ists to the morbidly singular and abnormal in mental character, and to tracing metaphysically the currents and springs of motive and thought, instead of leaving these to be developed by the actions of the personages the question is, whether this fashion is likely permanently to influence and to clog the advance of the transatlantic school of fiction? We are happy in being able to express our own conviction that, by all literary and philosophic precedent, nothing so repugnant to healthy mental feeling, and so foreign to every tendency of true art, can be anything else but a passing epidemic. It is, no doubt, the business of the writer of fiction to describe life-like character-to analyze and set before us mind-as it is that of the artist to present us with beauty in the physical form not incompatible with the development of the race. But what should we say to an artist who habitually selects abnormal and monstrous forms for representation; and, not content even with that, changes his part for that of the anatomist, and proceeds to "demonstrate" every fiber and fold of the diseased and abhorrent structure? Yet such is the school of the Balzacs and the Sands, and such is the school favored at present in America. There are different phases of the tendency to be observed

in transatlantic literature. Sometimes, as in the case of Ik Marvel, the writing, although far too psychologic in its nature, is not lavished upon unwholesome personages. Pathos, the anatomy, the physiology, and the pathology of pathos, are what is aimed at in the "Reveries of a Bachelor," and there can be no doubt that the dissection is very curious and complete. As we have hinted, however, all the American

writers do not content themselves with such

insipid fare, and, accordingly, they conjure up, as in the case of the novel before us, a group of ugly and fantastic shadows, without a whole some touch of nature about them-a species of vampires, who exist upon the blood of good

taste and common sense, and whose erratic and

morbid impulses must be tracked and puzzled out, and exhibited, thread by thread and fiber by fiber, for the display of the demonstrator's

vast acuteness."

Who needs to be told the moral effect of such works? They are demoniacal. We read of demoniacal possessions, under forms of disease, in the old times. The devils are more self-conceited nowadays; they take a more brilliant fashion of "possession." Our litterateurs are becoming the modern "demoniacs." The spirits pass into the "herd of swine," and plunge with them "down the steep" into the abyss of corruption and destruction.

These morbid books spread demoralization and madness in their course. They should be cast out of your home as rattlesnakes. They are the last step of the better class of novels downward to the grade of the genuine Satanic fictions. The young especially, if they read them much, will soon find all healthful books to

pall on the taste and will seek more exciting moral drugs.

We have thus expressed ourselves outrightly on this subject, one of the gravest we believe connected with literature and morals. These views have guided us in the use of fiction in this Magazine. We are not, we repeat, fanatics on the subject; brief and befitting fictitious illustrations of truth or life have been admitted into our columns, but we have not felt at liberty to admit here the common modern novel, however attractive by traits of genius or moral aims. Our scruples do not go so far as to interdict the occasional reading of even such works by adult persons; but, what you, as a parent, might do, with no harm to yourself, might be exceedingly hurtful to the best sentiments of your child. Were we to furnish in these pages prolonged novels, we would thereby he educating your children, month after month, to the love of light literature. Such articles would be the first to engage their attention. The monthly instalment would, in many instances, be all their general reading for the month; and, thus doled out to them continuously, their tastes would soon be inevitably conformed to such stimulating food, and reject all formed in childhood and youth, will affect better nourishment. A habit of this kind, them through all time.

The remedy, then, of the vile literature of the day must be, as the quotation from the Transcript at the head of this article says, "in cultivating a purer taste in the community, which would lead them to reject, as they would garbage, the vile stuff offered for their mental diet." Keep the "vile stuff" out of your homes; keep out, likewise, its precursors, the insidious, though not vile fictions, which tend to unhealthy and especially to irreligious tastes. You know, perhaps, by experience, the fascination of novel reading in adult years; what, then, must it be in youth? And remember, further, that a taste formed in early life for wholesome reading, like an appetite for healthy diet, will find sufficient pleasure in substantial literature. It will loathe the putrid excesses of fiction. No novel reader finds, in the excitement of his meretricious books, entertainment and pleasure equal to those of the well-trained mind in books of reality-histories, travels, biographies, the sciences, &c.

[For the National Magazine.]

late Rev. John Crawford, of the Method

THE

REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

HE minor incidents of war, such as history seldom condescends to record, often afford the truest illustrations of its enormity, and of the times. I send you a few of my personal recollections of the kind, which may prove not uninteresting to the readers of the National Magazine.

When about nine years of age I was a witness of the pursuit of the American army, by the British, through Eastchester to White Plains, where Washington set up some defenses, and held them at bay till evening. The Americans encamped in sight of the British, and, by keeping up their fires in the night, escaped them, and crossed the Hudson. The British, chagrined and fatigued, retraced their steps to Eastchester, and encamped on Hunt's Hill. Some of the officers pitched their tents in our orchard. They treated us kindly, and generally paid for what they wanted. On one occasion, however, a certain light-horseman, having bargained for a fine dressed pig, took it before him on the saddle, and said-"Send that little fellow with me to the camp, and I will give him the money." When about half way, he drew out his sword, and said "Run home, you little

or I will cut your head off." I stayed not to parley nor contend for my right, but hastened home, believing soberly in Falstaff's maxim, that, in that case at least, "discretion was the better part of valor."

Before long the English army retired to Kingsbridge, and made that their permanent stand-point, while Colonel Delancey's troops were stationed in Morrisania and Fordham. His men were mostly Americans, called "Refugees," or "Tories;" among them was my uncle, my father's only brother, Lieutenant Colonel Hunt. We were now left between the lines, in a most equivocal and unpleasant situation. Colonel Joseph Drake, my mother's brother, on the American side, made an effort to move us, by sending two continental wagons to our assistance. The British got knowledge of the design, and pursued us so closely that the teamsters thought proper to disburden themselves of their load, and left us at Mr. Crawford's, near the Plains. Mr. Crawford was the father of the

party that night, was killed, with a number of others, for there was considerable fighting at what was called "Ward's House." The next morning I went to see them deposit the slain in a large grave, without coffin or shroud.

Our only alternative now was to get back again to our own old home and make the best of our condition. We were often visited by those who were called "skinners," (as they were always in quest of clothing,) a set of hangers-on of the "Continental Army," acting as spies, &c. While Delancey's "Refugees" often made excursions to get fresh beef, and hence were called "Cow-boys."

In some instances both parties called on us in the course of twenty-four hours. Once they met near the house and exchanged shots, when I was returning from school.

Samuel Tucker, a refugee, ran to a thicket of bushes, pursued by "Tom" Colbert, who shot Tucker through the head, at some ten rods distance. I stood by while he stripped off the clothes of his victim. Such is the personal degradation of war. On another occasion, a considerable body of "continental troops," and "skinners" as guides, came down as far as Williamsbridge. The British rallied and pursued them. The Americans fought retreating, and soon brought our school-house between the contending parties. Our school was kept in a vacated dwelling-house; some balls pierced the house, but we took shelter in the cellar. After the battle, we went out to see them bury the dead in a large grave without grave-clothes.

The most tragical scene occurred after the declaration of peace. While the British were preparing to evacuate NewYork, Washington's army encamped near Williamsbridge, ready to march into the city when the English left. Some of the refugees finding they must then leave their country, made several desperate excursions into various parts to rob and steal. The first night they came to our house the doors were so barred that they could not enter; they fired in and left us.

Supposing they would come again, we made some preparations for defense; but they reappeared between sundown and dark, before the doors were secured. I was then driving cows toward the house; a man from under the fence seized me,

and bound my hands behind my back, ordering me to the house. A continental soldier was shoemaking for us on the piazza; they knocked him down and bound him. They bound the hands of my stepfather behind him, and fastened his feet together. My mother and sisters they shut up in a bedroom, with a sentinel at the door. Making up a good fire, and placing the shovel in it, till the iron was red-hot, they presented the instrument of torture to the old gentleman, and demanded one thousand dollars as the condition of his release; otherwise, they declared, they would torment him to death. He told them there was one hundred dollars in a certain drawer. This only seemed to excite their rage for more. He had a

thousand dollars or more buried in the field; of this they seemed suspicious. They now broke out a glass over the door, and placing a rope round his neck hung him up a minute or two: letting him down, they demanded the money. He still refused; they applied the red-hot shovel to his naked flesh. Meanwhile one drew the rope tighter round his neck, to prevent his noise. Relieving him again, they again demanded the money, but to no effect. They repeated the hanging and burning process too furiously to gain their purpose; for he was soon unable to give them any information. They then turned to me. I was sitting in the corner, with my hands tied behind me. They charged me with knowing where the money was, and threatened to burn me to death if I did not tell; they brought the red-hot shovel so near to my face that I sensibly felt the heat. Begging and crying, I assured them I would tell if I knew. The next thing was to bring my mother out; they threatened to torment her in like manner if she did not give up the money. But she stood before them without weeping, and said:" You have murdered my husband, and have us in your power; but, remember, God Almighty will bring you into judgment for these things." One that kept a little out of sight said, using an oath, "Let her go." There were four or five in the gang, and some of them we doubtless should have known if they had not been disguised.

In order to prevent our giving an alarm, we were all put down into the cellar, and the doors secured. A young man passing at the time, they arrested, robbed, and

bound him, putting him in the cellar with us. At first we thought him to be one of their party-a spy. He however soon applied to me to untie him; my mother taking a knife from my pocket cut me loose, and she attending to the old gentleman, I liberated the young man and the soldier. Hearing our enemies above, searching the house, and fearful they would burn the building over our heads, we set about loosing the underpinning. But soon all was silent, and we obtained our liberty. The young man, the soldier, and myself, (then in my fourteenth year,) each seized a loaded gun, kept for selfdefense, (for once I felt like doing battle ;) we searched the premises, but in vain— they had gone.

Mr. Thomas Shute, my kind step-father, did not recover from the effects of this cruel treatment for a long time. Indeed, he never enjoyed health after it, though he lived some years.

Such, Mr. Editor, are the painful recollections of an individual witness of those desperate times. They are, I suppose, but a specimen of the common sufferings of our people throughout the war. They are not without interest and significance. Dearly were our liberties and other national blessings bought by our fathers; dearly should they be prized by their happier children.

THE

INTELLIGENCE.

THE divine gift of intelligence was bestowed for higher uses than bodily labor-than to make hewers of wood, drawers of water, plowmen, or servants. Every being, so gifted, is intended to acquaint himself with God and his works, and to perform wisely and disinterestedly the duties of life. Accordingly, when we see the multitude of men beginning to thirst for knowledge, for intellectual action, for something more than animal life, we see the great design of nature about to be accomplished; and society, having received this impulse, will never rest till it shall have taken such form as will place within every man's reach the means of intellectual culture. This is the revolution to which we are tending; and without this, all outward political changes would be but childrens' play, leaving the great work of society yet to be done.

acter of this eminent minister-perhaps the most celebrated preacher of his age, certainly the most eloquent in that branch of the Church to which he belonged.

HIS CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION.

ROBERT HALL was the youngest of fourteen children, and from his birth exceedingly delicate. It was thought, indeed, impossible that he could survive the perils of infancy, and to the unwearied care of a devoted nurse the world is indebted for the preservation of that flickering light which afterward filled so large a space in the moral heavens. In the arms of this nurse he acquired the rudiments of education. She was wont to carry him into a neighboring grave-yard, where, from the inscriptions upon tombstones, he learned the alphabet, and acquired the mystery of spelling. Afterward, when a school-boy, he was in the habit of stealing away to "meditate among the tombs," making the place his study; and, in the solitude and silence of these receptacles for the dead, it was his delight to spend many an hour in reading such volumes as fell in his way. His choice of books, at this early age, evinced the peculiar structure of his mind. | The abstruse writings of Jonathan Edwards, including his "Treatise on the Affections" and on "The Will," were especial favorites; and "Butler's Analogy" had been repeatedly perused by him before reaching the tenth year of his age. It seems scarcely credible, yet the fact is stated on reliable authority, that such a child should read understandingly volumes of this character, or that he should have taken any pleasure in their perusal. At the same age, too, he wrote, it is said, essays upon various metaphysical and theological subjects. He acquired, with great ease, the lessons given him by his schoolmaster, who, when the boy was but eleven, informed his father that he could teach him nothing more. He was accordingly sent to a school of a higher grade, and, under the tuition and care of the celebrated Dr. Ryland, at Northampton, with whom he remained a year and a half, he made great proficiency in the mathematics, and in the Latin and Greek languages.

the gospel. He was in the habit of gathering his brothers and sisters in a room by themselves, to hear him preach,—a kind of play not uncommon among children, yet it seems there was something remarkably precocious in Robert's exhibitions of this kind. A friend of the family, with whom the child was spending a few weeks, would occasionally invite the neighbors, grown men and women, to hear the young orator. His vanity, of course, was flattered by their presence, and it is only remarkable that he was not utterly ruined by the absurd exhibitions in which he was thus made the prominent actor. "Conceive, if you can," he says, in telling this part of his early history, "the egregious impropriety of setting a boy of eleven to preach to a company of grave gentlemen, full half of whom wore wigs. I never call the circumstance to mind but with grief at the vanity it inspired; nor when I think of such mistakes of good men am I inclined to question the correctness of Baxter's language, strong as it is, where he says:-Nor should men turn preachers as the river Nilus breeds frogs, when one half moveth before the other is made, and while it is yet plain mud.'”

In his fifteenth year, having given satisfactory evidences of piety, and professing a strong desire for the ministerial office, he was admitted into the Bristol Institution, a theological seminary, then under the presidency of the Rev. Hugh Evans. Here he pursued his studies with great ardor, appearing, however, to place his main reliance upon mere intellectual attainments. Nor is this to be wondered at. He had been flattered and caressed by injudicious friends, and he could not be ignorant of his superiority to his fellowstudents. A severe, but salutary, mortification awaited him. After being at the seminary a season he was appointed to preach, on a week evening, in the vestry of the Baptist church. The president of the seminary and the professors were there, as well as his class-mates, and the ordinary congregation. The young candidate for pulpit honors conducted the initial services with great propriety. He announced his text. His introductory

remarks were appropriate and gracefully delivered, and his auditors shared in the evident complacency of the speaker. Ten minutes, perhaps, elapsed, when suddenly the halo of light which beamed from the pulpit was totally eclipsed. A dense fog settled upon the preacher. Memory failed him and self-possession; covering his face with his hands, he exclaimed, “I have lost all my ideas," and sat down. Disappointed and mortified as were his instructors, they endeavored to soothe and to encourage the young man ; but it was one of those cases in which the more sympathy is evinced the greater the chagrin of the subject. They prevailed upon him, however, to try again. Unwisely for the object they had in view, but happily as it turned out for Hall, he was appointed to preach the week following from the same text, and before the same hearers. The immediate result was more painful to his congregation than the first attempt, and more mortifying to himself. He again broke down, lost all his ideas, and, rushing to his room, exclaimed-" If this does not humble me, the devil must have me." The lesson thus taught him was never forgotten; and, in after life, when at the zenith of his fame, Robert Hall was not more remarkable for his overwhelming eloquence than for a graceful humility which distrusted self, and ever sought to magnify the grace of God.

The Church of which his father was pastor, after due examination, being satisfied with the evidences of his divine call, and of his qualifications for the ministry, set him apart for that work, he being now but a few months more than sixteen years of age. His father preached what may be called the ordination* sermon from the words of the apostle to Timothy: "Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus ;" and in the afternoon of the same day Robert occupied his father's pulpit, and preached his first sermon as an accredited minister of the gospel.

HIS VARIOUS FIELDS OF MINISTERIAL LABOR.

Having spent little more than two years as a divinity student at King's College in Aberdeen, he accepted a call as assistant minister of the Broadmead Church, Bris

He was never, in the technical sense of the word, ordained. Being asked, in after life, why not? he replied, "Because I was a fool, sir."

tol.

His senior associate was a man of talents, but weak-minded. Whether from jealousy of young Hall's exceeding popularity, or for some other cause not now to be ascertained, he quarreled with his youthful colleague. The Church was divided in opinion as to the merits or demerits of their two pastors. They became partisans, and all attempts at reconciliation proved abortive. It was indeed a melancholy spectacle-a Church divided against itself, its members ranged under opposing banners, its joint pastors, the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace, at enmity with each other. This state of things continued for two years, and peace was not restored to the society at Broadmead until the removal of Hall to another Church, and the death, soon afterward, of his associate. Cambridge was the next scene of his ministerial labors. He was called to succeed an eloquent and exceedingly popular preacher, who had passed from orthodox opinions to the very borders of infidelity, and had led his flock with him. "Vain speculation”—such is the testimony of one well acquainted with the facts-" was substituted for knowledge, faith, and experience; confession and prayer seldom made a part of the public worship which he, Hall's immediate predecessor, conducted, his effusions before sermon consisting almost altogether of ascriptions of praise; and the congregation became so transformed and deteriorated in consequence, that among the more intelligent classes, with only two or three exceptions, he was esteemed the best Christian who was most skilled in disputation, not he who evinced most of the spirit of Christ." Upon this unpromising field Mr. Hall entered with resolute determination to labor faithfully, and, if possible, to transform it into a fruitful garden. He chose for the theme of his first discourse after assuming the pastoral office, the doctrine of the atonement made by the Lord Jesus; presenting it as the only ground of hope for the sinner, and insisting upon the necessity of its acceptance. As might have been expected, the sermon gave offense to many of his heardo for us; it will only suit a congregation ers. "This preaching," said one, “wont of old women." "Do you mean," asked the preacher, "my sermon, sir, or the

doctrine ?"

"Your doctrine." "Why is it that the doctrine is fit only for old