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THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.

CINCINNATI, JANUARY, 1842.

RAILROAD SCENE.

(SEE ENGRAVING.)

Two methods have been adopted for the propulsion of carriages on railroads by steam, namely, stationary and locomotive engines. Stationary engines are set up on the sides of the road, and they act on the cars by means of ropes or chains. They are used where the level changes too abruptly to be surmounted by the use of locomotives, which is generally the case when the ascent of the inclined plane exceeds the limit of from 100 to 200 feet per mile, according to the power of the engine. At some greater inclination than 100 feet per mile, an additional engine is often used; but whenever the inclination exceeds 200 feet per mile, the stationary engine is resorted to. The passage of the mountains between Johnstown and Hollidaysburg, in Pennsylvania, is made by a great number of inclined

NECESSITY is the parent of invention. This is illustrated in the rise of railroads, from accidental causes. In some parts of England, where mining is common, it was at first customary to lay parallel rails in the mines, on which two wheel carriages were moved by men. Afterwards the carriages were enlarged, and horses were used. The rails were finally extended beyond the mines to the wharves where the coal was shipped. The rails were at first of wood, which was subsequently overlaid with wrought iron. Cast iron was used about a century afterwards. At length wrought iron was restored, but was used in a different form. At present, in the United States, rails of wood are used, which being faced with iron answer the best pur-planes and stationary engines. Some of the inclinapose. The wood is a spring, yielding at first to the shock of the heavy weights moved upon it, and then restoring itself.

The best locomotive engines in present use rest on six wheels. Two of these are larger than the others, and are driven by the engine. In this country the four small wheels are joined by frame work under one end of the carriage, and the other end rests on the large wheels. The locomotive is propelled by high pressure steam power. Two cylinders are generally used, and to the piston of each cylinder a connecting rod is adapted, which is applied at the other extremity to a crank on the axle of one of the pairs of wheels on which the engine is carried.

Upon a well constructed railroad, a horse power can propel a load of more than twenty tons. Fifteen tons is a common load on a level road. The advantage of a good railroad over a turnpike is about as twelve to one. A canal has the advantage in this respect over a railroad, when horses are employed as the propelling power. But if speed be the object, it is otherwise. In this case railroads are superior to canals, even when horses are used as the moving power. Ten miles an hour is the greatest speed that can be maintained by || horse power on a canal, but fifteen miles an hour can be accomplished on railroads. The reason of this difference is the increased resistance to motion in fluids at a high velocity.

tions are more than half a mile in length. In the month of May or September, a passage over the mountains at this point affords the traveler who has a taste for wild and picturesque scenery much entertainment.

Great improvements are going on in our own country as well as in Europe in the construction of railroads. It is reasonable to expect that in less than twenty years, nearly all the prominent cities of America will be connected by them; and in the mean time such perfection will be attained in their construction, and in the application of steam as a propelling power, that thirty miles or more per hour will be a common and safe rate of traveling. Then the Buckeye may take his early coffee in his native state, and late at evening drink tea with his friend in Baltimore. The merchant may easily leave Ohio on Monday, spare two or three days to make his purchases in Philadelphia, and be at home on Saturday evening to keep the Sabbath holy.

The frontispiece is an admirable picture of a railroad scene. The cars are represented as departing from the city, whose spires and steeples are seen in the back ground; and wayside grazers, roused by the sudden and threatening invasion of their solitude, seek safety in flight. The artist has succeeded to admiration in imparting to the whole scene an air of life and motion; and as we gaze, we almost listen in expectation of hearing the rapid escape of steam, and the sound of the wheels in their rapid whirl.

Railroads are valuable principally from the fact that steam can be used in propelling the cars. By this means great speed may be obtained. At present from twenty to twenty-five miles an hour is a common rate of locomotion on railroads. This is sometimes increas-usual mode. ed to thirty, forty, or even fifty miles an hour. It is an interesting scene to witness from twelve to twenty cars, each of which accommodates fifty persons with seats, moving at the rate of twenty-five miles per hour, and continuously, without any pausing for relays of horses. "pole, but at all points repels.

The reader will perceive at a glance that the locomotive in this picture is represented as borne on four wheels instead of six, which we have stated to be the

PRIDE like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive

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Original.

THE NEW YEAR.

BY THE EDITOR.

THE NEW YEAR.

"Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven,
And how they might have borne more welcome news."
NIGHT THOUGHTS.

WE are candidates for heaven. Time, fleeting as it is, affords us the only opportunity to secure its delights. What weighty issues depend on so brief a period!

The point which separates the old year from the new invites serious and religious meditation. We are near that point. Let us devote it to recollection, to consideration, to solemn vows, and to religious reformation, or the commencement of a new and heavenly life.

Let us devote it to recollection. The origin and decline of all things are associated in the mind with their end. When the hero perishes, memory gathers up his valorous achievements, and tranfers them to the records of history, to be reported to the world. When friends die, we wait on their funerals, see them laid in the grave, and then sit down to talk about their virtues and their failings, and to recollect the good or evil they may have suffered at our hands.

Our blessings were not the mere product of our own skill and diligence. "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps"-it is not in him that sows the seed to produce the fruitful harvest. The powers of nature are under God's control, and he alone can charge them with a fructifying influence. Sometimes he commissions the very soil to devour and not to cherish the seed of the husbandman. Then in the place of plenty come want and wasting famine.

The blessings of the year were not the product of the settled, uniform economy of nature. Nature is the cup from which we drink the sweets of life; but that cup is in God's hand, and is replenished from his fullness. O, that this were engraven on our hearts! The sun shines-the rain falls-the dew distills-the earth pours forth her treasures. But why? Because the hand of God is upon the sun-upon the clouds-upon the smiling fields-because his wisdom points the course of each ray of light, of every drop of rain, of each particle of dew. His finger touches every blade of grass, every flower, every fruitful branch, and twig, and bud, that they may bear delicious fruit. I mean by these figures that God's power not only originally formed but still impresses every element of nature, infusing it with virtue to sustain, and cheer, and comfort us. Thus the blessings of the last year were not the product of chance, or of our diligence, or of any settled economy of nature, but were the gift of God.

The year is dying. "In winding sheet of snow," it is sinking to the grave. While the winds wail its dirge, let us review its history. It has enacted the part of a mighty sovereign. Its dominion was universal. Its reign extended over islands, seas, and continents. It stretched its scepter to the heavens, touched every star, bound it in its sphere, and impelled the planets in their everlasting round. Yet amidst all we were not unnoticed. For us the year has teemed with blessings. To reckon them up in order were impossible; for they fell upon us like refreshing showers, and flowed in ceaseless streams. They were more in number than the moments which conveyed them-were precious as life, and rich as immortality. We were, throughout the year, the cherished subjects of God's beneficent providence. What else bore to us breath, and food, and raiment? What else preserved to us home, and friends, and safe abode, with all the unutterable pleasures of our social and domestic states! We have lived under a gracious reign, which has deferred our punish-gratitude been as ardent as was meet? Are we not this ment, prolonged our abused probation, and repeated to us those calls of mercy which we had impiously spurned. The very evils we endured were blessings in disguise, had we used them according to their most charitable aim. Let these truths be inscribed upon our hearts.

Let us consider again that inasmuch as our blessings came from God, they were his, and he therefore will reckon with us, and demand his property at our hands. He will require an equivalent for his gifts. True, he. will deal with us on Gospel principles. He will take as an equivalent, through Jesus Christ, the sincere homage of renovated hearts; but this he will rigidly exact, and if we refuse it he will visit us with vengeance. He allows none to consume his bounty without answering therefor. We cannot escape his indignation, if we squander his gifts, and refuse to yield him in return the offering of "a broken and contrite heart, which he will not despise."

Consider, again, how we have abused his gifts, and how the abuse involves us. What single blessing, among millions, have we devoted with exact fidelity to the service of its donor? In what instance has our

day liable to as many impeachments as we have received gifts? Might not the omniscient searcher of hearts specify against us an offense for every blessing? Doubtless, each boon is a distinct ground of censureof severe reprobation by the authority of Heaven. For though it was not forbidden fruit, yet some forbidden emotion attended either its reception or its use. Alas for us! Our natures and Satan's artifices have concurred in wresting God's property from its intended, holy uses. In our hands it was pressed into the service of sin.

To recollection let us add consideration. Let us consider that the blessings of the last year were the gift of God. They did not "come by chance." What is chance? Can you define it? Who knows any thing concerning it? It can be described by no attributes or properties. It is the mere imagining of a disordered or Then we may well consider again, how we shall be corrupt mind, and was profanely conceived, and blas-redeemed from the woes and curses provoked by these phemously brought forth. perversions. Begirt with guilt and danger, let us in

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quire for the way of escape. Let us not be stupid as || A year of sin is just now finished. In the midst of it the brute led to the slaughter. But recking past mis-life was spared. How great the mercy! Now comes deeds, and present hazards, and coming woes, let us consider how our souls may be redeemed, how delivered from deserved and pending ruin. Inconsideration is a fatal curse. It is induced by infernal charms, and is symptomatic of infernal perdition.

a new year, ushered in with many tokens of love and forbearance on the part of God. The very first sin you willfully commit, will blot a leaf of the opening year. Refrain. Mar not the page so spotless and so comely. Calling on Jehovah for his promised aid, commence the

In a word, reform. By reformation your vows will take immediate effect. In this consists their virtue. The execution of our vows must run from the moment they are offered. A moment's pause is fatal. The frame in which they are sincerely offered is the only frame that can fulfill them. But one act of sin changes that frame. A single violation robs them of their restraining force. They are intended, like a ship's cables, to bind us to heaven. Sin breaks them, and then we drift. I might go farther. The violation of a vow exasper

like murder hardens the heart, renders it desperate, and makes one more than ever the child of the devil.

To consideration let us add solemn vows to the Al-year in the purity of penitence, spend it in the purity mighty. Let us pledge our all in the most impressive of faith, and close it in the purity of love. manner to the services of religion. Our powers of thought, sentiment, and action-our whole being should be embraced in this pledge. We owe all to God, and from him let us dare to withhold nothing. To do it is foul robbery; and "will a man rob God!" Would we serve God, we must first resolve to serve him. Till we reach this point there is no hope. Vows to serve him are proper and right, and none can serve him without vows. Against these we hear objections, but they all flow from ignorance or wickedness. Men do not refuse to form covenants and reciprocate pledges with one an-ates all unholy tempers. It is per se a great sin, and other. We are not afraid of bonds, and signatures, and seals, when our earthly interests are to be secured. In evasion of these solemnities we do not plead the apprehension that we may fail to execute our covenants. But when God is to be a party, and our eternal interests are involved, we must needs pause-must deliber-change, but resolve at the same moment to delay it. ate and weigh the matter. But our refusal to pledge obedience to God amounts to an avowal of fealty to Satan. It is declining a covenant of peace with Jehovah in favor of an affiance with hell to war against him. We dare not pledge ourselves to repent and seek Jesus, lest we should find it more convenient to scorn and crucify him! And we flatter ourselves that our hesitation is a sort of pious deference to the interests of truth, while every feeling and thought of reluctance is from the father of lies. This hesitation is the quintessence of rebellion against God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. It is because the heart resolves to serve the devil, that it hesitates to be bound, by triple vows to serve God.

At the entrance of the new year break this fatal charm of the adversary. Rouse yourselves, and cast away the cords which bind you to perdition. Having served the prince of darkness hitherto, notify him that the term of service expires with the closing year-that you now assume new engagements-that you are bound henceforth to Jesus, and will be his for ever. Vows are strong. To a tender conscience they are well nigh invincible. They oppose a mighty barrier to the selfishness, deceitfulness, and wickedness of the heart. And they are urged upon us in the Bible. Indeed, there exists no example of true piety on the face of the earth without them. To pious resolutions they are like the seal to a written and well established covenant. "Vow, then, and pay unto the Lord thy vows."

The commencement of the year is favorable to religious reformation-to the commencement of a new and heavenly life. We are fond of integers. The prospect of making out a whole year of religious duty and improvement has something in it particularly attractive.

Come, then, and with the new year commence a new and heavenly life. Resolutions to change our habits are generally indefinite as to time. We resolve on the

Millions carry these two resolutions along with them through youth, manhood, and old age, to the last hour, and then die in despair. They resolved generally to be Christians, but resolved specially not to be Christians to-day, and thus lost their souls. It is easy to persuade a man that he shall be, but difficult to persuade one to be a Christian. The first is no approach towards the second. Indeed, Satan himself persuades to the former as the surest method to avoid the latter. Resolve, reader, to be a Christian. Let the season persuade you. It is difficult to fix the time. Let Him fix it who appoints the seasons. Plead with him who renovates the year and renews our abused and undeserved mercies, to renovate your heart and renew in it the features of his own blessed image, causing old things to pass away and all things to become new.

Those scenes of life which lie immediately before us, are, by Infinite wisdom, concealed from our view. As experience unfolds them, what disappointments, what sorrows, what agonies will they bear to many who look forward with high expectation to a long and prosperous life! Some, in no haste to seek the sustaining aids of religion, are just now entering on scenes of unexpected trial. Let none suppose the emergency remote in which Christian fortitude alone can bear up under accumulated sufferings. This very year will bear to many of us wasting disease, crushing disaster, the desolation of our homes, the struggles of death, and to some, if they repent not, the fearful and hopeless agonies of undone souls. Shall we delay a prepartion for emergencies to which each moment exposes us, which may befall us to-day or to-morrow, of whose approach we can know nothing, and which will always seem remote until they rush upon us like an unexpected tempest?

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As the custom is, we wish our readers "a happy || commandments: for this is the whole duty of man." new-year!" and permit us to subjoin a few suggestions. Look upon this picture. As you gaze turn from

If you would be happy, first of all fix in your minds the world and its "vanity of vanities," to the sweets of what happiness does, and of what it does not con- of religion. Would you be happy? Religion is hapsist. For this be carefully attentive to the testimony piness.. We commend it to your pursuit. Commit of God. He formed the human constitution, and is fa- your soul to its keeping, and it shall never betray miliar with all its susceptibilities. He teaches us that you. You have heard the verdict which Solomon prohappiness does not spring from the abundance which |nounced upon the world. When did the aged disciple we possess. Observation confirms the testimony. of Christ speak thus reproachfully of religion? What meek follower of the Lamb ever complained on the brink of the grave, that the Savior had disappointed him-that religion is vanity, and that wisdom would have dictated an impious career, or a life of forbidden delights? Not one. As well might angels in their purity and bliss complain that they are not coadjutors of Satan in despair.

Revelation and human life concur in teaching us that wealth cannot confer happiness. The manners of the rich betray no sweet contentment. They are vexed with more cares than the poor around them. Anxiety oppresses them day and night, and they find it more perplexing to preserve than to acquire. From wealth we can derive no revenue of happiness.

The same may be said of honor. Survey the eminences occupied by the successfully ambitious, and you will perceive that the higher you ascend, the more severe are the storms-the more furious and hurtful are the blasts of raging passion.

Fashionable amusements are not productive of happiness. They afford brief pleasure, but not permanent delight. They are like the transient glare of a burning city, not like the settled sunshine of heaven. They are forsaken by thousands with expressions of disgust.

Finally, all the world cannot make us happy. Could one soul grasp the whole, it would turn from it all and crave a greater good. Was a man of the world ever yet satisfied? Look around you and see what examples you can muster. Go to history for an instance. Its records join with your private observation to justify that saying of the Bible, "There is no peace to the wicked." For an example of the insufficiency of the world look at Solomon. How rich were his endowments! None on earth was his equal in the gifts of nature, and in the circumstances of his life. The blessings of heaven fell upon him like the showers of autumn on the fields of Palestine. He drew around him the precious things of earth from its remote and neighboring climes. The elements were made to serve him, and all creation ministered to his pleasure. In his efforts to please his own taste and fancy he half restored paradise from its ruins, and he devoured its bidden and its forbidden fruit. It was a bold experiment. But he faithfully exhausted all his powers and hopes in the vain determination to build a heaven on earth. In the midst of all his efforts old age approaches, the powers of life fail, and amidst the shadows of that cheerless evening which succeeded the guilty day of life, he penitently recounts his sins and follies, describes his insane excursions through all the fields of guilty pleasure, and proclaims them to be vanity and vexation of spirit. Having experienced more of the pleasures of sin than any other mortal-having heaped up gold as dust, builded him palaces, made him gardens, transformed his whole empire into a voluptuous court, and ordained all time a gala day for his amusement, he turns at last from his amazing folly, and exclaims, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his

We close, then, by repeating that religion is happiness. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. In her left hand are the joys of earth, in her right are the felicities of heaven. Be her follower, and she shall endow thee with all the precious things of these two worlds.

Original.
STANZAS.

Suggested on revisiting the grounds of my native place.
AND have I reached at last the spot

Where first my young affections sprung?
Tho' roving years have been my lot,
No change could from my memory blot

The mystic charms that round thee hung;
And while my feet would distant roam,
My heart would turn to thee, my home.

Are these the honey-suckle bowers,

Which I in youth so often sought,
After the soft descending showers
Had bathed with perfume all the flowers,

To breathe the incense they had caught?
These trellised vines, when filled with dew,
Seemed set with gems of every hue.

The humming-bird that wonted here,

Was scarcely then more gay than I;
Health, hope, and friends were mine to cheer;
I sipp'd each sweet that offered near,

And then to other sweets would fly.
The birds are here, the flowers are gay-
My household friends, ah, where are they!

Their day of trial now is done,

Hither their feet no more will roam;
The heartless world they learned to shun,
Then calm and peaceful, one by one

They found a brighter home.
Tho' earth now holds their scattered dust,
Their spirits mingle with the just;
Teach me, O, Lord, my cross to bear,
That I at last may meet them there.

AUGUSTA.

Original.

OUR COUNTRY.*

BY J. S. TOMLINSON,

President of Augusta College.

OUR COUNTRY.

"Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord, alas for the day!" Joel i, 14, 15.

WE are assembled, my friends, to commemorate one of the most afflictive dispensations with which an allwise and inscrutable Providence has ever been pleased to visit our country, from the organization of the government down to the present time. We have come to this consecrated place to mingle our sympathies and devotions with those of our fellow citizens throughout the land, in the recollection of the solemn and unwelcome truth, that the President of this mighty republic, General WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, has been taken from among us by the relentless hand of death, and is now reposing with his fathers in the cold and voiceless mansions of the grave. From the waters of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the base of the Rocky mountains, what a sublime moral spectacle is this day presented to the contemplation of the whole civilized world! And may we not confidently add that it is one upon which God himself condescends to look down with approbation and complacency? The spectacle to which we refer is not an empty pageant, or a mere mockery of grief, reluctantly displayed by a nation of slaves, upon the loss of one who has basely trampled their liberties in the dust, and ruled them with a rod of iron; but it is the spontaneous outpouring, by multiplied millions of free men, of their deep and heart-felt sorrow for the loss of one whom they had recently delighted to elevate to the highest office in their gift. With a noble forgetfulness of all party distinctions, persons of every creed, both civil and religious, unite together with the utmost cordiality and promptitude in testifying their profound respect for the memory of the departed hero, statesman, and patriot. Every subordinate consideration is merged in the sad and overwhelming remembrance, that, in the person of our late Chief Magistrate, the whole country has been suddenly bereft of one of its greatest benefactors.

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seat of Christ. And when we follow him to the ever memorable period of his installation, and behold him standing in front of the Capitol of this great and powerful nation, and with a heart overflowing with love to his country, hear him proclaim to listening myriads those principles, the record of which will place his name by the side of our country's illustrious patriots, it is still more difficult to realize, that, at the distance of one short month from this magnificent and spiritstirring scene, he, who was then the observed of all observers, was followed in mournful procession by the accredited representatives of numerous foreign nations, and by a countless multitude of his surviving fellow citizens, to the house appointed for all the living.

The death of such a man, at such a time, and occupying, as he did, the most prominent and important position known to our federal Constitution, may well be regarded as a great national calamity; and as such, his distinguished successor has, with the utmost propriety, recommended that the remembrance of it should be solemnized by the observance of this day, in every part of the Union, as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer. And this recommendation will, no doubt, meet with a ready response in every American bosom, irrespective, as before suggested, of all party distinctions. Yes, my friends, on this day the people will come up in crowds to the house of God, not as whigs or as democrats-not as Catholics or Protestants, but meeting together as Christians and American citizens only, they will, as "with one mouth and one mind," offer to that God who holds the destinies of nations in his hands, the acceptable homage of humble and submissive hearts, sincerely deprecating the displeasure of their Maker, and fervently imploring forgiveness for the past, and a continuance of those inestimable blessings with which, for more than half a century, this nation has been so signally favored.

Such a course as this, under circumstances like the present, is dictated and sanctioned by the best feelings of the human heart, by the decisions of our enlightened reason, and, above all, by numerous precepts and examples, recorded in the Scriptures of divine truth.

The practice of solemnizing great national bereavements by the exercise of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, is by no means peculiar to Christian countries, but has prevailed, to a greater or less extent, from time immemorial, among all civilized nations who acknowl

What an impressive lesson does this mournful occurrence afford to every reflecting mind, upon the muta-edge the existence and superintending providence of bility of all that is earthly-the transitory and unsub- God. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, stantial nature of the highest honors that any human and, subsequently, the Greeks and Romans, not only power is capable of bestowing! It is almost impossible engaged in solemnities of this kind, on extraordinary to realize that he who, only a few weeks since, ascended occasions, but had their stated times for the obserour noble and beautiful river, amidst the almost inces- vance of them, which nothing could induce them to sant congratulations and rejoicings of the thronging neglect. And their most distinguished men, let it be thousands who hastened to do him honor, is now sleep-remembered, were the most prominent and punctual in ing the sleep that shall know no waking until the voice the performance of these religious ceremonies. They of the archangel and the trump of God shall summon not only practiced these things, in common with the the quick and the dead to appear before the judgment *This discourse was delivered in Augusta, Ky., May 14, 1841, being the day set apart for fasting, humiliation, and pray. er, in consequence of the death of William Henry Harrison.

people generally, but, in their individual capacities, devoted a considerable portion of their time to exercises of this sort. Numa Pompilius, Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Vespasian, and others, as we are informed, had their

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