does not need a traveling Presiding Elder, could he not be stationed? The District chairmanship of the Wesleyan Methodists is an example of what I mean. All along our northern line, in the British Provinces, it works well; the itinerancy suffers no harm from it. Could it not work as well a few miles further southward? It would supply at least two hundred more men to our pulpits. Let me add, that the experiment has actually been introduced by one of your Episcopal colaborers. He thus arranged the Liberia Conference appointments, and, I doubt not, exercised his usual good sense in doing so. After all, may we not find that our alarms about this "vexed question" are mostly imaginary, and that a little more courage in its practical solution will overcome its seeming difficulties?

I have thus, with what clearness and force I can command, reviewed these important questions. I have studiously avoided hypothetical opinions. I have recommended nothing but what has already been indorsed, though not sufficiently experimented. I believe that Methodism is on the safe route in those continual changes (much more extensive than usually supposed) which it has adopted. This, under the blessing of God, is the only safe policy for it. A former distinguished senator, the elder Bayard, who was familiar with the Church, from intermarriage with a Methodist family, predicted that Methodism would spread over the continent and become the religion of the masses, but only to break to pieces

at last with a proportionate ruin. He judged from a view of its original ministerial powers, and the supposition that men having power would not consent to new limitations on it. But he judged amiss. We have been incessantly conceding, and we shall always do so when expediency demands it. Let us only keep two things-the favor of God, and the favor of our devoted people-and the mighty mission begun by our fathers can never be defeated.

While I have taken only loyal, and what may be called, I trust, Methodistic views of these questions, I know I may be liable to misapprehension and even hostility from some of my brethren. Let me say, however, in conclusion, that I proposed no controversy, and shall have none. I have stated my honest convictions, and here drop these questions to proceed to others. I am conscious that they will commend themselves to many, though not to all frank and thoughtful men. I acknowledge the right of any one to discuss them; but I must be excused from replying. Besides my indisposition to do so, I shall, by the time this article can appear, be temporarily absent from the country—a fact that must be my excuse for any apparent disregard of opposing opinions, and at the same time my claim upon the courtesy of any opponent, so far as personal reflections are concerned.

In my next I shall treat of a topic of more general interest, if not of more importance. I am, &c., A. STEVENS.

We give in our present number the remainder of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," with the illustrations of the "London Etching Club." The original plates, by this club, were, as we stated last month, destroyed after a limited edition; these cuts are exquisite copies of them. The poem itself will never grow old; we should be glad to re-insert it every year, if we could as often present it with as new and as good illustrations.

BIBLICAL PAPERS.-We complete in this number the article on the Dead Sea and its Explorers. In our next will be commenced a learned and interesting paper on Nineveh and its Story, as shown by Layard, Rowlinson, and other discoverers. It is designed that these papers shall comprise the best results of the latest discoveries, in illustration of Biblical criticism.

WEST ENDS.-Most persons think that the reason why the west-end of London or NewYork is more fashionable than the east, is no

thing more than the topographical figuration of the capital. But the Academy of Sciences at Paris has pronounced this opinion to be a delusion, as we learn from an article in the London Athenæum. In the first place, it appears that it is not only at London, but at Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Turin, St. Petersburgh, and almost every other capital in Europe-at Liege, Caen, Montpelier, Toulouse, and several other large towns wherever, in fact, there are not great local obstacles-the tendency of the wealthier inhabitants to group themselves to the west is almost as strongly marked as in the " great metropolis." In the second place, at Pompeii and other ancient towns the same thing may be noticed; and in the third place, where the local figuration of the town necessitates an increase in a different direction, the moment the obstacle ceases, houses spread toward the west. This last fact may, it is stated, be particularly observed at Rome, and, to a certain extent, at Edinburgh. When, then, all cities and towns have their best districts in the west, it is pretty clear that the cause of it must be some general law entirely distinct from local situation. What is that law? "It arises from the atmospheric pressure,' answers the Academy of Sciences. "When," it continues, "the barometric column rises, smoke and pernicious emanations rapidly evaporate in space. In the

contrary case we see that smoke and pernicious vapors remain in apartments and on the surface of the soil. Now, every one knows that of all winds, that which causes the greatest ascension of the barometric column is that of the east, and that which lowers it most is the west. When the latter blows, it has the inconvenience of carrying with it to the eastern parts of a town all the deleterious gases which it meets in its passage over the western parts. It results from that that the inhabitants of the eastern part of a town have to support not only their own smoke and miasma, but those of the western part of the town, brought to them by the west winds. When, on the contrary, the east wind blows, it purifies the air by causing to ascend the pernicious emanations which it cannot drive to the west. Consequently, the inhabitants of the west receive pure air from whatever part of the horizon it may arrive; and it may be added that, as the west winds are those which most frequently prevail, they are the first to receive the air pure and as it arrives from the country." After thus explaining why the western parts are the best, the Academy makes these recommendations: 1. That persons who have the liberty of choice, and especially those of delicate health, should reside in the western parts of towns; 2. That all establishments from which emanate pernicious vapors and gases should be placed to the east; 3. That in building a house in a town, and even in the country, the kitchens and other dependencies from which pernicious emanations may arise should be placed to the east. The members of the Academy who have announced the preceding discovery, and made the preceding recommendations are Messrs. Pelouze, Pouillet, Boussingault, and Elie de Beaumont-all of them of European reputation as savants.

An important project is on foot in England, for "Exploring and Evangelizing Central Africa by means of Native Agents," and it is rapidly gaining a solid basis of strength, says one of our transatlantic journals. The object seems to be, to dispute the possession of Interior Africa with the followers of Mohammed. "No obstacle," says the prospectus, "exists among any of the Arab tribes, or the Twareg, the lords of the Sahara,' to induce them to oppose or impede the circulation of the Bible, since every Moslem has the highest respect and veneration for Torat, Elanbeyae walangeel Saidna Asia, the law, the prophets, and the testament of our Lord Jesus.' We can also mention the name of a Mohammedan prince and that of a cadi, residing in an oasis of the desert, who have actually already done much toward so desirable an object. Mr. Richardson, previous to his departure for Central Africa, in 1849, drew up a paper in which he says:

"While endeavoring to excite the Christian Churches to dispute Central Africa with the Mohammedans, I would not assert that Africa has not benefitted by the introduction of Mohammedanism. I would not be guilty of such injustice, even to the followers of the false prophet of Mecca. The Mohammedans have introduced deism in contradistinction to fetishism, and the worship of many gods. They have abolished human sacrifices. They have limited and regulated polygamy, and so protected the rights of widows and children. They have introduced principles of abstinence and moderation in living by the Ramadhan. They

have also introduced reading and writing with the Arabic language, besides many other things which have raised the Africans from mere brute existence to social and political confederacies. But they have failed in teaching the knowledge of the true God, as revealed in the Christian Scriptures.'"

The committee add:-

"Ignatius Pallme, a Bohemian, who traveled in Kordofan in the years 1587 and 1838, strongly urges European societies to direct their attention to Central Africa. If they delay much longer,' he says, it will be too late; for when the negroes have once adopted the Koran, no power on earth can induce them to change their opinions. I have heard.' Pailme continues, 'that there are but few provinces in the interior of Africa where Mohammedanism has not already begun to gain a footing."

WOMAN AND HER POSITION.-The authoress, Mrs. Jameson, has recently published in England a brochure, entitled Sisters of Charity, Catholic and Protestant, Abroad and at Home. It is a lecture which she has delivered in several private circles, on the question "Whether there be any hope or possibility of organizing into some wise and recognized system, the talent and energy, the piety and tenderness of our women, for the good of the whole community." She takes the largest views of the subject without, however, the extravagances which have been broached upon it in this country. Her arguments are drawn chiefly from statistics and matters of fact. She says:

"In the last census of 1851 there appears an excess of the female over the male population of Great Britain of more than half a million, the proportion being one hundred and four women to every one hundred men. How shall we employ this superfluity of the feminine element' in society-how turn it to good and useful purposes, instead of allowing it to run to waste? Take of these five hundred thousand superfluous women only the one-hundredth part, say five thousand women who are willing to work for good, to join the communion of labor, under a directing power, if only they knew how-if only they could learn how-best to do their work, and if employment were open to them-what a phalanx it would be if properly organized? Everywhere I find the opinion of thoughtful and intelligent men corroborative of my own observations and conclusions. In spite of the adverse feeling of that other public, to which we the sensible reflecting public are not in the least degree related,'-in spite of routine and prejudice,-the feeling of those who in the long run will lead opinion, is for us. They say: In all our national institutions we want the help of women. In our hospitals, prisons, lunatic asylums, workhouses, reformatory schools, elementary schools, -everywhere we want efficient women, and none are to be found prepared or educated for our purpose.' The men whom I have heard speak this, seem to regard this infusion of a superior class of working women into our public institutions as a new want, a new expedient. They do not seem to feel or recognize the profound truth, that the want now so generally felt and acknowledged arises out of a great unacknowledged law of the Creator-a law old as creation itself -which makes the moral health of the community to depend on the cooperation of women in all work that concerns the well-being of man. For as I have said before, it is not in one or two relations, but in all the possible relations of life, in which men and women are concerned, that they must work together for mutual improvement, and the general good.”

We give one passage more, which is as appropriate to our own country as to Great Britain:

"We require in our country the recognition-the public recognition-by law as well as by opinion, of the woman's privilege to share in the communion of labor at her own free choice, and the foundation of institutions which shall train her to do her work weil. I am anxious that you should not misunderstand me

at the outset with regard to this woman question,' as it has been called. I have no intention to discuss either the rights or the wrongs of women.

I think

that on this question our relations across the Atlantic have gone a mile beyond the winning-post, and brought discredit and ridicule on that just cause which, here in England, prejudice, custom, ignorance have in a manner crushed and smothered up. It is in this country, beyond all Christian countries, that what has been called, quaintly but expressively, the 'feminine element of society,' considered as a power applicable in many ways to the amelioration of many social evils, has been not only neglected, but absolutely ignored by those who govern us. The woman cries out for the occasion and the means to do well her appointed and permitted work, to perform worthily her share in the natural communion of labor. Because it is denied to her she perishes, and no man layeth it to heart.'”

SLAVERY A NEW IDEA.-It would not be contrary to the history of Divine Providence if the great problem of American slavery should, after all, receive a solution which has never been anticipated by agitators on either side of the question. Our new access to China by way of California, and the new changes taking place in that ancient empire, may yet afford us a peaceable relief to the perplexities of the controversy. A writer in the National Intelligencer has advocated the introduction of Chinese laborers at the South, to supply the place of the negro, whose labor, it is said, is unproductive to the planter. The subject has for some time engaged the attention of individuals in the Southern States, and also in Cuba and England. A project was started, says the Boston Journal, some time since, for the introduction of six thousand coolies into Cuba, and English capitalists were to furnish them; but the demand for transports by the British government rendered it difficult to obtain suitable ships for the enterprise. Lately, however, the project has been revived, and a vessel fitted at New-York for China to return to Panama with a load of Chinese laborers, from whence they will be transported to the Atlantic side by the Panama railroad and thence to Cuba.

The writer in the Intelligencer is an advocate for slave labor, and recognizes servitude as a blessing conferred by Heaven upon the inferior races of men. But in regard to the present condition of slavery at the South he makes admissions in accordance with the views of other Southern gentlemen, which from time to time have been expressed, and which conclusively show, that slavery begins to yield to the pressure of public sentiment. He says:

"But African slavery has become more and more unproductive, and has gradually been running out in every section of Northern and Southern America. An agitation, most unjustifiable, it is true, yet not the less effective for evil, has been prevailing for years at home and abroad, which is making the system of African slave labor more and more unpleasant and unproductive in our Southern States.

"It may be that, in the orderings of that Providence which is so much more benign and gentle and beneficent than man to his fellows, a gradual introduction of Asiatic laborers is to take the place of the Africans in our sunny South. Their habits, and the climate and productions of their country, specially fit the Chinese to be hardy and efficient tillers of the soil for Southern planters, and active and intelligent porters for New-Orleans and Charleston merchants."

In conclusion, the writer asks, whether any other New-York shipping merchant has thought of bringing a cargo of coolies to other markets than Cuba?

Once in a while we hear something like primitive Christian sentiments from Catholic prelates; lately the Archbishop of Lyons, Cardinal de Bonold, has rebuked the common vices of the French in an uncompromising manner. In his Pastoral Letter for Lent he declared the cholera was sent as a punishment for the eagerness with which the ladies of Paris run after pleasure, "joining in a certain lascivious dance called polka, suffering every man but their own husbands to clasp them in the waltz, which latter dance may be considered the last sigh of expiring virtue." His Eminence then goes on to say that "the only way to induce the Almighty to sheathe the sword of vengeance, which he has drawn from the scabbard to punish our sins, would be to abstain from all balls, reunions, theaters, and promenades. Then his wrath may be appeased. Let us, therefore, seek no other remedy than this against the epidemic diseases which at this moment are destroying, without mercy, men, plants and animals."

The Pastoral Letter of the cardinal would not have had much effect had not Count Montalembert and Father Ravignan taken up the subject against the Archbishop of Paris, who loudly condemned the sentiments of his colleague, asserting that display at balls, theaters, and promenades kept up the industry of France, and gave labor to the poorer classes.

WIGS THE PURITANS.-An American correspondent of the London Notes and Queries, represents that our Puritan fathers entertained a very devout abhorrence of periwigs. The fashion of wearing wigs, from its first introduction, was strenuously opposed, especially in Massachusetts; and there were not wanting those who looked upon it as "a sin of the first magnitude." The following notes from the diary of Judge Sewall (Chief Justice of Massachusetts) prove with how jealous eyes the progress of innovation was watched :

"1685, September 15. Three admitted to the Church; two wore periwigs."

"1696. [Rev.] Mr. Sims told me of the assaults he had made on periwigs; seemed to be in good sober sadness."

"1697. Mr. Noyes of Salem wrote a treatise on periwigs, &c."

1704, January. Walley appears in his wig, having cut off his own hair."

"1708, August 20. Mr. Cheever died. The welfare of the province was much upon his heart. He abominated periwigs."

The Society of Friends, at their monthly meeting in Hampton, Mass., December 21, 1721, voted that "ye wearing of extravagant superflues wigges is altogether contrary to truth.”

WHAT IS POETRY?-Professor Scherb remarked in a late lecture in the New-York University Chapel, that, many years ago, when a boy, he asked the German poet, Goethe, What is poetry, and how can one become a poet? And he laid his hand upon the boy's heart and told him that poetry was not the exclusive possession of a few strong individuals; it was not a handicraft's knack; it belonged to all men and wo men who earnestly and with all their heart and soul yearned for it. It was the pure ether; the kernel of life; yea, life itself. And what

was the kernel of life? He repeated from Plato the story of Glaucus, the young and beautiful fisherman whom the sea nymphs carried down to their crystal home to live with them, and how after he had lived there for many years, his body became incrusted with shells and pebbles, so that he was not the same Glaucus that he was before; and Plato went on to say that it was just so with the soul of man, when it fell from its home in heaven down upon this exiled earth. So it was. And faith alone assured us that beneath all these shells and pebbles, these marks and conventional disguises, there was yet a kernel of life. To that, poetry spoke; from that, poetry spoke. In every human soul there was a yearning for something higher than the enjoyments of mankind; a yearning for endless bliss, for infinite happiness. Poetry was the manifestation of the higher life in the human spirit, revealing itself through the medium of the imagination. They were all one and the same; the good, the true, and the beautiful.

MARIOLATRY. The new step forward in heathenism, taken by Rome in the doctrine of the immaculate conception, is having its heathenish results. The following (the italics its own) is an extract from an editorial in the Pittsburgh Catholic:

"The beloved Son, the Man-God, had to pass himself through the valley of the shadow of death; so had his dearest, his chosen saints; and her example of dying was also needed for us. But her death, if death it can be called, (for it was only a passing away, a languishing into life,) was the easiest, quietest, smoothest passage of any saint whatever; and it is called by the Latin fathers dormitio, or the sleep of the virgin, and by the Greeks koimesis, repose or passage. Death,' says Liguori, being the punishment of sin, it would seem that the divine mother, all holy and exempt from every strain, should not be subject to death, nor suffer the same misfortune as the children of Adam, who are infected by the poison of sin. But God, wishing Mary in all things to be like to Jesus, required that as the Son had died, the mother should also die; and because he wished to give to the just an example of the blessed death prepared for them, he decreed that the virgin should die, but by a sweet and happy death."

The Catholic Herald gives its readers the following translation of a Prayer, which has been extensively circulated in France, for the conversion of "heretics." It informs us that "the Bishop of Mende especially recommends it, and attaches to the devout recital of it by the faithful of his diocese an indulgence of forty days."

"I know, O Immaculate Virgin, that thou lovest thy children, and that thou art pleased to yield to their desires. Full of a sweet and tender confidence, I dare to beg a favor of thee, O benign mother. Thou wishest to be importuned; thou lovest to see thy children press around thee. Then, O holy virgin, by that triumph which our devotion has applauded with fervent joy; by that last title, the most glorious that remained for us to claim for thee; by that redoubling of love for our mother, of veneration for our queen, grant to those who have the misfortune not to love thee, to all those who do not pray to thee, O Mary, the grace to know thee, and to embrace the doctrine of thy divine Son. Yes, I conjure thee, O best of mothers, to make them know that thou art the dispensatrix of the treasures of Jesus. Soften his wrath by thy prayers. Thou canst do everything: the compassionate heart of Jesus can refuse thee nothing. Ah, merciful mother, immaculate virgin! deign to look upon our wandering brethren; touch their hearts in order that they may participate in the immense joy which we experience, and that for them, as for us, it may be a foretaste of the ineffable delights of a blessed eternity. Amen."

The first of these extracts will answer those "heretics" who ask how the virgin could die without sin-the cause of death. The second upsets the pretension of intelligent Catholics, heretofore so commonly asserted, viz.: that they only venerate not worship the saints and images. Mary is here certainly made a deity.

A Dr. Davy has recently published a work in England, in which he advocates "fish diet" as the very pabulum of human vigor. "There is," he says, "much nourishment in fish, little less than in butcher's meat, weight for weight; and in effect it may be more nourishing, considering how, from its softer fiber, fish is more easily digested. Moreover, there is, find in fish, in sea-fish, a substance which does not exist in the flesh of land animals, namely, iodine: a substance which may have a beneficial effect on the health, and tend to prevent the production of scrofulous and tubercular disease, the latter in the form of pulmonary consumption, one of the most cruel and fatal with which civilized society, and the highly-educated and refined, are afflicted. Comparative trials prove that in the majority of fish the proportion' of solid matter, that is, the matter which remains after perfect desiccation, or the expulsion of the aqueous part, is little inferior to that of the several kinds of meat, game or poultry. And if we give our attention to classes of people-classed as to quality of food they principally subsist on-we find that the ichthyophagous class are especially strong, healthy, and prolific. In no class than that of fishers do we see larger families, handsomer women, or more robust and active men, or a greater exemption from the maladies just alluded to." Owing to the absence of iodine in fresh-water fish and its presence in sea-fish, there can be no doubt but that the latter are more nutritious. It is the iodine in cod-liver oil which renders the oil so efficacious in arresting the progress of consumption.

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that he could not earn enough upon it to pay his rent, and that he had seven mouths to fill besides his own. In the hope of mending matters in some degree, slips of stout white paper were sent frequently with the proofs; but the good gentleman could not afford to use them, and they never came back as copy. What an inveterate miser this old scribbler must have been, notwithstanding his pension and his copyrights!

The very rare and interesting spectacle of solemnly "crowning" a poet has been witnessed in Madrid the present year. The Spanish poet, Quintana, was taken in procession to the palace of the senate, where he found the queen, the king, the members of the royal family, the ministers, the members of the Royal Academy of History, and a vast number of personages of distinction, assembled to receive him. After the delivery of a speech setting forth the history of his life and works, and the singing of a hymn in his honor, a crown of gold, representing leaves of laurel, was handed to the Queen by the Duke de la Victoria, President of the Council of Ministers; and Her Majesty, amid shouts of applause, placed it on the poet's head, saying, as she did so, that she felt pride and pleasure, in her capacity of the Queen and Spaniard, in honoring a man who had distinguished himself by his genius and patriotism. An ode, written by a lady, and exalting the poet to the skies, was then recited. He was afterward entertained at a banquet, and was then conducted home in a grand procession-the crown of gold being borne in a triumphal car before him.

INSANITY AND IDIOCY.-The Legislature of Massachusetts appointed a commission to report on the condition of the insane and idiotic in the State. They have produced a very interesting document, the outlines of which are given in the Boston Journal:-"There were in the State of Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1854, 2,632 lunatics, and 1,087 idiots-making a total of 3,719 of those persons who need the care and protection of their friends for their support, restoration, and custody. Of the lunatics, 1,522 were paupers, and 1,110 were supported by their own property or by their friends. Of the idiots, 670 were supported by their friends, and 417 by the public treasury. The lunatics comprised 2,007 natives, and 625 foreigners; and there were among the idiots, 1,043 natives, and but 44 foreigners. Of the independent lunatics, 387 are in hospitals, 7 in prisons, and 716 at home. Of the pauper lunatics, 954 are in hospitals or places of custody, and 568 at home. The commissioners state that idiocy and lunacy predominate among the poorer classes of society, where there is less vital force, a lower tone of life, more illhealth, and more weakness, than in the higher classes. In Massachusetts, the pauper class furnishes, in ratio of its numbers, sixty-four times as many cases of insanity as the independent class. About eighty-six per cent. of the pauper lunatics are incurable, and of the independent class seventy per cent. are returned as beyond hope of restoration. Among the lunatics there is a larger proportion of foreigners than of natives. In 1854 the native insane

were as 1 to 445 of the whole native population, and the foreign insane were as 1 to 368 of the whole number of aliens. The State treasury supports eighty-seven per cent. of all the foreign lunatics in Massachusetts, and fiftyseven per cent. of the native lunatics. Without doubt, much insanity is occasioned by intemperance. The printed reports of the hospital in Worcester show that seventy-two per cent. of the cases are produced by religious excitement; seventy of those caused by ill health, fifteen of those occasioned by epilepsy, and only eleven per cent. of those occasioned by the lowest sensuality are cured. The State pays annually more than $146,000 for the support of insane paupers.

A depository for Bibles and other religious books, in various languages, has been opened in the Frank quarter of Constantinople, as a branch of the similar establishment existing in Stamboul. A committee has been appointed to make the necessary arrangements, and a room has been engaged in the main street of Pera, near the British Consulate. In connection with the book-store, it is proposed to provide accommodation for reading a few of the principal English and American newspapers, one or two of the French and Italian journals, and some of the religious and secular periodicals published in Great Britain, America, and on the Continent. Although pecuniary help is expected from one or more of the religious societies at home, whose publications will be offered for sale in this new depository, yet the founding and support of the whole institution must chiefly depend upon local resources.