anthropists be deceived into the equally senseless belief that legalization would remove or diminish the enormous evils of the opium traffic. The trade must not be legalized. If it must exist, let it still be branded with the infamy of interdiction. Let it still be smuggling. It would be a disgrace to our common humanity to throw the cloak of legality around a traffic | so cruel and pernicious. As well might we proclaim immunity to the slave-trade of Africa, and think to remove its odium and diminish its horrors, by throwing around it the mantle of human legislation. us feel, and the power of our resistance will be felt. This once accomplished, popular feeling once excited against the traffic, the way will be opened for its suppression. We proceed to show the feasibility of the suppression of this trade. The power is in the British Parliament and in the government of China; but before showing how this power may be effectually employed, we will first show the practicability of arresting the trade. Are there any great and important interests which would render its suppression impossible? So far from this, we believe that if the trade What, then, can be done to suppress were judiciously arrested, there are no this fearful trade? We answer, Nothing great and important interests which would can be done until popular feeling shall be render it impolitic. A sudden and violent excited against it. The indignant feelings suppression of the trade would be likely of humanity, awakened to a realization to produce embarrassment in East Indian of the magnitude and enormity of the evil, finances, and probably some cases of bankmust be thrown into the balance against ruptcy among opium dealers in India and it, and must become a new and additional China. It would also produce alarming element of opposition, to be met and re- results throughout China, incalculable sufsisted by the governments and individuals fering and an appalling mortality among who abet the traffic. Christians, phil- the inveterate consumers of the drug; anthropists, merchants, and manufactur- it is equally probable that a sudden change ers, all of whom have rights and interests would produce a large amount of suffering that are trampled upon by the pernicious among the cultivators of the poppy in trade, must speak out against it. English- India. The opium trade has been seventy men must be determined to cast off the years in attaining its present magnitude, guilt and odium which are thrown upon and involves interests, pecuniary and mothem by their government and a handful ral, of such vastness and importance, that of avaricious traders in the East. Chris- it would be folly to suppose that a single tians, anxious for the evangelization of dash of the pen could arrest the traffic, or the vast empire that is being desolated by a single edict dash the whole machinery the drug, must feel, and make their feel- to pieces. The trade in opium in India ings felt by the governments that thus and China can no more be suddenly and retard and render abortive their benevo- violently arrested than can slavery in lent movements. Christians and philan- the United States; and we would no thropists, we conceive, have rights-the | more wish for its instant abolishment, and rights of benevolent humanity-sacred the consequent embarrassment, suffering and holy rights, which no government may invade with impunity. The traffic in opium is a wrong to them, as well as to the Chinese. It is an invasion of their prerogatives, as well as an unjust trampling the prerogatives of a great but powerless nation. It is unjust to us, that the treasury of India should be replenished, and the coffers of a few heartless merchants should be filled to overflowing at the expense of the rights and feelings inspired by our holy Christianity, and with the sacrifice of all our benevolent enterprises. We plead our own cause, when we plead the cause of China. speak, and our voice will be heard. upon Let us Let and ruin which would follow this sudden disruption of extensive and complicated interests, and deep and inveterate habits, than we would wish for the instant abolishment of slavery, turning out upon the United States a vast horde of untutored and unmanageable victims of long-continued oppression. But we believe that both these gigantic evils could be destroyed by a gradual and effectual process of reformation, and that the traffic in opium-an evil of equal magnitude-could be suppressed with much less difficulty and danger than its sister enormityAmerican slavery. The reformation should obviously begin "I would prohibit altogether the cultivation of the drug in the territories of the East India Company. Many, I fear, will differ from me on this head; and the resolution I shall have to propose does not affirm such a course. It would, however, be a practicable measure; it has been done before, and it may be done again; it has been effected partially, and may be so universally. The whole system in India is one of prohibition; the drug has been suppressed by the presidency of Bombay. I find a paper requesting from the supreme government a communication of the views of the Bombay government as to the best method of checking the exportation of Malna opium. The Bombay government states in reply, that the cultivation of the poppy had been prohibited in Guzerat by the influence of the British government; so, by the same influence, the cultivation of the drug for exportation might be prohibited in Malna. What said Lieutenant-Colonel Tod, whose remarks are extremely important? If the non-paramount power, instead of making a monopoly of it, and consequently extending its cultivation, would endeavor to restrict it by judicious legislative enactments, or at least reduce its culture to what it was forty years ago, generations yet unborn would have just reason to praise us for this work of mercy. It is no less our interest than our duty to do so, and to call forth genuine industry for the improve ment of cotton, indigo, sugar-cane, and other products, which would enrich instead of demoralizing, and therefore impoverishing the country.' 999 This fact-the ability of the government of Great Britain to restrain, and even entirely suppress the cultivation of the poppy -is so undeniable that it seems to be assumed on all hands as an admitted fact: Dr. Medhurst, the well-known English missionary in China, says:— "The East India Company might, if they would, greatly diminish the trade in opium. If they were to discontinue the growth of it in their own territories, and to bind down the native princes in alliance with them to do the same, while they forbade the transporting of it through their dominions, India would then be no longer what it now is,-the great source from whence the evil originates. Were the supplies from India cut off, the inconsiderable stock and inferior quality yielded by Turkey would be far from supplying and satisfying the market, and the practice sink into desuetude, from the fewer facilities afforded for its gratification." Another intelligent English writer remarks: "We have seen that the suppression of this baneful production of the misused soil is practicable. The East India Company can at once put a stop to its cultivation in Behar and Benares; it can enter into arrangements with it can prohibit its passage through its dominions; the native rajahs for its suppression in Malna; it can lend its predominant influence to the discouragement everywhere of its growth, its preparation, and its transmission to the countries in which it is consumed. It can, therefore, relieve Asia from a pestilence which is laying waste some of its fairest portions; it can remove an obstacle which impedes the progress of the holy gospel, and casts dishonor on that worthy name by which all Christians are called. And if the East India Company does not perform this duty, on whom lies the guilt? Not on its directors alone; not on its proprietors alone, but on the British public, who have a substantial, though not a direct control over its proceedings." That it can be done, none seem to have the boldness to deny. Let the government of Great Britain but realize the enormity of the injustice it is committing against a sister government, and resolve to arrest, and eventually to suppress the traffic, and it possesses the power, and the way is open to effect this work. It need but throw a limitation around the sales at Calcutta and Bombay, interdict the passage of Malna opium through its territories, and determine that the amount of the drug sold at these great marts shall annually decrease until the sales cease altogether. This is practicable, and could be enforced without injury to any of the interests of India, or of the cultivators of the poppy, or of the dealers in the drug in India and China. It is well known that the whole system of opium growing and manufacturing in India is a system of oppression and compulsion, and the oppression need but cease, and the company no longer compel the natives of India to cultivate the poppy, and the whole system would by its own tendencies come to an end. While none deny the ability of the Anglo-Indian government thus to arrest the whole system in India, and thus strike a fatal blow at the very root of the evil, there are those who present objections to this course of procedure. Interested parties complain that it would be arbitrary and oppressive; that if the English withdrew from the traffic others will enter into it; that if the cultivation of opium cease in India, it will be taken up elsewhere; 438 66 that if the passage of Malna opium were But we are unprepared to admit that the instantaneous and entire abolishment of the traffic is not the subject we are discussing. Would a gradual diminution of the quantity of opium manufactured, and of the amount of the drug sold at the great ports of India, with the view of the final extermination of the whole system, inflict any serious injury on the resources of the country? This is the question, and we answer, No. When Sir Charles Forbes, well known as high authority on all Indian affairs, was questioned on the expediency of abolishing the traffic, he expressed a decided opinion that the opium monopoly might be abolished not only without loss, but with probable advantage. Hear Sir Charles : "I think that it [the revenue] might be raised in due time to perhaps as large, if not a larger amount, through a much less objectionable e dium, through the medium of increased and increasing revenues and customs, upon an increased and flourishing trade, carried on by an improved and improving population, having perfect confidence that they would in no way be interfered with by the company in their operations, either agricultural or commercial; and that under such a system, if happily it shall be introduced, the prosperity of India would rise to a degree incalculable, and consequently in every way tend to the advantage as well as the credit of its rulers." How easily might the soil now appropriated to the cultivation of the poppy be converted into nobler uses, a change which would be gratefully adopted by the impoverished and starving natives of India! The soil is rich; if it were not it would not answer for the growth of opium. Dr. Medhurst says: "The lands now employed in the cultivation of the poppy being necessarily rich and fertile, would, if laid out in the raising of other productions, be equally valuable to the possessors; and while the revenue was not diminished, the happiness, health, and industry of the people would be increased; in addition to which, the divine blessing would doubtless be doubly bestowed on those who renounced extend a real good to others." an apparent benefit to themselves, in order to Cotton and sugar could easily be made to take the place of the poppy, and there is now a loud and growing demand in England for Indian-grown cotton. That demand could be increased, and supplied from the countless acres of British India. Destroy the opium traffic, and the demand for Indian cotton and cotton manufactures The gradual in the empire of China, would swell to an extent now incalculable. THE SHADOW. and the hundred millions of Chinese will diminution of the exportation of opium let them see that it interferes with all [For the National Magazine.] THE SHADOW. BY ALICE CARY. ONE summer night, The full moon, 'tired in her golden cloak, Most soft and fair, Shine in the brook, as if, in love's distress, And left it there. Toward the sweet banks of the bright stream straightly I bent my way; And in my heart good thoughts the while did stay, Giving God thanks. The wheat-stocks stood As maidens would. In rich content My soul was growing toward immortal height, A shadow went. I stopped afraid It was the bad sign of some evil done- At length I drew Close to the bank of the delightful brook, It sat there too. Ere long I spied A weed with goodly flowers upon its top; . Lo! I have found Hid in this ugly riddle, a good sign- soil Sown darkly-raised A [For the National Magazine.] GLIMPSES OF PARADISE. The LATE Scottish writer says, "Perfect wisdom placed the perfect man in a garden to dress and keep it." The place and the duty must have been divinely congenial with the exercises of an unclouded reason and an undepraved heart. love of man's primeval calling seems yet to linger fondly in the bosom of the exiled race. The first pleasure of children is to gather fresh flowers from the daisied mead; or to ply their little hands in the allotted patch of garden ground. "Heaven lies about us in our infancy. Some faint visionary gleam from Eden seems yet to rest on the infant soul, and with the dawn of reason, the first voice of childhood seems to say that paradise should have been its home, and horticulture its proper vocation." Truly and beautifully expressed. In accordance with this beautiful sentiment, since man has been exiled from Eden, and the glimpses of paradise thus continually recur in the visions of childhood, the dreams of a primeval, a long-lost home, should not every parent endeavor to render the home of his children a paradise within and without? within, by sympathy and gentleness, purity and love; by proper instruction and encouragement, the melody of song and the voice of prayer; by care for the development, exercise, and perfection of the body, the intellect, the affections, the manners, and the taste; by inspiring a love of the beautiful and the true, of nature, of man, and of God; without, by surrounding his home, however small his premises, with the forms of natural beauty-the velvet lawn, and trees and flowers and fruits, with shade, and, as far as may be, with retirement, With flowers and fruits will come the waving of foliage in the summer breeze, the hum of insects, the busy work of the "singing masons," the sweet caroling of birds. A happy childhood is the rightful heritage of every human being; a childhood surrounded by truth and beauty; a childhood in which the infant character receives its impress from a home having order and refinement within, and natural beauty with.out. A happy childhood gives to manhood symmetry and strength. To old age it is an inestimable treasure. In the waste of memory it is an oasis, beautiful and refreshing; in the desert of life, a paradise. Will not dread retribution visit that parent, who through carelessness or cruelty, by undue indulgence or grinding rule, wrings the dregs of anguish into his infant's cup, poisons the very fountains of being, and early brands the fearful lines of misery upon its life? Few external appliances, as has been hinted, conduce more to this happiness of early days than the taste for horticulture. But not only is the love of horticulture shown to be natural to man, by the tendencies of childhood; these glimpses of paradise recur in every period of human life. When the rigors of winter have passed away, and from the earth, loosened from the chains of the frost by the southern breeze, the wind-flower and the violet show their modest faces; when nature begins to resume her mantle of green, and the bursting buds to promise future sustenance and shelter; then recurs the eager desire for the pleasures of the garden. Seeds are purchased and sown that never will be cultivated to maturity; large garden plats are laid off to be filled with weeds before midsummer. Young trees and shrubs and flowers are bought or begged and planted, many of which are to perish by weeds and drought, be browsed by the cow, or rooted up by a petted pig. Though the horticultural fever be thus, in very many cases, intermittent, yet the passion for gardening is deeply fixed in human nature; and these glimpses of paradise continually recur. The love of gardening is shown to be natural, from another view of humanity. However eager the pursuit of wealth, however perfectly ambition may drink up the spirits and sway the whole being; however desirous man may be of power, pleasure, or glory; yes, the man of business, the soldier, the politician, the devotee of wealth or of pleasure, or of any other pursuit, each and all look forward with pleasing anticipation to the time when they shall enjoy the cool retreats of the garden, the pleasures of rural life. These glimpses of paradise have ever and anon whetted their desire and cheered their labor. Poetry, in every age and clime, has witnessed this desire in man for rural beauty. True poetry is the language of nature. And in the works of what true poet, who has written in any way exten |