She

philosophy has, in this respect, acccomplished so little, that woman has accomplished so much. possesses not the strength which has been exhibited by some masculine minds, nor perhaps even the brilliancy which has emanated from others; but the influence which they respectively exert on society appears in strange disproportion to the apparent The one is as the sun, which sheds his strong beams upon the waters, and the waves proudly reflect his dazzling brilliancy; the other, as the moon, whose milder light melts into the ocean; glows through all its depths; heaves its mighty bosom, and elevates it above its common level.

causes.

The refined subtleties of an Aristotle, or the glowing sublimities of a Plato, though presented to us with all the fascinations of a high-toned morality, and clothed in the imposing grandeur of a lofty and commanding eloquence, are dim and powerless to that effusion of soul, that seraphic fervor, which with a glance unlocks the avenues to our tenderness, which chides our errors with a tear, or winning us to virtue with the omnipotence of a charm, irradiates its path with the beaming eye, and cheers it with the approving smile of loveliness. And hence, too, it is, that the degree in which this

influence is felt,

and its source appreciated, is justly considered as the test of civilization and refinement.

Is there not in this mild, gentle, silent, persuasive, yet dissolving and resistless influence, a charm which bears witness to its celestial character? Do we not recognize in it a similarity to that of heaven, and if we have ascribed it to its proper cause, does not this similarity at once stamp our speculation, if not with the seal of a moral certainty, at least with the impress of a cheering probability?

THE LIVING.DEAD.

BY WILLIAM J. HOPPIN.

66 Yet one doubt

Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die:

Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man
Which God inspired, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod: then in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows,
But I shall die a living death?"

[PARADISE LOST, B. X.

I DREAMED that Death had froze

This young and glowing frame:

But He, whose grasp the pulse could chill,

Had failed the hidden sense to still,

Or loose the prisoned flame :

Had fled away

From his half-slain prey

And left the conscious Soul bound to the mouldering clay.

I heard a requiem sung—

A prayer to Heaven said

A sigh breathed forth-perchance a tear
Moistened the pall above my bier-

But soon they left the dead:

And soon forgot,

For there came not

One friendly footstep back to cheer the lonely spot.

The

years, which once seemed fleet,

How slowly they passed by!

The winter's storm did hoarsely rave

Long, long, ere round my gloomy grave

The summer breeze did sigh:

But the doleful knell

Would often tell

That another shade had fled in death's dark land to dwell.

Oh, thrice, thrice happy soul !

Like mine it was not doomed

To pass ten thousand years away—
Undying Spirit chained to clay,

Immortal Thought entombed!

Can Hell bestow

A fiercer woe

Than this, through countless years to die and still to know?

*

Now centuries had past;

The funeral knell was o'er,

The sons forgot where their fathers lay
For I heard the plough-share grate its way
Where the grave-stone stood before;

And sing their merry songs among the silent dead.

And there a forest sprang

From the ground where we reclined.

The lofty boughs spread high in Heaven-
For I heard them groan by the tempest driven,-

The roots our dust entwined:

But a fire at last

O'er the forest passed

And each firm root decayed beneath the withering blast.

And there, deep, still, alone,

In a barren waste I lay,

Hushed was the song of the cheerful bird,

And nought of human sound I heard,

All, all, had passed away

And the years stole by

So silently,

I thought that Nature slept in mortal lethargy.

*

*

Hark! thunder wakes the world,

It rives the trembling sod!

The burning Universe doth tell

This is the voice of the Archangel,

This is the Trump of God!

Aye, He hath spoke→

The trance is broke

"Ye Living-Dead arise!" Shuddering with fear, I woke.

THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN

INDEPENDENCE.

BY THE HON. JONATHAN RUSSELL.

It is a magnificent spectacle to behold a great people annually crowding their temples to consecrate the anniversary of their sovereignty. On this occasion the heart of every true American beats high with a just and noble pride. He still hears the illustrious Fathers of his Country, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of their conduct, declare that the United States "are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent." The black catalogue of injury, abuse, contempt, and crime, which exhausted forbearance and drove us to resistance, rushes on his mind. He passes in review those great men who then burst upon the world, and who,