should soon become so inveterately dogged as to treat all who dare to differ from him like dogs. I can see through the dark ages now-clear through them. I can see how it was that men could bind their fellow-men to stakes, and see their precious flesh roast till it became juiceless and charred-how they could saw human bodies asunder, and bore out human eyes, and stretch human limbs on racks of torture, till their very bones were drawn out of the sockets in which they turned; and all this without feeling any more pity than the vulture of classic fable is represented to have felt when glutting itself on the liver of Prometheus! Here is the secret-there was no philanthropy inculcated in the religion of those infernal persecutors. O, my God! how much hast thou seen of grief and pain down here on the earth, which good and holy men have been doomed to suffer for daring to obey the dictates of their own consciences and make their own creeds, in spite of popish bulls and the mumbled mandates of parish beadles. Does it not tire your brain, my reader, to think of the thousands who have been pursued and hunted down, because they would not believe this and that, but would believe something else? Do you not shrug your shoulders with gloomy astonishment, when you reflect on those long eras of hierarchal despotism, during which the heart of the Church was kindled by no energy better than that whose fitting symbol was presented in the fagot-fires which made the blood of martyrs seethe and bubble? The wonder is that men should have presumed upon pleasing God with a religion which made no allowance for the sanctity of conscience, but even admitted of a malevolent selfishness. And is not this wonder enough?

I will not disturb the pages which record the nativity and the boyhood of this man. I will begin with his first days under an American sun.

On the 5th of February, 1631, there came over into New England a young minister of the Puritan stamp; and, as might therefore be presumed, a fugitive from English intolerance. He was something more than thirty years of age when he first saw Nantasket and the homes of the earliest pilgrims to our shores.

An uncommon man was this youthful preacher. He was uncommon in his mind, in his heart, in his manner, in his doctrine. The world has had

but one Roger Williams. This great refugee came to the western shores of the Atlantic, on a mission peculiarly his own. By culture and by faith he was a philanthropist. This he was long before he started out upon the waters that were to bear him, God knew whither. This he was when he entered, for the first time, the rude settlements of the pioneer Puritans, whose feet, only eleven years previous, were treading the planks of the Mayflower. This he was in private and in public, all along, from his earliest years of action, down to the blessed silence and the sweet sleep of his grave.

The name of Roger Williams is one of those few names, written in history, which have been transcribed into cherishing hearts, and will be, so long as one generation of men shall follow another. I will not think of him as of any other man, or set of men, of his time. He stood head and shoulders above all the rest of the Puritans; for he was the apostle of a broader and purer Puritanism. Do you know, my reader, how it ever came to pass that in our American Constitution there is embodied a beautiful acknowledgment of the right of every man to his creed? It was a result of Roger Williams's philanthropy. Know you why it is that our republicanism is not cramped to-day by a union of the civil with the ecclesiastical power? It is because of the noble lessons of Christian humanitarianism, first inculcated and represented, on this side of the ocean, by Roger Williams. This one great idea-the sanctity of conscience-was the seed which all the labors of the life of that deep and earnest man went to develop. It is recorded, in history, that for this, in extreme old age, he gave the last pulsation of his heart. To think of him as away back in English solitudes, meditating upon human lives confined within the narrow channel of thought and action prescribed by priestly caprice, dreaming of the bliss of freedom from sectarian espionage, contemplating the despair of souls doomed to a laborious silence, the fruits of which must gleam and exhale, in their autumnal ripeness, for themselves alone, and not for the wide world of cherished men to think of him as at last leaping, as it were, from the slavery in which an intolerant Church sought to violate the sanctity of his conscience and to stifle the aspirations of his libertyloving heart; and then as turning his sad eyes toward the ocean; and then as trusting himself to its billows and its God, hoping to find on the distant shore of a newly-settled land a society whose religion might not ignore the value and grandeur of a broad philanthropy-to think of Roger Williams in these aspects of his career of self-sac

But other views remain to be taken of that manly advocate of the rights of conscience.

Coming into New England, he found himself welcomed by the people of Salem, as their teacher and minister. Of course he announced to them at once the great doctrine which had become fully developed and matured in his own mind. He spoke to them of the sacredness of every man's right of belief. Conscience, he maintained, should be held above the reach of legislation.

"The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion-should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul."

"The doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience," said he, "is most evidently contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus."

What originality, what simplicity, what clearness, what penetration into human nature, what vastness of heart, what an advocacy of Christ's sublime religion, are here! One would think that the enunciation of a doctrine at once so suggestive of peace and progress to the nations, and so full of promise to the Church, of a deliverance from bigotry, should have been received with a grateful acceptance by a people who had well learned what it is to suffer persecution for cause of conscience. But such was not the case. The New England Churches, with the simple exception of that of Salem, could not but see, in the teachings of Roger Williams, the spirit and doctrine of a dangerous radical. Linked, as was their newlyestablished government, intimately with that of the religion they had brought with them, they were unprepared to estimate the worth of that element of spiritual freedom for which, with the earnestness of his large heart, he patiently contended. The consequence was, that he soon found himself bitterly opposed. He, however, with a mild and manly self-possession, stood against his assailants, and defended his cherished doctrine. The law by which civil magistrates enforced the attendance of every man at public worship, was shown by him to be incompatible with the sanctity of conscience.

"An unbelieving soul," he argued, "is dead in sin; and to force the indifferent from one worship to another, is like shifting a dead man into several changes of apparel."

Vain, however, was all this good reasoning of the devout philanthropist. He was pronounced a teacher of treasonable heresy. The Church of Salem, which had become strongly attached to him, was even disfranchised by the magistracy, till ample apologies had been made for having

at once withdrew from the jurisdiction of the colonial Churches; and being summoned before the general court of Massachusetts, he received the chilling sentence of exile. His own beloved Church had now forsaken him, not daring longer to openly speak in favor of the doctrine which had so long been the burden of his heart. Even his wife, from whom, if from any, in those gloomy hours, sweet and encouraging words ought to have come-even his wife poisoned the quietude of his home with bitter reproaches and petulant complaints. A beautiful incident there is, however, to be mentioned, as going to show the fondness with which his old Church still clung to him. As the time drew near when his sentence was to be executed, his Salem flock gathered around their former shepherd, and with outgushing tears bore testimony to the undying love, which, by his great goodness and manly virtues, he had won from them.

I will not delay to speak in detail of Roger Williams's last trials before leaving the New England settlements-how he declined the summons of the general court to hasten immediately to Boston and embark for England-how he escaped in midwinter, and took refuge among the Indians-how he gained access to the warmest affections of those "wild men of the woods". how, as Bancroft says, he was fed by the ravens in the wilderness-how "the barbarous heart of Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, learned to love him, as his son, to the last gasp"-how he finally steered his course to the country which is now the state of Rhode Island, and in a frail Indian canoe, with but five companions, landed in a delightful place, to which, with the hope, as he himself declared, that "it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience," he gave the sacred name of Providence.

You shall think, now and hereafter, of Roger Williams as the beginner of a new style of civilization, as the projector of the first government of modern times in which there was to be an acknowledgment and a protection of the sanctity of conscience. On that strange soil to which he had somehow made his way, he founded a little empire, which proved to be the model after which the great empire of our American republicanism has been built.

No sooner had he planted himself in Providence than he announced his chosen seat as a home for persons of all creeds and all forms of worship. It was to be the one spot of all on the earth where freedom was to be realized in its most noble sense; where religion was to be disen

tangled from politics and wedded in a beautiful alliance with philanthropy; where "God alone should be the ruler of conscience, and the will of the majority alone should rule in civil affairs." Such were the simple and yet entirely unique principles in accordance with which the community of Providence was to be governed.

I will not delay here to comment particularly on the complete triumph in favor of the sanctity of conscience, which was gained in that unpromising attempt of Roger Williams, on the island which is named after the beautiful Rhodes of classic story. Let our American civilization of to-day be regarded as the best of all commentaries on its completeness.

nights, to effect a dissolution of the formidable conspiracy.

He succeeded at last in accomplishing the object of his mission, and returned home. But was it for himself, or his family, or the people of his beloved island, that he thus risked his life, and thus strained to the utmost his powers of persuasion? No; it was not for any of these. It was all for Massachusetts, the colony whose court had driven him into exile on account of his simple and sublime doctrine of the sanctity of conscience. Not often, in this cold world, are injury and wrong returned like this. And yet all these acts of self-sacrifice are only such as should naturally be looked for from a man like Roger Wil

It most naturally occurs to an inquiring person to ask whether that great example of Christian philanthropy ever belied, in his private life, his profession so emphatically made in public of an unselfish anxiety for the welfare of his race. The facts recorded of him in history plainly warrant the prompt response that he did not. It is said of him, by the most reliable authority, that "he reserved to himself not one foot of land, not one tittle of political power, more than he granted to servants and strangers." Of his Massachusetts assailants and persecutors he said, "I did ever, from my soul, honor and love them, even when their judgment led them to afflict me." I tell you, reader, it is almost wonderful, this philanthropy of Roger Williams! What an exhaustless profundity of love-of that same love which gave to the heart of Jesus its yearning pulsationsthere must have been in that man's bosom! Does it not surprise you to think of him as refraining, all his life long, from ever attacking, in his writings or otherwise, with a lingering desire of revenge, the colony which had so inexcusably wronged him? When Massachusetts was threatened by a conspiracy, formed between those two bordering tribes of Indians, the Pequods and Narragansetts, and he was looked to for assistance, as the only one who knew how to touch most effectually the finer chords of the Indian heart, do we find him, then, shaking his head at the menaced colony, and saying, "I have an old grudge against you, Massachusetts, and never more can be your benefactor?" No. On the contrary, we find him taking his very life in his hands, and going to the house of the sachem of the Narragansetts; and even while the Pequod embassadors, thirsting for blood, were near, and his own throat was in constant danger from their glistening knives, we see him laboring incessantly, for three days and

ever fluttered, except to be quickly crushed-a man who was declared, by the immediate witnesses of his actions, "to have been one of the most disinterested men that ever lived, a most pious and heavenly-minded soul."

I would close right here, did it not occur to me to mention the happiness of such a man's lifeAll his days there was for Roger Williams a luxury which nothing but the generous feelings of a heart made and kept pure by the influence of a liberal faith could have secured to him. Need I say that there can be no real joy derived from religion, save when it is in alliance with the largest philanthropy? All the higher felicities of the soul are the results of exercises or experiences by which it is expanded and developed. Contraction implies a want of life. So it is with every wrinkled leaf of corn. So it is with every warped-up spirit. A true liberality enables a man to live out of himself as well as in himself. It makes him to share the joys of a thousand lives. A man must become noble before his pleasures can be noble. The bigot never knows what it is to have his sour spirit sweetened by a thrill of inspiring rapture. There is but one state of the soul in which I can conceive of it as basking in the sunshine of a serene and blissful consciousness; and it is that in which God is loved, and adored, and served, because he is seen to be the center of all that is worthy of love, and adoration, and service, and in which the whole human race is ceaselessly hovered over by the changeless affection of an unselfish heart. Such a devotion to God and humanity made sweet every breath of Roger Williams.

PLATO, hearing that some asserted he was a very bad man, said, "I shall take care so to live that nobody will believe them."

tal state exists without influencing the corporeal tissues. Granting this to the materialist, he is bound to prove that this connection can not subsist except under the category of substance and accident, in which mind is but a property of matter. Against such a doctrine we raise our hand and voice. Every one feels himself to be an indivisible percipient and thinking being-a primary truth which, like our belief in the external world, does not rest on nor admit of argument— which we can not get rid of, and which, according to father Buffier and Reid, constitutes the foundation of human knowledge. We confess our inability to conceive the slightest resemblance between the known properties of matter and mental operations; the former existing in space, with which the latter have nothing to do. Further, we agree with Berkeley, that our knowledge of mind is of a much more positive kind than our knowledge of matter-we are sure of our mental existence and we can conceive the existence of mind without matter; hence, there is no absurdity in believing that they are not necessarily conjoined. Lastly, the belief of mankind in the independent existence of spirit and in a future state is so universal, as to assume the aspect of an instinct. If this belief be instinctive, then the analogy of all other instincts would lead to the conclusion that this, like the rest, is directed to the attainment of some real end and object.

CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF NERVOUS MATTER.

Our knowledge of the chemical composition of nervous matter is nearly nil. Men of the highest mark have hitherto failed to trace chemical differences in the different nerves of the body. Some of the acids and other constituents of fat, together with a large amount of the combinations of phosphorus, are all the results which are given by the ablest chemists from the analysis of the brain. And here they confess their ignorance of the relation of these substances to each other.

We stumble, therefore, in our laborious groping for knowledge, on a most unexpected conclusion: that all the various functions of man as a sentient and intellectual being, and all the other phenomena of his body depending on nervous influence, are not founded on any essential differences discoverable either in the anatomical structure or chemical composition of the nervous matter. The nerve regulating a secretion is similar to the nerve subservient to vision. Like the wires of a telegraph, the material elements may be the same, the element pervading them may be similar in all, but the arrangement is designed by a power which uses and governs the one and the other.

THE GRAVES OF MILFORD.

BY REV. M. N. OLMSTED.

""T is a solemn place;

For this dark, purple loam, whereon I lie,
And this green mold, the mother of bright flowers,
Was bone and sinew once, now decomposed;
Perhaps has lived, breathed, walked as proud as we,
And animate with all the faculties,

And finer senses of the human soul!

And now what are they? To their elements
Each has returned, dust crumbled back to dust,
The spirit gone to God."

WM. THOMPSON BACON.
O history presents so broad a field or embraces

the grave. It sweeps in its range the whole earth, and tells a tale of joy or sorrow of every human being. No country on the globe, where human foot has trod, but marks a passage in this history. The mountain-top and the lowly vale, the frostbound north and the torrid zone, the city full and country sparse, each in their turn furnish material for its pages. Could the great deep alone but open her treasury of knowledge on this subject, what would be its record? What would the scenes connected with the lives of Noah, Moses, Joshua, and David reveal? Add to these the bloody records of Marathon, Canna, Chalons, Waterloo, and the crusades; of the American Revolution, the war with Mexico, and the CriOnce more go where Nature herself turns grave-digger, and in a moment entombs her thousands, leaving no stone to mark the place of their sepulture. Behold Mount Etna, Vesuvius, and Hecla, as they belch forth upon the affrighted inhabitants floods of liquid fire, or, rending the solid earth at their base, open their voracious jaws to draw multitudes into their sulphurous bosoms. Could the records of all these be presented, with all the attendant thoughts and feelings, "the world itself would scarce contain the books that would be written." All these may be presented by the recording angel, at the great assize.

mea.

Let us now turn from scenes so vast and appalling to the quiet village graveyard, and contemplate a scene where the white marble marks the resting-place of real worth, and whose soil has oft been wet with tears of undying affection-the graves of Milford.

WEPOWAGE, the Indian name of Milford, Connecticut, and lying between New Haven and Bridgeport, was purchased from the Indians on the 12th of February, 1639. The parties in the transaction were the sagamore and his council; namely, Ansantaway, Arracousat, Anshuta, Man