"Yet, if we grant that he taught the truth, and emember the manner in which this truth is asserted to have been poured into his mind, and the extent and distinctness of the revelation so vouchsafed to him, then we can easily trace a most perfect coincidence between the style and character of thought, argument, and language, and that state of feeling which we may judge to have been habitual to the writer whenever his mind was turned, either in direct meditation, or by some casual association, to the recollection of the "deep things of God."-238-241.

Mr. Verplanck's mind is deeply imbued with much reading in the best authors. The range of his illustrations sometimes creates an incongruity between the sacredness of his subject, and his allusions; but his argument is never weak, and he evinces a judgment, in a remarkable degree, calm and unprejudiced. Many of his readers will doubt the wisdom of generalizing so far as scarcely to specify the doctrines of revealed religion; and many will think that he speaks with less effect, because he stands so much in the outer porch of the temple. We are convinced, that the more we descend to particulars in the doctrines of Christ, the more we shall find a divine life in every vein and fibre. In general propositions, so much may be said on each hand, that the longer we live, the more we become sceptical of mere human reasonings. We remember to have heard, not many leagues from Coppet, that after M. Benjamin Constant had read, several years ago, an essay against religion to a circle at Madame de Stael's, she told him that the fashion had changed, the times were altered, he ought now to write in favor of religion. He took the advice, and produced, in a few days, an admirable specimen of dialectics, refuting his former positions. We do not vouch for the truth of all this; se non è vero, ben trovato. Mr. Verplanck writes with the stamp of deep and earnest conviction; and he proves so well the divine authority of the Bible, that we hope he will soon be prepared to pronounce upon more than these preliminary considerations. His style is pure, perspicuous, and beautifully elaborated; not always, perhaps, sufficiently spirited and flowing, and sometimes, although not often, cumbersome and heavy; peculiarities which the habit of devoting himself more to philosophical abstractions than to the expression of eloquent feeling, has probably induced. On a subject which has called forth the talents, the learning, and the eloquence of the ablest divines, there was little reason to expect any increase or enforcement of the evidences of our faith. Mr. Verplanck has, therefore, done much more than could be reasonably required. By an occasional contribution of new testimony, and a skilful and impressive exhibition of the old, he has given to his book a value, original in its character,. and, we doubt not, lasting in its influence.

ART. IV.-The Travellers. A Tale. Designed for Young People. By the author of "Redwood." New-York: Bliss & White. 1825.

If there be any circumstance, by which the literature of the present century is advantageously distinguished from that of the preceding, it is the multiplication of books intended to improve the minds and form the manners of the young. The mere increase of books of this kind would not, perhaps, be a circumstance on which we ought greatly to congratulate ourselves, were it not for the far greater ability and judgment with which they are composed. Writers of high reputation and great attainments, have set themselves diligently to smooth the difficulties of knowledge. They have reduced the sciences to their simplest and plainest rudiments. They have, in short, as nearly as could be done, translated them into the ordinary language, and brought them down to the ordinary conceptions of life, so as to leave no obstacles in the way of their attainment, but such as are inherent in their own nature. The topics of general knowledge have been presented to the youthful mind in the form of interesting conversations; and the principles of virtue and practical wisdom have been insinuated in captivating and elegant fictions. These things are a happy omen for the next generation. There are no duties which lie upon us with a more urgent and fearful responsibility, than our duties to those who rise up to take our places in life after we are gone. We may, perhaps, do something for those who are arrived with us to mature age, in the way of making them wiser; but it is little, very little, that our most painful exertions can effect towards making them better. Indeed, society has good cause to esteem itself fortunate, if any means are devised to prevent them from becoming worse. It is only on the rising generation that we can feel any confidence that the lessons of virtue will not be lost; and if the age is to make any progress in goodness, if the world is ever to be reformed, it must be by the gradual influences of a judicious system of education.

It is matter of pleasure to us, to see a writer, of the powers possessed by the author of Redwood, employing her talents in a sphere where they are likely to do so much good. The work whose title we have placed at the head of this article, is an uncommonly graceful little narrative, and will bear no unfavourable comparison with the best of those engaging fictions of Miss Edgeworth, which were written with the same design. In some respects, she seems to us to have the advantage of Miss Edgeworth. We refer to the inculcation of religious motives on

proper occasions, and to the warmer and deeper tone of feeling, and the brighter colouring of imagination, which pervades these pages. Not only are the writings, of Miss Edgeworth, designed for youthful readers, carefully devested of whatever has the effect of exciting the imagination, but their tendency is to repress every thing like enthusiasm in youthful minds, and to reduce the motives of action to a sober calculation of worldly profit and advantage. Such a system, of course, excludes all religious influences, and with them, those generous impulses of the heart, which carry us out of ourselves, and prompt us to do good to others without caring for personal consequences. What is commonly called enthusiasm, is often only a fervid and active disinterestedness. It is, without doubt, exceedingly annoying when directed to trifling or impracticable objects; and very dangerous, when it mistakes hurtful for beneficial ones; but it has been, and we apprehend will always be, the spring of nearly all the noble and illustrious actions which dignify the history of the human race. It is the principle that agitates and purifies the moral world; the great enemy of indolence, of the love of pleasure, and of selfish ambition. It is the powerful agent which breaks down established abuses, and at the sacrifice of present advantage, secures important blessings for posterity. Its entire absence from the mind may, in short, be looked upon as a sort of imperfection and deformity. It is a quality bestowed for wise purposes, and capable of being employed to effect important ends its extravagances are without doubt to be checked, and its direction to be watched over and regulated; but it is no more to be annihilated than either of our five senses. Nor is the imagination a faculty which a system of education, judiciously adapted to our nature, should aim to efface from the mind. It should, of course, be kept under a proper regulation; but we need not waste time in attempting to show that it requires only a wise cultivation, to make it, what it was meant to be, an important means of happiness. That faculty which spreads brightness and beauty over the face of nature; which connects moral associations with inanimate objects; the exercise of which makes society cheerful, and even turns solitude into a kind of society, is certainly to be looked upon, not merely as an innocent, but as a most useful and valuable faculty.

The work we are now considering, is principally an account of a journey performed by two very young persons, a brother and sister, who, in company with their parents, make what is called the grand tour of Niagara, the lakes, &c. On their way, a variety of interesting incidents take place, which, by the judi

cious management of their parents, aided by the ingenuous reflections of their own minds, are improved into so many lessons of wisdom and benevolence. They are related in a very spirited and agreeable manner. As a specimen of the work, we give one of those beautiful little narratives with which it is interspersed. A stranger is relating to the travellers a tradition concerning the ruins of an old French fortification, situated on a point of land at the junction of the Oswegatchie and the St. Lawrence.

"A commandant of this fort (which was built by the French to protect their traders against the savages) married a young Iroquois, who was before or after the marriage converted to the Catholic faith. She was the daughter of a chieftain of her tribe, and great efforts were made by her people to induce her to return to them. Her brother lurked in this neighbourbood, and procured interviews with her, and attempted to win her back by all the motives of national pride and family affection; but all in vain. The young Garanga, or, to call her by her baptismal name, Marguerite, was bound by a threefold cord-her love to her husband, to her son, and to her religion. Mecumeh, finding persuasion ineffectual, had recourse to stratagem. The commandant was in the habit of going down the river often on fishing excursions, and when he returned, he would fire his signal gun, and Marguerite and her boy would hasten to the shore to greet him.

"On one occasion he had been gone longer than usual. Marguerite was filled with apprehensions, natural enough at a time when imminent dangers and hairbreadth escapes were of every day occurrence. She had sat in the tower and watched for the returning canoe till the last beam of day had faded from the waters;-the deepening shadows of twilight played tricks with her imagination. Once she was startled by the water-fowl, which, as it skimmed along the surface of the water, imaged to her fancy the light canoe impelled by her husband's vigorous armagain she heard the leap of the heavy muskalongi, and the splashing waters sounded to her fancy like the first dash of the oar. That passed away, and disappointment and tears followed. Her boy was beside her; the young Louis, who, though scarcely twelve years old, already had his imagination filled with daring deeds. Born and bred in a fort, he was an adept in the use of the bow and the musket; courage seemed to be his instinct, and danger his element, and battles and wounds were 'household words' with him. He laughed at his mother's fears; but, in spite of his boyish ridicule, they strengthened, till apprehension seemed reality. Suddenly the sound of the signal gun broke on the stillness of the night. Both mother and son sprang on their feet with a cry of joy, and were pressing hand in hand towards the outer gate, when a sentinel stopped them to remind Marguerite it was her husband's order that no one should venture without the walls after sunset. She, however, insisted on passing, and telling the soldier that she would answer to the commandant for his breach of orders-she passed the outer barrier. Young Louis held up his bow and arrow before the sentinel, saying gayly, 'I am my mother's body-guard you know.' Tradition has preserved these trifling circumstances, as the events that followed rendered them memorable.

"The distance, continued the stranger, from the fort to the place where the commandant moored his canoe was trifling, and quickly passed Marguerite and Louis flew along the narrow foot path, reached the shore, and were in the arms of Mecumeh and his fierce companions. Entreaties and resistance were alike vain. Resistance was made, with a manly spirit, by young Louis, who drew a knife from the girdle of one of the Indians, and attempted to plunge it into the bosom of Mecumeh, who was roughly binding his wampum belt over Marguerite's mouth, to deaden the sound of her screams. The uncle wrested the knife from him, and smiled proudly on him, as if he recognised in the brave boy a scion from his own stock.

"The Indians had two canoes; Marguerite was eonveyed to one, Louis to the other and both canoes were rowed into the Oswegatchie, and up the stream as fast as it was possible to impel them against the current of the river.

ހ

"Not a word nor cry escaped the boy: he seemed intent on some purpose, and when the canoe approached near the shore, he took off a milltary cap he wore, and threw it so skilfully that it lodged, where he meant it should, on the branch of a tree which projected over the water. There was a long white feather in the cap. The Indians had observed the boy's movement-they held up their oars for a moment, and seemed to consult whether they should return and remove the cap; but after a moment, they again dashed their oars in the water, and proceeded forward. They continued rowing for a few miles, and then landed; hid their canoes behind so ne trees on the river's bank, and plunged into the woods with their prisoners. It seems to have been their intention to have returned to their canoes in the morning, and they had not proceeded far from the shore, when they kindled a fire, and prepared some food, and offered a share of it to Marguerite and Louis. Poor Marguerite, as you may suppose, had no mind to eat; but Louis, saith tradition, ate as heartily as if he had been safe within the walls of the fort. After the supper, the Indians stretched themselves before the fire, but not till they had taken the precaution to bind Marguerite to a tree, and to compel Louis to lie down in the arms of his uncle Mecumeh. Neither of the prisoners, as you may imagine, closed their eyes. Louis kept his fixed on his mother. She sat upright beside an oak tree; the cord was fastened around her waist, and bound around the tree, which had been blasted by lightning; the moon poured its beams through the naked branches upon her face, convulsed with the agony of despair and fear. With one hand she held a crucifix to her lips; the other was on her rosary. The sight of his mother in such a situation, stirred up daring thoughts in the bosom of the heroic boy-but he lay powerless in his uncle's naked brawny arms. He tried to disengage himself, but at the slightest movement, Mecumeh, though still sleeping, seemed conscious, and strained him closer to him. At last the strong sleep, that in the depth of the night steeps the senses in utter forgetfulness, overpowered him-his arms relaxed their hold, and dropped beside him, and left Louis free.

"He rose cautiously, looked for one instant on the Indians, and assured himself they all slept profoundly. He then possessed himself of Mecumeh's knife, which lay at his feet, and severed the cord that bound his mother to the tree. Neither of them spoke a word-but with the least possible sound they resumed the way by which they had come from the