves them to have been a true effusion of the soul. In the qualities of fullness, power, and harmony of verse, Mr. COLTON had no superior among the poets of our own country. With the spirit

and scope of almost every species of verse used by the moderns, he was practically familiar; nor did any appreciate better the peculiar excellencies of our great poets. His taste in this department of letters was at once universal and discriminating. In a Memoir of him that will appear in this Journal as soon as the necessary materials can be collected, a review will be given of his works and character as a poet.-ED.

Or me-poor minstrel of one struggling hour,

Whose strains shall perish on th' unresting wind-
Thou ask'st, fair girl, some little word, of power
To hold my image in thine absent mind.

Oh! how shall I a flickering art relume?
Ah! why for thee my memory leave its tomb?

For I, upon the sluggish waters cast,

Meseems, have lost the power that thrilled of yore:-
And when from those I love my form hath passed,
Methinks mine image lives with thee no more.
Still, still, oh! still, where'er I wandering go,
Around my steps dark Lethe seems to flow.

VOL. I. NO. I. NEW SERIES.

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