fountains, sparkling here and there in many a sportive eddy, but still rolling on, spreading fertility and beauty in its course, and growing broader and deeper as it flows on forever. The other is an artificial reservoir, confined in its position, fed by temporary supplies, liable at any moment to escape by a sudden rupture of its embankment; or, if retained, it is only to grow putrid from stagnation, and exhale in deadly vapors under a blasting sun.

Now, these two systems of pleasure are obviously opposed to each other in their very nature. The very habits of mind and traits of character, which these amusing writers encourage and confirm, involve a permanent hostility to that entire scheme of happiness which is founded on rational and christian principles.

Nor is it merely a passive enmity of nature by which this vain system of pleasure stands opposed to christianity. It breaks forth in direct and aggressive hostility. Destitute of resources within itself, it makes predatory incursions on the sacred territory of truth, and converts the most awful solemnities of religion into subjects of mockery and sport. One of the most common instruments employed by these writers is ridicule— a weapon most effective in the defence of prejudice, whatever may be its pretended value as a test of truth. This is a mere pretence, however, without a shadow of reason for its support; for it can be maintained only on the supposition that the blind prejudices of the multitude and the reigning fashions of the hour are in every instance identical with truth. For where lies the sense of ridicule? Not in opposition to abstract truth, but in opposition to the existing current of popular sympathy. This imparts oddity to an event, and absurdity to an opinion. This gives authority to a sneer, and a currency to a laugh. What, then, are the conditions of ridicule? Power of fancy to represent an object in a grotesque position; an arrogance of spirit which dares to despise it; and a coincidence of public sentiment which sustains the act and echoes the laugh. Again, to what feeling does ridicule make its appeal, but a feeling of shame? And what occasions shame, but a regard to public sentiment? Then, to make existing public sentiment a test of truth, would render truth a mere chameleon. Instead of being immutable in its nature, it would change its color and form with every change of location. For not only in dress and diet, but in conduct and character, that which is the extreme of absurdity in one community is the sublime of dignity in another.

Such is the nature of the instrument chiefly used by writers of amusement.

They deal extensively in caricature. And where do they generally find their materials? What class of subjects do they select for the exercise of their ridicule? Errors that are popular? Vices that are fashionable? The various forms of cant and hypocrisy that prevail in the more polite and polished circles of society? Folly and guilt in any of the high places of the world? Ah, no; that would be rather too serious an affair! There is influence-patronage-power to affect popularity in such quarters. The founders of fashion, the oracles of taste, the connoisseurs of refinement preside in these departments. The laugh might be turned against us. It would be more prudent to let them alone. So reason these polite authors. They turn to the

christian church, and select the peculiarity of christian character, as the most suitable subjects for satire. Here they find fair game and an open field. Here caricature may paint its distortions, and waggery may twirl its grimace and its attitudes, not only with impunity to themselves, but to the infinite amusement of those gay and polished circles, whose propitious smile is so essential to literary reputation.

Let any one revert in memory to the list of works of fiction which he has read, and then ask himself how many of the specimens of christian character introduced in such works have been faithful likenesses; and how many have been disgusting caricatures. And he will, perhaps, be surprised at the result. The christian name is represented as concealing under a mask of outward devotion, a character of malignity, or worldliness, or sensuality; and even when the outward profession is not made the veil of hypocrisy, it is openly associated with a character of fierce fanaticism, or contracted bigotry, or superstitious credulity, or ignorant stupidity. If a priest or parson be introduced, he is either some dark scheming scoundrel, or some effeminate fop of fashion, or some rubicund and roystering boon companion of the bottle, the card table and the fox chase; or some fanatical stickler for creeds and dogmas; or some devout ignoramus, whose piety, though sincere, excites pity instead of respect. Now, we admit that there are exceptions to this description; but they are so rare, as to be only exceptions to a general rule. The christian name is generally associated with some psalm-singing, sourvisaged, sanctimonious pretender to piety, with a jargon of religious cant, whose character exhibits most unlovely and distorted features, and whose life displays the most vile and contemptible conduct; while men of the world who make no pretension to piety, are set off in contrast with every noble and generous trait of character, and all high-minded and honorable actions of life.

Now, it is true, it may be replied to all this, that such unworthy characters have existed in the christian church; and the apology of Burns for his satires on religion, may be adopted:

"To stigmatize false friends of thine

Can ne'er defame thee."

But, we ask, why are evil examples so generally introduced, and worthy ones so rarely? Is there any caveat or any intimation implied or expressed, that these examples were intended to represent only "false friends" and insincere pretenders to piety? Is there any thing in thè manner in which they are introduced, to show that it was designed "to stigmatize" them, in order to relieve religion from the odium of their example? Or rather, does not the whole spirit of the performance indicate the deliberate purpose to injure the cause of religion by means of their example? At all events, whether intended or not, the practical result of such representations is to bring christian piety into contemptto identify the sincere devotion of an honest heart, and the straightforward consistency of christian principle, with superstitious cant and sanctimonious hypocrisy; and to induce irreligious men to feel contented and secure in their neglect of the whole subject of religion.

But in many instances, such writers go even beyond the point of ridiculing the christian name and profession. They make the solemn

doctrines of christianity subjects of caricature and profane burlesque. They do this by expressing the truth in the cant phrase of vulgar ignorance, so as to clothe it in an aspect of absurdity, or by associating the truth with some low allusion or ludicrous image; or by extending the limits of the truth to some extreme of evident extravagance, or blending it in association with foreign and opposite ideas; little thinking that this absurd, distorted, fantastic image, which they have conjured up as a phantom of human superstition, is nevertheless but a caricature of a divine reality, which, in a different form, is revealed in direct terms again and again, in that Book which, many of them at least, acknowledge to be the Word of God.

BOOKS BEFORE PRINTING.

WHAT people did without books, or what is the same thing to the mass of people, without printed books, becomes a greater subject of wonder every year, as these beguilers of our leisure hours become more and more numerous. A writer on this subject in Chambers' Journal gives us some curious items on the condition of literature prior to the use of printing. What would the Bishop of Durham, mentioned in the following extract, have said, if he had been told that the day would come when clergymen would read fewer books than many classes of laymen; yet that is probably the case now-unless they happen to be editors as well as clergymen-from the very circumstance that the books they do read require so much time and thought.

An old writer, Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, who, in 1344, wrote a Latin treatise on the "love of books," avowedly prepared it solely for the clergy, and seems to have treated the notion of there being any other class of readers with a magnificent contempt. 'Laymen," says he, "to whom it matters not whether they look at a book turned wrong-side upwards, or spread before them in its natural order, are altogether unworthy of any communion with books." It is presumable that he would not have said this if laymen had then been at all in the habit of reading. It is indeed a fact that many of the clergy, and men of the monastic orders, were very imperfect readers; and, according to the good bishop's views of their qualifications, some of them were hardly more fit to be entrusted with books than the despised and unlettered laity. In the treatise alluded to, his lordship is not sparing of his reproach in regard to the frequent misuse of books which came under his notice. He reprobates the unwashed hands, the dirty nails, the greasy elbows leaning upon the volume, the munching of fruit and cheese over the open leaves, which were the marks of careless and idle readers. With a solemn reverence for a book, at which we may now smile, but for which we can hardly help respecting him, he says: "Let there be a mature decorum in opening and closing volumes, that they may neither be unclasped with propitious haste, nor thrown aside after the inspection without being duly closed"—an admonition still worthy of attention in certain quarters, though of course its observance is not of so much consequence as it was in the fourteenth century, before the invention of printing.

SOME CHAPTERS ON HUMBUG.

BY THE EDITOR.

NO. III.

Do you ask me whence these follies,
Whence these stories of imposture,
Whence these silly tricks of Humbug?
I should answer, I should tell you
From the downy chins of young men,
From the naked lips of fast men,
From the tender brains of sick swains,
From the hearts of verdant lovers.

-NOT FROM HIAWATHA.

We have seen, in the last article, how Humbug proposes to cure the body, and what a money-making business it proves itself to be. His wonderful mission, however, is not confined to the bodily ills of human life. Some patients have weak minds as well as weak bodies, and Dr. Humbug is ready to serve them. In this business he also notices the weak side and enters there.

Here is a poor inebriate whose will, by the long habit of drinking, has become too weak to control his appetite and passion for strong drink. He has often wept over his misery. What shall he do? He feels himself to be a poor slave. He would do or give any thing in his power to be released from the fiend that torments him He has signed the pledge, but under the strong passion and temptation he has broken it again. What shall he do! At this juncture Humbug falls into his way in the shape of the following advertisement, which has been published in thousands of copies over the land:

"A REMEDY FOR DRUNKENNESS.-The Doctor has in his possession a remedy which effectually destroys all taste for liquor, and prevents a person from acquiring the habit of drinking. In the many thousand cases for which he has used this article, he has the pleasure to say, in not one single case has it ever failed. In towns where it has been used, temperance societies have dissolved and taverns been shut, simply because no one wanted a drink after using this Remedy. He supplied the Remedy to a celebrated temperance lecturer of this place, and he has written to the Doctor that he has made more permanent conwerts to the cause of temperance in one week than he has done all his life by preaching or example; because, after using this Remedy, all taste for liquor is completely destroyed; and after taking this Remedy, a person who had been in the habit of drinking would as soon think of drinking soapsuds and water as liquor. The discovery of this important Remedy is the greatest addition science has ever had. The effect is instantaneous."

You ask, Will any one respond to this, and be decieved thereby? You suppose that the trickery of it is too plain to allow it to be dan gerous. But you must remember how sorely the poor drunkard is sometimes pressed by his woes; and how anxious a poor wife is to have her husband restored to his family. We assure you, innocent reader, that to such long hopeless hearts, the least ray of hope that falls before them

encourages them to try the remedy. The very fact that Humbug can afford to advertise this pretended cure so largely proves that it calls forth many applications. But we can furnish the reader with positive facts in the case. When the police in Philadelphia some time ago arrested one of these impostors, and seized his letters, they found, among thousands of others, one from a poor washer-woman residing near West Chester, Pa., who had sent him $20, saved out of her hard earnings, praying him to send the remedy that her husband might be cured of drunkenness!

This is one way in which Humbug feeds his pockets by taking advantage of human weakness; but it is not the only way. There are every where to be found young gentlemen whom nature has either neglected, or on whose face it has not displayed its luxuriance of hair as largely as desired. There are few villages and country places where there is not one or several who think that a Spanish look is all that is needed to complete their importance and their happiness. With what inward joy do such swelling youth read in The New York Tribune, of January 27, 1855, as follows:

W

WHISKERS and MUSTACHES produced in six weeks by GRAHAM'S ONGUENT. It will not stain or injure the skin. $1 per bottle. Nassau-st.

Sent to any part of the country.

No.

Do any believe it? Yes; hundreds of simple souls have secretly sent on their $1, and then in faith and hope anointed their downy chins and upper lips! These wonderful appendages to a man "produced in six weeks" without "staining the skin"-"sent to any part of the country"—and only "$1 per bottle." What is one dollar spent in manure for such a soil. Young America never gave a dollar more cheerfully. He feels inwardly glad that he lives in the 19th century and has even heard of "Graham's Onguent."

There are also many to be found among the rising generation, and some among the generation advanced beyond rising years, whose heads and hearts, as well as their chins, are softer than they ought to be. Humbug is ready for them. Such read with joy in the Lancaster Independent Whig, of February, 1855:

PERSONAL "MAGNETIC LOVE POWDER!” THIS ELEC

TRICAL Powder will make young Men love young Women, and will also make young Women love young Men. It will make man and wife love each other, and all your enemies as friends. Price 50 cents a package, or three for $1. This Powder has never failed, nor never will, if used according to my directions. All orders must be pre-paid, and the Powders will be sent by return of mail. Address, Pine Grove, Pa.

Behold, even in the mountain regions of Pennsylvania is this wisdom known. Remember, "all orders must be pre-paid." Let it not be supposed that this kind of imposition is located only in country places. The following nonsense is also published in a widely circulated Almanac issued from Philadelphia. It is subjoined to a picture of a bride leaning upon the arm of the happy man who won her by the Powders :

"The Magic effects of Dr.'s Magic Love Powders are made apparent in the above cut. The courtship, of which the above is a true copy, had been lingering for seven years, and probably would have contined for seven years more