deed, a fine scenery, seldom equalled, and very seldom surpassed. It not the grandest in the State of Virginia, it is truly grand in its mountain scenery, and beautiful in its greatly diversified landscapes, from various stand-points. It has the finest air and the most salubrious water; but not the most productive soil. It abounds in verdure. The stately pine, the verdant eedar, and the still more verdant broom, give it, even in autumn, a vernal appearance. But with all these claims, the painful associations, the unwelcome reminiscences of the godless life and the hopeless death of its gifted and politically honored proprietor, spread over the whole premises a melancholy pall, and leave a depressing sadness, which earth's grandeur, riches, honor, glory, cannot mitigate, much less annihilate.

But here we must lay down our pen for the present.

A. C.

POPULAR PERIODICALS.

[SELECTED BY MRɛ. S. H. C.]

In the last No. of the Golden Rule were introduced several substantial witnesses, the "Pittsburgh Visitor," the "Journal and Messenger," and Dr. Judson, giving their decided and unequivocal testimony to the pernicious, ruinous, soul-destroying, soul-damning influences of the current literature, the light, popular, trashy readings which are sweeping the land like the withering, scorching Simoon, darkening the very heavens like the flies and locusts of Egypt. "Clouds without water, carried about of winds-trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots-raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame-wandering stars, to whom are reserved the blackness of darkness forever." "Cursed things!" Yes, "cursed things," eating out the vitals of Christianity, destroying the life-blood, the essence of truth and holiness, even the Bible, God's own book, the purchase of blood, even the blood of the Lamb, is cast into the shade.

Mrs. Swisshelm publicly and unhesitatingly declares that Godey, Graham, Peterson, yes, the whole batch of fashion-plate magazines, spread as much domestic misery and devastation over the human race, as all the rum-sellers in the nation; yes, instigate more murders than the tyrannical, blood-thirsty Nero!

The Journal and Messenger," alluding to the same publications, says: "We confess, that to us, most of the staples of these magazines and weeklies, the tales, fashion plates, &c., are trash, not only unproductive of good, but have a decided tendency to positive evil."

The holy, the ever-blessed Judson, now in glory, tuning his harp to notes seraphic, around the burning throne of God, while on his last visit to America, wept tears of anguish while witnessing this burning, scorching, desolating tide of damnation! His holy soul was SERIES IV.-VOL. VI.

8*

pained, AGONIZED, passing from village to village, from city to city, beholding centre-tables loaded with fashionable weeklies and monthlies, to the exclusion of the solid and pure. Godey, Graham, the Columbian, the Couriers, the Saturday Posts, and other varieties of "yellow literature"-"full of over-wrought fiction, and flippant, though brilliant nonsense." His righteous soul was vexed from day to day, while witnessing the fearful ravages of this "light bread," the stepping stones to the ball room, the merry dance, the gay and fashionable resort, the nightly revel, the lewd exhibition, the theatre, yea, to the house of her "whose steps take hold on HELL!" ANOTHER WITNESS.-We introduce Mrs. Vinton, the consecrated missionary to Burmah, whose praise is in all the churches, who, while on a recent visit to this country, witnessed, with tearful eyes, the low state of Zion, the seared consciences of children and youth, their impetuous rush to the gay, the foolish, and the fashionable. Why was this? Why produced the gospel so little effect? Even the melting strains of tender, pathetic, angelic love, the most searching arousing appeals of death, judgment, and eternity, of heaven and hell, fell powerless. What was it that seared the conscience, rendered the heart callous, harder than the nether mill-stone? Why was it that children and youth could sit from Sabbath to Sabbath, under the most solemn and affecting sermons, wholly unmoved? "At first," says she, "this appeared unaccountable, but when I entered their parlors and saw their centre-tables, my wonder ceased." Her burdened heart was overwhelmed, she burst out in the overflowings of soul-"O mothers, mothers! be careful what your children read-be doubly cautious also of their associates." These and many other facts, touching the evils of these fashionable monthlies, we had from her own lips, which she has since more fully published to the world.

These facts, with other testimony equally distinguished, shall be presented to our readers as time and space permit. We have testimony on testimony, even volumes-clcuds of holy witnesses. Besides, we rejoice to say, men of the world who make no pretensions to piety, are beginning to see that novels are a curse, a bitter curse, to their families-that their influence on the minds and lives of their children are exceedingly pernicious, tending to foolish, trifling, dissipated thought and action; to immodesty, disobedience and impudence; retard their education, destroy a relish for high and noble intellectual endowments. Men wholly destitute of the fear of God, see clearly that light reading not only wastes the time necessary for the acquisition of useful knowledge; but they see also that the imagination soon becomes wild, foolish, visionary, extravagant, the judgment weakened, the reasoning power unhinged, and all the perceptive faculties destroyed or greatly vitiated, producing idle, indolent, and sluggish habits of thought.*

For these, and other considerations, many parents, from mere worldly policy and good common sense, without any special regard for the never-dying soul, the enormous, overwhelming moral evils,

*The "Boston Transcript," a secular paper, became so perfectly disgusted at the indiscriminate puffing of books and periodicals, the light, trashy literature, that after a certain new publication had been announced by many book

have closed their doors firmly and forever, against every species of romance and lewd infidelity-Godey, Graham, Sartain, Holden, Peterson, Harper, and the host of miscellaneous trash with which our world is cursed, while many professors of religion seem perfectly hoodwinked, blindfolded, indifferent and unconcerned, load down their centre-tables and store their libraries with books and periodicals which unduly excite the passions, feed the depraved appetite, pollute the heart, poison the soul, destroy the principles of purity and virtue, till "the whole head becomes sick, the whole heart faint." O, what strange inconsistency! Verily "the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before them."-Golden Rule.

THOUGHTS FOR THOSE WHO THINK.

[From the New York Chronicle]

PERVERTED LEARNING.-"Using the Lord's stream to turn one's own mill," is a quaint way for illustrating the practice, so common, of using learning to subserve a selfish and sectarian end. Truth is not sought for what it is in itself, nor is knowledge cultivated as the means to a good character and a successful career, but simply as the prop of a dogma, a creed, or a party. The consequence of seeking knowledge for such a purpose, is to pervert the understanding, distort the judgment, and defeat the end of education. Learning, to the mind of a Mohammedan or Papist, is not unfrequently (like the indurated muscles around a dislocated joint, which prevents its being set) "Ever learning, they are never the means of confirming it in error. able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

A LEARNED CASTE.-The priests of ancient Egypt, and the Brahmins of modern Hindostan, are examples of a learned monopoly. Of the former, Plutarch says, that "the kings must be either of the order of priests or soldiers, these two classes being distinguished, the one by their wisdom, the other by their valor. When they have chosen a warrior for king, he is instantly admitted into the order of priests, who instruct him in their mysterious philosophy. The priests may censure the prince, give him advice, and regulate his actions. By them is fixed the time when he may walk, bathe, or visit his wife." "Such privileges," says Larcher, "must have inspired them with contempt for the rest of the nation, and must have excited a spirit of disgust in a people not blinded by superstition." They filled the offices of the State, gave laws to the palace of the monarch and the cottage of the peasant, and claimed the exclusive possession of knowledge, and the right to dispense it to others in such form and degree

sellers and editors, when it came before the editor of the "Transcript," he threw the volume into the coal-hole for fuel, saying, "We wish the same disposition could be made of three-fourths of the cheap, flashy, yellow-covered abominations, under the name of novels, that infest the shelves of our periodical dealers." Amen!

as would suit their own purpose. The Brahminical caste enjoys a similar monopoly in India, and with like results; being supercilious and overbearing, and obstructing the flow of knowledge to the mass of the people. The Brahmin looks with contempt on the other castes, and will not eat food cooked at the same fire. The priests of Rome have striven for a like position in Europe; but the genius of the people not favoring their designs, they are compelled to share the privi leges and prerogatives of knowledge with the rest of mankind.

SOCIALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM.-There is no healthy progress in civilization which does not carry with it the individual man as well as the social organization. No matter how well society may be or ganized, or how cultivated certain classes may be, if there is no general elevation of the individuals of which the nation is composed, it is still in a state of barbarism. The ignorant Helots of ancient Attica, and the ten thousand brutalized slaves in Rome, to one noble senator or patrician, were like the sands of Sahara to its oasis, the latter being too small and few to redeem the wide waste of desert from its general character of sterility and desolation. So, Athenian and Roman civilization was little more than green spots amid a general barbarism, as at present in Russia, where lords are numbered by units, and serfs by thousands. As Guizot says, "two elements, then, seem to be comprised in the great fact which we call civilization-two circumstances are necessary to its existence-it lives upon two conditions-it reveals itself by two symptoms: the progress of society, and the progress of individuals; the melioration of the social system, and the expansion of the mind and faculties of man. Whenever the exterior condition of man becomes enlarged, quickened, and improved; whenever the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself by energy, brilliancy, and its grandeur; wherever these two signs concur, and they often do so, notwithstanding the greatest imperfections in the social system, there man proclaims and applauds civilization."-History of Civilization, p. 25.

LEARNING AND RELIGION.-We have no example in the first age of the Christian church of its seeking enlargement by means of learning. Then, Christians were content with being the holiest, without aspiring to be the most intellectual; then, "Christ and him crucified," needed no superadded embellishment of the schools in order to become the power of God unto salvation. Schools were resorted to rather as the means of general knowledge, than of individual or party pre-eminence.

THE JESUITS AS EDUCATORS.-The Jesuits were the great agents in making education the prop of the church. They used it to protect Romanism against the fatal assaults of the Reformation. They saw, they felt, that the mischief that great movement had done to the papal cause, was owing to the revival of learning. Education the people had determined to have. The musty folios in Greek and Latin were dug up from the rubbish of centuries, and scattered all abroad. The giant had emerged from his cradle, and no power on earth could bind him. To read, and think, and investigate, were the universal rage. This excited state of the public mind generated Luther's thunder, and gave it point and power. A century earlier would have stifled the movement in a vacuum of ignorance and imbecility, and Luther would have followed Huss to the fires of the stake. All this the Jesuits well understood. Hence, they laid their plans with consummate skill, to

turn this agency which had been so fatal to Rome, in her favor; to do which, they brought their full force to bear upon making themselves the most finished scholars, and to construct a system of education so complete as to give them a monopoly of the business. Nor did they fail; for, in a short time, it became the highest recommendation of a book to have the name of a Jesuit in its title-page. Their colleges were flooded with students, while those of the Protestants declined; and the consequence was, a counter-reformation that brought back to the bosom of Rome not a few of the seceding nations. Our modern college course, and general plan of university education, are modeled more by the Jesuits, probably, than any other class of educators.

JESUITISM OF LEARNING. The policy of making education a support of sect and creed, on which the Jesuits first acted, has been adopted in every denomination of Christendom. In England, the Established Church stands at the threshold of the Universities, saying"You must subscribe my creed, or you cannot enter here." At the doors of Harvard stands Unitarianism; at those of Yale, Congregationalism; at those of Middletown, Methodism; at those of Brown, the Baptist; at those of Princeton, Presbyterianism; at those of Columbia, Episcopalianism; and thus, at all our Colleges and Universities, stands some sectarian form of belief, to say, not that you must subscribe my creed as a condition of entrance, but, to your ascendancy in the Faculty and the Board of Trustees. This is a generally acknowledged necessity of learning and education amongst us, or a condition of its success. The consequence is, such an extent of divisibility in our educational talents and resources, that no one gets enough, except in a few rare cases, to make a respectable College or University; and our country is overrun with things in this line, which have neither library, philosophical apparatus, nor corps of education, on a scale of sufficent expansion to entitle them to the name of a University. They may, in some cases, be the seedling, which time and favoring circumstances will mature into something worthy of that name, provided this process of divisibility, to give place to our constantly multiplying colleges, does not dwarf and kill them. There are two things which are considered indispensable to a party or sect; one is a newspaper, and the other is a college.

AN UNSECTARIAN PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.*Of this we have been in favor of for years. The friends of education ought to unite as such, and not as sectarists, in turning their influence, their learning, their funds, and their students into the same institution. Thus Universities, in deed as well as in name, will rise into being, and by the intercourse which they will promote between those of different denominations, the asperities of sect will gradually abate, and education and Christian union will go hand in hand. But in the present state of things, our very charitable foundations for learning, not only produce, but perpetuate, sectional divisions, and threaten to make schism as enduring as Christianity itself. We see no present hope of checking the evil, though we say now the same that we said years ago that

*Such is Bethany College. The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is our motto. It is the religion of Protestants. We found our college, as our church, upon the Bible.

A. C.