The reverend president is still alive, and can corroborate my testimony. I mean the Rev. George A. Baxter, D. D., at present at the head of the Theological Seminary in Virginia. As to the other witnesses, Mr. Revely afterward became a member of the Legislature of Virginia, and somewhat distinguished, I believe, for a young man ; but he unfortunately fell a victim to poison, as I have been informed. Mr. Wallace was then from Richmond, but a native of Scotland, whither he returned soon after. It strikes me that I once heard of his death, but of this I am not certain. He may be still alive, and able to substantiate my statement.

Mr. Piper himself afterward married a daughter of Gen. Alexander Smyth, of Wythe, and was soon after appointed principal of some academy in the West, which he abandoned, however, as he had done the ministry before. The last I heard of him, was during the last summer, when I saw his name registered at one of the Virginia springs. I was told he had become an engineer, and was then engaged in surveying a road between some two of the springs.

I have thus briefly and hastily related every thing about the exploit, which I have any reason to believe will be interesting to the public, either now or hereafter.

WILLIAM A. CARUTHERS.

THE CRUSADES.

BRIGHT rose the sun over the hills of Palestine, and never, since the world had birth, did it rise on a brighter or more inspiring scene. There, her gorgeous palaces and beautiful temples bathed in the sunlight of an eastern morn, rose Jerusalem!

'Her towers, her domes, her pinnacles, her walls,
Her glittering palaces, her splendid halls,

Showed in the lustrous air like some bright dream,
Wove by gay fancy from the morning beam.'

Jerusalem! What hallowed associations rush upon the mind at that name! Once, Queen of the East, and mistress of the world; unsurpassed in importance, and unrivalled in splendor; the home and pride of Judea's sons. Now, the jackall howls where her kings reigned, and the crumbled marble, once marking where her warriors slept, now mingles with the whirling sands of Arabia.

Roll back the tide of time! Retrace the scroll of history to that epoch when Europe sent forth her noblest and her best, to battle with the Saracen, to rescue the sepulchre of their Redeemer from defilement and disgrace.

Under the city's walls were encamped the Army of the Cross. Companions in former wars, and victors in former battles, they had come determined to accomplish their errand, or die in the attempt. There were the flower and boast of Europe's chivalry. Steel hauberk and coat of mail gleamed in the sunbeams, and the trumpet's note of defiance rang on the morning air, with the taunting clash of the Turkish cymbal. That pennon which had floated o'er the head of its gallant lord amid former conflicts of his house, now danced gaily to an Asiatic breeze. The emblem of an ancient line, it was not there to be dishonored; the cherished relic of past splendor its fair blazonry was not there to be stained or sullied.

Who would blame the enthusiasm which had thus led them forth to battle? Who can censure that piety which gave strength and sinew to their arms in the battle's shock, and was their last solace in the hour of danger and of death? Yet, there are those who call the age of chivalry an age of folly - - who denounce the Crusades but as an act of madness. Madness and folly they may have been ; unjust they certainly were; but who of us, had he lived in that day, would not have also bound the sacred emblem to his shoulder, and followed the crusading host to the holy land? The enthusiasm of the hermit of Amiens, the oratory of St. Bernard, and the commanding talents of Fulk, had successively been used to spur them on to action. The commands of the papal prelate were imperative, were not these enough to impel them to almost any deed. But the Saracen's insulting heel was on the very sepulchre of their Lord! The Turk's proud foot spurned the dust once pressed by the meek footsteps of Christ! Jerusalem was captive! Through her courts and palaces a Moslem strode in defiance, and reigned without rebuke! Were they Christians, and could they endure this? Were they knights, and could they brook it? Drawing the avenging steel, they swore never again to sheathe it, till their object was accomplished, or till

the last drop of their life's blood had ceased to circle round those hearts which beat only for their honor and their God.

But why seek to excuse the Crusades by the motives which led to them? It is their consequences that give them importance in history, and furnish ample apology for all their follies, if not for all their crimes. Apology!

'Sleep, Richard of the lion heart,

Sleep on, nor from thy cerements start,'

at the wrong done thy memory and thy name. But the age of chivalry has passed, like a bright vision of the morning.

If we contemplate for a moment the dreary picture which the civilized world presented in the age of the Crusades, and compare it with the succeeding, we must allow that the political advantages resulting from them were such as Europe will never cease to feel, so long as her hills shall stand, or her name be known.

Torn by intestine feuds, the western world was at that time the scene of the most bloody and atrocious wars that ever disfigured the page of history. The order and beauty of the social compact, like that of the ocean lashed to fury by the rushing tempest, was lost in the wild vortex of raging passions and unbridled licentiousness. Law and right were neither respected nor obeyed. The sword was the only passport to greatness, and opened the only path to fortune and to honor. Human life was held but as the sport of any petty tyrant who chose to take it, and the frequent death-cry of the murdered rolled wildly up to an offended God.

Then came the Crusades. Glory, immortality, religion, all pointed with imploring finger to the scene of a Saviour's sufferings and death. Fame called upon her votaries to battle to the death with Paynim hosts; Religion upon hers to wipe for ever from the escutcheon of the Christian world, the deep, damning disgrace of allowing an unbelieving race to defile the land they loved, the sepulchre they adored. Then warring nations dropped their swords, and gave answer to the cry of vengeance. They came, the noble and the proud, the young and the old, rallying round the crimson standard. Unity of sentiment and community of interest have ever given birth to mutual kindness, and

'All those courtesies that love to shoot
Round virtue's steps, the flowrets of her fruit.'

So was it then; and Europe, purified and enlightened from this and other causes flowing from it, woke from the lethargy which had so long bound her, and advanced rapidly toward that civilization and refinement which now ennoble and adorn her.

The effects of the Crusades upon literature, though not immediate, were no less salutary. Philosophers have moralized, scholars have wept, over the deplorable, the degrading ignorance of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Science slept. A death-like lethargy had come over her, which, like the sultry blast of an eastern noon, had palsied all her efforts, and withered all her energies. The spirit of poetry had long since fled. She seemed for ever to have forsaken those haunts she once loved so well, till the Troubadours, catching up

the lyre, then shattered by Time's careless hand, struck from its long mute strings those strains which roused nations to arms, and a world to madness. Never was music more magically eloquent. The lyre which thrilled beneath a Homer's touch, or the lapses of the cygnet song, might have been sweeter; they could not have been more inspiring. All Europe responded to the strains which swept over the land, and echoed through her old baronial halls.

Then commenced the restoration of letters in the West. The Troubadour's lay was but the prelude to the diviner strains of a Boccacio, a Petrarch, and a Dante. Song again revived, and from the blushing vine hills of France, from the castled crags of Scotland, from the wild glens of Switzerland, and the lovely vegas of romantic Spain, again ascended the poet's breathings, free as their mountain air. The very Crusades themselves, by furnishing the materials from which to weave the gorgeous fictions of the imagination, and by making the Crusaders acquainted with all the glowing imagery and fanciful decorations of oriental literature, gave an impulse to letters which will never cease to be felt, till man shall cease to appreciate and admire the beautiful and the sublime. Can it be, then, that the Crusades retarded the progress of literature? Rather, they cherished and promoted it, when the last flicker of the fire upon her altar had nearly expired, in sadness and in gloom.

Such were the holy wars, their causes, and their effects; and our feelings and sympathies cannot but be gratified at their final success.

It was sunset. The rich mellow light streamed in a thousand variegated hues over Olivet's green top, the holy city, and the Christian camp, till at last it met Bethsaida's wave, blushing and sparkling in its embrace. Not a ripple disturbed its mirrored stillness, save when the bright-plumed bird stooped to lave his wing, or taste its refreshing coolness. Above, was the deep blue sky, so bright and clear that fancy could almost soar to the regions of the blest - could almost catch the harmonies of heaven. All was calm and beautiful. Even the stern sentinel, pacing his lonely round, for a moment relaxed his iron brow, and stopped to gaze upon the surpassing loveliness of that hour. But a far brighter sight met his eye, as he gazed upward, and saw the consecrated folds of the sacred banner floating in triumph over the walls and battlements of Jerusalem. Yes, that day had seen the city theirs, and the knightly, the good, the gallant Godfrey, as he bent to kiss the tomb he had rescued, was seen to dash away a tear of mingled gratitude, penitence, and veneration, and then to lift his hands in mental adoration to that Being who is ever the same, whether amid the burning sands of Syria, or the icy regions of the Pole. Thus should heroes conquer. Thus did the crusaders. Blame not hastily their misdirected zeal. Censure not their holy enthusiasm. Profane not with sacrilegious touch the moss-grown tombs where their ashes sleep. Their faults were the faults of their age - their virtues all their own.

4. B. K.

MY MOTHER.

'Blest mother! I remember thee!'

BLEST mother! I remember thee, from early childhood's hour,
When first my heart awoke to feel maternal love's deep power;
When not a transient tear could dim the smile of infant bliss,
That was not dried beneath the warmth of a mother's fervent kiss.

Ah! yet the prayer I learned to lisp at twilight by thy knee,
Is clear upon the deep-wrought page of hallowed memory!
And those soft tones that rose to heaven from out thy swelling breast,
They seem to sound upon my ear, though thou art gone to rest.

Blest mother! I remember thee, from youth's fresh, buoyant day;
A star thou wert to guide my feet, of pure and constant ray:
Thy love possessed a charm beyond the light of pleasure's beams,
And 't was thy counsel that forbade my trust in earthly dreams.

And I remember a soft hand, that smoothed my aching head,
A tearful, guardian eye, that watched beside my curtained bed;
The careful step, the soothing draught thy kindness had prepared,
And all the tokens of that love thy orphan child once shared.

Blest mother! I remember thee, as guide, companion, friend!
When years mature had taught my heart life's blessings and their end;
When I had learned to share thy griefs, to shed the tear for thee,
Who in my wayward days had turned to pray and weep for me.

"T was mine to cheer thy widowed heart with all a daughter's love,
And lift thy sinking spirit up to brighter scenes above;

To scatter in thy lonely path the flowers which kindness weaves,
And bind around thy temples fair affection's myrtle leaves.

Blest mother! I remember thee, (alas! how sad the spot

On memory's page, which even now the tear of grief must blot!)
When first the blight of fell disease passed o'er thy constant heart,
And on thy brow, with death's pale hand, 't was written, 'We must part!'

But not a murmur mingled then with faith's assurance given,
And not a fear passed with thee through the darksome vale to heaven;
No! God's own rod and staff were there, nor could I wish thy stay,
When angels beckoned thee from earth and all its ills away.

Blest mother! I remember thee, when on thy sable bier,
And followed by an orphan train, which stranger hands must rear;
When laid within thy narrow bed, where now the green turf grows,
While we were left alone to stem the tide of human woes.

Yet not alone, for One there is, our Father in the sky,
Who stoops to make our cause his own, who listens to our cry;
Upon his arm our strength was stayed, his hand hath been our guide,
And He who gives the ravens food, for us will still provide.

Blest mother! now I think of thee, as one amid that throng
Who chant before the throne of God their 'everlasting song;'
In midnight dreams thy angel form around my couch appears,
And oft thy hand seems stretched again, to wipe away my tears.

When gazing at the shining stars, their fixed and holy light, Recalls thine own unwavering faith, and thy example bright; And in the firmament of heaven, a star thou 'lt ever shine, With beams more beautiful and bright a lustre all divine. Cedar-Brook, 1838.

E. C. S.