MARY'S OFFERING.

160

NOTICES.-EDITOR'S TABLE.

NOTICES.

This list of articles and their sources, will enable our readers to form a general opinion of the value of the Eclectic. No periodical of selections is at all to be compared with it. See our April number for terms, &c.

THE YOUNG LADY'S FRIEND. By Mrs. John Farrar, author of "The Life of Lafayette," the "Life of Howard," "The Youth's Letter Writer," &c. New York: S. S. & W. Wood.This work treats of Domestic Economy, Dress, Health, Friends, THE PROGRESS, ADVANCEMENT, AND ULTIMATE REGENETeachers, the Domestic Relations, Female Companionship, RATION OF HUMAN SOCIETY. An Address before the EroPublic Places, Dinner and Evening Parties, Conversation, Vis-delphian Society of Miami University, August 10, 1842. By its, Traveling, and Mental Culture. It is most defective on the subject of religion. As a guide in matters which belong to outward discipline, or in "minor morals," it may be profitably read. The following remarks on "Dress in Church" are very just:

"The display of finery and of new clothes, which is too often made at Church, is so out of place and grates so harshly on the feelings of more sober-minded people, that I have heard wishes expressed that we had a fixed costume to wear to places of worship, like the Spanish ladies, who always put on a black

dress and vail on such occasions. If our ladies were obliged to
appear at Church all dressed alike, in some very plain guise,
I fear their attendance on public worship would not be so fre-
quent as now. Better than this, however, far better would it
be, if every sober-minded Christian woman would dress at all
times in a style suited to her character, and not let the tyranny
of fashion force upon her an outward seeming, wholly at vari-
ance with the inward reality. I hope the time is not distant,
when it will be considered ungenteel to be gaily dressed in
walking the streets of cities, towns, and villages-when a plain
bonnet that shades the face, a plain dress, and thick shoes and
stockings, shall be as indispensable to the walking costume of
an American lady as they are to that of most Europeans."
In this benevolent desire we most cordially join.
MESOPOTAMIA AND ASSYRIA, from the Earliest Ages to
the Present Time, with Illustrations of their Natural His-
tory. By J. Ballie Fraser, Esq., Author of "An Historical
and Descriptive Account of Persia," &c. With a map and
Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers.-Facts and

Lewis W. Green, Professor of Biblical Literature in the Western Theological Seminary.-This address abounds in bold and striking thoughts, delivered in a lofty and a sufficiently ornamented style. It borders slightly on declamation; yet indicates scholarship, as well as an adventurous imagination. CURRENT LITERATURE.-The third, fourth, and fifth parts of Allison's History are received; and also the third part of Brande's Encyclopedia. See the notice of these works in the April number of the Repository.

INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN YUCATAN. By John L. Stephens, author of "Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraa, and the Holy Land," "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan," etc. Illustrated by 120 Engravings. Two vols., 8vo. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1843.—We are indebted to the publishers at New York for a copy of this work. Its form is much like that of the "Incidents of Travel in Central America." The author, with Mr. Catherwood, proceeded to his second examination of the ruins of Yucatan well prepared to explore, examine, and prepare full and accurate reports of American antiquities. In accordance with this preparation, Mr. Stephens visited forty-four ruined cities; some of them were almost unknown to the citizens of the capital, and had probably never been visited by the white inhabitants. The engravings in these volumes are the finest of their kind. They are from Daguerreotype views, and of course are accurate, and must render all the aid that could possibly be derived from pictorial representations of the objects described. They add inconceivably to the interest, as well as to the value of the work. Probably no traveler of modern times excels Mr. Stethe aspects and history of Mesopotamia and Assyria, which phens in accuracy of observation, or in the felicity of his decould be gathered from authentic sources, is here briefly prescriptions. His journals have all the interest of the most exsented, and is compressed into one small volume with much care and skill. A map accompanies the volume, which will render it still more valuable.

their causes are here stated and discussed. All that relates to

citing novels. He can clothe the most common incidents of a journey in a garb which renders them romantically, humorously, or instructively entertaining. Those who have read his former "Incidents of Travel," in the east and in the west, will

need no recommendation of this new work.

On sale at the Cincinnati Book Concern.

As a history and description of ancient cities and their ruins, such as Babylon and Ninevah, it will deeply interest the curious mind. The antiquities treated of in this book connect themselves in some degree with revelation, but perhaps not so fully, in the manner of the author, as would be legiti-lock, D. D. Cincinnati: Published by James B. Finley.mate and desirable.

On sale at the Cincinnati Book Concern.

THE YOUNG GARDENER'S ASSISTANT; Containing a Cata logue of Garden and Flower Seeds, with Practical Directions under each head, for the cultivation of culinary vegetables and flowers. By T. Bridgeman. New York.-To those who cultivate flowers this will be a valuable directory.

ECLECTIC AND MUSEUM, for March.-This number is embellished with an exquisite mezotinto, "The Girl and Flowers," from the pencil of Lawrence, engraved by Sartain. The selected articles are as follows: Progress of Human Industry, from the Journal des Travauxeto; Souvenirs de M. Berryer, Edinburgh Review; English Criticism, Westminster Review; Borrow's Bible in Spain, Examiner; Tour in Switzerland, Spectator; Pitcairns Island, United Service Magazine; Prospects of the United States, Examiner; Honey Bee and Bee Books, Quarterly Review; Glacial Theory, Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal; Strutt's Pedestrian Tour, Spectator; The Credulity of Unbelief, Spectator; Jesse's Court of England, Spectator; Yeates' Egypt, Spectator; Public Affairs, Tait's Magazine; Letters from Paris, Foreign Quarterly Review; Religious Houses, Gentleman's Magazine; Natural Daguerreotyping, Chambers' Journal; The Wandering Jew, Bentley's Miscellany. Besides these there are departments of Poetry, of Science and Art, Miscellanies, Bibliographical Notices, and a Select List of Recent Publications.

A DISCOURSE ON SALVATION BY CHRIST. By Wm. Sher

The excellence of Dr. Sherlock as a writer, will recommend this little volume to all our readers. The theme of this discourse is deeply interesting and vitally important. It contains 122 pages 18mo., in cheap form, (25 cents,) and is on sale at the

Cincinnati Book Room.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

LEBANON FEMALE SEMINARY--Mrs. Baker has opened her school for young ladies in the delightful town of Lebanon. It is one of the best locations in Ohio; and from the long experience of the teacher, and her tried fidelity in teaching and governing female pupils, the highest expectations may be inWe trust that this effort will meet with dulged of her success.

the most cordial support from the members of the Church and the friends of education. We will give the terms, &c., when we shall be sufficiently informed.

To CORRESPONDENTS.-"Frances" will appear in our next number. S. J. H. is invited to continue her correspondence. Articles for a given number of the Repository should be in the hands of the editor six weeks previous to the date of publication. Even then they may be deferred to articles of an earlier

date.

TO READERS.-We invite particular attention to the correspondence of the present number. We deem ourselves favored by contributions derived from new sources.

THE LADIES'
LADIES' REPOSITORY.

CINCINNATI, JUNE, 1843.

Original.

REMINISCENCES.

I ONCE heard from the pulpit an affecting illustration of the habit of cheerfulness, as a Christian duty; and though this habit may possibly hold but an inferior place in the catalogue of sacred obligations, yet all my observations of life have led me to the conclusion that it is unquestionably a requisition of imposing force. Cheerfulness is a sort of light particularly calculated for domestic use, throwing its "little beams" especially upon those who are shut up with us in the inner places of life; and the cottage, in which it is kept burning, with only a farthing taper beside, is more truly lighted up than the halls where it is wanting with the glitter of a score of chandeliers.

their Christian character. All good influences forbid that, in homage to my favorite virtue, I should forget the yet more imperative and divine one of charity! But when I behold one treading solemnly and austerely on his way, with an eye bent to the ground, as having no part or interest in the human joys or sorrows of those around him, afraid to take in the million glad sounds and sights which a merciful God has given to the fair earth, to cheer and strengthen his creatures, I am then in my greatest danger of losing it. It was. from such as these that my earliest views of the nature of religion were derived. Their countenances and manner cast a chill, like ice, on my almost infant heart, and I turned from them to regard all professors as vowed to a crusade against even the most innocent In this view alone, then, unconnected with other enjoyments. Riper years but rendered the impression effect, and guarded from no holier impulse than the more definite. Instead of a benign influence, pouring common affections of our nature, it is a lamp to be its radiance into the dark places of the secret soul, as kept carefully trimmed and fed with oil. But it should the sun-beam touches into life and beauty the solitary be considered in connection with yet higher purposes. depths of nature, I looked upon religion as a harsh It is probably owing to a mistaken view, or an utter and sternly exacting influence. I thought it deadened disregard of the subject, as evidenced by many a pro- every joyous emotion, and narrowed the sphere of hufessing Christian, that so much opposition prevails in man affections-that all thoughts, all feelings, all the hearts of the young-hearts not yet incrusted in capacities, were compressed by it into a single dark the insensibility or obduracy of practical vice-to a channel, and all distinctive traits of character blotted religious life. Religion is in itself so exceedingly into one sombre uniformity. From this disastrous lovely, so adapted to all the strong needs of the human belief I was at last rescued by the influence of one soul, one would think it impossible that such a heart, face beaming upon me with the cheerful warmth of unless compounded of the grossest and basest ele- Christian love. How do feelings and remembrances ments, could turn coldly from her influence. Its long, long past, rush back upon my soul as I recall unquiet and passionate yearnings point continually that revered and holy countenance! As the love of a to her truths, inasmuch as earth has nothing where- father, yearning over his children, was his for all the with to satisfy them. And yet thousands believe that, young upon whom he looked. Regarding it as an ininstead of being led by her hand to richer fountains, dication among those we every day meet, that in every religion would but bar them from every stream that form of our Christian faith, its vital principle may be is pleasant to the taste? Why are they so deluded? found, I take pleasure in remembering that he was Is it not that she appears before them too frequently in of its most austere order-the pastor of a congregation disguise? or rather, is it not another influence that of the strictest Puritan observances. The jostle of often assumes her name, and that bears not the seal the world had thrown me a resident among them in and signet of her glorious mission? The bigotry and the very flush and spring-time of life; and the irrepressuperstition which colored the religion of a darker age sible outbursts of complexional gleefulness subjected with so lurid a light have indeed passed away. The me to the perpetual penance of severe rebuke and solspirit of our blessed faith, purified and disinthralled emn monition. Circumstances, having no bearing upfrom its path of clouds, is out upon the earth, shed- on my subject, had placed me in a position of extreme ding peace and good will to all men, yet many of its difficulty; my spirit grew saddened with the pressure, professed followers still wear the shadow of its gloomier and the weary want for kindness made my heart sick. day. There are doubtless numbers whose faces are Dear venerable old man! how didst thou come to me vailed in sadness, from the deep humiliation of con- as to a lamb whom no one owned, and draw me to the scious unworthiness; and even of these, we would tender shelter of thy own dwelling!-for the young venture to ask, were it not a better incense as an ha- face, touched with sorrow, betrayed to thee my wounds, bitual offering for the altar of our faith, to rejoice over and thou needest no other impulse to seek me out but the unspeakable gift of a more prevailing sacrifice. to bind them up. And how did they heal at once But there are many who seem to regard the downcast when made a sharer of the cheerfulness thou shedest look, and the demure step, as essential constituents of around thee! Pleasant indeed was thy home, and VOL. III.-21

cheerful were all the faces it sheltered! And for the first time I learned that the heart of the Christian might be as happy as it was holy.

How vagrant, and how much swifter than lightning is the wing of thought! I thought to pen an essay, and it has led me back to a faded leaf of my heart's history. A leaf!-the remembrances of years-long years come surging over me. Shall I apologize for the wandering or the egotism? The heart is a great babbler, and who shall stay the course of the mind? If my reader dislike the irregularities of its path we must needs part company. Yet I will make an effort for better method; I have not yet done with my subject, but will resume it in a different manner.

subtilty, his lips had been touched with the living fire from the altars of Jehovah. The prayer ceased, and he rose to his feet. He was a man of some six or seven and twenty years, with a tall, slight, bending figure, and features unmarked by any peculiarity, save their general and singular expression of blended meekness and fervor. His whole countenance, as he rose from his knees, though perfectly serene, was glowing. And when he at last lifted his clear eye from the volume before him to address his audience, it rested on them for a moment with an expression of familiar love-of a feeling of near kindred with one and all of the little assembly-saddened indeed by a sense of their awakened and fallen state, but rendered yet the more earI said I once heard it illustrated from the pulpit; nest, more tender, more binding, more impulsive, for that and could I give the manner of that illustration, as I mournful conviction. And most true to that feeling heard it from lips long since "returned to dust," I need were the whole tone and spirit of the discourse, or add nothing further. But it is the actor, and not the rather the appeal that followed; for it was an appeal, narrator, of such a scene that makes it felt. Never- touching, solemn, soul-subduing to all the interests and theless I will give the details; for, though years have susceptibilities of our better nature. Beautiful on the swept over their traces, they are yet distinct on my mountains of Zion are the feet of him who bringeth memory. I was a sojourner in an obscure village in good tidings, that publisheth peace! that bringeth good one of our eastern states, when a preacher, then, and tidings of good, that publisheth salvation! And again after, unknown to fame, passed through it in his way and again did these words occur to me, as I looked at to a distant circuit. Arriving there at the close of the the frail and attenuated form that seemed instinct with day, he was asked to preach; and the school-house, for the fervor and power of his mission. He was not a at that time there was no church in the village, was scholar-that is in the extended significance of the early lighted up for that purpose. I had been whi-term-but nothing could have been more immeasurably ling away the afternoon-what an employment for removed from that coarse familiarity of illustration and one hastening to eternity! But so it was. I had been remark (so much more revolting in the pulpit than elsebeguiling the tediousness of the hour by that which where) than was his whole tone of thought and manner. invariably leaves on the mind a morbid weariness. II had not then been accustomed to extemporaneous was deep in the interest of a fascinating novel, when the lights from the school-house, which was contiguous to my room, gleamed through my windows. I made an effort to lay it by, for I was not insensible to the call of a better influence, but the spell of the sorcerer || and he paralleled their position by a natural and touchwas strong upon me. I shut my book; but after a ing figure. He supposed a parent having many sons, momentary struggle with myself resumed it, and for- and with wealth more than sufficient for all; yet one got the impulse with which it had been closed. The of them was far away from the home shelter. Parental hymn, with which the service commenced, now reached love called the wanderer again and again, but he remy ear. It was a strain of simple, but sweet melody; turned not. The rest were basking in their father's and as it seemed to float past me on the stillness of the smile, they gathered around his board, their hearts night air, I felt again disturbed. I at last flung down were glad in his abundance. But the absent one was my book and went to the window. It was an evening, remembered, and one of them, perhaps the weakest, like the thousands that pass by us unmarked, when, if the most stammering, the least eloquent in his love, is the soul would go out and commune with the silent bidden to go in quest of him. With his own heart influences abroad, the rebuking voice of man would be full to overflowing of the goodness of that beneficent scarcely necessary. An hour it was of most exceed parent, he goes and finds his brother in a strange land, ing beauty; and as I stood and gazed out upon it, a desert country, sick, naked, hungry; yet with the while the notes of that hymn continued to float past, strange perverseness of disease, refusing to return to the chain that had bound my better feelings was his father's house. "How will that brother act?" exbroken. I hastened to join those who were on their claimed the speaker; "Will he tell him coldly, and way to meeting, and was soon seated in the sanctuary. without emotion, of the joys of that full, glad home? The hymn had ceased, and the voice of prayer, deep, of the love, the deep, boundless love, that waits to refervid, simple, as of one humbly confident in God, and ceive, to feed, to clothe, to shelter him? or will he not remembering man only in his character of strong need, rather fling around him the arms of passionate enwas heard in its stead. It reached my heart, and I was treaty, and folding him to his bosom, and weeping at once impressed with the conviction, that whatever over his suffering condition, constrain him, as it were, the speaker might want of polemic lore or theological in the agony of love, back to that father's mansion?

speaking, and I listened with delight to the simple illustrations which he drew from the universal fountains of nature. He spoke of the charge of enthusiasm so frequently laid upon the preachers of his sect,

"Yet who," he added, pausing for a moment, evidently your childhood, can tell how early the cloud upon a from the intensity of his feelings, "who shall tell mother's brow will cast its shadow upon the heart of what manner of love is borne us by our heavenly her child. Deeper, far deeper, did that son feel the anFather? Who shall describe the peace and the full-guished expression of his mother's face (for she was a ness to which ye shall turn in the household of the mother to be devotedly loved) than all the bitterness Lord? Ye that have known this love, why are ye that want, and shame, and hardship, and the blows silent? Why give ye not your testimony of the glad- of a harsh father gave to his young life. Could he ness thereof? Who should rejoice but he who hath have given comfort to her, all else would have been as found a Savior?" How did every word he uttered nought. But a change at last came over the expresfind an echo in my soul! But he went on more fully sion of that sad face. The withering sense of the to establish the position that it was not merely the shame that had fallen upon her had gradually banished privilege, but the duty, of Christians to rejoice con- her even from the sanctuaries of the Lord; for she tinually; to bear about them that cheerful light which could no longer bear the eye of the world. The Methshould evidence the law of love written in their hearts. odists were at that time in our states but a small people, "Behold!" he said, "is not love like the light of the a few of the contemned, the poor, the low and the unsun, which, in its smallest beam, is essentially cheer- informed. Thanks be to God for our simple and loving ful? It is the smile of the mother, as she looks down faith, which puts a new song into the mouth of babes, upon eyes just opening to hers upon her bosom, that that carries comfort to the hut of poverty, and triumph conveys to its sense the first perception of delight; for to the death-bed of the pauper! Not from the high it is the first link of intelligent love between its nature places of the earth did our Savior call his disciples; and her own. Mothers! Christian mothers! be care- but to one of their meetings, which was held in her ful through life to preserve that link. Ye know not neighborhood, that mother was finally drawn by a what ye do when ye appear with sad faces before your power she might not resist. She went alone; for the children! Be careful that even the faintness of the tenderness of a mother prevented her taking any one worn spirit, sinking under the trials and sorrows of life, of her destitute children; and thinly was her own darken not that smile." delicate and wasting form shielded from the December blasts that blew around her as she went. But the robes of Jesus' love were soon to shelter her! The meeting continued, and greatly did her son wonder, when, after she had been home to see to her little ones and had commended them to his care for the evening, she returned. The hours wore heavily away, and the anxious boy looked out often into the chilly night. A neighbor passed who had left the meeting before its close, and from him he learned, in asking of his mother, that she had become a convert, and was left weeping at the foot of the altar! It fell upon his heart like a blow. In his misguided mind the Methodist religion of all others (and he looked upon all professors with an impression of gloom) was associated with images of exclusive fanaticism. He felt that his mother was severed from his side. She, whose tenderness had been all the

I listened to the speaker so intensely that my very pulse seemed to pause; for the sudden thrill of his voice, and the lowness to which it sunk, so as to be almost inaudible, convinced me that, though he had now waked an instrument of a thousand strings, each one finding an answer in some filial heart, yet that which he had touched was immediately connected with those most thrillingly vibrating in his own. But he went on. "Permit me," he said, still speaking so low that but for the singular clearness of his tones, they would have been lost on the ear, "to tell you the Christian experience of one who was the principal companion of my youth, and of my childhood. He was the eldest surviving child of parents who, during his earliest recollections, were hurried (not by any providential blow) from the comforts of a decent competence to the abyss of poverty. His father was a drunkard."|| world to him, was now devoted to a strange and gloomy The expression, which was evidently uttered with service. Her smile, which was singularly rich in its great effort, seemed for a moment to have crushed the expression, and which, amid all her sorrows, had been narrator. His pale countenance flushed, his clasped sometimes called out by the tender efforts of her child, hands rested upon the open book before him; he had always fallen like a flood of sunlight on his nature; paused, and his eye, for a brief space, took an expres- that smile he now deemed would fling its warmth upon sion of inward communing. Was his soul busy with his chilled heart no longer! He flung himself sadly once familiar images recalled by that name of woe? on his low bed, and as he pressed the youngest babe or did he pray for him of whom he thus spoke? But (which he had laid there to sleep) to his bosom, the he resumed; "and the earliest memories of that un- big tears gushed through his closed eye-lids till they happy boy was the swift blight of all that give joy, too were sealed in slumber. He waked not till a gentle and trust, and holiness to the parental shelter. Are voice called his name, and his mother bent over him there any here who know the sufferings of such a and kissed his cheek! It was morning, and breakfast household? Now, God be their helper! He of whom was waiting him; and as his mother presided at the I speak, learned first to feel them, while yet too young humble, and at that time particularly scanty board, he to realize them otherwise, in the pale, sad face, and gazed on her face in silent wonder. To his excited languid step of his drooping and sickly mother. Ye and ardent fancy it was as that of an angel-so calm, who have garnered up the recollections and feelings of || so happy-so illuminated was its expression. Such