is something disagreeable about silk. It is never a friend to the sick-room, and its rustling is annoying to sensitive persons. Were the public at rest, a great benefit would be realized from a reform. Long and sour-visaged husbands would be scarce. There are intellects similar to silk-too nice for common people. They soar aloft in unknown regions, and scarcely ever descend to the earth. Or when they endeavour to converse with the Calico intellect, they speak in a foreign language. They live in ideality, never in reality. Here, too, there should be a reform; and this must be effected by both sexes, for there are silk men as well as silk women. Calico, which can be found in abundance and cheap, should form the principal ingredient of the mind, for being was granted us to live the REAL LIFE, NOT THE IDEAL.”

“DEGENERACY OF MORALS THE CAUSE OF OUR RUPTURE.

BY O. P. FISK.

"The moral condition of an age or of a nation is known by the character and number of its great men. And especially is this true in every free representative government, where the people are considered the fountain of power, and at whose bidding rulers are created and deposed.

"In such a country a wise and good man cannot rule when the ruling sentiment of the people discards virtue and favours corruption; nor can a bad man rule when the ruling sentiment upholds virtue and discards injustice.

"If this be true, who can contemplate the ruling sentiment of the people of this country for the twenty-five years past, and wonder as to the cause of our rupture? Who rather does not think it strange that God has suffered the American nation to go so long unpunished?

"Wisdom has often raised her voice in our high places, warning us of our suicidal course, and admonishing us to avert the terrible storm, which has already burst upon us with a fury which threatens to surpass the French Revolution in destruction.

"We, blinded by our prosperity, our rapid acquisition of wealth, power, and national glory, heeded not the voice of wisdom, and turned a deaf ear to the just demands of our injured citizens. We have been plunging deeper and deeper into iniquity for many years past, and we must acknowledge, however painful and humiliating it may be, that, notwithstanding our unparalleled progress in the arts and sciencesin our sudden elevation to a national importance second to none-we suffered our moral standard of right and wrong to degenerate so much as to justly merit the calamities which have befallen us. Those elements so pernicious to civil governments have long been as rife here as they ever were in Greece and Rome when those republics began to decline.

"Did our Government afford as good opportunities to the designing and unprincipled as the Roman did, there would have been unfolded a Cæsar, Marius, and a Sylla long before now.

"But the founders of our republic, avoiding the errors in other governments, were able to give us, as they did, the best government ever established; and those very elements which destroyed other nations might have long existed here with comparatively little injury to our country, were it not for slavery that in itself being sufficient to destroy any govern

ment.

"Every one who is at all familiar with the history of our country knows that in some of the high places of our government have been men exceedingly corrupt. Who gave these men power to rule, and maintained them in their iniquity?

"The people, being their own rulers, are accountable for these sins; and unless this revolution which is now raging ameliorates the condition of the oppressed, and purges our land from some of its grossest impurities, the future historian will inform posterity that the American nation was strong enough intellectually, but morally too weak to wield the vast resources which we possess for the good of mankind.

"One can with difficulty suppress the feeling of revenge that animates his soul when he reads the account of the death of Agricola and Cicero. He is astounded when he learns that Nero rejoiced at the sufferings of his countrymen, and laughed while Rome was burning. These deeds of wickedness, although done in an age when the human mind was sunk in the lowest depths of degradation-when the spirit of liberty was a stranger to the human heart-still strike the understanding of the reader with astonishment and horror, and cannot fail to extort compassion from the sympathetic.

"But the American nation, which has ever boasted of its adherence to justice, has looked with indifference on outrages committed against our own citizens, that vie with any act of atrocity committed in any preceding age. Peaceable, lawabiding citizens have been murdered in cold blood, because they dared respond to nature's call and decry oppression, and shout for freedom. The Government has not only winked at this species of barbarism-which, considering the age in which we live, has never had its parallel-but rewarded the perpetrators of these awful deeds-deeds which extract tears of sympathy and compassion from the very stones. Kansas! thy plains have drunk the best blood of thy pioneers. No court on earth avenged their wrongs, but there is a court in heaven to which they and the down-trodden slave can appeal with success. The Judge of that court is Almighty God, and before rendering His decision He does not ask whether the

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suppliants are rich or poor, black or white, whether they are members in good standing in the Church, but metes out justice to murderers and oppressors according to their deserts. The American nation has been tried before the bar of justice —the unalterable decision has been pronounced. And during the whole trial the question was not asked whether this nation descended from Shem, Ham, or Japheth, or whether we are the professed followers of Christ or of Mohammed. But the decision-would you read it? It is written in unmistakeable and indelible characters :-' America, turn from your ways, or you shall be numbered among the nations that exist no more.' This is the terrible decision of One who will execute His laws, in spite of the friends of slavery or the Union. Jefferson Davis may, by the shrewdness of his counsels, obscure even the military glory of Hannibal. England may frown, and weigh carefully the value of cotton, calculate the force of her navy, and notify us that her 'drumbeat encompasses the globe.' Louis Napoleon may estimate the chances of conquest, number his experienced officers, point us to his military achievements and his vast resources. Yet will the just cause finally triumph in America. War shall reign, and peace shall not be known in our land, until our difficulties are settled according to the principles of equity and justice. When the rights of the slave are considered and respected, both in the North and in the South, and corruption is banished from our rulers-then, and not till then, will we be the happiest, greatest, and most peaceful nation on earth.

We did not spend the whole evening with the Literary Societies, for we had also received a kind invitation to attend a meeting of the Faculty, or Educational Committee, and were

very glad to avail ourselves of this opportunity of hearing one of their debates respecting the management of the College. The plan seemed to me an excellent one, that the President, all the Professors, and the Lady Superintendent should meet and discuss freely all topics connected with the discipline and instruction of the College, deciding practical points in full conclave, and thus securing future unanimity of action; and the friendly spirit and sound judgment shown in the debate augured well for the government of the College.

On the following days we were present at numerous "recitations," and found that the same system of daily examination by the Professor was pursued, though it seemed to me that the text-books used and work done were somewhat more thorough than at Oberlin. The Professor of Mathematics told me that the standard of education here did not differ materially from that of Yale College, with which he was familiar-falling, perhaps, somewhat behind it in classical studies, and excelling it in the attention given to modern languages.