discord, must indeed be of the strongest, as well as the gentlest kind. One scarce can hear his own soft voice amid the braying of the multitude; and ever and anon comes the temptation to sing louder than they, and drown the voices that cannot thus be forced into perfect tune. But this were a pitiful experiment; the melodious tones, cracked into shrillness, would only increase the tumult.

Stronger, and more frequently, comes the temptation to stop singing, and let discord do its own wild work. But blessed are they that endure to the end -singing patiently and sweetly, till all join in with loving acquiescence, and universal harmony prevails without forcing into submission the free discord of a single voice.

This is the hardest and the bravest task, which a true soul has to perform amid the clashing elements of time. But once has it been done perfectly, unto the end; and that voice, so clear in its meekness, is heard above all the din of a tumultuous world; one after another chimes in with its patient sweetness, and, through infinite discords, the listening soul can perceive that the great tune is slowly coming into harmony.

LETTER XXIX.

October 6, 1842.

I went last week to Blackwell's Island, in the East River, between the city and Long Island. The environs of the city are unusually beautiful, considering how far Autumn has advanced upon us. Frequent rains have coaxed vegetation into abundance, and preserved it in verdant beauty. The trees are hung with a profusion of vines, the rocks are dressed in nature's green velvet of moss, and from every little cleft peeps the rich foliage of some wind-scattered

seed. The island itself presents a quiet loveliness of scenery, unsurpassed by anything I have ever witnessed; though Nature and I are old friends, and she has shown me many of her choicest pictures, in a light let in only from above. No form of gracefulness can compare with the bend of flowing waters all round and round a verdant island. The circle typifies Love; and they who read the spiritual alphabet, will see that a circle of waters must needs be very beautiful. Beautiful it is, even when the language it speaks is an unknown tongue. Then the green hills beyond look so very pleasant in the sunshine, with homes nestling among them, like dimples on a smiling face. The island itself abounds with charming nooks-open wells in shady places, screened by large weeping willows; gardens and arbours running down to the river's edge, to look at themselves in the waters; and pretty boats, like white-winged birds, chased by their shadows, and breaking the waves into gems.

But man has profaned this charming retreat. He has brought the screech-owl, the bat, and the vulture, into the holy temple of Nature. The island belongs to government; and the only buildings on it are penitentiary, mad-house, and hospital; with a few dwellings occupied by people connected with those institutions. The discord between man and nature never before struck me so painfully; yet it is wise and kind to place the erring and the diseased in the midst of such calm, bright influences. Man may curse, but Nature for ever blesses. The guiltiest of her wandering children she would fain enfold within her arms to the friendly heart-warmth of a mother's bosom. She speaks to them ever in the soft, low tones of earnest love: but they, alas, tossed on the roaring, stunning surge of society, forget the quiet language.

As I looked up at the massive walls of the prison, it did my heart good to see doves nestling within the

shelter of the deep, narrow, grated windows. thought what blessed little messengers of heaven they would appear to me, if I were in prison; but instantly a shadow passed over the sunshine of my thought. Alas, doves do not speak to their souls, as they would to mine; for they have lost their love for child-like, and gentle things. How have they lost it? Society, with its unequal distribution, its perverted education, its manifold injustice, its cold neglect, its biting mockery, has taken from them the gifts of God. They are placed here, in the midst of green hills, and flowing streams, and cooing doves, after the heart is petrified against the genial influence of all such sights and sounds.

As usual, the organ of justice (which phrenologists say is unusually developed in my head) was roused into great activity by the sight of prisoners. 'Would you have them prey on society?" said one of my companions. I answered, 'I am troubled that society has preyed upon them. I will not enter into an argument about the right of society to punish these sinners; but I say she made them sinners. How much I have done toward it, by yielding to popular prejudices, obeying false customs, and suppressing vital truths, I know not; but doubtless I have done, and am doing, my share. God forgive me. If He dealt with us, as we deal with our brother, who could stand before him?'

While I was there, they brought in the editors of the Flash, the Libertine, and the Weekly Rake. My very soul loathes such polluted publications; yet a sense of justice again made me refractory. These men were perhaps trained to such service by all the social influences they had ever known. They dared to publish what nine-tenths of all around them lived unreproved. Why should they be imprisoned, while flourished in the full tide of editorial success, circulating a paper as immoral, and perhaps more dangerous, because its indecency is slightly

veiled? Why should the Weekly Rake be shut up, when daily rakes walk Broadway in fine broadcloth and silk velvet?

Many more than half the inmates of the penitentiary were women; and of course a large proportion of them were taken up as 'street-walkers.' The men who made them such, who, perchance, caused the love of a human heart to be its ruin, and changed tenderness into sensuality and crime-these men live in the ceiled houses' of Broadway, and sit in council in the City Hall, and pass 'regulations' to clear the streets they have filled with sin. And do you suppose their poor victims do not feel the injustice of society thus regulated? Think you they respect the laws? Vicious they are, and they may be both ignorant and foolish; but, nevertheless, they are too wise to respect such laws. Their whole being cries out that it is a mockery; all their experience proves that society is a game of chance, where the cunning slip through, and the strong leap over. The criminal feels this, even when incapable of reasoning upon it. The laws do not secure his reverence, because he sees that their operation is unjust. The secrets of prisons, so far as they are revealed, all tend to show that the prevailing feeling of criminals, of all grades, is that they are wronged. What we call justice, they regard as an unlucky chance; and whosoever looks calmly and wisely into the foundations on which society rolls and tumbles, (I cannot say on which it rests, for its foundations heave like the sea,) will perceive that they are victims of chance.

For instance, everything in school-books, social remarks, domestic conversation, literature, public festivals, legislative proceedings, and popular honours, all teach the young soul that it is noble to retaliate, mean to forgive an insult, and unmanly not to resent a wrong. Animal instincts, instead of being brought into subjection to the higher powers of the soul, are thus cherished into more than natural activity

of

three men thus educated, one enters the army, kills a hundred Indians, hangs their scalps on a tree, is made major general, and considered a fitting candidate for the presidency. The second goes to the Southwest to reside; some 'roarer' calls him a rascal—a phrase not misapplied, perhaps, but necessary to be resented; he agrees to settle the question of honour at ten paces, shoots his insulter through the heart, and is hailed by society as a brave man. The third lives in New-York; a man enters his office, and, true, or untrue, calls him a knave. He fights, kills his adversary, is tried by the laws of the land, and hung. These three men indulged the same passion, acted from the same motives, and illustrated the same education; yet how different their fate!

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With regard to dishonesty, too-the maxims of trade, the customs of society, and the general unreflecting tone of public conversation, all tend to promote it. The man who has made good bargains,' is wealthy and honoured; yet the details of those bargains few would dare to pronounce good. Of two young men nurtured under such influences, one becomes a successful merchant; five thousand dollars are borrowed of him; he takes a mortgage on a house worth twenty thousand dollars; in the absence of the owner, when sales are very dull, he offers the house for sale, to pay his mortgage; he bids it in himself, for four thousand dollars; and afterwards persecutes and imprisons his debtor for the remaining thousand. Society calls him a shrewd business man, and pronounces his dinners excellent; the chance is, he will be a magistrate before he dies. The other young man is unsuccessful; his necessities are great; he borrows some money from his employer's drawer, perhaps resolving to restore the same; the loss is discovered before he has a chance to refund it; and society sends him to Blackwell's island, to hammer stone with highway robbers. Society made both these men thieves; but punished the one, while she