with utter disgust and contempt. Not for all the wealth that the world could confer would he barter his liberty. If you take away a savage boy, and bring him into the bosom of civilized society, he pines for his native wilds. Though you feed and clothe, and instruct him, and even caress him as your own child, he still pines with discontent. Or even, if perchance you get him to be apparently satisfied with his new situation, after a short sojourn with savages, he becomes as much a sav age as ever. But though the ascent is hard and painful, the descent is easy. A boy, taken from civilized life and made to live with savages, how soon he is identified with them, in feeling, as well as in manners!When brought back, after a few years, to his native home, how difficult, how next to impossible it is to dissolve the charm that had fastened itself upon him; to cure him of his wildness; to make him steady, and industrious, and satisfied under the wholesome restraints of law and religion. It is not theory, but experience, that speaks in this wise.

Nor are these the only instances with which experience furnishes us. There is one, of much greater importance, and of far deeper interest: it is the apparent unconcern, not to say eagerness, with which multitudes of our countrymen recede from civilized life.-Look! what perpetual streams of emigration, from the bosom of civilized and religious society, to the outskirts of the living world. Look! how new levies of the forlorn hope, eagerly advance forward, year by year, beyond the last ulterior limits; leaving behind them regions of wilderness, thinly chequered here and there with marks of cultivation.

"The world is all before them where to choose." See the population of an immense frontier, a popula tion of millions of our own colour, flesh and blood,"

nearly as destitute of evangelical means as the savage "who yells on the banks of the Missouri"-without schools, without a ministry, without religious institutes, without the sabbath, without bibles; sunk and still sinking into the depths of moral debasement; their children rearing up under the blasting influence of an unchristian culture, with scarcely any sense of moral or religious obligation!

Not that no part of the spectacle is cheering. The sight of so many frightful wilds, the dreary haunts of ravening beasts, turned into fruitful fields, is delightful, at the same time that it reflects credit upon the industry, the enterprize, the hardihood, and the perseverance of our countrymen. But it is progressing too fast. There are few, if any, even of those old settlements, whose population is yearly drained away by thousands, which might not, by improved cultivation, by husbanding all their resources, and by returning to the plain living of former times, be made to support even a great increase of population, while their superior intellectual, social, moral, aud religious advantages, would much more than countervail any advantages obtainable by emigrating into foreign deserts. The emigrations are not, however, from the old settlements only. The roving spirit of the Tartar and the Arab, seems to have seized the Americans. Even when a recent frontier is scarcely populated in the proportion of the twentieth part of it, they begin to remove further out; as if it be the object nearest their hearts, to recede as far as possible from the very appearance of civilization.

NUMBER LXV.

A comment upon a celebrated Allegory of Antiquity.

A celebrated ancient philosopher of the pagan school, has represented human nature under the similitude or analogy of a chariot drawn by two horses; the one, of excellent mettle and lively motion; and the other, sluggish and obstinate: so that while the former sprung forward, his mate hung back. And it must be owned, there is a striking aptness in this little allegory.

Of all the animals in the whole living world, none are seen to act inconsistently, but those of Adam's race. The lower animals, acting from what we call blind instinct, are nevertheless, uniform and consistent in their conduct; while ourselves, who proudly lay claim to the high endowments of Reason, run into inconsistencies and absurdities every day of our lives. We know the right, and approve it; we see the wrong, and condemn it and after all, very often the right we reject or forsake, and the wrong we pursue..

This marvellous phenomenon, namely, the disjointed condition of human nature and the perpetual variance of man with himself, has been plainly visible in all ages; and oft and many a time, has mole-eyed philosophy puzzled herself in vain to account for it. It used to be thought by the engrossers of the wisdom of this world, that the mind and the body were unequally yoked together; that the former, being of celestial mould was naturally inclined to mount upward, and that the lat ter ever checked the noble flights of its yoke-fellow, forcing it back again to kindred earth. The wise Son of Sirach seems to have possessed a tincture of this fashionable philosophy, when he remarked, "The cor ruptible body weigheth down the soul.",

For which reason, the body has met with hard and scurvy usage among religionists of different schools. The bigots of paganism, and the bigots of popery in the dark age, regarding their bodies as clogs to, and polluters of, their nobler part; they proceeded to treat these unworthy copartners with unmerited scorn and cruelty.

Revelation, fairly understood, sets this whole matter in a clear light. In it we see, whence sprang the strange inconsistency in human nature, and from it we learn that, as neither the soul can subsist in the present state without the body, nor the body without the soul, so it behooves that they live together in harmony-provided the inferior be never permitted to get the upperhand, but be kept at all times in due subjection to its superi

our.

But leaving this momentous subject to abler pens, I crave the license of considering the fabulous chariot of Plato in a different, and peradventure, a new, point of view. The twain, that have entered together into the covenant of marriage, "are no more twain, but one flesh." And yet, they are frequently seen to pull in different directions, so that the chariot either stands still, or is rent by the struggle.

In one instance there is seen an industrious, tidy, and frugal wife, yoked to a lazy and squandering husband, who wastes his time, here and there, about nothing, or spends it, along with his money, at a neighbouring dram-shop; while she on her part, strains every nerve and fibre of exertion barely to save herself and her little ones from hunger and nakedness.

In another instance is seen a husband of sober life and frugal habits, labouring in his field or workshop from morn to eve; whilst his rib takes her ease; neglects the care of her household; idles away her time; is wasteful and prodigal, and scatters even faster than he can gather.

Fungus takes double duty upon himself. Although he has a wife competently capable and well-disposed to do her part, he is ever overseeing and governing her concerns. His vigilant eye is peeping about, from parlour to kitchen and from kitchen to parlour, looking into every dish, and at every thing that is going on, that he may find something to regulate, or some subject of manly criticism.

Vixenna-unlike the truly politic wife described by Pope, who, though "she rules her husband, never shows she rules"-Vixenna, on the contrary, is ambitious to make her own power known. Her husband, poor man, is fain to give account to her, of all the items of his business, and to receive directions and mandates from her lips, day by day, as well before company as behind the curtain.

Some partners in wedlock, thwart one another as to the important matter of governing and disciplining their children. For instance, the boy that is corrected by the father, and but reasonably corrected, looks to the mother to take his part, and to give it back to her conjugal inmate in angry grimaces, hard words, and menacing gestures. This is the sure way to rear up children for the purpose of being trampled down by them.

We are apt to regard a condition in life as positively bad, whenever it is attended with any prominent circumstance of an unpleasant nature. And hence it is thought, that unless there be much suavity of disposition on both sides, marriages must needs be unhappy; and, moreover, that those matches are the most promising, in which each partner is most like to each. But otherwise, in a great many instances, is the language of experience. Virtuousness of character being understood, it is not every degree of unlikeness in point of