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could have interfered between the conviction of the duty and the carrying out that conviction in daily and hourly conduct. The mountain-wind does not more surely brace the languid frame, than does this essay the feeble will. It is entirely free from declamatory extravagance, and states and argues the question with that serene calmness which is essential to true strength. She writes as one who has long since gained that elevation to which she is inviting others to climb, without having forgotten the toils of the ascent. We are induced to value this essay so highly, not only on account of its great intrinsic merits, but because it teaches a lesson of which our community stands in need. Moral Independence is too rare with us. We are too much slaves to one another. Public opinion is a sterner despot than ever Tiberius was. By its pressure, the weak are crushed into despair and the bold are irritated into madness. The least common of spectacles is that of a human being, asserting his divine prerogative of taking counsel of his own spirit, and calmly smiling at the bristling front of opposition he may encounter. We want men who have courage to stand alone,-not men of stone, moral petrifactions, but men with heads to think and hearts to feel, and who, though yearning for sympathy, will consent to dwell apart, the very Parias of social life, rather than barter away their birthright of freedom. We cannot doubt that this essay will help to increase the number of such, and that many will have a new heart of courage put into them by it, which will enable them to brave the loudest storm of opinion that ever blew, if the voice of duty and their own conscience bid them.

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We like this work for its honesty and its boldness. Many will lament that she did not suppress such portions of it as are strongly tinged with materialism (which tendency in her mind, we would remark, seems strangely inconsistent with the spirituality of her views of religion); and so should we, did we think that the interests of truth were best promoted by silencing the voice of opposition. Miss Martineau is a bold and consistent, but not a reckless, reformer. She can give a reason for every article of the faith that is in her. No fair-minded person can help admiring the manner in which she asserts and maintains her views, whether he may think those views right or wrong. There is no holding back, no reservation, no cautious qualification, no paring down and

clipping till all sharpness and prominence are lost; she speaks out her mind, and her whole mind, freely and fully, but with great candor and great fairness. There is no sophistry, no appeal to vulgar passions or vulgar prejudices, no contemptuous ridicule of what is too strong to be assailed by argument, on shuffling out of sight the true point at issue, no escaping from a doubtful conflict under a cloud of words. Though it may seem a singular epithet to apply to a work written by a woman, we have been constantly struck with its manliness. In using this word, we would not be understood as saying that it is not a truly feminine production, for it is eminently so; but it has that combination of strength, elevation, and dignity which seems to be implied in that expression. We shall look in vain in it for mawkish sentimentality, or sickly refinement, or feeble verbiage, or overstrained enthusiasm. Its tone is uniformly healthy, bespeaking a sound mind and a robust moral constitution.

There is a valuable truth taught, rather incidentally than directly, in these volumes; and that is, that the sense of the beautiful is the common heritage of humanity, and that there is something wrong in the constitution of that society in which any class is forbidden a participation in the pleasures of taste. The perfect compatibility of these pleasures with constant devotion to duty, even in its coarsest and most repulsive forms, is also insisted upon. These are important truths, though apt to be overlooked, even by philanthropists. We believe, that any system of education for the many will be imperfect, which does not include the cultivation of the taste; and that it is the duty of patriots and legislators, as well as Christians, to provide for the gratification of that faculty. That men will thereby become restless, envious, and dissatisfied with their condition, is a notion, as it seems to us, resting upon a superficial knowledge of the elements of humanity. In the following paragraph from the fourth number of the "Sabbath Musings," Miss Martineau expresses herself directly upon the subject, and her views do not appear to us to be visionary or impracticable.

"What an abode it is! If I did not know it to have been prepared for the luxury of those who seek the pleasures of nature in company, I should have imagined it built for the retreat of the philosopher. If I did not know it to be the charge of a peasant's

family, I should have looked for an inhabitant of a different class, for a world-wearied or nature-loving recluse. How its bold front springs abruptly from the rock, while its projecting thatch is made to send the summer rain pattering among the pebbles far below! How snugly is it sheltered by the larch-plantation on either side, and its wall-flowers-is there any other place where they grow so abundantly? The rock is tufted with them in every crevice; they spring from every ledge, and fringe every projection. And what are the dwellers in this summer-house? The wood-ranger, and his wife and babe. They look happy, but they are heedless of what is before their eyes. They have possessed themselves of the best window, as if it were their Sunday privilege to monopolize the pleasures which their superiors eagerly seek on every other day. But what avails their privileged seat to them? That man's brow is such as should betoken high capabilities; yet, with this scene before him, he amuses himself with provoking the bayings of his mastiff. What mother, with her infant in her lap, can be insensible to maternal cares? Yet there is one who heeds not her babé, and who has no such intelligence in her wandering gaze as might account for the neglect. Why should not these, pupils, like the wise, of nature and of man, bred up, like the wise, in the knowledge of the gospel, feel the full beauty and solemnity of a scene like this? Nature has been ready to do her part; the gospel can never fail; it is man who has stinted what he ought to have cherished, and perverted the energies which it was his office to control. It is through evil social influences, that the eyes of such as these are turned from beholding the stars when, as now, they first glimmer through the twilight, and that their ears are closed to the soothing tones of the night winds, as they come hither from their rovings over land and sea." Vol. I. pp. 152, 153.

We feel under obligations, also, to Miss Martineau for her views of religion and of the nature and operations of the religious sentiment. They are such as are well calculated to meet the wants of the time. The age is carrying its practical, inquisitive, and investigating spirit into religious matters, and searching into the why and the wherefore of what has long been taken upon trust. Men are no longer to be influenced by such a form of religion, as would satisfy a Simon Stylites or any other devout lunatic, nor will they mistake an excitement of the nervous system for the inspiration of Heaven. The divine right of priests is as little respected, as the divine right of kings. It will no longer do, to tell a man that religion

is necessary to him, and, at the same time, present him with a set of doctrines which his reason compels him to reject. It is idle to inveigh against this spirit and call it hard names; for, whether right or wrong, it has passed into men's minds, and neither "bell, book, nor candle" will drive it thence. The religion, which the age demands, is one which will satisfy the understanding while it melts the heart, which is consistent with itself, which is overlaid with no "strange inventions" of man's devising, which recognises the elementary principles of humanity, and whose pure essence has not been smirched and soiled by the base hands of superstition, bigotry, and intolerance. Such is the aspect of religion, as it is presented to us in these volumes. Miss Martineau sifts, examines, and weighs, but she firmly believes and reverently worships. The inquisitive understanding is united with the glow of devotion, in such a manner as might be supposed to result from the combination of Priestley with Doddridge. In the formation of her creed she unhesitatingly rejects whatever she deems inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, by however great names it may have been sanctioned; but no nun ever clasped her crucifix to her heart with more devout sensibility, than she does the faith which her reason has told her is the true one. Recognising fully the existence of the instinct of religion, and that the soul of man hungers and thirsts for it and has but an imperfect life without it, she still perceives, that he craves a religion which he can understand as well as feel, that the philosopher demands a faith which he may try in the crucible of his reason, like the science which he investigates, and that the laborer seeks an interpretation of the mysterious feeling which drops into his heart from the silent stars, as he walks home beneath their eyes. Her religion is not a cold system of negations which chills the heart of devotion, but it is full of warm life, and instinct with a life-giving principle. No one, who has watched the signs of the times, can doubt that religion, presented in such a shape, will be welcomed by many who have hitherto rejected, or been indifferent to it.

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We take leave of Miss Martineau with grateful acknowledgments for the pleasure and instruction we have derived from this work. She says, in the conclusion of her Preface, "It gives me much pleasure to prepare for my American friends, at the suggestion of some beloved ones among them, a book in which they may read, with the eyes of their consciousness,

invisible records of the gratitude and love of a stranger, whom they have gladdened by their hospitality and honored with their friendship." Her "American friends" will cordially respond to these expressions of attachment and good will. She has helped us by her presence, as well as by her writings; and many will remember her visit, as an era in the growth of their minds and characters. Her image will be fondly cherished in many a heart, where admiration for the writer is swallowed up in gratitude to the woman. Her vocation is no common one, and, much as she has yet done for her race, we have a confident expectation that she will do more. Her

"godlike aim is to make less

The sum of human wretchedness,

And strengthen man with his own mind."

Her field is the world, and there are but few reapers to the harvest into which she has thrust her sickle. There are abuses in the best social system, yet to be removed; dark places to be enlightened, and crooked ones to be made straight. Errors, which have long struck their roots into the soil of the general mind, and resisted for centuries the strong winds of truth, are yet to be torn up. Moral and intellectual wastes are to be made to blossom, like the rose. The heart of man is yet hardened against his brother man, and misfortune is made to suffer the penalty of crime. It must be required of rulers and statesmen and legislators to act from a far higher set of principles, and to walk by a light from heaven, and not by the dim sparks of expediency and self-interest. The day is short, and the night cometh, in which no man can work. Obloquy and abuse and misrepresentation she must expect; they are the bitter ingredients in the cup, which every reformer must drink. This is the same world which stoned the prophets and burned the martyrs; and, though it is now esteemed bad taste to put men and women into the fire for their opinions' sake, the intolerance which kindled the flames of Smithfield still exists, though in a different form. But let her not faint or despair. Good wishes will go with her, and effectual, fervent prayers encompass her; and, though these should fail, there are the "three fast friends" which will not forsake the upright,

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