ments of property, as the physical substances of which it consists. When it is so overvalued, that it cankers and corrupts these, its vital elements, it ceases to be property, because it ceases to be secure. It were as reasonable to expect health in a body without blood, as to expect that property can be held in security, when it ceases to be sought in moderation. Every unstrung energy of this great nation has but recently proclaimed this truth. Many of those who had charge of other people's earnings, have buried them and their own integrity in a common ruin. Many of those who were not content with small gains and an easy competency, and the dispensation of its enjoyments and charities, and who sought that happiness in enlarged possessions, which can only be found in moderate desires and cheerful action, like the unfaithful steward, have had even that which they possessed taken from them. The widow and orphan, who had been provided for, by the last affectionate care of dying husbands and fathers—the aged and infirm, who had earned some scanty support for the evening of life-the industrious and toil-worn, who needed repose, and trusted they had secured it-the unprotected woman who had wrought in solitude, to purchase an exemption from dependence in approaching decreptitude-have all been beggared. But the self-adjusting laws of trade are forcing back the restless and misdirected energies to their appropriate channels of industry. These wrecks, and the authors of them, the injured, and those who inflicted the injury, will be forgotten. They are almost forgotten now. All are disappearing, like the traces of the conflict and the groans of the dying from the field of battle. But what shall calm or purify the volcano of evil principles, which occasioned the wrong? What laws of trade, what efforts of industry, can repair that moral wreck, which they have made and are making. Forgetting, if we may for a moment, our lofty indignation, at what foreigners say of our national habits and manners of our refinement, or our want of it-what is to restore our own self-respect? our mutual confidence in each other? What is to give us back that contented integrity, those chastened views of life, that trust in duty performed and guarded honesty, which are as necessary to general prosperity, as those sinews of wealth, which a grasping and cold self-seeking has so recently paralyzed? The character and conduct of Jay will not be studied in vain by those who are willing to consider these things. In 1826, the 4th of July being the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence, was more generally celebrated than usual. A committee of the Corporation of the City of New York, addressed a letter to Mr. Jay, then more than eighty years of age, recognizing his high claim to the respect and gratitude of his country, on account of his agency in securing the blessings they then enjoyed, and requested him to be present at the celebration. In his reply, he declined the invitation, on account of age and increasing infirmities, and added: "I cannot forbear to embrace the opportunity offered by the present occasion, to express my earnest hope that the peace, happiness, and prosperity, enjoyed by our beloved country, may induce those who direct her national councils, to recommend a general and public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him from whose goodness these blessings descend. The most effectual means of securing a continuance of our civil and religious liberties, is always to remember with reverence and gratitude, the source from which they flow." In 1828, on account of continued infirmities, he was unable to attend the annual meeting of the American Bible Society, and acting upon the principle that it was not right for him to retain an office, the duties of which he could not well perform, he resigned the Presidency, and accompanied his resignation with a liberal donation to the society. On the evening of the 14th of May, 1829, he retired to bed in his usual health, and in the course of the night was seized with palsy. He lingered until the 17th of the same month, when he died in the 84th year of his age, and 28 years after his retirement from public life. He had outlived his enemies, if such he could have had, and at the time of his death, there was nothing to jar the general feeling of respect for his character, through the country. It was said of him in an address, soon after his death: "A halo of veneration seemed to encircle him, as one belonging to another world, though lingering in this. When the tidings of his death came to us, they were received through the nation, not with sorrow or mourning, but with solemn awe, like that with which we read the mysterious passage of ancient Scripture; And Enoch walked with God, and was not, or God took him.'" THE GHOSTLY FUNERAL. BY ROBERT OLIVER. MANY years ago, I spent the last month of summer as the guest of a friend, whose dwelling stood upon the north bank of the Mohawk, a few miles ahove the Cahoes Falls. Soon after my arrival there, on rising early one Sabbath morning, I saw with some surprise, as I unclosed the shutters of my chamber, whose windows looked towards the west, a number of canoes descending the river. On their approach, I counted seven of them, each containing four or five Indians of both sexes. The strength of the current, and the vigor with which they were paddled, speedily brought them abreast of a small sandy beach belonging to my host, about a gunshot from his house; there the voyagers landed, and, beneath the shade of some ancient broad-spreading oaks, began without delay to erect wigwams, part of whose materials they had brought in their canoes, while bushes and branches of trees supplied the remainder. I watched their proceedings with considerable interest, till the bell rang for breakfast; on going down to which, I found that my friend and his family had also observed the arrival of the Indians. In reply to my inquiries, he told me that he knew them well, and that they had often in previous years encamped on the same spot. They were, he said, the remnants of tribes formerly dwelling in the Mohawk valley, who being nearly exterminated by the Dutch and English, had relinquished their hereditary feuds, united into one band, and sought refuge in Canada. There they soon, at least nominally, embraced Catholicism, and settled in one of the villages on the St. Lawrence, into which the French priests have gathered their aboriginal converts. But neither new home nor new faith could supplant their attachment to the pleasant valley where rested the ashes of their ancestors. It was remembered with a fondness that seemed proof alike against the wear of time and the change of generations. Almost every summer, the whole tribe came back to pass a few weeks on the banks of their beloved river, conveying themselves, and the little goods they carried, in canoes, for whose passage the navigable waters that abound in New York and Canada afforded ample facility, the light bark vessels being easily borne across the few narrow intervals ibat im peded their progress. Their principal and favorite resort, as it had been for ages of their forefathers, was the tract in which they were now encamped, at the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson; a pictureque wilderness of rocks, woods, cataracts and islands, at that time little traversed by civilized man, and broken only by here and there a solitary dwelling like my friend's, though now a railroad intersects its border, a canal passes through its midst, and factories and taverns violate its wildest recesses. My host could remember ten or twelve of these visits, and he remarked that at each successive appearance, the number of the Indians was less than before, though none who were able to travel ever failed to come. They did not seem to thrive in the strange soil to which they had transplanted themselves, for while few were born, many died, and of late years death strangely enough had selected his victims chiefly from the young, thus cutting off those from whom alone the race could hope perpetuation. Without some change it was evident that before many years the tribe must become extinct. After breakfast on the morrow we visited the Indian wigwams and found that the party consisted of thirty, all past the prime of life, excepting six children who were half-grown boys. The adults were melancholy-looking, listless beings, very taciturn, asking no questions and answering very briefly, though always mildly and to the point. Their uncommunicativeness was evidently from sadness, not sullenness. They greeted my friend with some cordiality, and offered us berries and broiled fish in a very courteous manner. I was particularly interested by their chief, a venerable man who had nearly reached a hundred years of age. His body was shrivelled and so feeble that he could scarce walk, but his senses seemed perfect, and his mind as bright and strong as ever. Unlike his followers, he was cheerful and sociable, talked much of himself and his people, all of whom he said were with him, none having been unable or unwilling to leave Canada. The only cloud across his sunshine was the approaching extinction of his tribe, to which he alluded one or twice with much feeling, saying that not a child had been born for five years, that all their girls were dead and that he should not be surprised, old and feeble as he was, if he lived to see the last of their boys buried. We could offer him little consolation, for the facts were too palpable and the deductions too clear to be disputed; and we took our leave, expressing a hope that he might indeed be long spared to his people by whom, we did not fail to observe, he was treated with the utmost deference, his least word being heeded as if uttered by an oracle, and his wants ministered to in a manner wherein respect and affection were finally blended. For some days afterwards heavy rains prevented us from repeating our visit to the Indians; but we saw from our windows that notwithstanding the weather, they fished and roamed the woods as usual. Occasionally some of them came to the house to get tobacco, salt or liquor from the servants, in exchange for a basket or a pair of moccasins, and sometimes to present my host with an uncommonly fine fish or berries of extraordinary size and flavor. On Saturday morning very early, two of the women came to inform us that the old chief had died on the previous night, after an illness of only a few hours, and to beg candles, linen cloth, and other articles which they needed for his burial, and for the performance of certain superstitious rites, half Catholic and half heathenish, of which they would give no tangible account to my friend's wife, by whom their wants were attended to. In the course of the day, the weather clearing for a space, we went to the encampment; but were refused, though civilly, admission to the wigwam in which the corpse lay, and it was with difficulty that we learnt the time and place of burial. These were so singular, as greatly to excite our curiosity. The old chief, when dying, had solemnly commanded his people not to commit his body to the earth, but on the succeeding Sabbath night, to place it in their largest canoe, with a lighted pine torch at the prow, conduct the vessel to the middle of the river, and let it, just at midnight, go over the Cahoes Falls. This strange injunction the Indians seemed bent upon fulfilling to the letter, and after cautioning them against venturing within the power of the cataract, we withdrew, resolved if the weather were at all endurable, to witness the funeral. It rained steadily during the Sabbath, but at nightfall the sky partially cleared up under the influence of a west wind that now blew in furious gusts, and then would lull to a breeze, scarcely strong enough to stir the leaves. The moon at times shone out between the scudding clouds, and here and there a star serenely sparkled from a patch of blue. On the whole, the weather was more favorable than we hoped for, and it was arranged that my friend and his eldest son, a lad of fourteen, should go forth with me, while his wife, because of the dampness and the possibility of sudden rain, should remain at home and watch the spectacle from the chamber windows, which commanded a view of the river nearly to the Falls. About half-past nine o'clock we noticed torches borne to and fro at the Indian encampment, and immediately sallied forth to observe the ensuing proceedings. We stationed ourselves amid a clump of pines crowning a rock that rose abruptly from the river's edge, whence we had a close, full view of the wigwams. Our patience was not long tried. Presently four of the Indians issued from the largest hut, bearing on their shoulders the corpse, wrapped in a white sheet, and proceeded towards the water, followed in single file by the rest, each of the six boys bearing a lighted torch. They moved slowly and in silence, or if a word were spoken it was in too low a tone to reach our ears. The bearers soon deposited their ghostly burthen in the canoe, at the prow of which another lighted torch was fixed. The whole band then knelt and remained a few moments in prayer; on rising they entered their six remaining vessels, the boys with torches stationing themselves at the prows, and pushed off into the stream. This was all done in the most noiseless manner, as if by the impulse of the moment, for no one gave any orders, and there was no confusion or hesitation in their movements. Probably every thing had been previously arranged. They used their paddles with some force till the middle of the river was reached, when their canoes were turned towards the Falls, and permitted to float without more interference than was needed to maintain the position of each one in the line; for they followed one another at a few yards distance, the foremost with the corpse being, we suppose, controlled in its course by a cord attached to the second. They descended with rapidity, for the current of the river, always powerful so near the cataract, was now swelled by the rains to unusual strength. We watched their progress till they came opposite to our standing-place, when we started and walked along the river's bank, being able amid the darkness and the roughness of the way, to get along with just sufficient speed to keep our selves abreast of them. We passed the clear ground in front of my friend's house, and entered a thick pine wood which stretched from thence along the high rocky banks of the river almost to the Falls. The path through this, wound nigh to the edge of the precipice, and was so tortuous and narrow as almost to preclude conversation between my companions and myself. Each one made his way as best he could, now attending to his footing, now glancing at the floating torches and the dusky forms that silently cowered beneath their flare. Proceeding thus for about half an hour, we came to a bold elevation in the rocky shore, towering above the loftiest pines and jutting somewhat into the stream. The summit of this promontory was level, and clothed only with moss and a few stunted bushes. We paused upon it to rest and look around, as it commanded a view of the river for miles above and below. I had observed that as the night advanced the darkness gradually grew deeper, while the wind rose higher and higher, till now at times it swept in furious blasts, lashing the river into one wide sheet of foam, and surging through the pines with a swelling roar that rivalled the breaking of the ocean on a rockbound coast; then lulling for a while, it would leave the trees swaying to and fro, till their tumultuous sound sank to a low moaning, from which it would again rouse them, again to subside. The clouds, too, had gathered fast and nearly overspread the sky, so that no stars were visible, though at intervals the moon broke forth from the white masses of vapor that scudded across her disc, casting doubtful light upon the tossing river and the bellowing woods that rolled in concert with its waves. We were standing on the rock before mentioned, gazing on the wild scene above and around us, when, just as the wind had sunk to its lowest ebb, and the air was almost calm, though the pines still murmured and the water foamed, and as I was about to answer a remark of my friend's concerning the roar of the falls, which rose continually above all other sounds-just then, I say, there appeared before my eyes a sight as strange, as awful, as inexplicable as ever perplexed a mortal's vision. Language is so inadequate to describe what I saw, or rather my command of it so limited, that I cannot hope to give another more than the faintest impression of the scene. I will therefore merely sketch an outline, which the reader's imagination can fill up more fittingly than any words of mine. The broad bosom of the river which but an instant before had been vacant of any object, save the seven torch-lit vessels whose course we were watching, became in the twinkling of an eye covered from shore to shore, and as far up as my sight could reach, with canoes, each bearing a torch at its prow, and all crowded with beings in human shape. These canoes were following with equal movement and in regular files those which formed the funeral train of the dead chief; the foremost ones approaching so close to the latter, as to seem part of the same procession. The figures which filled them were of the red race, of both sexes and of every age and condition. Chiefs, warriors, hunters, priests, women and children, sat together without method, except that at every prow was a boyblack-haired, dusky and slender-upholding a torch, whose spectral flame rose clear and steady, unmindful of the wind that continually flickered and sometimes threatened to extinguish the material torches, that had gone before. These ghostly crews were silent, motionless, and with their faces all bending forward towards the corpse. Every limb and lineament, every fold of their garments, were as distinctly visible to me as if the brightest sun had shone upon them; yet I noticed that the blaze of their myriad torches did not illumine the air around, or cast any gleam upon the water, or dispel in any degree the gloom that enshrouded the woods, the rocks and the shores. Neither did the wind or the waves affect the canoes, but they moved right on as if borne by a current harmonious in motion with that of the river, yet not partaking of its agitation. But I did not observe all these things at once. When the marvellous vision suddenly appeared before me, I was seized with those dreadful sensations of awe and horror, which, as Swedenborg and other seers testify, are felt even by the stoutest and boldest, when, for the first time their spiritual sight is opened and they behold beings of the inner world. My heart sank, a cold sweat broke out upon me, and like the Temanitish friend of Job, I felt my hair stand up, while "fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake." I struggled, however, against this perturbation, and strove to be calm and to persuade myself that what I saw was an illusion, the chimerical product of a fancy heated by the strange funeral, the gloomy hour and the wild place. But it would not do. In vain I called upon that reason in which I had so long confided as the wisest counsellor and most competent judge of all things whether in heaven above or in earth beneath. A higher faculty was now aroused within me, before which the natural understanding became as a servant in the presence of his master. I found it useless to think of " optical delusions," "freaks of imagination," and the other miserable phrases by which an unbelieving age endeavors to explain, or rather to deny, all manifestations of a higher, more interior life than that of this world. Born as I was of a worldly race, bred in a lifeless church and schooled in a sensuous philosophy, there was at that moment that before my eyes, which, though comprehended not, and scarcely credited, was yet sufficient to pierce, as with arrows of lightning, the weak defences I had so carefully reared around my soul to keep out a faith in spiritual things. Like the devils, I could not but believe and tremble, No, I would not believe! Summoning up my pride, my self-conceit, and what I termed my rationality, I passed my hand across my eyes as if to brush away a film, and with a smile that belied the heart within me, turned to my friend who was but a step distant, gazing at the canoe containing the corpse, which was already considerably further down the stream than the height whereon we stood. I was about to call upon him to laugh with me at my ridiculous hallucination, which seemed still more absurd when I perceived by his composure that he at least saw nothing of the spectres. As 1 moved, he looked around and the moon 66 then shining full upon my face, he started, exclaiming Good heavens! how pale you are! What ails you? Are you ill?” "No, I am well enough, except that something seems to be the matter with my brain. I have the strangest fancy that ever-But is it possible you see nothing there?" I cried, interrupting myself and pointing to the river, whose awful burden seemed to become every instant more distinctly visible. "Why, nothing but the river," he replied, glancing at the water and then looking at me with increased surprise; "Do you see anything else?" 66 Yes," I almost shouted, for my first fear was passing away, and I began to grow excited, as rank after rank of the phantom vessels with their stern, silent passengers came pouring on in multitudinous and interminable succession—“ Yes, I see all the ancestors of the old chief, and of his whole tribe and all their kindred besides, coming to the funeral; thousands and thousands of canoes, ten thousands of torches, and myriads of unmoving mournful Indians. No man had ever such a train before." I laughed while I spoke, partly because I could not help it and partly to parry my friend's anticipated ridicule. But he answered very seriously; for, as he afterwards told me, the wildness of my look and speech made him fear lest I had become suddenly deranged. Taking_my arm to prevent me from springing off the rock or performing any other mad antic, if I had been so minded, he said; "I see nothing unusual on the river, and think that the moonlight must deceive you. You are certainly unwell, and we had better return home. 66 Come, Charles!" he continued, calling to his son, who with the restless activity of youth was trying to make his way around the base of the promontory. On hearing his father's voice, the boy sprang rapidly up the rock and joined us. 66 Stop," said I, resisting his attempt to lead me away, "I am not sick, nor mad, although I may be dreaming. Charles, what are those things that cover the river?" I enquired of the boy in as calm a tone as I could. "I don't see anything, sir," he replied, after looking at the water for a moment. "Then I must be dreaming-or am I indeed mad?"-for in my ignorance of spiritual things, I had no conception of the mode in which they are perceived, but supposed that arbitrarily or miracu |