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and worthiest of objects-to the love and veneration, and therefore to the practice of truth.”

The educative capacity of the human race forms one of its chief distinctions. Not that we deny that the instincts of animals may be cultured and improved, any more than that the skill of the farmer and the gardener are inefficacious in improving vegetation; but we contend that there is a great and remarkable difference between the unerring instincts and the irresponsibility of the brute creation, and the errable and responsible being, man. Well and truly has Fichte said, "Had it been the whole purpose of our existence here to produce any earthly condition of humanity, the thing required would have been some infallible mechanism by which our actions might have been invariably determined; we need have been no more than wheels fitted to such a machine; free agency would be not merely useless, but positively injurious, and our good intentions--our virtuous will-entirely superfluous. The world would seem, in such a case, most ill regulated, and the purposes of its existence to be attained by the most wasteful and circuitous methods. Had the divine Author of it, instead of bestowing upon us this freedom, so hard to be reconciled with the other parts of his plan, chosen rather to compel us to act in the manner most conformable to them, these ends might have been attained by a shorter method, as the humblest dwellers in this his world can see. But I am free; and therefore such a plan as would render freedom superfluous and purposeless cannot include my whole destiny. I am free; and it is not merely my action, but the free determination of my will to obey the voice of conscience, that decides all my worth" This free agency-this power of willing-demonstratively shows that man is a being whose highest culture results from his own will, and not from the animal instincts with which, in common with the lower creatures, he is gifted. From this the idea of human personality springs; and culture, as we have before remarked, is the genial and voluntary forthgrowth of the personal being-of each human nature per se. The selfhood of each individual chiefly requires culture.

"Life is real, life is earnest," is the burden of the "Psalm of Life." So many have been and are the sage reflections which men have made regarding "the brevity of human life," and so little has been the practical result of them, that we can scarcely hold ourselves excusable in adding to their number. Yet we cannot forbear remarking, that when the portions of our life

which necessity demands should be employed in maintaining the animal frame in healthy action— those, namely, which sleep, labor, &c., imperatively require-are substracted from the sum total of our days; when the hours requisite for recreation and friendly good offices are deducted from life's little span, the remainder is very small indeed. And this is all of life that is really ours-this is all the time granted us for the culture of those energies which are to enable us to act our part in the several combinations of circumstances amid which our lot is to be passed -for the discipline and training of the capacities which are lodged by the Eternal in every human soul-for the preparation of the mind to send forth its actions through the various phases of civilization, and to add its observations, experience, and example, as component elements to the life-current of humanity.

Habits are the elements of practical action, and are the results of frequency of repetition. To acquire good habits is to gain the art of being happy. Habit originates in thought; but the more frequently the act follows the thought, the greater is the tendency acquired to act from habit than from thought. The greater prominence and importance the habit gains by frequency of practice, the less impression does the thought make on the mind. To start from noble thoughts, to act from noble aims, to be influenced at all times by virtuous motives, is essential to the consolidation of good habits, and consequently to the attainment of happiness. There are two species of habits-mental and physical. The latter is, however, the result of the former. Culture superintends the mind, and hence operates upon the initiatory elements of habit. To establish by culture habits of elevated thought, moral reflection, industry, and selfcontrol, and to increase the efficacy and readiness of these habits by exercise, cannot fail to be greatly advantageous to all, but especially to the young. The state in which we exist demands the possession of certain qualities as the condition of success. We are only endowed with these qualities in a potential manner. It is our duty to mature and develop these qualities. Knowledge excites our curiosity, experience enlarges and corrects our knowledge, and habits render us fit for acting with instantaneous promptitude and readiness. The acquisition of good habits-of such habits as shall free us from the need of lengthy consideration before acting, when emergencies occur-we proclaim as one of the great uses of self culture.

CHANGELESS FRIENDS.

BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.

O SWEET-SOULED flowers! with robes so bright,
Fair guests of Eden-birth,

In changeful characters of light,
What lives of love divine ye write
Upon this troubled earth!

Man sinned in Paradise, and fell,

But when the storm arose,

When thorns and brambles sowed his path,
And gentlest natures turned to wrath,
Ye leagued not with his foes.

Ye sinned not, though to him ye clung
When at the guarded door 1

The penal sword its terrors flung,
And warned him with its flaming tongue'
To enter there no more.

Forth by his side ye meekly fared

With pure, reproachless eye,

And when the vengeful lion roared,
A balmy gush of fragrance poured
In hallowed sympathy.

Ye sprang amid the broken sod

His weary brow to kiss,

Bloomed at his feet, where'er he trod,
And told his burdened heart of God,
And of a world of bliss.

Ye bowed the head, to teach him how
He must himself decay;

Yet, dying, charged each tiny seed
The earliest call of spring to beed,
And cheer his future way.

From age to age, with dewy sigh,

Even from the desert glade, Sweet words ye whisper, till ye die, Still pointing to that cloudless sky Where beauty cannot fade.

JUST MARRIED.

WHAT a pleasant little place they have chosen for their residence! A mere child of a house, only a few months old, and just christened "Rose Villa." It deserves such a sweet-breathing name: look at that small modest garden in front, and the large flaunting one behind. How fondly the flowers seem to look upon their mother earth! No one could imagine that they had been nursed elsewhere, and pampered with luxury until they began to feel the most undutiful contempt for their natural parent. See, how the roses and the lilies kiss and embrace each other like old acquaintances, and breathe sweet vows of eternal friendship, while the geranium laughs alily down upon them from the window-sill,

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Rose Villa is a very paradise, within omnibus distance from the Bank,

Certainly the architectural embellishments of Rose Villa may be open to objection. Perhaps, for a house deep in the display of Elizabethan decoration, that composite tower and those Corinthian columns are a little out of place, and there seems no good reason why that Sphinx and British Lion should mount guard upon the door steps. But never mind; the builder was no doubt a generous fellow, and strove more for profusion than for purity of ornament. His liberality must atone for his want of taste. Let us inspect the interior. What a crisp, shining, lately-made look every thing has! New chairs, new papers, new curtains, new carpets, every thing bright and sparkling as a fair girl's cheeks after a lover's first kiss. And who is this, looking fresher and brighter than aught else? She is the young wife. Very proud she is, too, of the title: the dignity of her new state strives to show itself in her every feature. She feels herself a very different person from the young lady who bore her maiden name, a week or two ago. She has grown in gravity and discreetness wonderfully, since that time. She feels the responsibilities of her position increase every hour. She has rather a vague notion, though, at present of the nature of those responsibilities. She knows they are very terrible, but (except when the drunken beggar man would stop at the street door, declaring he had had nothing to eat or drink for eight days) she has not yet been much alarmed by them. Yet she is dreadfully grave now and then, as she thinks of her new duties, and the tremendous amount of business she has to perform diurnally. She is quite sure she shall never again have time or inclination for amusement and visiting: she is too happy with her dear Henry to think of such things. He is the best husband in the whole world, and she wishes for no other pleasure than to sit by his side, in their dear little home.

She has a few annoyances, certainly. Her housekeeping accounts puzzle her. She is apt to make entries on the wrong side, or twice over, or to forget them altogether, and the balance will not come right. Yet she is so particularwishes to show what a thrifty little housewife she is, and that not a penny shall be spent in waste. She could almost cry at the perplexing deficiency of eighteen-pence, which after an hour's investigation softens into a shilling, relents into nine-pence, and then maliciously aug. ments itself into half-a-crown, swaggering defi

ance of all further scrutiny. Then the joints she selects have a tendency to come to table fit for a cannibal about half converted, but scarcely so well adapted for human beings more advanced in civilization. Her puddings, too, are cold and comfortless in appearance, and unsatisfactory in flavor. Then her oven seems resolutely to have declared war against cakes, pies, tarts, and bread, treating them either with cold indifference or with scorching ferocity. But the oven is on new and improved scientific principles, duly registered by "Royal Letters Patent," and perhaps feels privileged to give itself airs accordingly. No matter! the young wife smiles at all her little troubles, and treasuring the lessons of experience, feels herself prepared for all future difficulties.

But why do her cheeks flush with delight, and her eyes sparkle with animation? Whom does she so eagerly rush forward to meet? Whom? Why, her husband, of course.

He a husband! to come whisking in with the lightness of a leaf; to clasp her so tightly round the neck, utterly heedless of her neatly-arranged collar; to call her affectionately his dear Clem; and to smile such a heart-softening, good-intentioned smile, and to kiss her lips so greedily, again and again! He a husband! why, he seems like a laughing schoolboy, out for a half-holiday, and preternaturally expanded by joy to the dimensions of manhood. He a husband! why

Stop, stop, he is not always so full of gayety. He is very grave upon occasions. He, too, feels the dignity of his new position, and shows it when necessary. Mark how coldly he declines to participate in the boisterous, unrefined amusements of his former associates. How he shrinks from the suspicious suggestion of a “snug supper," or a "quiet little party down the river," as he would shrink from a simoom, or the sting of a serpent. But he is at home now, that is his proper place. There all his desires are centred; and with his dear good little best of wives by his side, what has he to do with snug suppers, or quiet little parties down the river? And why should he not give expression to that ecstasy which has been panting for release during the whole day!

In truth the young couple are much to be envied. They are so rich, so rich in happiness, their eyes glisten with the pearls and diamonds of the heart. And then their glances! They are the very sunbeams of the soul. The young couple live but in each other; yet who shall say that their world is narrow? Who shall deter

mine the boundaries of that land of fancy created by two fresh loving hearts? Who, indeed? Squaring the circle, or writing a correct recipe for the elixir of life, would be child's play by comparison.

Alas! that this land should ever lose its tenants. That in a few years-sometimes, it may be, in a few months-the bright rapid river of affection should become a mere lazy streamlet; that the delicious softness of love should harden into obdurate indifference; that the young couple should look back upon the early season of their wedded love as a time of ridiculous billing and cooing; a kind of supplementary session to the long parliament of courtship. It is not to be denied that matters then were perhaps carried a little too far. Thirteen kisses in the parlor before breakfast was rather overdrawing love's account on the Bank of Lips; and expressions of intense rapture were in too frequent circulation. "My dear Henry" and "My own Clem" are agreeable enough; but "my dearest darling" and "my own sweetest love" are too highly flavored for any ordinary palate. If your verbal food contains too many such saccharine syllables, mental indigestion must soon be produced. But making every allowance for these and a few similar errors, what can have occurred to effect the terrible change which is visible in the young couple? How is it that smiles have degenerated into simpers; that the supply of kissing is in daily danger of being stopped altogether; and that familiar names cross the threshold of the tongue, unescorted as of yore by kind and attentive adjectives?

Ask the young wife. She will tell you that she loves her husband very much; that he is very good, not at all unkind, but that nevertheless he is so much changed, so unlike what he used to be! Not at all the same being! He does not study her wishes, or pay her any little attention, or evince any desire to share her sympathies or her tastes. But for their dear children, she should often feel very lonely and wretched. Well, and what does the husband say? Oh, he has the same affection for "Clem" as He is not changed. Not he. But why then does he blush when allusion is made to that brief bright time-his early wedded days, those dazzling stars upon the sky of life? Oh, he has no time for such nonsense. Parental responsibilities, social duties, professional avocations, the stern duties of life, in fact, engage almost all his attention. The stern duties of life, indeed! What are they, in nine cases out of ten but the

ever.

stern duties of money-grubbing! He will not admit it; indeed, he scarcely knows it, but it is 80. Almost unconsciously, he has acquired a belief that happiness can only be received at the bank, in a quarterly dividend. Almost unconsciously, his ambition has become bounded by the three and a half per cents.

He is not wrong in practising economy. He is not wrong in respecting the laws of arithmetic; in remembering the old schoolboy axiom that three into two won't go. If his income be three hundred a year, he will not be justified in spending four. Certainly not. The certain result of such a course must be, that in time he would be spared all household expenses by living rent free in one of Her Majesty's jails or workhouses. But he may err a little on the other side. His thought should not always be wrapped up in bank-notes, or sparkle only at the sight of gold. He has the very best and most prudent intentions, no doubt, and is a very exemplary fellow. But he should not allow those dreadfully stern duties to absorb so much of his time; he should neglect them now and then; he should let his spirit out for a holiday, and remember that his better part, his wife, requires the holiday even more than himself, and must share it with him. Fine clothes, fine manners, world-looking-on holidays are not enough: there must be others which no ear shall hear of, and which no eye shall see. Else, depend upon it, she will in time care less for his society, and more for the society of others: preferring garish glitter abroad to subdued light at home. Or it may be that she will droop under his neglect, until she becomes a mere domestic drudge, a household bondwoman, without a thought above pinafores. Then, as years roll on, he will begin to wonder why his home seems so chill and dreary. Let him keep the lamp of love constantly lighted, and it will always diffuse cheerful rays throughout that home, ay, even in the dreariest months of the year of life.

NEW INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB, AT NEW YORK.

Our third engraving is a view of a new structure now in the process of erection in this city, designed for the exclusive use of those unfortunate persons whom nature has left devoid of the invaluable gifts of hearing and speaking. The corner-stone was laid on the 22d of November

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last. It is situated on the banks of the Hudson river, at a point called Washington Heights, about six miles from the New York City Hall. The building is the design of R. G. Hatfield, Esq., and is quite equal in its beautiful proportions to many other works that he has produced.

The grounds of the Deaf and Dumb Institution comprise an area of 37 acres. The principal building is 150 feet front, by 56 feet deep. It embraces four stories including the basement, and is surmounted by a dome or observatory commanding a very beautiful prospect. The principal floor of the front building contains a reception-room, a directors' room, a room for the President, and rooms also for the accommodation of the pupils. The basement contains rooms for domestic purposes, fuel, &c. The school-house is in the rear part, being 150 feet long by 55 feet wide, and contains class, library, lecture and cabinet-rooms, besides a hall of design.

No pains or expense will be spared to render this Institution the model of the world. It is designed for a most noble purpose.

POETRY.

BY LILLIE LEE.

OH! speak not of sorrows gone by;
Let their ashes all buried lie
Deep, deep, from my sensitive eye,
For evermore.

Oh! ask not of the bitter night
Visions of hope's meteor light,
That's hid from my raptured sight
For evermore.

Oh! name not love's long-cherished vow,
That, most cruelly broken now,
Has cast its sadness o'er my brow

For evermore.

Oh! comfort me not with the thought
Of selfish joys that, dearly bought,
Have bitterness to others brought
For evermore.

But to my wounded spirit bring
Powerful strength, her way to wing
Where holy seraphs in glory sing
For evermore.

And teach my faith to fix her gaze
Far, far beyond this "mighty maze,"
And even for clouds her Maker praise
For evermore.

Oh! crush not my heart, now 'tis riven
By wounds by a false one given,
But gently breathe, "Thou'lt rest in heaven"
For evermore.

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GALILEO, the subject of our steel engraving this month, was the son of Vincent Galilei, a Florentine nobleman of talent. He was born at Florence, in 1564. His dislike to the medical profession, for which he was designed, was so great, that his father allowed him to desist from preparing for it, and to study mathematics. So rapidly did he attain to proficiency in his favorite science, that at the age of twenty-four he was appointed mathematical professor at Pisa. His dislike to the Aristotelian philosophy, however, raised him up so many enemies, that, in 1592, he resigned the chair at Pisa, and accepted the professorship at Padua, in which he continued for eighteen years. Cosmo III. at length invited him back to Pisa, and soon after called him to Florence, with the title of Principal Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke. In 1609, Galileo was informed of the invention of the telescope, and he immediately constructed one for himself, with which he proceeded to explore the heavens. With this instrument he discovered four satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, the starry nature of the Milky Way, the hills and valleys of the moon, and the spots on the solar disk, from the motion of which he inferred the rotation of the sun. The result of his discoveries was to convince him of the truth of the Copernican system, and the consequence of this conviction was, that he was twice persecuted by the Inquisition, in 1615 and in 1633, on a charge of heresy. On both occasions he was compelled to abjure the system of Copernicus; in the last instance, after having repeated the abjuration, he is said to have stamped his foot on the earth, and said, in a low tone, "It moves nevertheless." Galileo was blind for about three years before his death. He died January 8, 1642. Besides what has already been mentioned, Galileo discovered the gravity of the air, invented the cycloid and the simple pendulum, and was the first who clearly explained the doctrine of

motion.

MOUNT HERMON, represented by our first cut, is the south-westerly point of Staten Island, twenty miles from New York, on the steamboat route from New York to Philadelphia, surrounded by

S. I. Sound, Amboy, Raritan, and Princess Bays, and overlooks all eastern New Jersey, Sandy Hook, etc. In its groves, fishing and bathinggrounds, spring and fountains, facilities of access scenery, salubrity, and eligibility, it stands unrivalled.

Mount Hermon (formerly Biddle) Grove, the largest, most beautiful, romantic, and admired, within an equal distance of New York, is the resort, annually, of 150,000 people, coming from Sunday-schools, Temperance, Musical, and other Societies and sources.

Said premises, forty or fifty acres, two dwelling-houses, a school-house and dock, are offered for sale, entire or in small portions, or they will be rented for one or more years.

A SCHOOL of high order, a LARGE BOARDINGHOUSE, and a WATER-CURE ESTABLISHMENT, three or four stories high, into every room of which might easily be carried soft spring water, and salt water into the basement at every flood-tide, are much needed.

P. S.-STEAMER THOS. HUNT plies between this place and New York city daily. Leaves the foot of Robinson street at 3 o'clock P. M.

Reference.-I. Tweedle, Jr., Esq., 41 Barclay Street, New York. E. W. HUBBARD.

Mount Hermon, March, 1854.

THE accompanying cuts have been kindly sent us by JOHN P. JEWETT & Co., who have in press and will shortly issue the work from which they are taken, entitled, "Egypt Past and Present," by Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and one of the editors of the "Independent." Its greatest value will consist in those coincidences of history which confirm the truth of the Bible. We read in the Old Testament the incidents of Jewish history; in the tombs and relics of ancient Egypt we find the corresponding facts. The arts, which the Israelites must have known, in order to have built the gorgeous Tabernacle in the Wilderness, they must have learned in Egypt. In Egypt we find those very arts engraven upon the monuments of that age. Those who are acquainted