The Guardian, Volumen4
be in our land, did they but yield to the tender entreaties of their sisters, and consent to be what their sisters would have them become. How many young men are restrained from profligacy by the power of some amiable female heart over them; and how many are out-cast, because they will not be brought within the pure restraints which the society of virtuous females would impose upon them. How many husbands would be better men did they but submit to the silent charmings of wife and home. Above all, how richly blest, for time and eternity, would be the sons of the state and of the church, did they but realize a mother's wishes and hopes, and seek to be what the councils, prayers and tears of their mothers beseech them to be!
Such are some of woman's rights. Can the most ambitious ask a wider range of influence? When we ask this kind of rights for woman, then do we truly honor her; then do we ask for her that which will bring her the warmest love and devotion from all the good of earth, and secure for her, in the end, the richest reward in heaven.
"An illiterate female," says Dr. Chalmers, "in humble life, applied for admission to the sacrament; but, at the customary examination, could not frame one articulate reply to a single question that was put to her. It was in vain to ask her of the offices or mediation of Christ, or of the purpose of his death. Not one word could be drawn out of her; and yet there was a certain air of intelligent seriousness, and the manifestations of right and appropriate feeling-a heart and a tenderness indicated, not by one syllable of utterance, but by the natural signs of emotion which fitly responded to the topics of the clergyman, whether she was spoken to of the sin that condemned her, or of the Saviour who atoned for it. Still, as she could make no distinct reply to any of his questions, he refused to enroll her as a communicant; when she, on retiring, called out, in the fullness of her heart, 'I cannot speak for him ; but I could die for him! The minister, overpowered, handed to her a sacramental token; and with good reason, although not a reason fell in utterance from her."
GIBBON. There is an Hotel Gibbon here, (Lausanne,) partly standing on the site of that garden in which the historian took his evening walk, after writing the last lines of the work to which many years had been devoted ; a walk which alone would have hallowed the spot, if, alas! there bad not been those intimations in the work itself of a purpose which, tending to desecrate the world, must deprive all associations attendant on its accomplishment of a claim to be dwelt on as holy. How melancholy is it to feel that intellectual congratulation which attends the serene triumph of a life of studious toil, chilled by the consciousness that the labor, the research, the Asiatic splendor of illustration, have been devoted, in part at least, to obtain a wicked end not in the headlong wantonness of youth, or in the wild sportiveness of animal spirits—but urged by the deliberate-hearted purpose of crushing the light of human hope, all that is worth living for, and all that is worth dying for, and substituting for them nothing but a rayless skepticism! That evening walk is an awful thing to meditate on; the walk of a man of rare capacities, tending to his own physical decline among the serenities of loveliest nature, enjoying the thought, that in the chief work of his life just accomplished, he had embodied a hatred to the doctrines which teach men to love one another, to forgive injuries, and to hope for a diviner life beyond the grave: and exulting in the conviction, that this work would survive to teach its deadly lesson to young ingenuous students when he should be dust. One may derive consolation from reflecting that the style is too meretricious, and the attempt too elaborate and too subtile, to achieve the proposed evil, and in hoping that there were some passages in the secret history of the author's heart which may extenuate melancholy error; but our personal veneration for successful toil is destroy. ed in the sense of the strange malignity which blended with its impulses, and we feel no desire to linger over the spot where so painful a contradiction is presented as a charm.-SERGEANT TALFOURD.
SUCCESS IN CONVERSATION. The art of conversation consists in the exercise of two fine qualities. You must originate, and you must sympathise; you must possess at the same time the habit of communicating and listening. The union is rare, but irresistible.
WINTER EVENINGS AND STUDY.
BY THE SENIOR EDITOR. The winter season, to which the revolving year has again brought us, brings many advantages to those who know how to improve it. It is a season during which much can be done for the improvement of the mind in all useful and pleasant knowledge. The summer invites us to in-door retirement, where we may cultivate the mind and heart. The days in winter are short, yet sufficiently long for all industrious persons to do what is really needful to be done. The nights are long; and all its hours are not needed for sleep. There are long winter evenings, which may be devoted to reading, study, and the cultivation of the immortal nature, by all vho desire it.
The proper improvement of the opportunities which long winter evenings afford, may be made fruitful in great good. There are many instances of men, who have in this way treasured up vast stores of useful knowledge ; and have, at the same time, found the purest pleasure in the satisfaction which it afforded them. There is a pleasure in reading and study which those cannot value, who have not experienced it. The storms may howl without, the winds may whistle and moan, the snow may drift over the earth, and cheerlessness may reign with desolation over the dreary world, it is all alike to him who has a warm room, and a good book-
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join
To cbeer the gloom. Tbere studious let me sit,
And hold bigh converse with the mighty dead ;
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered ;
As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world.
Roused at the inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume; and deep-musing, hail
The sacred shades, that slowly rising page
Before my wondering eyes. How much more rational, profitable, and pleasant it is to spend evenings thus, than in drowsy idleness, or in mere amuseį ment, which does not leave the mind clearer, nor the heart
better! How delightful to drink in the sweet strains of the Poet's lyre; to trace the interesting arguments and deductions of severer science; and to rove over the pages of history, which
"Conduct us through the deeps of time:
Show us how empire grew, declined, and feli,
In scattered states; what makes the nations smile ;
Improves their soil, and makes them wise and good." Ho! ye, who waste these precious hours-waste them in places of public amusement-waste them in bar-rooms, shops
narinnar van
and stores, hearing and telling foolish anecdotes, and in those low delights which pass away as bubbles on the pool-waste them in drowsiness or in aimless pastime-hear now what the words of wisdom suggest. Do you forget you must live forever? Do you forget that you have an immortal spirit, which is capable of endless improvement? Do you forget that this talent is given you, that you may put it to usury; and that both your own happiness, and your duty to God and man, demand of you to seek wisdom, as a man seeks pearls ? Do you forget that ignorance is both shameful and sinful? Yes, you forget all this, or you could not thus squander your precious hours; suffering the field of your mind to run to waste, and permitting your immoral powers to
Lie in dead oblivion, Losing half the fleeting moments of too short a life! "O, thou wicked and slothful servant !" So exclaims your Lord. Do not answer him with the yawn of the sluggard ; but awake in good earnest, and begin to know, and to do. The means you have. The powers of mind you have. The opportunity you have. All that is needed is "the steady purpose and the high resolve."
THE LIPS. LEIGH Hunt says, of those who have thin lips, and are not shrews or niggards—"I must give here as my firm opinion, founded on what I have observed, that lips become more or less contracted in the course of years, in proportion as they are accustomed to express good humor and generosity, or peevishness and a contracted mind. Remark the effect which a moment of ill-humor and grudingness has upon the lips, and judge what may be expected from an habitual series of such moments. Remark the reverse, and make a similar judgment. The mouth is the frankest part of the face; it can the least conceal its sensations. We can bide neither ill-temper with it, nor good; we may affect what we please, but affectation will not help us. In a wrong cause it will only make our observers resent the endeavor to impose upon them. The mouth is the seat of one class of emotions, as the eyes are of another; or rather, it expresses the same emotions but in greater detail, and with a more irrepressible tendency to be in motion. It is the region of smiles and dimples, and of trembling tenderness; of a sharp sorrow, of a full-breathing joy, of candor, of reserve, of a carking care, of a liberal sympathy."
Vol. IV.
DECEMBER, 1853.
No. 12 muamenwonewwwwwww
THE BIRDS OF THE BIBLE.
THE RAVEN.
BY REV. 1. HARBAUGH.
"A stately Raven of the saintly days of yore." The Raven has been called "the ebony bird." It is so called on account of its color, which is a beautiful glossy shining black, like silk, a mixture of darkness and splendor. It derives its name, in Hebrew, from its color-oreb, the evening. In English it receives its name from its natural habit, it being å ravenous bird.
Goldsmith describes it thus : " The Raven is a bird found in every region of the world; strong and hardy, he is uninfluenced by the changes of the weather, and when other birds seem numbed, or pining with famine, the Raven is active and healthy, busily employed in prowling for prey, or sporting in the coldest atmosphere. As the heats at the line do not oppress him, so he bears the cold of the polar countries with equal indifference."
The same author says, the Raven is sometimes seen of a milk-white color; and supposes this to be the effect of the rigorous climate of the north. "It is most likely that this change is wrought upon him as upon most other animals in that part of the world where their robes, particularly in the winter, assume the color of the country which they inhabit. As in old age, when the natural heat decays, the hair grows gray, and at last white; so among animals, the cold of the climate may produce a similar languishment of color, and may shut up those pores that conveyed the tincturing fluids to the extremest parts of the body." We know that a similar difference is found to exist in regard to bears, those at the north being white.
The Raven is a very sagacious bird. "He may be trained," says Goldsmith, "for fowling like a hawk; he may be taught to fetch and carry like a spaniel; he may be taught to speak like a parrot: but the most extraordinary of all is, that he can be taught to sing like a man. I have heard a raven sing the Black Joke with great distinctness, truth, and humor." Thus the