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malicious party slanders and sarcasms which it may please his employers to circulate. Placard, as he walks the streets, may feel a little advertisingly; yet, after all, he is a mere mechanical medium for the representation of certain statements, the truth or falsity of which is only known to others. So Mr. Editor considers himself a mere intellectual medium for the setting forth of certain allegations, which may be true or false, for any thing he knows.

Placard has no predilection as to the things he publishes, walking as complacently under 'Celebrated Pills,' which are sure to destroy the unlucky wight that swallows

them, or 'Life Bitters,' that are as good as brandy, only dearer, and which temperance men can drink without hurting the conscience. It's all the same to Placard. So with Mr. Editor; he is as willing to give proper literary shape to the calumnies of one party as the other. In one case it is back and front that does the work; in the other it is the brain. There is little difference between the two trades, except that Placard is probably able to care less, and so, with an honest conscience, sleep sounder, having done less harm, than the Editor. Both are necessary in the present condition of society, and are therefore tolerable.

THE EDITOR-AN ESSAY.

BY AN OLD KNICKERBOCKER.

THERE is, perhaps, no calling which the ingenuity or the necessities of society have called into existence so intrinsically important as that of the Editor. We write now philosophically and morally, not editorially. Man has been characterized as "a thinking animal," from the fact that he possesses, above all others, the faculty of associating ideas, and from those ideas drawing conclusions applicable either retrospective, prospective, or to the present; yet, although mankind possess this faculty, it cannot be denied that, in the aggregate, the opinions of others are, in nine cases out of every ten, consulted before the individual man completes his conclusions. In fact, most men are so absorbed or occupied in the details of the immediate physical necessities of existtence, that the faculty of thought tends mostly in that direction; and to a very few is left the duty of all ethical and religious thinking necessary for the whole. Thus a minister is employed, and paid an annual salary, to do the religious thinking of his parishioners; in other words, to frame the

necessary theory and plan of religious duties which they are to perform; and no one presumes, or has time to think for himself, nor the hardihood to contradict what the holy man sets forth; hence, when they have complied with his instructions, by the performance of certain external formula, sustained by a sincere belief in the correctness of his teachings, they feel that they have performed all that religious duty requires of them, and their consciences are satisfied..

So it is in the moral world, embracing as it does the whole field of what is supposed to constitute the science of ethics, social and political. The great masses of men, whatever may be their instincts, are occupied in the daily affairs of life to such a degree that they are compelled, in these matters, to look for the opinions of those whose business it is to think, and to be governed in their conclusions according to the teaching that chance, design, or inclination may place before them; and, for the saving of time, they naturally seek the nearest and readiest means of information.

has found the chimera of a new system of social government, transcendent in all its qualities, and in comparison with which the experience of six thousand years sinks into insignificance. He has devised a plan for the amelioration of the whole human race, the instantaneous emancipation of entire continents of people from barbarism and moral darkness to the true light and glory of the highest perfection of intelligence, and the advancement of those already enlightened to a condition of far greater knowledge, purity, and enjoyment. He has perfected a system of government which would strike off, at a single blow, the shackles of millions of enslaved people, and render all mankind, to the remotest corner of the earth, free, intelligent, and happy; and, like all the rest, he expects to accomplish his great design through the instrumentality of the American ballot-box.

In our day, and especially in our country, the newspaper becomes the oracle of the unthinking masses. When we say unthinking, we mean those who, from want of time, think superficially. They seize upon the first sheet that comes in their way, very often selecting that which, from its apparent cheapness, seems most convenient to their means, and with its perusal occupy the leisure hour which the imperative duties of life permit them to appropriate to such employment. Therein they read not only the current news of the day, accounts of battles, sieges, of hairbreadth 'scapes by flood and field, of crime and its punishment, virtue and its reward, of markets and the price of stocks; but also the cogitations of a thinking brain-a brain perhaps overwrought and monomaniac in its reflections, yet, withal, capable of clothing its aberrations in a garb of poetic attractiveness; or, it may be, a brain clear in its perceptions, sound, logical, and homely. The Editor who Now, all these theories, per se, have the conducts its columns may be a visionary and apparent merit of good intention; at least, a theorist, building up in the minds of his they are subjects which appeal to the moral readers a fabric of vapor, which, glittering sentiments; and, if they were not utterly in the sunshine of a gorgeous fancy, seems and palpably impracticable, partial, and misbeautiful like the rainbow, and is yet as base-chievous in their tendencies and composiless and evanescent as the mist on which the rainbow is painted.

He may be a fanatic, whose whole soul is absorbed in the darling object of a single philanthropy; with him all other objects become secondary; he appeals only to the sympathies of those who read, and strives with all his might to concentrate those sympathies upon a single point. With him the class of unfortunates that has arrested his attention stands alone upon earth; there are no other sufferers, no other objects of commiseration, none other deserving the consideration of man, and for their sake all other interests must give way-the ties of kindred, love of country, duties to societyevery thing must yield to the claims of this sympathetic Moloch, and the higher law is invoked to wreak its anathemas on the consciences of all who dare demur.

He may be a political economist, who, in a remote corner of a diseased imagination,

tions, their proselytes would number thousands where they now count by tens. It is a well-known fact in mental philosophy, that an intelligent mind, partially diseased, emits the most brilliant and fanciful scintillations of thought; hence we are enabled to account for the beautiful and attractive garb in which these theorists clothe their arguments; and it becomes the duty of men of reflection and calm thought to take off the tinsel ornaments from these creations, and place before the reading world the naked, corporeal sophistry which they have been made to

cover.

This is done to a certain degree, but it is not always done in the cheapest form; hence it is that many who read the one never see the other; their minds, having imbibed the poison, never reach the antidote, and, consequently, the popular sentiment becomes convulsed with a mixture of discordant and irrational theories, the result of a diseased

and imperfect school of newspaper litera

ture.

Such being the influence exercised by Editors over the popular mind, how apparent is it that the conductor of a public journal should be fitted by nature, as well as education, for so responsible a duty. The press should be wholly free, in the usual acceptance of the term as applied to the press; but the man who conducts it should be neither a fanatic, a false theorist, a soulbound partisan, an inert, passive, mercenary slave, a senseless fool, nor the advocate of illiberal doctrines; and the only way that is left to root out these excrescences remains with the readers themselves; with them rests the whole responsibility of purifying the oracle, and rendering the public press in reality what it professes to be-the conservator of the public weal, the friend of order, the dispenser of intelligence, and an engine of truth, justice, morality, and free dom.

This rests with the people. When the masses refuse to patronize prurient and mischievous publications; when they cease to buy a paper merely to see what the Editorwhom they know to be obscene or scurrilous-has to say about somebody or something; when they will take or purchase a paper for its intrinsic merit alone, and the actual good they are to derive from it, then will the new era begin, and our newspapers will become what they profess to be-the oracles of the people; and, through their influence, the popular mind will be trained to wise and rational reflection. No man publishes a newspaper merely for amusement or for the sake of enforcing particular theories; he does it for the profit of the thing, and he is sure to publish that which sells best; hence it rests with the people to say what kind of matter they will have, and whether a bad man shall be allowed to exer

cise the high and honorable profession of an Editor.

An Editor should be the director rather than the creator of public opinion; he should watch the current of the popular mind, and, through the acute judgment and general knowledge which he is supposed to possess, check the hasty and irrational impulse; and the reader should be governed by his conclusions, if they are sound and logical. But, in order to entitle him to this great deference, he must make his appeal to their understanding as well as their sympathies, and, above all, against their mere prejudices. It is not essential that the Editor should be a learned man, in the scholastic meaning of the word; but he should be a man wellinformed on general topics. He should be what is called "well read," and possess a quick perception. He should be a man of calm and deliberate judgment, to enable him to reason thoroughly; and possess nerve, to enable him to put forward his cogent arguments forcibly. A vein of wit is essential to the Editor, for with it he can dip his pen in satire where argument fails, or where the subject is so foolish as to appreciate or yield to no better weapon. If he deals in politics, (and what Editor does not ?) he should be versed in political history, and able to compare systems, draw conclusions, and exhibit effects. In short, the Editor should be intelligent, sensible, and, above all, honest in his opinions and writings.

If the gentlemen who conduct the editorial columns of the public press were all of this class, we should have a community better regulated, and better laws better administered. The great mass of the people would be more intelligent, and the popular mind more rational and harmonious. There would be less of partisan attachment for party's sake, and more of patriotism, good morals, and good order.

ers.

RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS.

THE religious belief of the Hindoos is called Sheva, the Destroyer of all. Now, whilst the Brahminism, and is founded on a most exten- latter is worshipped by all, the former has sive collection of sacred records, of which the scarcely any attention paid to his temples; and Brahmins are allowed to be the sole expound- even Vishnu, the Preserver, has few votaries, "These sacred writings (says Mr. Strat- compared with the Destroyer, Seeb. Suborham, in his 'Indian Recollections') are of two dinate to these are 330,000,000 inferior gods kinds the Vedas and Shastres. The former and goddesses, each representing some pecumay be termed their Scriptures, the latter ex- liar virtue or vice. The Hindoos suppose that positions of them. Beass Muni (that is, Beass each of the three presiding powers oftentimes the inspired), a prophet who lived in the reign seeks to encroach upon the prerogative of his of Judistheer, on the banks of the Jumna, near compeer, and thus are often quarrelling and the present city of Delhi, collected all the de- and seekieg to subvert each other's arrangetached pieces which form the Vedas, from all ments."

parts of India, and gave them their present One of their most superstitious practices form and arrangement. They are divided consists in worshipping or deifying the the into four books, all written in the Sancrit. The waters of the Ganges. This large and beaufirst book is called Rug Veda, which signifies tiful river extends from west to east across an the Science of Divination, concerning which extensive district in Hindostan proper, and it principally treats. The second is distin- with its tributaries may be reached by a very guished by the title of Sheham, which signifies large proportion of inhabitants, in the most Piety or devotion, and this book treats of religious and moral duties.

populous and productive part of India. The sacred ceremony of adoring the Ganges, conThe third is the Judger Veda, which, as the sists in the population crowding morning and word implies, includes the whole science of evening to bathe in it, and quantities of the Religious Rites and Ceremonies. The fourth is water are carried to all parts of India, and are denominated Obater Bah: in the Sanscrit, sworn by in courts of justice. "At Allahabad obater signifies the being or essence, and bah, (continues the above entertaining writer), good; this, literally, interpreted, is the know- where the streams of the Ganges and the ledge of the good Being, and accordingly, this Jumna unite, the country for many miles book comprehends the whole science of theo- round is considered sacred ground; and so logy and metaphysical philosophy. greot is the number of pilgrims who resort

The Vedas, as also the Shastras or commen- thither for bathing, that the vizier has received taries, pretend to great antiquity; so much so, in one year half a lac of rupees, for permission that many Europeans have been strangely to enjoy the benefit of immersion in the sacred staggered in their belief of the Mosaic chro- flood. Many are the lives sacrificed here annology by reading them. But it only requires nually. The persons who thus fall victims to a little consideration and research to discover their superstition are generally females, who a vein of imposition running through the whole come from all parts of the country to perform of their details. They reckon the duration of the tragic deed, and who show a firmness of the world by four ages, or jogues, extending purpose worthy a better cause. Several of altogether about eight millions of years; but them, accompanied by the priests, embark in the fallacy of this reckoning has boen fully a boat, and proceed to the spot where the exposed by astronomical observation. streams unite, when each of the victims in The idea which the Shastrees give of God, is succession descends from the boat to the river, that there is one Supreme Being, whom they with a large earthen pan fastened to her body, style Bhogabon, or Esher, sometimes Khodah; and is supported by a priest till she has filled proceeding from him, are three powers or the pan with water from the stream, when the deities, namely, Bruhmha, the Creator of all; priest lets go his hold, and she sinks to rise no Vishnu, the Preserver of all; and Seeb, or more, amidst the applause of the spectators,

whilst the Brahmins enjoy the scene, and extol structures, which 'are dragged along by the the fortitude of the last victim to her who is multitude amid the shouts of assembled thouabout to follow." sands. As the wheels pass swiftly on, selfThe cow is an animal held sacred among devoted victims rush forward, throw themselves the Hindoos, and cow-dung is used in the tem- before them, and are crushed to death, exultples and other places as a species of holy oint- ing in the hope of thus securing a passage to ment. The lotus, a plant with tall, luxuriant the celestial abodes. The practice of widows leaves, is likewise held in deep veneration. sacrificing themselves on the funeral pile of Some of the temples or pagodas of the Hindoos their husbands, is another horrid rite; but it are of high antiquity and gigantic conception, has been suppressed in recent times by the majestic appearance, and tasteful architecture. British government.

The entrance is always made in a huge pyra- Besides Brahminism, there are a variety of mid, in a number of stories, which gradually religious beliefs and sects in India, but all less grow narrower as they approach the top. In- or more founded on the most gross superstiside may be seen the cow lying down, a cer- tion. Each possesses its own temples, images, pent, or some other object of adoratiou. Here and orders of priesthood. The Boodhists, presacrifices take place. One of the most exten- vious to their violent expulsion by the Hinsive pogodas of India is that of Juggernaut, doos, were second in point of numbers; but whose towers are seen at twenty miles' dis- their religion is now little known in India, and tance. Here, as at other places, there are pro- is confined chiefly to Thibet, Birmah, Siam, cessions of idol cars, large heavy ornamented and Ceylon.-Chambers.

THOUGHTS ON GOING TO MY NATIVE HOME.

BY WILLIAM WALCUTT

Now will I journey home-
Home, to look once more
On all the well-known scenes—
Scenes loved, on sweet Scioto's shore,
Far out a- West.

There my forefathers rest,

Rest now in quiet sleep;
Calmly their gray heads bowed-
Bowed, and we were left to weep
In the far West.

There is my mother's grave-
Grave, at whose sad shrine

So oft my tears have flowed

Flowed burning from my heart's deep mine,

Far out a- West.

And there my father dwells

Dwells, and his dim eye

For my return watches-

Watches, till hope in his breast dies,

Far in the West.

Brothers and sisters ten-
Ten, that were eleven-

They all live but Mary;

Mary with mother dwells in heaven,
Far from the West.

There still remains the hearth-
Hearth round which we met
And played our rustic games-
Games of joy I never can forget,
Played in the West.

There are the sacred spots

Spots I've treasured well-
Where my young heart first loved--
Loved more than tongue can tell,
Far in the West.

There dwells my early love-
Love, my Lilmah true!
Oft to the East she turns-
Turns trustingly, as if she knew
I sought the West.

Life's new sun seems rising-
Rising, and morn appears,

A glow with dimpling smiles-
Smiles of sweet peace. Can I weep tears
Out in the West?

So! thus I'm traveling home-
Home, to look once more

On all the well-known scenes--
Scenes loved, on sweet Scioto's shore,
Far in the West.

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