himself expeditiously, and with the most buoyant spirits, hurried forth to attend to his necessary affairs, and to make his arrangements to go to the city. I shall record his subsequent adventures and successes, in another and concluding number.

THE HURON WIDOW'S FAREWELL.

'Ir a Huron woman dream thrice of her deceased husband, she believes that he requires her preence in the land of souls,' and immediately obeys the summons by a voluntary death, commonly putting a period to her existence by a dose of poison.' OLD NEW-YORK MAGAZINE.

With his stately step, and his lofty brow;
We have met in the beautiful land of dreams,'
And he rov'd with me there by the still blue streams,
'Neath a brighter sun and a purer sky

Than hath ever yet beamed on my waking eye.

In the beautiful land of dreams we met,
And I heard his voice - I can hear it yet!
With its deep, rich, musical tones, that stole
Like a spell of enchantment, o'er my soul;
And how did my bounding heart rejoice

At the long-hush'd sound of my warrior's voice!

Farewell! fare ye well! I have heard his call
Earth, sea, and bright sky! I must leave ye all;
No more shall I dwell in the hut of my sire,
Or move with the dance, round our council-fire;

I must leave the green earth, which methinks never wore
An aspect so fair in my fancy before.

And fare thee well, also, my warrior's son;

We are parting for ever, unconscious one;
Dost thou laugh my boy?-

for the last time thou

Art clasp'd to a parent's bosom now;

Thou wilt sport on my grave at eve, nor know

That the heart which most loved thee, lies mould' ring below.

Thou hast tortures to bear, a proud fame to be won,

And the death of thy sire to avenge, like his son;

May thy name be the dread of our foeman's ear,
Son of a race that are strangers to fear!

But I shall not hear, with a mother's joy,
Of thy deeds on the war-path, my Huron boy!

And to thee, oh my sire! must another bring
Thy drink at eve from the crystal spring;
No more shall the hand of a daughter guide
Thy light canoe o'er the clear blue tide,
Nor again shall I join the choral throng,

When the deeds of my sire are the theme of song.

Farewell to thee, father! I know that thou,
'Neath the weight of years, art bending now;
Yet I go from thee, father! I must depart,
And childless I leave thee, all old as thou art!
Thine eyes must be clos'd by a stranger's hand,
When thou wingest thy way to the spirit land.'

And fare thee well, mother! I grieve for thee-
Lonely and sad will thy dwelling-place be;
Thou hast wept o'er the fall of thy valiant sons,
And I only am left of thy cherish'd ones!
Thy grief will be such as time softeneth not,
For the heart of a mother hath ne'er forgot!

Yet my smile at thy waking must cheer thee no more,
Nor my song when thy daily toils are o'er ;
There is none, oh my mother! I leave thee none,
To sooth thee in sorrow, when I am gone;
But the summons hath come, and I must depart,
Though unsolaced I leave thee to anguish of heart,
Yet lament not, my mother! our souls shall greet
In that land where the dead and the living meet,
Where the friends we have wept come around once more,
With the smiles which their living features wore,
Oft my spirit shall come, by the calm moonbeams,
To gladden thy soul in the land of dreams.'
But farewell! — for I hear the rejoicing sounds
That come from the 'happy hunting-grounds;'
And the voice of my husband hath met mine ear,
Yet I still am a faint-hearted lingerer here;
Farewell! fare ye well! - I have heard his call

Son! mother! and sire! I must leave ye all !
Newport, (Rhode-Island,) July, 1838.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

ITS MORAL AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE ON AMERICA, AND THE WORLD AT LARGE.

The state of Europe, at the period of the American Revolution, is too well known to require elucidation. On the continent, despotism was personified in the sovereigns, and servitude in the people. Political writers declaimed about liberty in the abstract, but popular equality was not supposed to constitute a part of rational freedom. Religion, over all Europe, wore the frowning aspect of intolerance. That atrocity, known as the African slave-trade, received the countenance and favor of princes. Papal supremacy was sought to be perpetuated in Spain and Portugal, by the cruel tyranny of the Inquisition. The doctrines of jurisprudence were perplexed by the subtlety of feudal dialectics; and the very forms of legal proceeding, embarrassed by conflicting authorities, or confounded by opposing principles, were more intricate and complicated than the ultimate question to be decided. Wager of Battel,' that barbarous remnant of a barbarous age, famous at least as the parent of modern duelling, was permitted to deform the boasted system of English law. Europe presented, in her penal codes, a spectacle of cruelty, only equalled by the remorseless spirit in which they were administered.

Morality and virtue could scarcely flourish in a soil so unpropitious to their vegetation. France, during the reigns of Louis the Fourteenth and Fifteenth, presented the lowest condition of moral feeling which can characterize a nation at large.

In the eloquent language of Sir James Mackintosh, a great part of that period was

the consummation of whatever was afflicting and degrading in the history of the human race.', 'On the recollection of such scenes,' says he, 'I blush as a scholar for the prostitution of letters; as a man, I blush for the patience of humanity.'

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But Europe had something to expect from a country upon which she had bestowed all the benignant influences of her genius, refinement, and knowledge. The world had something to hope from the recognition of a new principle, on a new theatre. It might naturally be expected that human nature, incited by more powerful motives of action, surrounded by new objects, and less shackled by the restraints and prejudices of older systems of society, would exhibit itself in more interesting and striking aspects than before. then briefly examine how these expectations have been fulfilled, and what contribution has been made in payment of the debt, which, as a nation, we owe to the common cause of science and humanity.

The experiment of self-government, that is, the competency of man to govern himself, was the great problem which we solemnly engaged, in the eyes of all Europe and the world, to solve. We assumed this task in adopting a form of government which Montesquieu and other speculative philosophers had denounced as impracticable, in a large community. History presented no instance of success in a republic, and no example whatever, upon the basis of representation. In the democracies of Greece, the people were not numerous, and the territories were small. They assembled in a plain, and performed those acts of legislation, which, in larger and more populous districts, could only have been accomplished through the agency of representatives. The government of the United States, therefore, presents the example of a political structure, which in its extent and machinery, is wholly new. It is daring enough to challenge a prototype in the long history of ages. In an age of paganism or ignorance, without the aids of the press, and the enlightening influence of Christianity, such an effort would have proved more visionary than the Eutopia of Plato. But with these auxiliaries, happiness, prosperity, and enterprise, moral advancement and intellectual vigor, have been the results. It has quickened mind into action, in every department of life. It has given to it the wholesome direction of a more ardent pursuit after new and beneficial truths. It has turned the attention of the human mind from the busy idleness of a vain erudition, into channels more conducive to sound science, and the exaltation of the human race.

Let us mark the course of this principle, in its onward movement, and trace its diffusive and beautiful career in this country and abroad. Religious freedom was too intimately blended with political liberty, to be overlooked in the category of human rights. A free-born conscience demanded that religion should be purified from the taint of intolerance, and that no man should be excluded from office, nor rest under civil disability, on account of his religious belief. The principles of Coddington, Williams, Lord Baltimore, and Penn, were at once engrafted into the constitution of the government established at the revolution. They found in their adopted trunk a soil prepared for their reception. They sent forth their heaven-directed branches high into the air; offering to the bereaved and outcast sectary, of every creed, a shade and security from the heats of persecution. What but these have removed the legal burthens of the Jews in Maryland, and the Catholics in North Carolina ? What but these were the means of proclaiming Catholic emancipation in Great Britain ; and exciting in that kingdom the recent though unsuccessful attempt in behalf of the Jews ? What but these have proclaimed religious freedom in the kingdom of Denmark, and the cantons of Switzerland ? And what but these are sundering the fetters imposed by bigotry and superstition in other parts of Europe ?

From the recognition of political and religious liberty, as the proper attribute of man, it might be inferred that the destruction of legal servitude would follow. But that burthen, which was imposed by Elizabeth, has not been removed in the age of Victoria. Though the acclaim of universal emancipation,' which burst from these shores, has resounded in the dull ears of despotic Austria, and penetrated to distant India, the anomaly of existing bondage is exhibited under the freest form of government, and amidst the contagion of the most liberal ideas, which prevail upon earth. Aside from other considerations, it offers to the philosophic mind a subject for reflection, under the weight of which Philo ophy herself must stagger. It shows at least how hard it is, by the mere potency of an abstract doctrine, however aided by policy and humanity, to break down the prejudices which have been nursed by time, and strengthened by interest. Though the early and signal effort of colonial Pennsylvania to abolish the slave trade in 1712, and that of South Carolina in 1760, were frustrated by the cupidity of the British merchants, yet the effect of the great idea adopted at the revolution, was soon afterward felt. The slave trade was carried on in England with unexampled rapacity, and under the protecting guardianship of her laws, at a time when Pennsylvania abolished servitude itself

. In surveying the progressive effects of the doctrines of the revolution, let it not be forgotten, that in eleven years after that epoch, was formed a memorable association, by whose benevolent instrumentality the African slave trade was uprooted in Great Britain. Notwithstanding the power of this combination, and the determined vigor by which it was animated - an union composed of the friends of freedom and humanity in America and Europe it eluded their pursuit, and resisted their perseverance, for a period of twenty years ! Such a truth conveys a mortifying but impressive lesson. How great must have been the tenacity of interest, how dull the insensibility of habit, to require a period of twenty years to abolish a traffic, which is now, by the united voice of civilized states, denounced as inhuman, and punished as piratical !

The natural aliment of that freedom which the national independence secured, is intelligence among the people. Knowledge is not merely the parent of liberty, but constituting an element of its nature, is as essential to its existence as the air is to animal life. The child of mental light, each new idea must impart to it nourishment and strength ; and its growth must be in exact proportion to the inlets of science. If science be erroneous or impure, so must that essence be diseased or healthy, which depends upon it for vitality and nurture.

Perhaps no country can present a population more intelligent and informed than the United States. No longer confined to the professed scholar, or the cloistered clerk, knowledge is distributed over the community with the undistinguishing profusion of the breath of beaven :

"Her handmaid, Art, now all our wilds explores,
Traces our waves, and cultures all our shores,'

The sources of this mental cultivation may be found in the munificence of the public provisions for schools, and in the cheapness and multiplicity of newspapers and useful books. The common mind has thus been improved and enlarged, to an extent to which it is vain to seek a parallel in any other nation of the globe. Those curious topics of bootless inquiry which do not contribute to the practical benefit or moral exaltation of man, have employed but a superficial attention. The powers of America have been exerted in the formation of good citizens ; in stimulating industry; in arresting the progress of vice and crime; in bringing into closer affinity places which nature had widely separated by distance; and in extending the boundaries of social and moral science. Let us leave to the dreaming fanaticism of French philosophy those sublimated visions of speculation, so fruitful of commotion, anarchy, and misrule. In the poetical language of Denham, may

Our streams of knowledge flow,

To fill their banks, but not to overthrow.' This general diffusion of knowledge, this propensity of America for what is subservient to a practical use, has had an important effect upon the mind of Europe. It has turned the attention of the learned from the pedantry of their pursuits to the ultimate end of science ; it has incited inquiry among the people; led to the dissemination of books and periodicals, suited to the popular wants; and introduced a more just appreciation of the benefits of knowledge. These are effecting a change upon the intellectual face of Europe, which shall prepare it for those bolder reaches and higher ascensions, which the spirit of freedom and christianity cannot fail to inspire.

"These shall restore the light by nature given,

And, like Prometheus, bring the fire from heaven.' These are undermining the censorship of Spain and Italy; these have produced the fermentation which is so observable in the national minds of Austria and all Germany; and it is these which have had such wonderful effects upon the popular tendencies of England, Ireland, and France.

The government adopted at the national era, was founded upon the supposed virtue of man. This virtue was to be cultivated less by seminaries of learning, than the predominance of moral and religious feelings over the baser proclivities of human nature. The government implied a connection between morals and politics; an union of the philanthropist and statesman in the same person; a dominion of the higher impulses of the heart, and the purer results of the intellect, over the sensual and animal instincts. Hence we find associations of bevevolent persons, with a view to guard against vice and crime, and to promote a higher standard of social morality. I do not here refer, singly, to any one of the objects which these associations have in view ; but the purpose to which they have con. tributed, in the melioration and refinement of man. Every philanthropic effort that is made, every peaceful act that is done, for the regeneration of man, lifts him in the scale of improvement, and ad. vances him to that state in which moral sorce shall triumph over that which is physical and animal.

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