home pleasures; habits of order, regularity, and industry; hatred of vice and vicious men, and a lively sen sibility to the excellence of virtue, are as valuable a legacy as an inheritance of property, simple property, purchased by the loss of every habit which would render that property a blessing.

The National Magazine.

MAY, 1858.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS. THE GREAT AWAKENING, as it is aptly called, is the prominent theme of conversation, not only in religious circles, but among all classes of the community. It has been compared to the memorable revival in the days of Whitefield and the elder Edwards. So far as we can judge, the present outpouring of the Holy Spirit is even more copious, and its effects are more powerful. It is not confined by denominational limits, nor bounded by localities. The means employed are widely diversified, and, in the main, entirely free from extravagance any objectionable feature. The weekly religious papers cannot find room to chronicle the progress of the revival, and the daily secular press is strangely occupied with accounts of prayer meetings, exhortations, and the narratives of sinners who have found the Saviour. The interest, at the present time, appears to be increasing in all directions.

or

ALL ALIKE. We learn from one of our exchange papers, that a mass meeting of the citizens of Taylor County, Virginia, was held at Boothsville on the 8th of March, at which the following, among other resolutions, was passed unanimously: "That the five Christian Advocates, published in the cities of New York, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, having become abolition sheets of the rankest character, we ask our commonwealth's attorneys and postmasters to examine them, and, if found to be of an unlawful character, to deal with them and their agents as the laws of our state direct."

Sensible people those citizens of Taylor County! In this region it has been thought that "the five Christian Advocates" are not all in precisely the same category. One of them, at least, has endeavored to steer between Scylla and Charybdis, but the effort has been in vain. It shares the same fate as the most fearless and outspoken of them all. It is an "abolition sheet of the rankest character," say the citizens of Taylor County, in mass meeting assembled. So, tried by the standard of those who buy and sell men, women, and children, is every other periodical that ventures to whisper a word against the abomination, or to utter a syllable in favor of down-trodden and crushed humanity. The issue is fairly made. There is no neutral ground. The hair-splitting sophistry by which well-meaning men have argued for a difference between abolitionism and antislavery is utterly repudiated, laughed at, treated with contempt by our slaveholding fellowcitizens, in the Church and out of it. "If I were anti-slavery in sentiment,” said an eminent Southern divine, "consistency would compel me to be an abolitionist in action." He that is not with us is against us is the slaveholder's motto. It is openly avowed, not in the far South only, but all along the "border," not by fire-eating politicians merely, but by the professing followers of Christ. Nor does the distinction between mercenary" and sinful slaveholding, which has been used as an opiate to lull the conscience, meet with any more favor. It is boldly and arrogantly claimed that the institution itself is right, and he who seeks an apology for that which is in accordance with the will of God is not considered as a friend, any more than he who honestly aims at the extirpation of what he has been taught by the fathers of the Church to consider a great evil. We accept the dividing line. It is clearly drawn, and cannot be misunderstood. It leaves pro-slavery of every shade on the one side, and anti-slavery on the other. The mad-dog cry of "abolitionist" is no longer terrible. It will THE REV. DR. CROSWELL, another venerable soon cease to be even offensive, and in the servant of Christ, has been gathered to his fath-days of our children, if not in our own, like

NATHANIEL W. TAYLOR, Professor of Didactic Theology in Yale College, died in New Haven on the tenth of March, in the seventy-second year of his age. In the earlier part of his ministerial life he was an exemplary and laborious pastor, and an eloquent and successful preacher. To the end of his days his preaching was noted for clearness of statement, logical accuracy, and pungent appeal. Thirty-six years ago he was appointed to the professorship which he held until the day of his death. He discharged its duties with ability, and with an enthusiasm that, while it charmed the large classes which successively filled his lecture room, was potent in molding their doctrinal views in accordance with his own. Not only with those who professed a religious creed differing from his, but with many who like himself took Calvin for a theological guide, he had, in the course of his life, many, and some rather bitter controversies. Certainly not upon these does he look back as the most interesting portion of his probationary state; and now that he has gone hence we choose rather to think of him as a disciple who, differed widely from ourselves on some minor points, but who loved our common Lord, and whom we hope to meet in a realm where polemical theology can have no place. Several weeks before the final summons came he laid aside all active labors, patiently waiting, as he said, for the end, and committing his spirit, like the first martyr, to the Lord Jesus; and thus he fell asleep.

the epithet Methodist, at first given in derision, it will be a name, as the embodiment of a sentiment, in which to rejoice and be glad.

MR. SEWARD'S SPEECH.-The speech of Senator Seward, of New York, delivered in the United States Senate on the 4th of March, is pronounced by the Northern press generally (excepting the pro-slavery allies of the administration) as a model one, and "worthy of the best statesmen of our best days." We make the following brief extract:

THE SOUTH WILL NOT RESIST.

Do you tell me that the slave states will not acquiesce, but will agitate? Think first, whether the free states will acquiesce in a decision that shall not only be unjust, but fraudulent. True, they will not menace the republic. They have an easy and simple remedy, namely, to take the government out of unjust and unfaithful hands, and commit it to those which will be just and faithful. They are ready to do this now. They want only a little more harmony of purpose, and a little more completeness of organization. These will result only from the least addition to the pressure of slavery upon them. You are lending all that is necessary, and even more, in this very act. But will the slave states agitate? Why? Because they have lost at last a battle they could not win, unwisely provoked, fought with all the advantages of strategy and intervention, and on a field chosen by themselves. What would they gain? Can they compel Kansas to adopt slavery against her will? Would it be reasonable or just to do it if they could? Was negro servitude ever forced by the sword on any people that inherited the blood which circulates in our veins, and the sentiments which make us a free people? If they will agitate on such ground as this, then how, or when, by what concessions we can make, will they ever be satisfied? To what end would they agitate? It can now only be to divide the Union. Will they not need some fairer and more plausible excuse for a proposition so desperate? How would they improve their condition by drawing down a certain ruin upon themselves? Would they gain any new security for slavery? Would they not hazard

securities that are invaluable? Sir, they who talk so idly, talk what they do not know themselves. No Inan, when cool, can promise what he will do when he shall become inflamed; no man inflamed can speak for his actions when time and necessity shall bring reflection. Much less can any one speak for states in such emergences.

its proprietors have promised, and its merry hum, now sounding in our ears, carries us back to the days of our grandmother, and brings her precious spinning-wheel before our mental vision. We make no invidious comparisons between this and other modifications of the sewing machine. All of them, we believe, are alike in the fundamental principle, patented some ten or eleven years ago by Elias Howe, of Massachusetts, and each has minor peculiarities and points of excellence. From our own personal experience we are enabled to attest the simplicity of the Grover and Baker machine, the ease with which its mode of operation may be learned, and the beauty and durability of the work performed by it.

We have in preparation for our next num ber, an extended article on the general subject, to be illustrated by engravings designed to show the principles upon which these machines are constructed, and, so far as can be done by pen and pencil, to make our readers familiar with the modus operandi of one of the most important inventions of the age.

THE ORIGIN AND USE OF TOBACCO.-The Mohammedan legend on the subject is too long to repeat under its eastern garb. Suffice it that a viper was restored to health by the warmth of the Prophet's body. Immediately on convalescence the ungrateful reptile announced the intention of biting his preserver. The Prophet expostulated. An argument ensued, which ended in the viper's carrying out its original project. The Prophet sucked the venom from his wounded wrist and spat it forth. "From the drops sprang that wondrous weed, which has the bitterness of the serpent's tooth quelled by the sweet saliva of the Prophet." But whatever the origin of tobacco, no plant has exercised so much political influence. The Pope Urban VIII. excommunicated all those who took snuff in the churches. The Empress Elizabeth was less severe. She declared that the snuffboxes of those who made use of them in church should be confiscated to the use of the beadle. At Berne the use of tobacco was classified with adultery. In Transylvania the pen

SEWING MACHINES. Last month we gave our readers an epistle from an intelligent lady in the country, setting forth her own practical experience in the use of these wonderful in-alty was far greater; in 1639 entire confiscation struments. The machine to which she referred was one of those known as The Grover and Baker improvements, and her eulogy seemed to us at the time rather highly colored. We have since had an opportunity to examine one for ourselves, and to test its value. Beautiful in its exterior appearance, the instrument was admired by the female portion of our household; and its internal arrangements, with its highly polished and delicate machinery, were a source of wonder and study for the boys. But it was not made for ornament, nor for a mere display of ingenuity. The grand question to be solved was, Will it work? Not hastily was that question settled. Patience, and practical instruction, in addition to the printed directions, were required. A needle or two broken in the attempt; thread suddenly snapped; the treddle perversely obstinate, because of the untutored foot, and other little discouragements were the result of the first experiments. But they have all been overcome. The instrument does its work, does all that

of property was the sentence of those who should plant tobacco, while consumers were condemned to fines varying from three to two hundred florins. Amurath IV. hung persons found guilty of smoking, with their pipes through their noses and a tobacco pouch hanging from their necks. The Grand Duke of Muscovy forbade smoking and snuff-taking under the penalty of having the nose cut off; while Mohammed IV., son of the Sultan Ibrahim, in 1665, punished the practice with decapitation. It is related of Amurath that a smoking saphi once struck the monarch himself for smoking with him incognito on board a caique. Amurath informed the saphi that the royal decree referred equally to himself. "No," replied the saphi, “I fight for and would die for him. It does not apply to me." A few days subsequently Amurath sent for him, and making himself known, gave his fellow-offender a good appointment. But such penal regulations appear always to have been evaded. Those modern Amuraths, railway directors, says the London Atheneum, arrogate to

EDITORIAL NOTES AND GLEANINGS.

themselves the right of inflicting a fine of forty
shillings, and expulsion from their line, on any
But it is sweet
one guilty of the sublime act.
to smoke under difficulties. Were the prohibi-
tion removed, smoking on railways would prob-
ably cease. We know of one young man who
feigned madness to secure a carriage to himself.
Another, on seeing a bishop alight at an inter-
mediate station, immediately made for the com-
partment, and calling for a guard complained
that the carriage was reeking of tobacco smoke.
"To be sure, those clerical gentlemen do smoke
"Then don't
terribly," answered the official.
accuse me of it hereafter," rejoined the youth
with an arch smile. On one occasion a railway
guard thrust his head into a carriage filled with
devotees in the act of their devotions, and
placing his hand on a cushion, observed, "There
are two very good rules on this line, gentlemen.
Smoking is strictly prohibited, and the com-
pany's servants are forbidden to accept gratui-
ties."

WATER IN THE DESERT.-Dr. Livingstone, the
African traveler, thus describes an ingenious
method by which the Africans obtain water in
the desert:

The women tie a bunch of grass to one end of a
reed, about two feet long, and insert it in a hole, dug
as deep as the arm will reach, then ram down the wet
sand firmly around it. Applying the mouth to the
free end of the reed, they form a vacuum in the grass
beneath, in which the water collects, and in a short
time rises to the mouth. It will be perceived that this
Inight have been applied in many cases, in different
simple, but truly philosophical and effectual method,
countries where water was greatly needed, to the
saving of life. It seems wonderful that it should have
should have been habitually practiced in Africa, prob-
been now first made known to the world, and that it
It seems worthy of being par-
ably for centuries.
ticularly noticed, that it may no longer be neglected
from ignorance. It may be highly important to trav-
elers on our Western deserts and prairies, in some
parts of which water is known to exist below the sur-
face.

FALLACIES OF STATISTICS.-Archbishop Whately remarks upon the overrated importance of statistics:

In our own day and country the war against Increase of a thing is often confounded with our inthe weed is carried on with equal earnestness, "Don't creased knowledge of it. When crimes or accidents but without the least apparent success. are recorded in newspapers more than formerly, some imagine you can drop the use of tobacco by deThe people fancy that they happen more than formerly. But crimes, especially (be it observed) such as are the grees," exclaims one of its enemies. idea of using less and less, till the habit tapers most remote from the experience of each individual, down to nothing, is well nigh ridiculous. Use and therefore strike him as something strange, always furnish interesting articles of intelligence. I have no little as you please, and you nourish an appe-doubt that a single murder in Great Britain has often tite which never dies so long as fed with one morsel of aliment. The last indulgence with the quid or cigar seldom comes, and thousands testify to failure by this method, where one is successful. We do not pick out an eye, or cut Why should off an arm, by a lingering process! we be so unphilosophical as to bid a man drop his cups, or drop his tobacco, by a lingering process? This is inflicting needless agony! It brings to mind the lady who cut the tail of her lap-dog, piece after piece, day after day, supposing it would be less painful than a single excision.

BUTTER AND CHEESE.-The value of these A few facts will products is often underrated.

serve to correct this mistake. The amount of
butter reported in the census of 1850 was over
315,000,000 pounds. This, at 20 cents per
pound-the average wholesale price for some
time past in New York-would bring over
$63,000,000. The amount of cheese reported
in the same census was over 100,000,000 pounds.
This, at 10 cents per pound-also wholesale
price in New York-would bring $10,000,000.
The aggregate of both is $73,000,000. Now the
value of slaughtered animals, put down in the
census, is $109,000,000. So that the value of
the butter and cheese is about two thirds as
great as that of the slaughtered animals in the
whole country. The cotton crop is stated in
the same census to be over 800,000,000 pounds.
This, at 15 cents per pound-the wholesale
price quoted in New York not long since-would
bring over $120,000,000. Thus the butter and
cheese of the country is worth more than one
half as much as the crop that is regarded as
the staple of the entire South. These rough
estimates are full of interest to all who make
or eat butter or cheese. They should impress
all with the importance of improving the quality
of these articles of food.

furnished matter of discourse to more than twenty
times as many persons as any twenty such murders
would in Turkey. Some foreign traveler in England
is said to have remarked on the perceptible diminu-
tion in the number of crimes committed during the
sitting of Parliament as a proof of our high reverence
for that assembly; the fact being, as we all know,
bates causes the records of many crimes to be omit-
that the space occupied in the newspapers by the de-
ted. Men are liable to form an over-estimate of the
purity of morals in the country as compared with a
town, or in a barren and thinly-peopled as compared
On a given area,
with a fertile and populous district.
it must always be expected that the absolute amount
of vice will be greater in a town than in a country, so
also will be that of virtue; but the proportion of the
two must be computed on quite different principles.
A physician of great skill and in high repute, probably
loses many more patients than an ordinary practitioner;
Mistakes
but this proves nothing till we have ascertained the
comparative numbers of their patients.
such as this (which are very frequent) remind one of
the well-known riddle, "What is the reason that white
sheep eat more than black ones ?"

JUSTICE IN RUSSIA.-A poor nobleman had
been carrying on a lawsuit for several years,
when he received an intimation from the secre-
tary of the tribunal that unless he paid over
ten thousand roubles (two thousand two hund-
red and fifty dollars) to the president, the case
would be decided against him. The unfortunate
litigant, who could not raise so many pence,
bethought him of applying to Count Benken-
dorff, the chief of the secret service, who he had
been led to believe was personally anxious to
make an example of some of the delinquents,
and who was one of the four or five men hold-
The party
ing office in the empire who were deemed in-
corruptible by the common rumor.
referred to offered the Count to furnish him
with an unquestionable proof of the venality of
the president of the court of appeal; and for
that purpose that he should be intrusted with
the amount of the bribe demanded in notes pri-
vately marked. He undertook that these notes
should be found on the president's person. The

wife. I had the misfortune to lose her some

count consented. Since the good old times of Alexander I. the officials never make their bar-years since, in Russia. She was an Italian, and gains or receive any money before a third party. Their dread of the anger of Nicholas even occasioned them to resort to many precautions formerly not dreamed of; and in this instance the president declined receiving the money in his house, but proposed that the litigant should invite him to dinner at a tavern which he indicated, and there pay over the amount to him. The proposition was acceded to; and his host caused an officer of gendarmerie to be stationed in an adjacent closet. The president made his appearance; he signified by the action of his fingers that their pecuniary transactions had better precede the gastronomic entertainment; the host accordingly handed him a small roll of bank-notes; the president counted them over in a very business-like way, and tossed them into his hat. As this was not yet quite satisfactory, in the hope that his guest would finally transfer the money to his person, his Amphitryon deferred giving the signal for the appearance of the secret-police agent, and then sat down to dinner. At this moment some one knocked. It was the president's nephew, come to him with some trifling message from his lady. The judge gave him a brief answer and bowed him out. the conclusion of their dinner he was preparing to depart; he had pulled on his overcoat, and put his hat on his head, when, on the preconcerted signal, the officer of gendarmerie rushed into the apartment with an order from the Count Benkendorff to search his person: "Do not give yourself the trouble to search him," said the excited nobleman, "you will find the banknotes in his hat.' The president smiled blandly, and took his hat off at once; it was empty: when his nephew went out he had taken up his uncle's hat instead of his own. The judge thus not only avoided the trap laid for him, but secured the bait, and doubly punished the informer; first, by deciding the case against him; and secondly, because, not having substantiated his charge, he was obliged to refund the ten thousand roubles advanced by the police. "Can any one doubt," says the writer who supplies the anecdote, "that this worthless minister of public justice had received a private hint from Count Benkendorff's office?" In any case, what a state of things must have existed, when such a story could be currently told, and generally accepted as true!

dreaded the icy bed which awaited her after this life. I carried her remains to Germany, where I was acquainted with a celebrated chemist, whom I directed to make of the body a solid substance, which I could always carry about me. Eight days afterward he sent for me and showed me the empty coffin, a horrid collection of instruments and alembics. This jewel was lying on a table. He had, through means of some corrosive substances and powerful pressure, reduced and compressed that which was my wife into this jewel which shall never more leave me."

This burial by chemistry is an improvement upon the process of cremation lately proposed by the French papers. Should it become popular. a widow may hereafter have her husband made into a bracelet, with a chain attached to remind her of the hymeneal bond. A husband will have his wife done into a pin, and certain academicians-old fogies-we know would make very good coat buttons.

At

A WIFE COMPRESSED INTO A RING.-A certain Russian noble, who lately visited Paris, was noticed to be constantly plunged in deep sadness. He wore on his finger a very remarkable ring, large enough for a bracelet, and extended over his hand like a buckler for the ring finger. It was of a greenish color, and was traversed by red veins. It attracted the attention of everybody, but no one was bold enough to interrogate the mysterious stranger, until one day a lady, meeting him in a public parlor, ventured to say, "You wear a very handsome ring." The Russian made a movement as though he would conceal his hand, but that feeling gave way to a desire to unburden himself. "It is not a ring," he answered, "but a sepulcher!" A shudder passed through the whole company. "This jewel, madam," he continued, "is my

A MAN named Hague, becoming tired of his wife, attempted to poison her in the following manner: They had sat down to dinner, and while she had left the room, or her back was turned, he put poison into her soup. Not daring to trust himself in her presence, he feigned some excuse and left the room. By a wonderful Providence, when she came to the table, a spider had dropped from the ceiling of the room into the soup plate. She was especially afraid of spiders, and her husband had often laughed at her for it. So she carefully took the spider out with the spoon, and finding she could not bring herself to eat after it, she, in the absence of her husband, changed the plates, and ate his soup. After a while he came back and devoured what he supposed to be pure soup. He was immediately taken with convulsions and expired. Before death he confessed that he had poisoned the soup, and that it must have been placed before him unintentionally by his wife. Now, how narrow was the escape of his wife, not only from being poisoned, but from being hung! If the man had died without a confession, the woman must have been immediately arrested. Poison would have been found in the man and in the soup plate. She gave him the soup. Here would have been circumstantial evidence enough to have hung her, and an innocent woman would have expired but for the confession.

REMARKABLE COINCIDENCES.-The custom of libation to the gods was common with the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Tartars. All the ancient nations had feasts of the same nature with the Saturnalia. The tradition of the Deluge is very general. It is commemorated among many nations by different religions institutions. The Egyptians spoke of certain brazen pillars, on which Mercury had inscribed the principles of the sciences, which had withstood the power of the flood. The Peyrun of the Chinese, a favorite of the gods, was preserved in a boat, in the general deluge. Vishnoo, one of the gods of India, in the form of a fish, conducted the vessel which saved a remnant of the human