RETROSPECT OF YOUTH. 291 saw the star of immortal hope rising above the proud-vacity which once beamed in that eye, the smile of est billow, dispelling all the shades and gloom which | cheerfulness which so placidly played in the whole exinvest the boundless prospect--a gloomy shade, espe- pression, when last beheld? They have strangely discially to those whose eye of faith was never fixed on ||appeared. the erected cross, who never cast the anchor of their But the few short years of absence have not sped their rapid flight without leaving some indelible traces behind them. Comparing yourself with others, and hope within the vail. Over the memory of one you cannot but sigh, and feel it is but just. Over another you shed a tear of mournful gratitude at the additional|| seeing in them, as in a faithful mirror, your own image testimony to the efficacy of the great atonement through which you hope for conquest in the final conflict. reflected back, you feel a new and deep conviction of the length of life's journey, which both you and they have left behind. You find you have kept pace with those at whose progress you are filled with astonishment. You will probably more than ever feel how true it is that the sweet morning days of youth are gone, and have carried with them all that freedom from this anxious care which now ever fills your occupied But your thoughts are turned to other themes, and are addressed by other objects. Presenting themselves together, the events and changes of years are crowded into the space of a single thought, and make a single impression. Forgetting the intervening lapse of time which includes those contemplated events and changes,||and weary thoughts, and that responsibility which your they seem as if they had all transpired at once, or had present relations manifestly involve, ignorance of which been the occurrence of one short day. The time is then gave volatility and gayety to your cheerful heart. fled and past, the events belong to the history of absent But they have gone. Mirthfulness has been exchanged days, the individuals are present only in memory and for gravity-the restive and boundless flights of an unin thought. And who can resist the tendency to pen-disciplined and delusive imagination for deep and sober siveness, when every object of sight and thought com- thought. It is demonstrated that you are in a world bines to induce that state of mind? Not an associa- of realities, though a world of constant care, and toil, tion suggested by each surrounding object, but contri- and change. The romantic visions and empty dreams butes to the same result. You cannot move from place to of earthly bliss have vanished into empty air. The place but altered roads or if the old highways remain conviction may have grown into an abiding principle unchanged, then every recognized object stands like some of action, that rational and substantial joy must have monument of other times, and meets you as if com- its source and its seat, not in external circumstances, missioned to wake up reminiscences of those days and but in a sanctified and devotional heart. And if you scenes when rose the cloudless morning sun of youthful have been so fortunate, rather wise, as to have sought, hope. Fearless of meridian heat, or evening frost, it and seeking, found the pardon of sin and the hope of kindly cheered your feet along life's flowery pathway. a blessed immortality, through a crucified Redeemer, Or next arrest your attention the old inclosures, gardens, you can hardly fail to feel a new impetus towards heavmeadows, or new cleared fields, just reclaimed from en, whither your faith traces the triumphant flight of native wildness, and added to the contiguous cultiva-kindred spirits, whose personal acquaintance you fondted and productive grounds connected with the pater-ly hoped again to enjoy on earth. How sweet, how nal domicil. You are struck with the dilapidated state of the houses and buildings, seen new in other timesthemselves still familiar, but their aspect strange. Or perhaps they have been removed, and new ones erected in their place, or else the old remain, and other edifices have been added to their number. Your native village seems almost to have lost its identity. Is it languishing under the wasting hand of time, and the ebb of business and improvement, as if ready to be forsaken by restless, fluctuating man? Or does its improvement and extension remind you of the capacity of invincible, tireless enterprise? Here a new temple of devotion has arisen, whose lofty spire pointing to the skies, indicates man's celestial birth, and his high intellectual and moral destination. Call upon some relative or ac- I LOOK upon personal conversation and prayer quaintance of your early youth, glance over his domes- with individuals, as among my most successful entic circle, and you are surprised that a new generation deavors. When I first obtained a hope, I prayed has sprung up during the few years of your absence, year after, year, that God would make me the means and you wonder that they have reached their present of saving souls; and I think I have had evidence age and maturity. You gaze on the well known face that more than one hundred souls have been conof your friend. It is true, the general outlines remain verted to God, through my own direct and personal unchanged; but where are the healthful flush, the florid instrumentality. It is all of God's grace, and nothing hue which once danced on that cheek, the youthful vi- that I have done.-Harlan Page. soothing to the soul to reflect on their escape from all the toils, and cares, and sorrows of this vale of tears! It is a cordial to the fainting heart. Hope now casts another anchor within the vail. Faith takes a firmer hold on the dying sinner's atoning sacrifice, and sees a brighter prospect rise before it. Love waxes to a purer flame to Him who first loved us and our sinful race, at the thought of obtaining the same reward; yea, heaven is more endeared, since we have kindred spirits there; and earth has less attraction, since every thing earthly is in a state of constant mutation, and all the living hasten to their final change, 292 CHIPPEWA SACRED FIRE. Original. CHIPPEWA SACRED FIRE. BY R. SAPP. phetic intercourse with the future, or their capability of appeasing the wrath and propitiating the favor of their manitoes, we are ignorant, unless we allow that they brought it in their migrations from the eastern hemisphere. Allowing that they came from the eastern continent, we at once have an easy solution; but cut off the descent of this race of men from the eastern world, and we are left in darkness as deep as their mythology. There is one single fact, which, if it determines nothing as to their origin, is interesting to the curious inquirer of Indian history and tradition. This is the fact, above mentioned, of the sacred fire which, at the close of the seventeenth century, was burning on the southern shore of Lake Superior, far towards its western extremity. We are not able to learn the time when the fire was first kindled, the cause of its origin, nor the precise time of its extinction. Nothing, however, is more clearly established, in Indian mythology, than the fact that it existed, and that priests and priestesses were placed to sacredly guard and keep it continually burning. It appears that its extinction was regarded as ominous of some great national calamity. It was looked upon with all that superstitious veneration peculiar to the Indian character; and the persons of the male and female guardians, to whose care it was committed, were held more sacred, and in higher estimation, than their ordinary priests and sorcerers. THE eastern hemisphere has the honor of being the birth-place of the human race, and of nearly every thing which gives interest and character to their history. After man left the groves in which honors were paid to the Most High, here he found a place to erect the first temple for the same holy purpose; and here the first altars were built to receive the immolated victims, designed to appease the wrath and propitiate the favor of God. From this same soil has sprung the systems of mythological worship, under which mankind lived and groaned for ages; and here the sacred fires were kindled, and magi placed to sacredly guard and keep them always burning. Here oracles gave forth prophetical enigmas, and the lying priests and priestesses reveled in their wickedness, and practiced their deceptions. But the eastern world has not been merely the birth-place of man and mythological systems-it has also been the land of song and of science-of arms and the mechanic arts. We are so accustomed to trace the origin and history of every thing to this pristine abode of man, that whatever we find in the western world peculiar or distinctive, we are apt to turn our eyes to the east, and look for some usage with which it will correspond, and from which it may have originated. I am led to these reflections by learning of the exist-ible emblem of their national power, which was conence of the sacred fire which was burning upon the southern shore of Lake Superior, towards the close of the seventeenth century. This had become the central point of intelligence and power to the great Algic race of Indians. The Chippewa, or, as they are styled, Algonquin and Algic, in their national ligaments, embraced one of the great families inhabiting the northern part of the American continent at its discovery. They then spread over a wide territory, taking in the country surrounding the northern lakes, and extending east and west along the numerous rivers and streams, forming the inlets and outlets of these great inland seas. Formerly, as their tradition represents, they were seated upon the banks of the St. Lawrence; but, from their migrating and predatory character, they extended their abodes and conquests north to Hudson's Bay and Lake Winnipic, and west to the extreme western limits of Lake Superior, and the head waters of the Mississippi, where they came in contact with some of the tribes belonging to the great Ostic stock. This race of Indians are strongly addicted to storytelling-have an unlimited belief in magic and the in But notwithstanding their superstitious care, this vis sidered to be coeval with their national existence, has long since ceased to burn. It was for centuries the beacon of their national pride; but the time at length drew on when they, like the great nations of antiquity, were to be broken down. The augury proved but too true. This has been done. We, like the ruthless Goth, have trampled upon their sacred fire, and overthrown their power, and they now are a ruined and riven race. It is easy to trace a resemblance between this fact in Indian mythology, and the ancient magian religion. The magi of Persia were divided into three classesthe first consisted of inferior priests, who conducted the ordinary ceremonies of religion-the second presided over the sacred fire, which, before the time of Zoroaster, was kindled on the tops of hills in the open air, and was held to be the emblem of Oromasdes, or the good god-the third was Archimagus, or the high priest, who possessed supreme authority over the whole order. WHEN I appeared like the world, in Babylonish garfluence of their manitoes, or spirits, and accustom them-ments, I had its esteem, and knew not how to part with selves to sing unmeasured and rough songs. These it. But when I showed by my appearance, that I conseveral peculiarities are so interwoven, that their legen-sidered myself as a stranger and a foreigner, none can dary tales are intermixed with their mythological enig-know, but by trying it, what an influence it has on the mas, and their rude poetry and music with both. Every tribe or band has a class of magi, whose business it is to offer sacrifices and perform religious services, and who are consulted as oracles, both in peace and war. From whence they derived their notions of pro-ll also.-Mrs. Fletcher. whole conduct, and what a fence it is to keep us from sinking into the spirit of the world. For there is no medium; they who are conformed to the fashions, customs, and maxims of the world, must embrace its spirit Original. THE FUTURE. THE FUTURE. Ir has been said that "he who is content, will smile upon a stool, while Alexander weeps upon the throne of the world." The sentiment may be true; yet we have rare examples of perfect contentment. Human ambition is seldom satisfied. The aspirations of the soul rarely cease till death cuts down the aspirant. Disappointment cannot quench the ardors of a mind intently set upon the acquisition of happiness. Defeat often adds intensity to desire, and multiplies the objects of hope. Hence our sanguine anticipations of the fu ture. The human mind, ever restless, ever planning, tarries not to converse with passing scenes, but seeks to penetrate the vail, and explore the mysteries that lie beyond. Not the realities of to-day, but the prospects of to-morrow charm us. Man may be said to live in futurity. There he builds his habitation, and dwells with rapture upon the glowing fictions of his own creative fancy. While memory is treacherous, and the past is forgotten-while the present is only a point, and arrests not|| the current of thought, the mind seeks a field where it may fully exercise its powers. This is found in the future. Here opens a boundless expanse, over which thought may wander with delight. Here fancy may roam unconfined. Here is felt the power of a charm which attracts the soul, and, like the mysterious loadstone, draws all objects toward itself. Much of its influence over the mind, however, may arise from the change it effects in desired objects. When the mind contemplates a remote object, it discovers not deformities, but is often deceived, as is the eye by natural objects under similar circumstances. Why does a rude hut, surrounded with shrubbery, appear, at a distance, like a beautiful cottage, and an ugly plot of ground, covered with weeds, like a verdant lawn, clothed in all the rich luxuriance of nature?-the neighboring pool, whose nauseous vapors exhale poisons, like a placid sheet of water! All is the effect of distance. By its transforming agency, whatever may be harsh, discordant, and offensive, is softened into exquisite beauty and loveliness. As in the natural, so in the moral landscape, 293 shines beyond the present, and to it would confine all our meditations, imagination, winged by the fires of inspiration, bears off its prize to the secret habitations of coming time. Hope is another agent in the anticipations of the future. It clothes imagination in an apparent garb of reality, and gives even a seeming permanence to the forms of things unknown, conjured up by the wild workings of fancy. "Hope, a beauteous phantom, pictures fair But it remains for fancy to give the finishing stroke. The operations of these principles are seen in every period of life. In infancy, imagination, touching the secret springs of latent thought, and setting in motion the machinery of mind, is seen in all its multiform exhibitions. Behold the sportive boy as he runs on an errand for his parents. Mark the workings of his active mind, and the bright anticipations that are kindled by every passing object. What is it that now retards his steps? He is forming bright anticipations of the future. Perhaps he passes a window glittering with collections of rich and costly merchandise. He dreams of great possessions and incalculable wealth. A splendid mansion next attracts his notice. He hopes soon to be the proprietor of one still more magnificent. Now his ear catches the sound of martial music, and a military show is presented. Immediately he fancies himself the commander of a mighty army, with thousands moving at his will. He dreams of battle fields, glorious victories, and of the conqueror's triumphs. These, however, may be considered the wild chimeras of an untutored, infant mind, which a riper and enlightened judgment would correct. But let it be remembered that human nature is always the same. As the small shrub bodies forth the form of the stately tree, so the mental operations of the young are only the mighty mind in embryo. What is it that occupies the sleeping and waking reveries of the young man about to enter upon the arena of active life? Watch the course of his thoughts "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view." in his solitary musings. Is he to be a merchant? How Objects appear comely and fascinating, because they bright are his expectations! He hopes soon to outrival are remote, and their deformities are concealed. Con- all his competitors in wealth and respectability. He template for a moment human life, and test the asser- anticipates seeing his name known and honored in evtion by experience. We slight present objects, no mat-ery country, and his ships floating on every sea. Is he ter how much happiness they might afford. They a scholar, about to enter the field of literary competiscem mean and unsatisfying. But those in the distant future we admire. We press to their attainment; yet often when attained, we lothe and cast them away. tion? Imagination bears him at once to the very pinnacle of fame, forgetful of the necessary intervening steps. The productions of his pen are read and adBut the fancied value of things in expectancy is mired by all the learned; or perhaps called to a public greatly enhanced by the medium through which they life, "juries hang upon his lips, courts bow to his deare seen. Distance would operate in vain, did not im- cisions, or a listening senate is wielded at his will." agination exert its magic power. Fancy is the mind's Thus men pass their lives, the victims of vain hopes prophetic eye. It delights to traverse the mazes of the and visionary projects. Nor do they cease while the unknown future. When the light of reason scarcely || waning lamp of life emits its feeblest ray. Often the ruling passion is strong in death, and the last struggles || This universe, and hung yon glorious sun on high— To warm and quicken into life and birth "Those who in Jesus sleep, with him shall rise.” The picture drawn is not of an individual, but of the multitude. There are few in this busy world who do not chase these glittering phantoms of hope with eagerness. But how little of this bright imagery possesses any real and tangible qualities! How few of these brilliant castles built amid fancy's wild careerings, are ever inhabited! Men look forward with eager solicitude to the period when they shall attain the full fruition of their wishes; but, alas! how seldom are they gratified! When the period for their fulfillment arrives, all their bright anticipations, once so firmly enthroned in futurity, vanish, and, "like a vision, leave not a wreck behind." While we admit there is a pleasure in gay ||O, let us, then, our hearts as well as graves prepare, day dreams, and midnight reveries, care should be taken to guard against excessive indulgence. If not, the mind will soon become like well-wrought machinery without a balance-wheel. When loose reins are given to the imagination, and a wild fancy permitted to drive the vehicle of thought far into the ideal world, man has no safe criterion of action, but becomes a fit object for the arrows of fate. Reason, phæton-like, unable to restrain the impetuosity of an imperious imagination, is hurled from her seat of authority, subdued by the power of disappointed hope; and once noble man becomes, like the mountain oak riven by the vengeful thunderbolt, a blighted trunk of an accursed root. So we who here have met, again meet there, And this vast "gathering of the west" Be found once more amid the blest. "Tis He alone, to whom "life's issues all belong," Can tell who first, amidst this breathing throng, Shall, hither borne, fulfill the sad decree, To part from life and "all the sympathies that be." Perchance some heedless, fearless one now near, May soonest th' appalling summons hear. God in his wisdom shapes our ends-the young and gay May be the first he wisely calls away; And ere these trees their beauteous foliage shed, The head may rest where now the agile foot has sped; Rather suborn imagination to the dictates of reason,|| And ere another summer sun comes back to bless and consult the oracles of wisdom; for there are antic-And deck this grove in nature's verdant dress, ipations which disappoint not, and hopes that will not The pensile willow o'er that grave be weeping, die, even before the "dances of death." I mean those Where the young victim lies, forgetful sleeping. higher, holier, nobler aspirations of the soul, which so In fancy's eye, methinks I see, e'en now, connect things present with the future, as "to bind Death's angel standing on yon hillock's brow, man's chaste affections to the throne of God," where Complacent, looking on-the preparations making, long cherished expectation will ere long break forth While he, remorseless, his sure aim is taking. into the bright realities of a blissful eternity. The shaft has sped! See how, in swift decline, The victim falls! At the grim monster's shrine All human aid were vain-no skill can save This ripening subject from an early grave. Original. THE GRAVE. LEANDER. But ye whose "hearts are right," be not afraid! God never yet his "promises betrayed." Thoughts suggested at the consecration of the Wesleyan Cem- The grave shall have no victory, and death no sting! etery, near Cincinnati, July 11, 1842. How beauteous has the God of nature made And when we lay thee in thy grassy bed, Our eyes, perchance, some "natural tears will shed; (And soon this office we shall claim for our's;) CORNELIA AUGUSTA. To some warm heart the poorest dust is dear; * Literally, tree of life. Original. ELECTRICITY. ELECTRICITY. 295 They had, it is true, witnessed many of the more prominent exhibitions of its power in the works of nature. They had listened with superstitious awe to the dread artillery of the heavens-they had seen the vivid lightning's play around the lofty summit of their Olympus, firing its sacred groves, or hurling from its cragged peaks the massive rocks. The sailor, too, had seen in it his guardian deity, or the dreaded genius of the THE natural sciences are the peculiar growth of modern times; for whatever eminence the learned of antiquity may have attained in other departments of science, or of the arts, they seem scarcely to have entered upon the threshold of this. Some departments, which are now perhaps less assiduously cultivated, had then advanced to great perfection, and shone with astonish-storm, resting in tongues of fire upon the pointed mast; ing brilliancy; whilst others, which were then shrouded in the deepest night, or perhaps just seen above the horizon, emitting a feeble and flickering ray, have since arisen to meridian splendor. or the warrior, upon the eve of battle, had seen his spear tipped with ethereal fire. But while these appearances were regarded as the effect of the direct interposition of some of the numerous superior beings with which a teeming fancy had peopled the earth and skies, and who, by these means, displayed their power and maintained their authority over the minds of men, few could be found, even among philosophers possessed of sufficient hardihood and impiety to attempt an explanation, by natural causes, of these most interesting phenomena. Thus painting and sculpture rose under the plastic hand of the tasteful Greeks, sensitively alive to all the charms of symmetry and color, to an elevation which bids defiance to future rivalry; while the glowing fancy, the lofty imagination, the delicate sensibility of Athenian and Roman mind, have poured themselves forth in all the varied forms of poetry and eloquence, which they have left, like luminaries, in the literary heavens, at These opinions at length, however, began to give which the poet and the orator of succeeding ages place to sounder principles in science, and more enlargmight delight to aim, though despairing of ever attain-ed and accurate views of Divine Providence; and some ing his mark. Though, in the pure sciences, the works of Euclid have continued to be the text-book of the geometrician for more than two thousand years, still unrivaled in the beauty and simplicity of its de-known to perform her ordinary works. But the humonstrations, yet of the natural sciences, which constitute so large and valuable a portion of modern learning, scarcely one can be said to have had an existence in the academies of ancient Greece and Rome. The history of some of them, indeed, may be included within the narrow compass of half a century or less. It was not until philosophers ceased to rest the superstructure of science upon the shadowy pillars of fanciful theory, and learned, by careful observation, and by skillful experiments, like well directed questions, to draw from the breast of nature the secret principles which govern her mysterious operations, that these sciences began to assume their present commanding position. What has been said of the natural sciences generally, is particularly applicable to the science of electricity. Its history, as a science, can date little more than two centuries back; and an account of all the isolated facts known to the ancients, may be comprised within a very narrow compass. Thales, the "father of Grecian philosophy," first observed that amber, on being rubbed, attracts to itself straws and other light bodies. This effect the Grecian philosopher gravely attributed to the agency of some hidden animals, which, excited by unwelcome pressure, sallied forth from their amber habitation, and in their return brought back the captive straws. This same property was afterwards observed to belong to another substance, probably the same that is now called tourmaline. These two facts seem to have constituted the alpha and omega of the practical electricity of the ancients, and were handed down through succeeding ages with little addition, till about the commencement of the seventeenth century. of the more bold and speculating among the learned attempted to account for the extraordinary appearances in nature according to the laws by which she was man mind, long shrouded in the dark mantle of ignorance, and fettered by superstition, could not by a single effort shake off its fetters, and proceed, at one giant stride, to the eminences of true science. The eye, so long blinded by prejudice-the hand, palsied by the incantations of bigotry and priestcraft, could not at once penetrate the deep recesses of the laboratory of nature, and seize, with tenacious grasp, and bring to the light of day the secret laws and hidden apparatus by which she performed her mysterious operations. But the late unshackled mind was compelled to proceed with slow and cautious steps, groping its way through the intricate mazes of error, which many dark ages had accumulated, and removing, with untiring industry, the thousand obstacles which prejudice had interposed to its onward progress. Like the invalid just rising from the bed of disease which has prostrated all his energies, its first efforts were feeble and blundering. Yet, gaining strength from every exertion of its powers, and learning wisdom from its former failures, it has advanced rapidly to that lofty eminence on which it now stands, surveying with intelligent eye the manifold works of the great Architect of the universe, and holding in its hands the keys that unlock a thousand mysteries, which for ages had been barred to human observation. About the year 1600, some interesting experiments in electricity were published by a Dr. Gilbert of England, relating chiefly to the attractive and repulsive powers of excited bodies. Little interest, however, seems to have been excited by their publication among the learned of that day; and few if any discoveries were made till about the close of the seventeenth, or |