Church. The most perfect despotism ever existing on earth, piously to declare a negative as to our country's truthful progress! but, truly, to recover if possible that control over the minds of the race which the Reformation with its Protestantism had in a great measure withdrawn from it. Having been taught that the Church is the repository of all truth, its votaries would not possibly deem the assertions barefaced, that no truth could be had save through such channel; that all history is but the embodiment of well-told lies, save that which is made to lie on the historical pages of the past as "Mother Church's" priestly prelates please; they might also be made to believe that the mass of mankind, in departing from the despotic dictum, had gone backward instead of forward; that even our national progress was retrograde; our boasted liberty but another term for license; and that in plain truth there is no liberty but in the thraldom of a blind submission to a political priesthood. Can Americans believe such teaching? Shall the blood coursing through their veins, the mental thought flashing through their brains, be thus chained? Yet having been educated into a submission of his mind unto the will and dictation of those said to have been divinely appointed to rule over him, man may well entertain an honest fear lest his first steps in departure from that path, for him so well beaten, should possibly lead to anarchy and confusion; and especially so when those who have exercised a spiritual-temporal guardianship over him constructively wield the keys of heaven to lock up the benign smiles of the Creator, while placing his trembling creatures under the servile penance of their own tyrannical dictation. Christ in his sublime teaching presented no creed, but taught that as politic and essential to our well being, which reflection must and should have shown to have been purely common sense;" precepts embodying, in the simplest, most beautiful forms, the vital elements of republicanism-the policy of mutual aid and protection-the deferring of imaginary rights for the largest possible While on exercise of truly positive ones. earth and doing good to others, he quietly submitted himself to the government of the land; and it is much to be regretted that any claiming to be his Catholic followers, vicegerents, priests, or prelates, should so far have forgotten his example as to have assumed in his name the right not only to govern men but nations, or even the right to brand a nation's advancement as mere license, infidelity, or libertinism. In despite of enchainment, bold and daring minds have dared to thank God for his ennobling gifts, and have shown their thankfulness in duly exercising the powers granted to distinguish them above the rest of living creatures; and through them have we been blessed with a glorious reformation—one leading to the practical exercise of liberty, in place of blind submission to a dual despotism. Still, man has not become entirely freed. In greater or less degree, similar systematic ruling is pursued in his early education; and thereafter, in advancing from its bonds, he may well doubt whither his steps will lead, for there appears to be an ever holy fear of mental lunacy through the exercise of thought. But if all conceived it a duty, and would think, reason, and speak freely, fairly, frankly, truthful progress would be made much more rapidly, and without the least risk of "brain-cracking." But unfortunately the many-too reservedly wise in their own conceit-hug their wisdom, making, however, the busiest part of their existence a matter of religious duty, to worry, fret, torment, and then rivet chains around the body and brains o their fellow-men, lest the poor souls should injure themselves in thinking and working out truths of great import to the human family-truths perchance that might induce a pleasing sojourn here, a happier existence hereafter. When man dares to think a new thought, whether in matters spiritual or temporal, when he dares to reason upon it, and is thus led to perceive the matter as a truth, one which he supposes essential to the wellbeing of his fellow-men, then he needs their friendly encouragement, their mental assistance, in developing its truth or fairly proving its falsity, instead of a superabundance of pooh-poohs and pishes; or, much worse, a dictatorial command not to puzzle his brain with matters beyond his sphere. God has not confined the menal action; then why should man? The one course is compatible with Christianity, with the institutions of our country, and American progress; the other antagonistic thereto. The one is compatible with Protestantism-spiritual vitality; the other with Romanism-mental torpor. When man has really perceived a sublime truth, should the mind of his fellow-man remain, through wilfulness or otherwise, obtuse to his perceptions, the chances are several to one that, through spiritual mortification and chagrin, he becomes mentally crazed, and thereafter will be pointed at as a practical evidence in support of a living falsity, that reason "ran him mad," when truth should say, the want of reason in his race made him a living lunatic. morrow. If in the general exercise of reason man would support his fellow, then the idealities of the day would become realities on the The materials of truth generally digested would develop truth; the materials of error would be promptly laid aside. Man would progress without offending the Deity, or without being carried away by things of mere ideality. The receiving faith by adoption, without mental action, is the great curse through which despots are suffered to rule. To us, as an American people, the Reformation has been a great blessing. It has given us Protestantism, and Protestantism has given us republican liberty. But, says the sublime power of would-be control, look at the fruits of republicanism; triumphantly it points to the divisions, the many sects that have arisen, and exultingly proclaims, Your liberty is license, your unity is division; but "we are one rock, (Peter,) indivisible," having a "per petual charter." Happily, the world has not seen that document, but it has perceived the working of God's natural law—Division with subdivision brings unity with de velopinent. Sects, through the workings of reason, divide and subdivide, until through subdivision they are left as the sands of the sea, incapable of perceiving the difference between themselves and neighbors; and such is practical unity, the noble work of Refor mation, Protestantism, American Progress. In nature the hard and solid rock is unproductive; the agglomerated mass of inert particles is barren. Call it rock or Peter, still in its agglomeration is it sterile and unproductive of good. But when this rock becomes broken down by the divisible laws of nature, it will then become as soil, harmonic, productive, and gladdening to the heart and soul of man. It is folly in the present day to resist division, either in mind or matter. The elements will induce, govern, and control the latter. Reason, the great mental gift of the Almighty, must induce, govern, and control the former. It is folly to say that the exercise of reason is but license; that God has commanded men with questionably less brains than their fellows to rule and govern their spiritual and temporal actions. Man has had too many practical proofs to the contrary. The rock "Peter" must be again broken; for the particles, to be productive of good fruit, must be divided and subdivided until they be made portions in the sands of time. In the material world, atoms are governed through electric attraction and repulsion; and even so in the mental world, mind must act-receiving and rejecting, approving and disproving the several ideas of the day. Especially in this favored land has mind a duty to perform. During the breaking up of spiritual-temporal despotisms it must act fearlessly, boldly, to promote, yet govern the result; and we should be thankful for expressions denying truthful progress to our country, since, by eliciting reflection and investigation, they will make its progress the more apparent, and the vile source of their libels the more plainly marked. THE CHRISTIAN WIDOW; OR, THE STORMY JANUARY NIGHT. BY C. D. STUART. Twas a bitter cold night in January. A heavy rain which had been pouring down during the day, was now turned to a fiercelydriving sleet, which rattled against the window panes, making a desolate music to blend with the hissing glow of bright coal fires, burning upon hearths where outward want had seldom if ever intruded, but where desolation still might sit masked in hearts which no appliance of earthly luxury could warm with the calm delight that flows from the consciousness of having done no wrong and neglected no duty to human kind. Other nights had been as dark and cold; and ever hence, so long as the earth lasts, they will intersperse the record of time with pictures of gloom and misery, such as He alone can see, whose eye measures forward and backward the circling eternities. But this was a wild and desolate night enough for those who had no shelter but the air; for those in whose drear abodes, in a thousand lanes and alleys of a great city, comfort scarcely deigned ever to enter, and luxury never. A terrible night it was for the children of want, whose forced mission of beggary, suggested by misfortune and persecution more than by idleness, vice, or crime, brought them ouly the mouldy crusts of charity, the rebuffs of inhumanity, the jeers of the witling, and the insults of beings imagining themselves human, because they walked upright and were garbed after the fashion of men and women. In this city of New-York, girt round by sea and rivers; this great mart of trade and commerce, through which the blood-industry of a mighty nation courses, as does life-blood through the heart; this city of warehouses towering above the masts of numberless ships, by which they are ever fed, and merchant palaces, where splendor but too often sits in motley and vulgar state; in this city, richer than Tyre, and fast striving to become as proud and iniquitous; ay, here in the New-York so familiar to thousands who were born and have lived within the circle of its brick and mortar boundaries, long live, and still live to witness its filthy streets, its demagogue politicians and lawless rulers, who spend the people's money and laugh at the people's will, like so many gamesters with all the stakes which trusting dupes had put up in their hands; in this very city, so Christian if one might judge by its church spires, and so philanthropic if one but counts its hospitals, and asylums, and alms-houses where smoking soup is dispensed to the poor, but where, nevertheless, men and women are now and then, and often, too, arrested and cast among the abandoned and criminal, because forsooth they are sick and faint with the burthen and woe of poverty and misfortune, and can no longer, on this fair God's earth, so beautiful, capable, and abundant, earn by toil, or win by craft, bread to appease their hunger, garments to cover their nakedness, and a shelter from the pitiless elements; yes, here, where poverty is taunted as crime, and suffering which might compete with martyrdom, and which is the martyrdom of the poor, wins the badge of vagrancy, and is sentenced by grave judges, whose faces blossom like a summer vintage with the fat things of office, to Centre street prisons and Blackwell's Island hells, though penitentiaries they may be called, there to herd with the offcasts of brothels, with thieves, robbers, and murderers; here, where the heart that is not jaded and callous from contact and sympathy with falsehood, injustice and wrong, may fill its cup with grief, pity, and indignation, how many are the children of want, of pain, sickness, sorrow, and misery, whose crushed souls strive to bear up their burthen virtuously, yet find no word of comfort or cheer from the more fortunate world around them, and are at last driven by madness or despair to embrace vice, crime, and death! worker, professing to be full of the love of Christ, come for the sake of Christ, who walked among and dwelt with the poor; who had no stately parsonage nor contributing flock, neither he nor his disciples, in those days when disciples were not afraid of death for man's sake in the love of Christ; nor churches all glistening with stained glass, and redolent with the music of organs, and orchestras, and singers, for a price; come, one and all, for the sake of Christ, who lived and died for the poor, and see how the widow and her half orphans live in the very midst of this rich, beautiful, and proud city. May we not pause for a moment and look into the abodes of these, who are only wretches, in all their filth and abandonment, because they were at first made wretched by decrees of circumstance which they could neither foresee nor prevent, and from which they found in their distress no brotherhood to release them? May we not look in upon this widow who, by plying her needle day and night almost, until she was wasted and worn like a skeleton, has managed to rent a cellar or a garret, where, with her half orphans, dear to her as are the children of affluence to their mothers, she has existed-bending not lived-days, months, and years, since her bosom companion and only protector, save God, was laid in the grave; keeping together, and feeding and clothing, and, in so much as she could in moments snatched from imperative toil, instructing; may we not, I say, on such a night as that pitiless, bitter cold, and stormy January night, look into the cellar or garret where this type of a great class exists, and see how the fire blazes on the hearth, how warmly quilted are the beds where the half orphans sleep, and perchance dream, if sweet dreams be not too much of mockery for inheritors of misery in all their waking hours; how the larder and cupboard groan with comforts for the days when that innocent family are all well, or with delicacies if they may chance to be sick? Let us look. God help us, what a sight is this! Come, man and woman and child of plenty and affluence, come from comfortable homes; come, good preacher and See that dark room: there is fire on the hearth, a solitary stick, one of a bundle doled out to the widow after long pleading with some official appointed by our over-taxed city, and which must last so many days or her haunt will be fireless. How that stick flickers its light! The flame seems to have a human consciousness, and burns slow that the widow may have light and fire a little longer. It is midnight! still there is a form over that flickering fire, and the hands of that form move as with painful labor. Heaven grant us hard hearts, that we may see all, before we startle that form with the gush of our pity. The widow is putting the last stitches to a shirt, for the making of which she, to-morrow, may claim sixpence. Think of it, ye who are rushing from competence and fortune to dig more plentiful gold from distant sands. Think of it, millionaire, in the midst of thy feverish thirst after more gold-gold, to which thou wilt cling in agony on the bed of death, and whose yellow light will stream balefully upon thy glassy eyes, when the dark waters roll up and freeze thee, stark stiff. Think of the widow who is bending over that waning fire, that when to-morrow comes she may get bread for flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. But ere that last stitch is taken, let us look around the widow's haunt. Where is the soft carpet which should stay the chill from breaking through the crevices of the floor! Alas! the widow's haunt has no carpet, but blessed be the Croton, since with this the floor is made clean, for poverty is not always filthy like shameless pauperism; and through the rickety doors and windows, the keen blast finds its way and makes the widow shiver, as she sits there plying her needle, and mingling in her brain thoughts of her sleeping children and the memory of the dead. Painful thoughts, holy memories! Does not her vision now and then, even amid all this present woe, pierce backward through, the past-through years when she was happy in the life and love of a fond husband; when competence had not been swept away by sickness, misfortune, and death; when her children, now pale and drooping, were as summer flowers, laughing in the gladdening sunshine; when life was all joy and beatitude, the day full of sweet realities, and the night of sweeter dreams? Nay, does not her vision sometimes go backward still further, to the days of girlhood, when the sky of the future was to her imagination but a golden glow of ecstatic promises; when she mirrored in anticipation the delights of womanhood-delights as paradise to the young and trusting human heart, as was Eden to the sinless Eve-nor dreamed a shadow, or a cloud, could ever obscure the radiance, or cast heavy drops of bitterness in her joy-brimming cup? Man nor woman never yet lived who had no such youth to revert to with joy and sadness, in years when time had marked its wrinkles on the brow, and furrowed the cheek-may be with tears; nor was ever heart so cast down or depraved, that it could not be for a moment lighted up by the memories of those early days; a proof, beautiful it seems, that God is still Lord paramount of our inmost being. Yes! there is no carpet on the widow's floor, and the wind whistles fiercely upon the window panes, and pierces through many crevices upon the widow's shivering form. And the bed, where her little ones sleep-by the side of which, ere they were kissed by the fond though desolate mother, for the last time ere they slept, they knelt down and uttered the sweet prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; a prayer which father and mother had both Yes! they dream that they are wandering pleasantly in the green fields, feeding themselves with berries, as do the birds of heaven; and by the wayside they meet with an angel, who gives them bread and meat, and blesses their innocent mirth. And why do they dream of eating? Because they went hungry to their bed, and nature, true to its instincts, pictures in their dormant vision those comforts and luxuries which still the cravings of the body, and of which if the body be robbed, the soul faints, and trembles, and fails. Oh, think not, regenerator of society, or thou who wouldst regenerate, that there can be harmony and peace in the spirit, while the body is tortured by keen want. Remember that Christ taught first to feed and clothe the poor. How can they |
