restrained by graceful docility. He said it was with horses as with children; if accustomed to beating, they would not obey without it. But if managed with untiring gentleness, united with consistent and very equable firmness, the victory once gained over them, was gained for ever.

In the face of all these facts, the world goes on manufacturing whips, spurs, the gallows, and chains; while each one carries within his own soul a divine substitute for these devil's inventions, with which he might work miracles, inward and outward, if he would. Unto this end let us work with unfaltering faith. Great is the strength of an individual soul, true to its high trust;-mighty is it even to the redemption of a world.

A German, whose sense of sound was exceedingly acute, was passing by a church, a day or two after he had landed in this country, and the sound of music attracted him to enter, though he had no knowledge of our language. The music proved to be a piece of nasal psalmody, sung in most discordant fashion; and the sensitive German would fain have covered his ears. As this was scarcely civil, and might appear like insanity, his next impulse was to rush into the open air, and leave the hated sounds behind him. But this too I feared to do,' said he, 'lest offence might be given; so I resolved to endure the torture with the best fortitude I could assume; when lo! I distinguished amid the din, the soft clear voice of a woman singing in perfect tune. She made no effort to drown the voices of her companions, neither was she disturbed by their noisy discord; but patiently and sweetly she sang in full, rich tones: one after another yielded to the gentle influence; and before the tune was finished, all were in perfect harmony.'

I have often thought of this story as conveying an instructive lesson for reformers. The spirit that can thus sing patiently and sweetly in a world of

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

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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

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