feebleness. The minds which are kept to their highest tension during six days, will sleep on the seventh, unless they are aroused by stirring thought. The popular theology in many of its aspects is not suited to the times. It sprang up in an ignorant, unscientific age, and it has done a noble work. But it is not adapted to the present condition of society. The common pulse beats with the fevered throb of enterprise. The change in our external life has affected the prevailing intellectual and religious development. The attitude of thought is not that of hearty sympathy with the popular belief. Science and the new acquisitions of knowledge have enlarged our sweep of vision. The ultra reformer and the anti-supernaturalist are dealing out stout and vigorous blows upon the established opinions regarding the Bible, and even the foundations of religion are questioned by some forms of philosophy. In this state of things it is no easy task to engage in the conflict for faith. Old modes of defence will not avail. As well might the modern soldier be encumbered with the armor of a knight, as for the Christian preacher to clothe himself with an antique theology. And as the discovery of gunpowder gave rise to a new system of military tactics, so must religious thought and institutions be adapted to meet the new social, intellectual, and moral conditions into which society is thrown. It is a period of transition. The preacher, to be true to its wants, must be both priest and prophet. His heart must burn with devout fervor as he officiates at the altar, and place upon it the offering of sincere and holy conse cration, while his mind shall throw its eagle glance into the future, and be stirred by the inspirations of hope, and the ideal of a spiritual beauty, joy, faith, and blessedness yet to be realized, when the New Church, the Heavenly Jerusalem, shall come down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. To fit himself for all this, the preacher must retire to the solitude of the study, become a priest of thought, and like a holy prophet stand upon the mountain heights of meditation to catch the first faint glimmerings of spiritual truth as they gleam down from heaven on the pathway of man.

But while the condition of society demands a higher order of ministers, there are many causes which combine

1853.] Motives and Rewards of the Minister.

349

to draw away from the pulpit the noblest and most profound thinkers. The greatest power of thought runs into political, legal, and commercial channels. There is in this fact much that should awaken serious reflection. And do we not see in its truth a powerful plea for so sustaining the ministry as to draw to its service minds filled with fresh and vigorous thought? But let a man be ever so liberally gifted by nature, if placed amid circumstances akin to those which surrounded Mr. Vernon, he will feel their pressure. By the exercise of a lion-like energy and a giant strength of will, he may overcome them: but in the conflict he turns his powers to a warfare which does not belong legitimately to the profession. Should one who is called upon to wrestle with the great questions which are now agitating the soul, and heaving below the surface of society, should he be driven to the edge of starvation, or be worried through life with the apprehension of poverty in old age? He cannot be faithful to his profession and work in other ways for his bread; and unless you discard the idea that an educated ministry is necessary, a reform in this direction is worthy of immediate consideration. It is futile to suppose that those ministers who are compelled to fritter away their precious time and strength in efforts to get ahead and escape debt, will be robust and athletic enough to grapple successively with the foes of religion. These are neither few nor feeble, and he who does not bring to the contest a vigorous mind, an elasticity of spirit, and an unclouded faith, will find himself vanquished through his inefficiency.

In thus calling attention to this subject, it is very far from our purpose to awaken the least feeling of discouragement. The ministry with all its struggles is a noble vocation, and to be coveted by those who aspire for a devoted and heroic life. It is no place for the mere lover of ease, or one who is wanting in moral hardihood or lofty aims. But to him who would prove his Christian faith by noble toil for man's best good here and hereafter, it opens a career filled with the grandest inspirations. One of the most touching and morally beautiful lessons in "Shady Side" is the last scene, where the devoted minister's wife takes her leave of life with a parting exhortation to her children.

VOL. LV. 4TH S. VOL. XX. NO. III.

31

"She recalls with him [her son Allie] the happy days he so well remembers, when, though there were many shadows hovering near, they had joy, and peace, and domestic love, and Christian comfort, around the domestic hearth. She tells him, too, of the unequalled joy his dear father felt when he had comforted some tempted soul, or brought back a wanderer to the Saviour's fold. Allie, in return, opens all his heart; and the tears, till now repressed, flow down her pale cheek, and she clasps him to her bosom, as he says it is his great ambition to be a good minister of the Gospel, and follow his dear father's steps. She forewarns him, that, unless he has great singleness of purpose, trials may shake his resolution. But Allie smiles, and says, 'Have I not seen the dark side already, dear mother? So I shall not be disappointed.' And on Mabel's faithful bosom, with one hand in Allie's, and the little ones held where she could see them, in the arms of pitying friends, quietly and without pain, the silver cord was loosed; and, at the early age of thirty-three, she joined the beatified above, who wait the fleeting days till the whole circle shall be complete in a blessed reunion in the home on high. Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." "

While, then, we wish these books God speed on their beneficent errand, may no true and devout soul be turned by them from a consecration upon the sacred altar of the Gospel ministry.

S. W. B.

ART. III. THE WHITE HILLS.*

It may seem to many people that November is not the time in which to speak of a place of summer resort. But the White Hills of New Hampshire are always at home, and often appear to greatest advantage when there are fewest spectators of their beauty. After the summer crowds have departed, the ripened leaves of the oaks, the maples, and the birches form contrasts and harmonies

*1. A Map, with Views of the White Mountains. Cambridge: John Bartlett. 1853.

2. Scenery of the White Mountains; with Sixteen Plates, from the Drawings of ISAAC SPRAGUE. BY WILLIAM OAKES. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 4to.

1853.]

Diminutive Glaciers.

351

with the pines and firs to which no coloring on earth can be superior. The lofty hill-sides, exposing to the view the foliage of every tree in almost boundless forests, are marked, not only by recent slides of bare earth and rock, but also by stripes of wood varying from the adjacent forests, marking in October the courses of ancient slides by the variegated rows of brilliant foliage interspersed in a forest of sombre evergreen.

And when the ripened leaves, like ripened fruit, have fallen to the earth, the hills put on their glittering dress of snow. One who has seen snow-covered mountains can alone understand their beauty. In winter our White Hills become temporary Alps, and give us their avalanches, their snowy wreaths, and their sunset hues of clouds, with all the beauty on a smaller scale that is described for us by those who have seen Switzerland with truest eye.

In the spring, also, before the sight-seekers leave their city quarters, the White Hills sing their loudest songs of joy, and the Saco, Ammonoosuc, and Pemigewasset utter their voices as "fiercely glad" as ever Arve and Arveiron. Never have we felt more deeply the power of these hills over us, than when we have seen their valleys filled with the floods that followed a warm rain in March. The lonely silence of the chaste, white peaks, the majestic repose of the black forests upon the hillsides, were made more solemn, more solitary, nay, it seemed even more silent, by these roaring torrents, that bore such ample testimony to the extent of the snowfields of whose drainage they were the outlet.

At this season we have also temporary incipient glaciers, although too diminutive in dimensions to illustrate very forcibly their immense power. But inasmuch as patches of snow remain on the White Hills oftentimes to July, and sometimes throughout the summer, it is easy for any visitor, who is upon the ground at an early date, to satisfy himself that this solid snowbank, though hard enough to walk and leap upon, is nevertheless slightly fluid, and is continually sagging and bending under its own weight. Indeed, it does not need a visit to the White Hills to demonstrate this important point in the theory of the formation of glaciers. Let any man hollow out an arch in a snow-drift, and if he leave it of

sufficient thickness, he will find it flatten, and then invert itself under a February sun, as an arch of pitch might do in July.

Mr. Bond's map of the mountain region is a valuable travelling companion, and would add greatly to the pleasure of an outside seat upon the stage, or of a half-hour spent upon the summit of any of the hills. And after returning it is a pleasant reminder of the whole scenery of the group, recalling the various places by their names, and showing their just relative positions.

But if one would recall particular scenes, he must have recourse to the descriptive pen of Mr. Oakes, and the daguerreotyping pencil of Mr. Sprague, whose only fault seems to us to lie in the faithful prosaic accuracy of his drawing. A botanist could herborize in his foregrounds, a geologist theorize on his hill-sides. He draws landscapes with minute accuracy, as though he were upon oath to tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And his landscapes have therefore a value as portraits, far above that of the beautiful idealized views which other artists give of the same spots. Seen by lamplight through a spyglass, they produce a feeling of illusion as though one were enjoying a second sight of the distant region. The two pictures in Mr. Oakes's volume which are not from Mr. Sprague's pencil will illustrate by contrast the accuracy of which we speak. They may be finer pictures, but they do not, like the others, carry the traveller back to the White Hills of New Hampshire.

The term White Hills, or White Mountains, is usually confined to a single chain, about fifteen miles in length. But the term might quite justly be extended to embrace nearly all the country given in Mr. Bond's map. This area, being about thirty-five miles from northeast to southwest, by twenty-five from southeast to northwest, is traversed by three roads, the only three which could readily be made. One follows the Merrimac or Pemigewasset to its source, and then passes into the valley of the South Ammonoosuc, by what is called Franconia Notch. A second passes up the Saco and out into the main Ammonoosuc. This is called the White Mountain Gap. A third passes up a branch of the Saco, into a branch of the Androscoggin. These three roads are nearly parallel, and none others could be made for common travel.